Key Learning

The first evaluation outlines a journey for Beacon Films around the way they evaluate their project. One of the priority outcomes was that “disabled and non-disabled people overcome (self-) limiting beliefs, increase confidence and have more positive attitudes towards participation”. They initially approached this question by asking quite a complex set of questions around perceptions of disability, but found these returned quite limited answers.

The evaluation outlines the learning process like this:

After attending a session at Spirit of 2012 (April 2017) about approaches to the ‘perceptions of disability’ question, we ditched our old method and opted instead for the ONS question: How positive do you feel about participating in your community? We chose this because: we felt it was potentially understandable for all (if it was asked in the right way); we felt it was relevant to the people we wanted to ask (our project members, the vast majority of whom consider themselves to have a disability).

 This began a fascinating process for us, because firstly we had to establish that project members understood the question. So, we started by unpacking the meanings of ‘positive’, ‘participating’ and ‘community’. Then we asked them for examples of where they do this, followed by how ‘positive’ they feel, followed by whether they think Viewfinder helps, followed by what we can do to help more. What we discovered – and which has led to changes we made to the survey in the final redraft in August – is that this has the effect of people only referring to ‘positive’ things they do in their community. So, the revised question (for Viewfinder Plus) asks people to describe what they do in their community before they rank how positive they feel about it (not at the same time).

The second evaluation, for Viewfinder Plus, details Beacon Films’ changing approach as an organisation over COVID-19, including their move towards being a member-led organisation, with member representation on their board. They found that becoming member-led required structure:

• Members thrived when involved in decisions but needed guidance and facilitation.
• Self-led groups (e.g., Cinema Society, Vlogging Group) showed high enthusiasm but required light-touch staff support.
• Embedding member input into governance strengthened independence and organisational identity.

This shift also highlighted several tensions which the organisation had to navigate:

1. Filmmaking skills vs. life/employability skills– balancing creative depth with transferable outcomes.
2. Beacon Films as employer vs. enabler– when to act as intermediary versus empowering members to work independently.
3. Member independence vs. organisational sustainability– encouraging autonomy without losing creative talent.