Churches up and down the UK play a major role in facilitating music and community groups in different guises. This research shows just how important they are but measuring the wellbeing effect for the people that take part.
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In The House of Good, first published in 2020, we examined a range of social support that church buildings provide by hosting food banks, drug and alcohol support, youth groups and mental health groups.
However, we knew that this wasn’t the full story of how much wellbeing value is generated by church buildings. There are many other community activities and groups that are hosted by churches.
In partnership with State of Life, we produced The House of Good: the value of music and community groups to measure the impact of these activities.
Advanced regression analysis (OLS supported by fixed effect regressions, where possible), carried out on UK open data sets, found the wellbeing value to individuals of taking part in community activities and music groups.
The research studied a wide range of groups and activities, including meetings for people who may be isolated (e.g. coffee mornings, over 60s clubs) childcare (eg parent/toddler groups), arts and music groups and ‘warm places’ to meet in winter.
We found that taking part in one of these groups was worth £1,200 per person, per year in wellbeing benefits. We also found that participating in a choir or music group has a wellbeing benefit equivalent to £1,250 per person, per year.
You can see the full results of The House of Good: The value of music and community groups by downloading the full report.
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