The Community Indicator and Community Foundation Interface: Exploring Best Practices and Standards

Abstract

Community foundations (CF) exist to serve the communities in which they are based. Community indicators exist to measure community changes, outcomes, conditions and progress towards goals. In this chapter, we explore how community indicators can be helpful in carrying out the core mission of community foundations. Recent literature has highlighted natural synergies between community indicators and community foundations, drawing particular attention to shared interest, vision and outcomes (Ridzi & Prior, International Journal of Community Well-Being, 2020). As a result, both the community indicators and community foundation movements and scholarly research in these areas are able to greatly benefit by expanding the field of practice and scholarship through alignment. Place-based philanthropy improves as a field of practice not only with a strategic outcome focus but also when guided by community indicators. In this chapter, we assert that a new regimen of best practices incorporating both the field of community indicators and the field of community foundations is needed. We conclude with a call for a better understanding of the extent to which community foundations across the U.S. and even globally can and should utilize community indicators to carry out the critical work of these organizations to measure and improve community change and well-being.Keywords Community foundations Community indicators Community philanthropyNational Standards for U.S. Community FoundationsCF Leads