What We’ve Done
Since 2015, we’ve been involved in creating, delivering, and enabling a diverse range of cultural programmes and projects in Dorset and beyond. The information below gives a flavour of some of our work and impact to-date.
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Our initiative Dorset Town of Culture saw Portland and Weymouth in the spotlight for 2025, delivering a programme with 137 artists that reached 15,830 people.
We developed Dorset’s ambitious new Cultural Strategy, engaging in-person and online with over 250 people from the sector and cross-sector partners. We also worked with the sector to create new Public Art Guidelines.
We delivered Making It, bringing together 60 early-career creatives to learn, share knowledge and develop ideas with inspiring talks and practical workshops. We supported the development of projects and ideas across Dorset, from a new cultural hub in Gillingham to the new creative partnership Cultural Purbeck.
We advocated for the sector, representing Dorset in national conversations and hosting roundtable discussions with senior leaders including Edward Morello MP and Phil Gibby, Area Director for Arts Council England.
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We held a day-long conference on Creative Health in January 2024. We brought together leaders from Dorset’s health sector and culture sector, along with creative health practitioners and inspirational speakers from across the country.
We created Dorset’s Town of Culture, an initiative to support a year's worth of culture in a town in Dorset. We secured £30,000 investment from Dorset Council which is match-funded by Town Councils. Bridport were selected to pilot the programme from July till December 2024 with over 8,000 people visiting the Town of Culture events.
We’ve launched a new annual Culture Survey for Dorset that received 87 responses. The information collected from this survey was combined with national data sources to provide an overview of Dorset’s cultural sector, and its impact in the county and beyond in 2023-24.
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We brought together 80 performers, artists and producers for Money Money Money in partnership with Lighthouse Poole for a series of conversations and provocations on developing sustainable careers in the cultural sector.
We worked with Dorchester Tourism Partnership to invest £5000 into new projects that bring life to the town.
We seed-funded The Scripts The Thing, a day-long celebration of writing for Dorset writers.
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With encouragement from Dorset Council and Arts Council England, we become a more strategic organisation rather than a deliverer of projects, supporting the cultural sector in all its forms.
We hosted cultural roadshows in the four corners of Dorset - Verwood, Lyme Regis, Swanage and Shaftesbury - bringing together civic leaders, artists and organisations.
We provide 15 bursaries for performing artists and producers through the Dorset Performing Arts Fund.
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David Lockwood replaces Sarah James as CEO.
We secure a second five-year service level agreement from Dorset Council and launch the new Dorset Cultural Strategy
Act for Change launches with funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation. We bring together a network of young social activists across the UK, supporting their development and training.
We begin Thriving Communities, a social prescribing project with funding from Arts Council England and others, provides training for health workers and organisations to better improve people’s health and wellbeing.
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Hazel Province becomes Chair, having been Director of Planning at the Royal Opera House.
Following creation of the new unitary authority, we lead the process to create the new Dorset Cultural Strategy. This involves engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, inside and outside the sector, and with freelancers and cultural organisations large and small.
The pandemic presents an existential threat to the cultural sector. We play a leading role in providing support to the sector. We:
Delivered over 40 one-to-one sessions.
Matched 11 furloughed staff from Dorset's Culture sector with arts organisations in the county. The staff then volunteered their time and skills to support the organisations.
Grew What Next? Dorset to 450 members and organised a free digital skills workshop we organised with Arts Council England’s Digital Culture Network.
Redirected funds to provide much needed financial support. We commissioned five creatives for a new programme of free activities that families and older people could enjoy at home.
Supported b-side’s Crowdfunder campaign to raise money for urgent short-term financial needs.
We partner on Women Leaders South West, a training programme that seeks to address the gender imbalance in senior roles in arts organisations. Our two mentored leaders, Abby Young and Zahra Hoccom, specialise in working with marginalised people, the Gypsy, Romany and Traveller and LGBTQIA+ communities respectively.
Image: The Light House by Sophie Fretwell
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At the culmination of Culture+, we commission Dorset Moon, a landmark project with three of our county’s arts festivals, Inside Out Dorset, b-side and Bournemouth Arts by the Sea. Its impact was far-reaching:
A total of 41,100 people saw Dorset Moon. 9,645 in Bournemouth, 17,641 in Sherborne and 13,645 in Weymouth.
The total economic impact and activity was £293,892.
100% of Sherborne businesses said arts festivals were vital for bringing in new visitors from outside of the county to a town.
Dorset Moon was awarded Gold in Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole’s 2020 Destination Awards.
Following the local government reorganisation, we bring together Dorset’s cultural sector to advocate jointly for culture. The campaign Culture Counts results in ongoing funding being secured for the Dorset Cultural sector.
We create the What Next? Dorset chapter, part of the national movement to advocate for culture and share best practice.
Image: Dorset Moon
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We set-up Dorset Performing Arts Fund with Dorset Community Foundation to distribute £350,000 of funding from Goldman Sachs. Over five years it supports around 50 grassroots creative projects and hundreds of artists.
Sarah James joins as CEO, replacing founding CEO Mike Hoskins who retires from the organisation.
We partner with Dorset Libraries, for ‘Libraries as Culture Hubs,’ with funding from Arts Council England. Over two years the project:
Employs 86 artists for 123 days and 21 new works were commissioned.
Engages 8250 people and attracts 1745 live audience members for 756 exhibition/performance days.
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With the Local Enterprise Partnership’s Dorset Growth Hub, we launch Culture+, a free programme of activity that supports artists and arts organisations to thrive in Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole . This programme runs until 2019.
Over this three-year project, we:
Delivered 164 workshops between 2017 to 2019, totalling to 746.5 hours of support from Culture+ team.
Supported a total of 99 mentees, between 4 team members for 3 years, totalling 325.33 hours.
Engaged with 415 registered businesses (SME’s) and 495 Creatives.
Dorset Coastal Connections, part of the £18 million Coastal Communities project, begins. Over the coming two years we support 10 creative placemaking projects along Dorset’s coast.
Image: Culture+ event
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We secure £1 million of funding from the European Regional Development Fund and Arts Council England to support and develop artists and organisations across Dorset. This three-year programme of work becomes Culture+.
We partner with Dorset AONB for Stepping Into Nature and deliver creative activities for people with mild to moderate dementia. 98% of participants in 2019/20 agreed strongly that they enjoyed the activities, 96% strongly agreed they learnt something new and 94% intended to return again.
Image: Stepping into Nature
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With funding from the Cabinet Office, we set up as an independent Social Enterprise. We continue to work closely with our partners at Dorset County Council, who provide us with a five-year service level agreement to support the cultural sector.
We appoint a board chaired by Matt Little, a specialist in socially impactful cultural organisations.
We take on management of Little Keep and transform it into ‘Dorset’s Creative Hub.’
Image: Arts Development Company team in 2015