CKX - Measuring What Matters: Early Adopters of the CIW (Wood Buffalo)
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How do you measure what matters in your community? Rather than starting from scratch, one approach that’s gaining traction is using shared impact measurement tools like the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. Hang on a second. What’s the Canadian Index of Wellbeing? First and foremost, the CIW is a big idea that regards wellbeing as encompassing a wide variety of aspects of life, beyond economic measures like Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It’s also a tool that is measuring what matters to Canadians. It tracks wellbeing from year to year in an effort to offer clear, effective, and regular information on the quality of life of all Canadians. In a series of Pecha-Kucha style presentations (each limited to 20 slides with 20 seconds per slide), you’ll learn how five organizations across Canada are working with the Canadian Index of Wellbeing to measure what matters in their communities. The presenters include: Dan Wilson, Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Ontario Trillium Foundation Robert Janus, Director of Communications, Victoria Foundation Barbara Powell, General Manager of Community Engagement, City of Guelph Nancy Mattes, Director, Social Prosperity Wood Buffalo Denise C. Squire, Executive Director, Woolwich Community Health Centre After the rapid-fire overview, you’ll have a chance to take a bit of a deeper dive in a series of group discussions led by our presenters as we unpack the challenges of measuring impact and the potential benefits of shared or common measurement frameworks like the Canadian Index of Wellbeing.
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CKX - Measuring What Matters: Early Adopters of the CIW (Wood Buffalo)
- 1. Community Wellbeing Survey in Wood Buffalo, Alberta CKX Summit, November 2014 Nancy Mattes, Director, Social Prosperity Wood Buffalo
- 16. CIW Community Wellbeing Question: Rate your sense of belonging to your local community. Strong alignment
Editor's Notes
- Imagine how disruptions like rapid population growth can undermine efforts to maintain quality services and to anticipate future needs? Wood Buffalo wants to improve its resilience so that it has greater capacity to address issues and offer a high quality of life for residents, but a complex system needs a multi-sectoral approach to enable systems change.
- Social Prosperity Wood Buffalo is a collaborative social change process to build capacity and improve community wellbeing. In 2012 we began working on a shared measurement system to improve societal outcomes. We leveraged our reputation as a neutral third-party to steward this community initiative.
- We started our process by researching shared measurement models. We wanted a tool that could be used even as community issues changed. In today’s interconnected world, we didn’t want to explore issues in isolation. Instead, we wanted a comprehensive framework that would help us understand systems dynamics and potential leverage points.
- As we have learned from collective impact research, multi-sectoral collaboration is most effective when there is a shared purpose and shared value. Community wellbeing was the catalyst that brought people from different sectors to the table.
- We chose the Canadian Index of Wellbeing because it offers a well-researched and comprehensive approach to improving community wellbeing. Baseline data from the CIW’s community wellbeing survey would provide a starting point upon which to measure progress as well as foundational information to enable strategic learning, evidence-based planning and collective impact.
- We began convening conversations with key stakeholders to promote the value proposition. We targeted potential partners from industry, local government and social benefit agencies who had something to gain from the process and also something to contribute to it.
- Survey infrastructure included the development of project materials, engagement strategies, and terms of reference. The cost was spread amongst the various partners with some contributing in-kind resources and others paying for mailing and promotional costs. We used this flexible approach to ensure each member of our multi-sectoral working group could contribute in a meaningful way.
- The Social Prosperity team provided administrative support to make the process easier for busy community stakeholders. Each partner was expected to contribute – whether that was money, promotional expertise or legal advice – and participate in the planning and decision-making.
- Because this was a multi-sectoral collaboration, it was important to develop a unique brand. We used this brand consistently in all of our materials, including survey envelopes, letter-head, digital ads and reminder post-cards. The CIW provided helpful examples and support throughout the process.
- We aligned community engagement strategies with resident preferences. For example, when we learned that people responded well to incentives, we activated our networks to donate great prizes. A robust digital media campaign helped connect our initiative to “plugged in” community members.
- Despite our best efforts, however, the poor response from the outlying communities underscores the importance of engaging all communities within your geographic scope in the process. Fickle internet access, lack of lead-time, survey over-use and remote locations were some of the challenges we encountered.
- The working group organized a Report-Back presentation in October 2014. While this presentation was highly valued and well attended, participants wanted more analysis of the results. We’re working with the CIW on this new community-friendly report. Social prosperity is also producing a report on this process for future reference.
- As part of our Report-Back presentation, we invited local experts to go deeper into issues that arose from the results. These experts clarified misperceptions, spoke about what’s being done to address issues, and acknowledged that more work is needed in some areas.
- Survey results validated what some already knew and surprised others. For example, while children are a natural connector and contribute to sense of belonging to community, some participants were surprised to learn that the lack of quality childcare spaces is an issue for many parents with young children in the community.
- We compared the survey results with active community plans to explore potential alignment and challenge assumptions. We used this Strategy Roadmap which is a composition of many strategic plans and is intended to help the community achieve over-arching goals that will improve quality of life outcomes for residents.
- One of our Working Group partners reviewed the questions from the community wellbeing survey to determine if there was alignment with strategy roadmap outcomes. While it was not a perfect match, they were able to analyze about half of the questions and just over 40 outcomes.
- The completed analysis shows 22 green outcomes are satisfactory, 6 yellow outcomes need improvement and 4 red outcomes are unsatisfactory. This exercise illustrates progress is being made toward shared community goals. It highlights community strengths as well as areas of concern and demonstrates the power of the CIW tool to inform planning.
- We used social innovation tools to explore the survey results in other creative ways. This empathy map helped community leaders gain deeper insight into resident’s environment, perceptions, behaviours, and issues. Recognizing that working parents struggle with work/life balance, one group suggested offering family-friendly HR policies that provide greater flexibility for working parents.
- Our exploration of the survey results provided community leaders with an extraordinary opportunity to advance their understanding of wellbeing in Wood Buffalo. They deepened their appreciation of resident circumstances and explored systems dynamics. They also found new allies who shared their interests and desire for similar societal outcomes.
- Working together on the CIW community wellbeing survey was the beginning of our journey to develop a shared measurement system to improve quality of life outcomes for residents and create a more resilient future for the community. For practical information about our particular approach, please join my small group discussion.