There are no hard and fast rules for managing a community arts project as every project is unique. Instead, strong community arts projects have common characteristics. These characteristics have been identified by leading community artists and producers across Aotearoa and the world. We've summarised them in tipsheets to help you on your journey.

Take a look at Resources to develop your project for more information and resources to help your project.

1. Make the community the centre of the project

What to consider when developing and running a project that is centred on the community.

Tipsheet

In this video artists and practitioners discuss how important it is to put the people of the community you’re working with at the centre of your project.

2. Create strong artistic leadership

Artists lead or co-lead community arts projects. To lead a community arts project a huge amount of skill, compassion and artistic flexibility is needed. Are you looking for an artist to lead a project or are you an artist thinking about leading a project?

Tipsheet

3. Grow strong partnerships

Partnerships can lead to a much better outcome for a community arts project. A well-developed partnership will often go well beyond the initial project or expectations. But partnerships require care, consideration and careful management.

Tipsheet

In this video artists and practitioners discuss the value of strong partnerships in community arts projects.

4. Create a strong concept and project plan

All projects need to go through a concept development and planning phase. It’s where you develop the idea, identify all the participants, partners and artists, and gather the resources you need to run the project. Good planning will help you identify areas of potential and weakness.

Tipsheet

5. Establish strong project management and communications

Community arts projects can be complex with a range of needs. Good management and effective and clear communication are core to the success of your project.

Tipsheet

In this video artists and practitioners talk through various stages of the process for planning and executing a community arts projects

6. Keep your project and people safe

There are a range of simple but effective steps that you can take to keep your participants, you and your project safe.

Tipsheet

In this video artists and practitioners talk about the health, safety and wellbeing of all involved in a community arts project.

7. Create effective documentation, evaluation and reporting

Too often documentation and evaluation fall off the radar in the midst of an exciting project. But these are the tools we have to show how successful the project was, in order to grow future projects and our sector.

Tipsheet