New Report Identifies Long-Term Benefits of Youth Participation in Community Arts Programs
PRESS CONTACTS
Julie Danni
The Wallace Foundation
JDanni@wallacefoundation.org / 212-251-9742
Joanna Yamakami / Emma Gold / Delaney Smith
Resnicow and Associates
Wallace@resnicow.com
212-671-5164 / 212-671-5186 / 212-671-5160
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 18, 2025—While research indicates that youth participation in arts programs can support their well-being, the long-term benefits are not often captured, making it difficult for arts practitioners and educators to fully articulate the value of their work to decision-makers, funders, and the public.
A new report commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and released today by the University of California, Irvine, identifies a broad range of positive outcomes that can stem from youth participation in community arts programs, with the goal of helping the sector strengthen collaboration and funding opportunities. Creative Expression, Caring Relationships, and Career Pathways: A Guide to Youth Outcomes in Community Arts Programs, introduces a new taxonomic tool that can be used to classify how community arts programs shape their youth participants and points to specific program features that contribute to these outcomes, offering a practical tool to inform program design and strengthen evaluation efforts.
“Adopting this framework gives organizations a shared language to learn from each other and collaborate more effectively,” said Kylie Peppler, lead researcher and professor at the University of California, Irvine. “It also strengthens their ability to speak with one voice to policymakers and funders, showing the lasting impact community arts have on young people. Our goal is to make these programs’ contributions visible, valued, and accessible to all.”
“What's exciting about this study is that it captures how participating in community-based youth arts programs reverberates through people’s lives. Alumni are telling us how the programs made them who they are today, helping them find their people, purpose, and direction,” said Bronwyn Bevan, Vice President of Research, The Wallace Foundation. “The tool the study generated puts new kinds of youth outcomes on the map. We hope it can help youth arts programs better design for and document their important contributions to young people’s life trajectories."
Unlike most youth arts program assessments, which tend to focus on the immediate goals of participation, such as attendance and skill acquisition, this report examines the lasting impacts of participation. An international team of researchers surveyed 247 alumni from 32 arts programs serving low-income communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and conducted in-depth interviews with 102 alumni who, on average, were 10 years removed from their program experience. In collaboration with program leaders and practitioners, the team identified and described distinct long-term outcomes that participants attributed to their time in these programs.
Two categories of outcomes emerged:
- Relational outcomes shape how participants understand themselves and connect with others. Nearly all interviewees said their programs helped them grow as individuals and strengthened bonds with peers, mentors and communities through self-expression and shared experiences.
- Opportunity outcomes reflect how programs open pathways to education, careers, and life success—through skill development, exposure to cultural and professional resources, and opportunities to showcase creative work that builds confidence and recognition.
Together, these findings paint a compelling picture of the ways that community arts programs benefit their youth participants into adulthood. In their programs, young people pick up new interests and skills, join a support system of peers and adults, and find the freedom to express themselves. They get the opportunity to share their art with others, soak up the cultural and educational resources in their community, and take the first steps towards fulfilling careers. All of these experiences help shape them into confident, engaged, and successful adults.
Designed to be widely applicable across the field of youth arts, the taxonomy can be used to:
- Guide program design and improvement to ensure that arts organizations are structuring their programs to cultivate long-term outcomes.
- Make useful comparisons to other programs so that organizations can zero in on the outcomes and approaches that fit their community's needs.
- Demonstrate the full value of these programs to funders and policymakers.
- Broaden the types of outcomes that arts organizations and funders track, expanding how they define and measure impact beyond attendance or skill gains.
The researchers also hope that this will serve as a foundation for future studies, as arts organizations document their own alumni outcomes and share insights across the field.
This is the third Wallace-commissioned youth arts report released this year, following Well-being and Well-becoming Through the Arts: A Picture of Mattering for Youth of Color released by the University of Pittsburgh School of Education and the Forum for Youth Investment. The report identifies seven key characteristics of successful culture-centered, community-based youth arts programs and the positive impact they have on supporting the holistic development of the youth they were designed to serve. A cross-disciplinary literature review and Stitching Together the Threads: A Cross-Disciplinary Literature Review on Youth Arts and Well-Being, (RAND), which connects a fragmented research base to examine how arts engagement can promote youth well-being.
To learn more about Creative Expression, Caring Relationships, and Career Pathways: A Guide to Youth Outcomes in Community Arts Programs and other Wallace-commissioned reports on youth arts, visit www.wallacefoundation.org.
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About The Wallace Foundation
The Wallace Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan research foundation focused on the arts, school leadership, and youth development. The foundation collaborates with grantees and research partners to design and test innovative approaches to address pressing problems in the fields it serves. The evidence-based insights shared by the foundation support policymakers and practitioners in their efforts to improve outcomes, enhance community vitality, and help all people reach their full potential. www.WallaceFoundation.org
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.
Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences: https://ics.uci.edu
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