Determining a community’s economic and social potential and capitalizing on it takes more thinking.

The Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC), a Chicago-based nonprofit, has made the process easier with its Community Vitality Index (CVI). Mix a lot of census data, economic benchmarks and a colorful map, and a “community story” is born.

CVI is a Web-based tool that creates neighborhood profiles and scores them on a scale of 1 to 100 based on social capital, economic potential and community amenities, according to MCIC.

MCIC developed the index to encourage dialogue about community assets and engage residents. “It’s a different tool in that it’s a catalyst for community engagement and conversation,” said Bruce Ives, director of program and development at MCIC. “Our goals organizationally is to help the nonprofit community understand that better information and data help them make better decisions.”

The indicator is limited to a six-county region surrounding Chicago, and could help nonprofit leaders make informed policy decisions and identify potential collaboration and market opportunities.

Demographics have influenced for-profit executive’s decisions for years, and larger nonprofits have also made use of demographics for service delivery and fundraising. Technology’s evolution is brining complex data to nonprofit practitioners of all levels.

U.S. Census Bureau data is increasingly focused and useable. One need only click around the Census Web site for a few minutes (visit the FAQ section) to locate important demographics and trends of a hometown.

Available demographics that form the backdrop for neighborhood information have grown exponentially, said John Ketzmann, co-director of the Asset Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. The ABCD Institute deals primarily with community development groups. People find the process to be less daunting partly because of technology improvements, and also because information is collected and displayed in a more usable form, he said. Groups are interested specifics such as age and income trends and racial background.

“It gives people a kind of scientific backdrop to reinforce more accurate forecasting and therefore more accurate strategic planning,” Ketzmann said. “That can only lift the effectiveness of local citizens as they try to take control of their futures.”

Brian Lowry , director of marketing at Calumet College of St. Joseph’s and president of the Chamber of Commerce in Whiting, Ind., said he’s “taken a deep interest in looking at Census Bureau statistics to shape the services we provide.”

One issue coursing through northwest Indiana schools is an annual turnover rate of at least 50 percent due to high transience among immigrant populations, Lowry said. “There’s a great struggle to keep them still for a few years,” he said.

Calumet College examined transience rates for a grant application using Census statistics. It narrowed information down to specific city blocks to determine areas that didn’t have high owner occupancy rates.

Increasing ownership rates brings stability, improves children’s education, and has other positive socioeconomic impacts, Lowry said.

Although the college didn’t receive the grant, “the ideas that were born in the discussion have taken life in other places,” Lowry said. “We didn’t gain any financial capital in that, but the social capital we gained blows my mind.”

One example is working more closely with Police Athletic Leagues to link citizens to the community and build relationships between police and potential delinquents.

Indeed, raising questions and spurring discussion is one of the positive effects of a tool such as CVI. “It’s not cut and dried hard numbers,” Ives said. “It gets people to start talking and asking questions about why -- why is social capital on the East side stronger than on West side.”

MCIC’s community vitality is the 14-year-old group’s latest research tool honed from years of working with some 1,500 nonprofits.

CVI developed from talks with local nonprofits, funders and MCIC staff about what they viewed as gaps in available information, said Patricia Gross, executive director. Nonprofit officials wanted something that was asset based, highlighted a community and could support their funding requests, Gross said.

Nonprofit administrative staffs are filled with practitioners who know a lot about their specific area of expertise, but there aren’t a lot of “data geeks in nonprofit world,” Ives said. “We wanted to help these front-line practitioners to be able to see beyond the delivery of service to get a better understanding of the community in which they operate.”

CVI takes two-dimensional (data) and gives people a better understanding of the fabric of the community and how it works in terms of social relationships and economic relationships, MCIC officials said.

While traditional census indicators look at income and housing cost burden, “we combine these to get a sense of discretionary income,” Gross said.

When you use CVI, you get a good impression and different look at a community, Ives said. Perhaps, the most attractive part of the CVI is its mode of communication.

Starting with a picture and a color coded map CVI helps people zero in on questions they might ask, Gross said. The index hasn’t been replicated nationally, although available statistics make it possible, MCIC officials said.

Copyright © 2004 The NonProfit Times.