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Launched in 1994, True Colors: Out Youth Theater, a program of The Theater Offensive, is one of the nation's first and only touring theater programs for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) youth and their straight allies that brings original productions to schools throughout New England. True Colors seeks to support, mentor, and challenge at-risk LGBT youth and allies, ages 14 to 22. Each season, troupe members create a short, original show based on their lives and the lives of their peers, which they then perform and facilitate post-show discussions with audience members at area schools and community organizations. During their time in the program, participants develop leadership skills, artistic skills, and engage with their community by becoming LGBT advocates. Perhaps most importantly, these youth, most of whom are seriously affected by homophobia and bigotry, find a safe haven where they can express themselves openly and begin to heal.
Because the program is part of a larger organization, True Colors has implemented a unique, program-specific form of performance measurement. The measurement is focused on program effectiveness, drawn mainly from surveys, as well as participant and donor statistics. Throughout each season, True Colors uses skills rubrics, self-assessments, audience surveys, teacher observations, attendance records, and one-on-one interviews to evaluate the troupe members and the program. The program also tracks the number of participants, mentors, and the amount of revenue earned from corporate sponsorship, foundations, and individual donors.
True Colors has seen enormous success throughout its implementation of performance measurement. Most importantly, the programs’s performance measurement efforts have played a key role in meeting its growth goals.
When True Colors started using performance measurement, it set a number of new goals, including the implementation of year-round programming, an increase in revenue, the hiring of additional staff and an increase in the number of youth served by the program. With the help of its performance data, True Colors was able to meet most, if not all, of its goals for 2009, including doubling the number of youth served from 25 to 50, increasing foundation revenue from $44,000 to $85,000, more than quadrupling individual donors from 43 to 218, and doubling corporate sponsorships. This vast increase in revenue allowed the creation of the True Colors summer company, a four-week intensive program that focuses on building theater skills. True Colors staff members are also part of the Boston Youth Arts Evaluation Project, a collective of five Boston-based organizations working to develop youth arts evaluation tools, which will increase its evidence base even more.
Additionally, the data drawn from True Colors’ performance measurement system, and the commitment to continuous improvement that they have been able to demonstrate with it, has enabled the organization to weather the recession. Evelyn Francis, the program’s director of education, notes that a shrunken donor pool means organizations must provide empirical data that makes a stronger case for funding, and the access to performance measurement data will give True Colors a large advantage. In fact, the program has managed to surpass its foundation goals this quarter despite the down economy. Francis is hoping that True Colors’ success will guide the Theater Offensive as a whole in implementing performance measurement.
True Colors’ Sample Framework and Logic Model: This model is used to develop True Colors evaluation tools.
