The state’s social indicators website, North Dakota Compass, has launched the Community Building Toolkit, an additional resource to encourage and support sustainable community development. North Dakota Compass is located at the Center for Social Research at NDSU.
The toolkit was developed using the Community Capitals Framework. The new toolkit aims to help identify forms of capital in the community, understand how capital is invested, measure progress toward desired outcomes, educate the community so they are better equipped to form plans of action and intervention to assure continued support of community capitals. The toolkit builds on the information provided in ND Compass, and is meant to aid communities be more vibrant and have healthy, sustainable economies.
The launch of the new feature is accompanied by new articles to provide further insight on community development.
Kathleen Tweeten, the director of the NDSU Extension Center for Community Vitality and a state specialist in community economic development, provided an article for the “Ask a Researcher” column. In her article, Tweeten describes the community capitals concept and provides examples on using the framework in sustainable community development.
“Community leaders are seeking to understand how to revitalize their economies and are looking for models that will help them decide what investments are most effective in improving quality of life and economic well-being,” Tweeten wrote. “The Community Capitals Framework is a way of looking at the community in its entirety. In order to maintain a healthy and thriving community, it is important to recognize the dependency and interaction that each capital has with the other capitals.”
Howard Barlow, investment specialist with Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, contributes to this month’s “For Discussion” column. Barlow shares his experience working with non-profits as a non- profit resource specialist with Bremer Bank and serving as a former board member of the F-M Coalition for Homeless Persons.
ND Compass is sponsored by the Bush Foundation, Otto Bremer Foundation, Dakota Medical Foundation and NDSU. It gives policymakers, business and community leaders and concerned residents a common foundation to act on issues to improve communities by tracking and analyzing trends in areas that affect the quality of life.
To explore the new Community Building Toolkit and to read the articles in their entirety, visit www.ndcompass.org.