Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility: Why Organisational Social Impact Will Define the Future of the Cultural Industries
How Cultural Organisations Earn Trust — and Why Economic Value Alone No Longer Answers the Question
By Joanne Cox-Brown
For much of the last few decades, the cultural industries have become increasingly adept at demonstrating their economic value — but that argument, on its own, no longer answers the questions communities are actually asking.
We know how to calculate visitor spend, Gross Value Added, employment figures, hotel occupancy, tourism growth and inward investment. We can explain how festivals increase footfall, how music venues support local supply chains, how theatres animate town centres and how cultural programming contributes to regeneration. These arguments have become familiar to policymakers because they are supported by increasingly sophisticated evidence.
Those arguments remain important. Without them, many of the investments that have transformed our towns and cities would never have happened. However, they are no longer sufficient on their own.
Communities rarely oppose a new music venue because they doubt its contribution to Gross Value Added. Residents do not object to a festival because they misunderstand its tourism benefits. A local authority does not judge the success of an event solely by the number of tickets sold, and funders are becoming increasingly interested in outcomes that extend well beyond attendance figures. Instead, the questions have become far more nuanced.
These are not questions of economics. They are questions of social impact.
Across government, philanthropy, public funding and commercial investment, there is growing recognition that organisations should be judged not only by what they produce, but by the difference they make. This is particularly true within the cultural industries because culture is unlike almost any other sector. It does not simply create products or services. It shapes identity, belonging, wellbeing, education, aspiration, local economies, civic pride and our collective experience of place.
Every cultural organisation, whether it realises it or not, leaves a footprint on the communities in which it operates. The challenge is whether that footprint is intentional.
The central shift
The old question
Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR
CSR asks what additional good an organisation can do beyond its normal activities — charitable giving, staff volunteering, an annual report — something that sits alongside the organisation rather than within it.
The new question
Organisational Social Impact
OSI
OSI asks a far more searching question: how does every decision an organisation makes contribute towards, or detract from, the wellbeing of people, communities and places?
Why this conversation matters
The same question keeps surfacing — with festival organisers, venue operators, local authorities, artists, funders and community leaders alike.
The discussion almost always begins with a practical challenge: how do we reduce community opposition, build stronger relationships with residents, demonstrate value beyond economic impact, and leave places better than we found them? Initially these appear to be separate questions, but in reality they all point towards the same issue — how do cultural organisations become good neighbours?
That question may sound surprisingly simple, yet it sits at the heart of long-term organisational success. A venue can have an excellent programming team, a festival can sell out every year, and an arts organisation can consistently secure funding — but if the communities around them feel excluded, ignored or negatively affected, that success becomes increasingly fragile.
Conversely, organisations that actively invest in their relationships with people and place often discover that community support becomes one of their greatest assets. Trust opens doors. It creates advocates rather than opponents, collaborators rather than critics, and long-term resilience rather than short-term success.
The cultural sector has always understood that the arts have the power to transform lives. What is changing is our understanding that participation, inclusion and access should not sit alongside cultural activity as desirable by-products. They should be recognised as fundamental measures of success.
From CSR to Organisational Social Impact
Culture cannot be separated from its social consequences, because its core purpose is already social.
Corporate Social Responsibility emerged from the recognition that businesses have responsibilities beyond generating profit — charitable giving, environmental sustainability, ethical employment, staff volunteering. Many organisations have made genuine and valuable contributions through these initiatives. But CSR has often been treated as something that exists alongside the organisation rather than within it: a dedicated team, an annual report, a series of initiatives that sit outside everyday operational decision-making. For the cultural industries, that model feels increasingly inadequate — because every artistic programme, every commissioning decision, every venue, event and festival already influences people and places.
Seen through the lens of Organisational Social Impact, social impact becomes inseparable from the way the organisation operates. Four everyday decisions carry weight far beyond their immediate purpose:
Programming
Artistic and commissioning decisions influence whose stories are told and whose voices are heard.
Procurement
Determines where money is spent and who benefits economically from cultural investment.
Recruitment & partnerships
Shapes the diversity of perspectives within the organisation and who is invited into the conversation.
Accessibility & engagement
Are no longer purely operational considerations — they are expressions of an organisation's values.
The willingness to listen when concerns are raised, the openness with which decisions are communicated, and the extent to which local people are involved in shaping activity all influence whether trust is strengthened or diminished. Taken individually, these may appear to be relatively small decisions. Collectively, they define the relationship an organisation has with the communities in which it operates.
Every cultural organisation changes a place
Culture shapes places just as profoundly as architects, planners and developers — and every intervention creates costs alongside its benefits.
The benefits are real
A successful venue changes how a neighbourhood is perceived. A festival alters the rhythm of a town. Public art influences how people experience a street. When a major festival comes to town, hotels fill with visitors, restaurants become busier, taxis operate later into the night and local retailers experience increased footfall.
The creative industries contribute well over £120 billion annually to the UK economy and support more than 2.4 million jobs. These are powerful achievements.
The costs land unevenly
The same event may also bring traffic congestion, noise, litter, increased pressure on public transport, greater demands on emergency services, and understandable frustration for residents whose daily lives are disrupted. Neither perspective is wrong. The mistake is assuming only one exists.
Too often the cultural sector has presented itself as an unquestionable force for good, whilst critics have occasionally portrayed events and venues solely through the lens of nuisance or risk. Both positions oversimplify a far more complex reality.
Organisations that understand both sides of that equation are often the ones that develop the strongest relationships with communities, because they acknowledge complexity rather than dismiss it.
The social licence to operate
A festival may have secured its licence from the local authority — but residents may still oppose its return the following year.
The phrase originated outside the cultural industries, within sectors such as mining, energy and major infrastructure, where organisations recognised that obtaining legal permission to undertake a project was no longer enough to guarantee long-term success. A company might secure planning permission, environmental approvals and every licence required by law, yet still face sustained community opposition if local people believed the project had been imposed upon them rather than developed with them.
A music venue may meet every planning condition and licensing objective yet struggle to build meaningful relationships with the people who live around it. A cultural organisation may deliver an exceptional artistic programme whilst simultaneously leaving local communities feeling excluded from the opportunities it creates. The difference is rarely found within the licence itself. It is found in trust.
An organisation may have permission to operate in law — but it must also earn permission to operate in the eyes of the community. Trust cannot be legislated for, purchased through sponsorship, or created through a single consultation meeting.
Community engagement has too often been viewed as a process of managing objections: residents consulted once the programme is already designed, businesses informed of road closures after the plans are agreed. That approach rarely creates trust, because people quickly recognise the difference between being consulted and being involved. The strongest organisations invest time in understanding the places in which they work — not simply as audiences or markets, but as communities with their own histories, priorities and concerns.
What earning a social licence looks like in practice
Social impact is not achieved through isolated acts of generosity, but through sustained organisational commitment made visible over many years.
01
Broadwick & Nine Point Eight
Rather than treating charitable activity as separate from its commercial operations, Broadwick has explored how its venues, expertise, infrastructure and relationships can support emerging artists, community organisations and educational programmes year-round. Projects such as Under the Stars show that major commercial infrastructure can become a platform for public benefit when artistic ambition is combined with meaningful community partnerships.
02
Manchester International Festival
MIF has increasingly positioned itself not simply as a producer of internationally significant artistic work but as part of Manchester's civic infrastructure. Long-term partnerships with neighbourhood organisations, schools, universities and local communities have become integral to the Festival's identity rather than peripheral engagement activities.
03
Glastonbury Festival
Much has been written about the millions donated to charities including Oxfam, Greenpeace and WaterAid, yet perhaps its greatest achievement is demonstrating how a festival can become embedded within the identity of a place over several decades. Its social licence has been earned repeatedly rather than assumed.
04
Boomtown
Alongside its ambitious creative direction, Boomtown has invested significantly in welfare, harm reduction, accessibility and environmental sustainability. These are not simply operational requirements; they reflect an understanding that the quality of an event is determined as much by how people experience it as by the performances on its stages.
There are equally important lessons from organisations that have struggled to maintain public trust. In many such cases, the disagreement has not centred on whether culture is valuable, but on whether communities felt respected, informed or included. Trust is cumulative. Every promise kept strengthens it. Every concern dismissed weakens it. Organisations rarely lose their social licence because of one decision alone — more often it is the gradual accumulation of small decisions that determines whether communities view an organisation as a valued neighbour or an unwelcome presence.
Measuring what matters
For years, success has been measured through delivery. Increasingly, organisations are being asked a different set of questions.
Did it deliver?
Did the event happen? Were the audiences engaged? Did the project remain within budget? Did it receive positive reviews? These questions remain important — organisations must continue to deliver high-quality artistic experiences if they are to survive.
But they tell us relatively little about the longer-term legacy of that activity.
Did it change anything?
Did the project strengthen relationships within the community? Did it create opportunities for local artists and creative businesses? Did local residents feel they had been listened to? Did the organisation become more trusted because of the way it behaved?
Trust, confidence, belonging and community cohesion develop over time — the cumulative result of many small decisions rather than one significant intervention.
Quantitative evidence will always matter — participation numbers, volunteer hours, employment opportunities, local procurement, audience diversity and environmental performance all provide valuable insight. But these measures become significantly more meaningful when combined with qualitative evidence that captures lived experience. Stories from artists, residents, volunteers and community partners often reveal changes that numbers alone cannot explain.
Embedding Organisational Social Impact
This rarely begins with a new policy or reporting framework. It begins with leadership — and a handful of shared principles.
Ask who benefits and who may be disadvantaged at the start of every project, alongside discussions of artistic ambition, budgets and logistics — not only at the end.
Share responsibility across the whole organisation — trustees, senior leaders, producers, front of house teams, technicians, volunteers and freelancers all shape how communities experience it.
Listen with curiosity, not just for approval of decisions that have already been made. Communities expect honesty and evidence that their knowledge has influenced the outcome.
Treat procurement, recruitment and programming as social decisions, not purely operational ones — each shapes who benefits and who participates.
Measure relationships and trust alongside attendance and economic impact, combining quantitative evidence with the lived experience behind it.
A moment for reassessment
Culture shapes identity, belonging and civic pride — the success of an organisation is measured by the legacy it leaves behind, not only the experiences it creates.
For decades the cultural industries have become increasingly successful at demonstrating their economic value. That work should continue — it has transformed how policymakers, investors and the public understand culture's contribution to society. But the next stage of that conversation is already emerging.
Organisations are being judged not only by the experiences they create or the income they generate, but by the relationships they build, the opportunities they provide, and the legacy they leave behind.
If the cultural industries can embrace that way of thinking, they will not simply strengthen their case for investment.
They will become more resilient organisations, more trusted partners, and more significant contributors to the social, cultural and economic life of the places in which they operate.
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