Community Quality-Of-Life Indicators : Best Cases

In keeping with the practical, “best cases” emphasis of this book series, the editors incorporate a case-based approach to chapters discussing how specific indicators, indices or series of indicators can lead to better decisions and outcomes to help communities adapt and transform in the face of challenges, helping them prepare for both the expected and the unexpected to sustain and improve quality of life, including technology and open source approaches to data sharing and data-focussed collaboration; evolving approaches that use shared indicators to improve overall community well-being and quality of life; research related to community indicators and policy, application, research, and/or practice; and techniques and approaches to measure resilience. 

This volume is of interest to social scientists, management professionals, social workers and policy makers working on various aspects of community indicators of quality of life and well-being.  

Chapter “The Cost of Sea Level Rise for the Island Community of Vinalhaven, Maine: Spurring action through collaborative data analysis” is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see licence information in the chapters.

Frank Ridzi is Vice President for Community Investment at the Central New York Community Foundation, Associate Professor of Sociology at Le Moyne College, former President of the Community Indicators Consortium Board and past President of the Literacy Funders Network, an affinity group of the Council on Foundations. He has helped to launch and lead community initiatives in areas such as increasing community literacy, reducing lead poisoning and addressing poverty and economic inclusion. He has been involved in launching Community Indicators efforts and has conducted research and written in the areas of collective impact, sociology of work, social policy and student affairs. His writings have appeared in such places as the Foundation Review, the Journal of Applied Social Sciences, the Journal of Organizational Change Management, and Review of Policy Research. Frank is the 2021 Winner of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Dorothy E. Smith Scholar-Activist Award.

Frank holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. He also carries a Certificate of Advanced Study in Women’s Studies. Prior to joining the Community Foundation, he served as Director for the Center of Urban and Regional Applied Research at Le Moyne College, where he still serves as Associate Professor and Department Chair of Sociology.

Chantal Stevens has been the executive director of the Community Indicators Consortium since 2013, having previously served on its board around its inception. She’s an experienced nonprofit manager and was the former executive director of Sustainable Seattle, a pioneer in the development of community indicators, the Starflower Foundation, and People for Salmon. More recently she has worked for King County as the oversight manager of the Countywide Community Forums and as a performance management analyst. She co-edited Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases VII and Best Cases VIII. She has presented at multiple conferences on topics related to community indicators, performance management and public engagement; was a guest lecturer at University of Hyogo; was co-lead of the first conference dedicated to the exploration of CI-PM integration in 2006; and is an active advocate for community indicators and public engagement as a key element of a functioning performance management system in the public and nonprofit sectors. She holds a BS and MMA from the University of Washington in Seattle and a certificate in nonprofit management. 

Lyle Wray has served since 2004 as Executive Director of the Capitol Region Council of Governments in Hartford, Connecticut (www.crcog.org), after serving as Executive Director of the Ventura County Civic Alliance. In each of these roles he has been an active participant in regional quality of life indicator projects. Earlier he served as Executive Director at the Citizens League (www.citizensleague.net) in the Twin Cities for 11 years and as Dakota County Administrator and Human Services Director for 7 years. He earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Manitoba in 1980. He co-authored the book Results That Matter published by J. Wiley in 2006, an article in Public Management in 2012 on community results toolkit and a 2016 commentary on creation of public value in Public Administration Review.  He was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2015 (NAPA) and serves as past-President of the Community Indicators Consortium (Community Indicators Consortium).