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Presentations on Technology Innovations with Potential for Transforming Community Development

Another aspect of the Summit was a series of presentations by individuals from both the commercial and nonprofit sectors whose organizations have developed or applied innovative technologies. These technologies all have potential for transforming community development. They were described in working sessions, and several applications were subsequently shown in hands-on demonstrations. Summaries of the presentations supporting key themes of the strategic agenda are presented below.

Key Themes:

  • Use technology to characterize communities and reveal the dynamics of local change.
  • Support policy advocacy with "storytelling" and data.
  • Mapping/planning presentation by Wendy L. Hirsch, Richmond LISC. The LISC office has installed a GIS mapping station as part of the Richmond Neighborhood Indicators Project (RNIP), which collects data on the health of Richmond's neighborhoods and allows users to map them in customized ways. (http://www.richmondlisc.org)
  • The Richmond LISC maintains – and continually updates – a variety of administrative data from the City of Richmond (e.g., property assessments, crime, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) as well as census data and state economic development data for Greater Richmond. The GIS station is available for use by the CDC partners of Richmond LISC.

Richmond LISC was an early adopter of GIS. The system was developed using community resources, without any significant outside funding. To the participants, reliance on local leadership, skills, and funding was a key to project success. GIS has influenced data collection and data sharing practices within the community. The City of Richmond has begun to collect and present data in more uniform ways across agencies, and people within government – and among CDCs – are becoming more comfortable sharing data. Improved uniformity in data is making it easier to establish partnerships.
 
Richmond LISC considers GIS to have vast potential in planning and impact measurement. Within the community's CDCs, data collection has assumed greater importance than ever before, now that the GIS is being used as a tool for understanding neighborhood conditions and trends. Certain GIS indicators are also being identified as good predictors of change.
 
Until recently, the community development sector relied almost totally on anecdotal information for success measures. With CDC data readily available and affordable, CDC staff can – and do – integrate planning into their daily routines, an important cultural shift. Seeing successes displayed graphically gives CDC leaders the motivation to seek further change. As GIS becomes central to operations, it acquires protection from budget cuts. The long-term implications are that projects will be better planned and more effectively funded and will have more impact.
 
Discussion. Participants observed that a successful GIS requires the involvement of government and other players at the local level, all of whom rely on the same data as the CDCs. Neal Richman of the UCLA Advanced Policy Institute, developer of Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles (NKLA), noted that GIS can reveal a community "ecology" in which critical issues can be readily identified across a broad area. (NKLA, http://nkla.sppsr.ucla.edu/index.cfm, provides tools for accessing property and neighborhood data and works with neighborhood residents, community organizations, and policymakers to mobilize support for community improvement in the Los Angeles area.) Richman pointed out that economies of scale in GIS argue for scaling up to a nationwide level, possibly through an ASP. [This is one major goal of the Neighborhood Markets Project also being considered by Living Cities at this time.]
 
There was broad agreement that CDCs recognize the powerful role that GIS can play, as a "gateway technology" readily accessible to CDC staff for a better understanding of neighborhood dynamics and their policy implications. While GIS is in use in many locations nationwide, participants observed that an individual CDC cannot create a GIS on its own; partnerships with other CDCs and with government are essential. One of the largest such efforts is the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP), a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and 19 local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood-level information systems in local policymaking and community building. http://www.urban.org/nnip/
 
Recognizing that human factors underlie successful GIS implementation, participants observed that GIS has great potential to facilitate "storytelling" by advocates of community development. To achieve the full impact, however, GIS needs to be implemented with competent local assistance, such as that provided by "circuit riders" like those who helped local legal services organizations learn to use the Pro Bono Net ASP. http://www.probono.net
 
Mapping/planning demonstration by Michael Avery, Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance: The Alliance provides online access to data collected through CityScope, a survey of housing conditions commissioned by the Kansas City, Missouri, Department of Housing and Community Development. The survey was conducted between April 2000 and November 2001 by the University of Missouri Kansas City Center for Economic Information, the UMKC Urban Affairs Program, and the Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance. http://cei.haag.umkc.edu/gplan/
 
Outcome and impact measurement presentation and demonstration by Maggie Grieve, McAuley Institute. The Success Measures Project is a collaborative effort with the Development Leadership Network; it will be launched as a Web-based initiative in 2003. The McAuley Institute took on the project after producing a textbook on participatory evaluation and indicators, in order to develop ways to reduce barriers to low-cost primary data collection among CDCs. Besides cost, such barriers include competing organizational demands; limited experience in collecting, managing, and analyzing data; limited knowledge of potentially helpful technologies; and (particularly important) staff turnover.
 
Observing that the community development sector pays a high cost for "not doing a better job telling our story," the McAuley Institute concluded that the solution was "a comprehensive system that can be maintained by someone else." The Success Measures Project has the goal of establishing a system for data collection and dissemination that will be integrated into local program management. It is envisioned as a tool to stimulate learning among peers in small organizations and will have safeguards to ensure privacy and confidentiality.
 
With funding from the Fannie Mae Foundation and input from CDC staff members, the Institute developed a prototype with 44 indicators from which users can select, depending upon the goals of their programs. A variety of tools will be made available for data analysis, with the expectation that better analysis will lead to better program outcomes. Program leaders are confident that, in the end, they will have a much better understanding of the short-term and long-term results of community development.
 
Discussion. Not all communities need the same information. In large, better-funded organizations, for example, staff may feel that they already know the essential facts about their communities. They are looking for technological approaches that can help them develop novel and effective solutions to problems.
 
There was general agreement that technology can be a positive force for involving people at the local level in evaluating the success of programs. However, participants wondered whether resources might not become overly fragmented, if communities go their own ways in evaluating programs. The question arose of scaling up to an ASP, but in light of the costs, other possibilities were suggested (for example, the Open Source Initiative, http://www.opensource.org). The central issue of common standards also arose repeatedly.
 
Several participants observed that data analysis will help to identify innovative practices that improve program outcomes. Effective, large-scale outcome measurement will also go far toward enhancing the reputation of the community development sector as knowledgeable. However, powerful forces can deter some organizations from sharing data: in particular, less productive organizations may not wish to reveal weaknesses that could put them at a disadvantage in the competition for funding. (It was pointed out that funders have a role to play in demanding results as a condition of continued support.)
 
Moreover, investment in outcome measures may not be perceived as cost-effective by all CDCs. Those who exist solely to construct housing will likely see outcome measures as worthwhile only to the extent that they encourage additional funding. An argument against this perspective is that "a challenge of community development is to be visible" to a wide range of prospective funding sources.
 
Demonstration by Jason Saul, B2PCommerce Corp.: B2PCommerce collaborated with Community Foundations of America to develop Impact ManagerT, the first Web-based nonprofit business intelligence software. Impact ManagerT is designed for intermediary organizations (governments, foundations, United Way, national nonprofit organizations, and donors) to track the performance of their portfolio of grantees, contractors, affiliates, or chapters. http://www.b2p.com/b2pvitals_news_jasonsaul.html
 
Papers pertaining to the key themes - Acrobat format
 
Community Mapping: GIS as a Community Development Tool by Loren Blackford and Lisa Mueller
 
Information and Impact: The Transformative Potential of Information in Revitalizing America's Distressed Communities by G. Thomas Kingsley
 
University-Community IT Partnerships: Lessons from the UCLA Advanced Policy Institute's Projects in Internet-based Mapping and Data Analysis by Neal Richman
 
Measuring Community Development Impact: New Technology Tools for Participatory Evaluation by Margaret Grieve
 
 
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