New Survey Finds that Place-based Initiatives are Building Six Types of Collective Capacity to Create Healthier, More Equitable Communities

CHICAGO, November 16, 2020 – The Collective Community Capacity Survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago in partnership with the Population Change Learning Community, finds that placed-based initiatives are building collective capacity in six areas to support, sustain, and spread community change. These capacities are: 

1. Collaboration to create and practice a shared vision

2. Use of data to guide community change efforts

3. Active engagement in community change efforts

4. Distributed leadership in equity-focused community change efforts

5. Effective, innovative community change programs, policies, and practices

6. Infrastructure to support, sustain, and spread community change

 

Communities across the United States are undertaking collective action to address persistent barriers to community-well-being. Rather than implementing stand-alone programs or projects, place-based initiatives are using a more holistic approach to improve outcomes at a population level. Such initiatives support collective action to respond to population inequities and poor outcomes by building their collective capacity to achieve positive outcomes for those residing in their community.

 

“Community change is a difficult goal to achieve,” said Margaret Hargreaves, senior fellow with NORC at the University of Chicago. “The results of these surveys show that, on average, the sites surveyed had “a great deal” of capacity to collaborate to create and practice a shared vision and to actively engage in community change efforts, but they only “somewhat” had the infrastructure to support, sustain, and spread community change. 

 

“Placed based initiatives are always challenged to know if the work they are doing is having an impact at a population level. Our hope is the Population Change Learning Community’s work to identify these six collective capacities and support the development of the C3 Survey will aid in the learning and development of place based initiatives both nationally and internationally. We believe the C3 is an important tool to strengthen the collective capacities of place based organizations and networks needed for large systems change efforts. ” said Patricia Bowie, Managing Director of the Population Change Institute.

 

The seven sites participating in this round of the C3 survey include: R.O.C.K. Mat-Su (Mat-Su Borough, AK); the Magnolia Community Initiative (Los Angeles, CA); Vital Village Network (Boston, MA); Brownsville Partnership (Brooklyn, NY); Eastside Community – United Way (San Antonio, TX); Amani Neighborhood (Milwaukee, WI); and Avenues of Change – Guilford West (Surrey, British Columbia).