Purpose of the Consortium:

The Community Indicators Consortium is an active learning network and community of practice among persons and organizations interested or engaged in the field of community indicators and their application.

What's New

CIC’s Annual International Conference - October 1-October 2, 2009

We are pleased and excited to announce plans for the Community Indicator Consortium’s Seventh Annual International Conference, to be held October 1-October 2, 2009 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue Washington, USA. On September 30th, we will have optional training workshops available for an additional fee. The theme for this year's conference is "Community Indicators as Tools for Social Change: Tracking Change and Increasing Accountability."

This conference is extremely timely given the financial, social, and environmental issues facing communities. The 21st Century requires innovative leadership, a new approach to governance, and better ways to measure progress that ensure the limited resources available are addressing the most pressing problems and being used most effectively.

Join other community representatives at the Community Indicators Consortium’s 2009 International Conference as we showcase community indicator best practices and some of the latest indicator efforts, tools, and techniques for measuring and communicating progress and success.

The conference planning committee has issued the call for proposals for presentations, panels, posters, and workshops as well as sponsors and exhibitors. Check out our Seventh Annual International Conference page for more details.

CIC's Monthly Member 'Lunchinars'

April 16th was the launch date of CIC's newest member benefit: monthly virtual 'lunch' meetings for members to get acquainted, describe their projects, ask questions, and share information and best practices. The first Lunchinar included a demonstration of The Long Island Index's new interactive mapping capability.

We are now doing a survey to find out what other topics our members would like to see presented at future Lunchinars. Click here to let us know about your interests or if you want to suggest a speaker or volunteer to present a topic.

CIC Leads Effort to Integrate Community Indicators and Performance Measures

CIC recently received a two-year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to promote, advocate for, and develop a community of practice for integrating community indicators and government performance measures, and for engaging citizens and other key community stakeholders in the process. This grant expands CIC's prior work that identified the benefits and barriers to integrating indicators and performance measures. To achieve the goals of the grant, CIC has formed a Working Group comprised of individuals representing 23 community indicator and performance measurement organizations, professional associations of community leaders, organizations working with communities, indicators and data, and organizations representing associations of communities. More information about this effort will be on CIC's web site in the near future. In the meantime, if you would like to know more about this effort, please contact either Allen Lomax, aclomax@aol.com, or Cheryle Broom, cheryle.broom@kingscounty.gov, who are CIC's co-directors for this exciting effort.

CIC Innovation Awards
sponsored by the Urban Markets Initiative at the Brookings Institution

Congratulations to the 2008 CIC Innovation Award Winners! The winners are:

First place: Our Kids Count

Second place: Georgia Indicators of Child and Family Wellbeing

Important Paper About Indicators and Performance Measures

"Creating Stronger Linkages between Community Indicator Projects and Government Performance Measures" is a newly published white paper created by the Community Indicators Consortium with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It originally grew from discussions at our December 2005 conference and then was reviewed by a panel of experts in the field. We invite you to read the paper, make use of its information, and let us know what you think. CLICK HERE to read the PDF.

Newsletter News

Please spread your knowledge and strengthen the indicators community by writing about your work in the CIC newsletter. We want to publish one or two member-generated articles in each edition. If you have information to share for our newsletter or Spotlight column on the website, please let us know. For more information visit the newsletter page or see the most recent version of the newsletter.

Membership

Available now, join or renew membership online

Enjoy the Benefits of Membership

If you have any questions about CIC, please call Maureen Hart at (860) 808-7487 or e-mail ED@communityindicators.net

SPOTLIGHT
Information of special interest to our members and friends

· The US EPA is seeking proposals for projects to develop new or improved environmental public health indicators based on existing knowledge bases and data sources and leading to better informed decision making. Grants of up to $500,000 are available and proposals are due by Aug 5, 2009. See the EPA grant announcement for more details.

Posted 5-22-09

· CIC is offering stipends of $2,000 for "Real Stories" of efforts by communities and/or jurisdictions to integrate community indicators and performance measures. Stories should highlight lessons learned--successful and no-so-successful. See the Call for Real Stories for more information.

Posted 5-11-09

· Ben Warner, one of the founders and former President of CIC, maintains a blog on Community Indicators with wonderful insight into the process of community indicator development as well as news about and links to interesting community indicators events, activities, reports, and websites.

Posted 12-14-08

· UNICEF annual report, The State of the World's Children 2008 is a detailed looks into the world of children. The five chapters of the 164-page report include "Child Survival: Where we stand" and "Lessons learned from evolving health-care systems and practices". Within each chapter visitors will also find information on child mortality rates around the globe, community public health partnerships, and health care systems in the developing world.

Posted 12-03-08

· The Center for Housing Policy recently announced the availability of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) data on foreclosure needs scores at the zip code level. These data are intended to help states and localities identify the relative need of different neighborhoods for neighborhood stabilization assistance. They also may prove helpful in identifying areas in which to target foreclosure prevention efforts. Click here for more information and access both to the newly released zip code data and to the previously released foreclosure needs scores for CDBG jurisdictions within each state.

Posted 12-03-08

Be sure to visit the Spotlight Digest page for information and reports of on-going interest