The Community Vitality Initiative (CVI)
“We live in an increasingly global world and we also live in tiny individual worlds. The in-between layer, the community, gets lost. The CVI helps us to fill that gap and instill a sense of community”
- CVI participant
Is your community thriving, or merely surviving?
How's the quality of life in your community? Is your community thriving, or merely surviving? Some people think quality of life is determined by the employment rate. Some believe outdoor recreation is the key. Others say it's about the arts or public safety or access to health care.
Whatever "quality of life" means, does your community have a good enough supply of it to attract new citizens with varying interests, retain its existing citizens, and inspire them all?
The Community Vitality Initiative (CVI) measures the quality of life in your community, compares the results to other communities, and helps you come up with strategies for improvement.
CIEL recognizes that many communities are worn out by long consultation processes and complicated research reports. The CVI uses a unique web-accessible questionnaire, simple graphic reports, and two short, productive community meetings to gauge your community’s quality of life and find ways to improve it.
Click here to watch a video on the CVI.
Community Vitality- What Does it Mean?
Measuring prosperity using the Gross Domestic Product, the number of housing starts, or the unemployment rate is no longer enough. Perhaps it never was. Communities which appear wealthy according to such measures may nevertheless have a poor quality of life-- a ruined natural environment, high crime rates, debilitating traffic congestion, or stagnant local political processes. On the other hand, some communities which do not appear rich on paper might have a vibrant and satisfying community life.
In the past, people looking for jobs in rural areas tended to gravitate toward towns with a major industry—a pulp mill, a mine, a smelter. There are fewer of those towns now, and many of them are having trouble re-defining themselves after the loss of major industries. It is becoming clear that trying to attract a new factory or smelter or mill may not be the most productive use of a community’s time and energy.
With the advent of the “knowledge economy” and the global internet economy, more and more jobs can be done anywhere. As this trend continues, people looking for a place to raise a family or start a business are less likely to look for a place where there are lots of jobs or a large local market. Instead, they will move to a place they like, and they will do their job from that community or create a new job there.
What kinds of communities are such people looking for? Our research shows that many young adults who are starting families or businesses want:
- a diversity of education options for themselves and their children
- a vibrant cultural life (theatre, music, festivals, markets, an interesting downtown core)
- a diversity of health care options, including access to alternative health services
- a variety of different kinds of people (interests, backgrounds, occupations)
- progressive and open local government (no “old boys clubs”)
- a clean environment and strong local environmental activities
- an entrepreneurial mindset, where new ideas are valued
In other words, many young adults are looking for a place with a high level of community vitality.
Another group that rural communities need to attract is their own young people. Many community leaders are quite anxious about this, and are at a loss for a solution to the problem of young people moving away. While it is true that the availability of entry-level jobs may be an important part of this equation, and while we agree that many young people need to move away from home as part of their personal development, our research and experience tell us that youth want to live in an interesting community which has a diversity of lifestyles, an active cultural life, exciting recreational possibilities, and a positive sense of community. If their home town does not provide that, young people are likely to go elsewhere.
"The questionnaire and the meetings and the people running them were very professional and at the same time accessible.”
- CVI participant
Benefits of the CVI
- Quick & cost- effective
- Provides easy-to-read reports
- Finds gaps and strengths in 9 key areas
- Community (not consultants) sets priorities & realistic actions
- Allows comparison to similar communities
- Helps to leverage resources
- Identifies key community strengths assets, gaps & resources
- Conducted by objective outside facilitator
- Builds capacity & networks in the community
- Helps move a community from indecisiveness to action
In communities that have undertaken the CVI, action groups have been formed to explore or establish such things as:
- farmers’ market
- buy-local campaign
- annual arts and culture festival
- cooperative marketing strategies among businesses
- community “brand”
- entrepreneurship training program for youth
- ecotourism in a local natural area
- youth committee for town council
- downtown beautification program
How Does the CVI Work?
The central feature of the CVI is a 95-question survey which asks citizens to rate (in person or online) their community in everything from employment to environmental health, from support for the arts to safety on the streets, from public transit to pre-natal care. There are also opportunities for citizens to discuss the strengths and problems of their community in focus groups or community meetings.
CIEL then produces an easy-to-read report, with unique graphs and scoring, rating the community in nine areas of community vitality. Link to graph or report excerpt
Then, through an engaging community process conducted over one evening, CIEL helps the community focus on the results and set priorities and build action groups to move the community toward greater community vitality.
The CVI allows communities to benchmark themselves by comparing their scores to those of other communities.
The CVI process has two parts. In the first phase (the assessment phase) participants fill out a questionnaire and take part in a focus group. In the second, or focus and action phase, the community is invited to view CIEL’s report on the first phase, and plan actions based on the report.
"Working with CIEL was one of the best most rewarding processes I’ve ever been involved in professionally.”
- Grant Myers – Provincial Development Officer, Community Table,
Huntingdon, Quebec
The Assessment Phase
This is a meeting of 20-80 invitees, representing a cross-section of the social, cultural, political, business, and recreational aspects of the community. The participants fill out a questionnaire administered by the CVI team and then take part in a focus group discussion about issues related to the quality of life in the community.
The questionnaire is a list of 95 statements about the community, based on key indicators that are known to affect community vitality. Participants are asked to rate their degree of agreement with each statement on a scale of one to five.
The CVI is based on the perceptions of community members, which, when combined with available statistics, paints a much richer, fuller and more accurate picture of a community. For an explanation of CIEL's use of perceptions and small sample sizes, click here and scroll to the FAQ entitled "Why does CIEL work with such small sample sizes?"
CIEL spent over a year researching, building and testing the CVI, synthesizing more than 60 studies on community wellness, health and quality of life and employing stakeholders and experts from across Canada.
The CVI questionnaire is divided into nine categories of subject matter:
1. Personal and Economic Security
Is there adequate and diversified employment, a range of types of affordable housing, and personal safety?
2. Learning Culture
Does a spirit of life-long learning, and a hunger for knowledge and wisdom, pervade the community? Is there is a variety of modes of learning for all age groups?
3. A Culture of Wellness
Supported by adequate health facilities, do citizens take responsibility for their own health? Does the leadership of the community actively encourage fitness, wellness, and prevention?
4. Innovative leadership
Does the formal and informal leadership of the community encourage discussion, participation, and new ideas in public affairs and in business? Is there is an energetic flow of ideas and opinions, and are there many active groups? Are there opportunities for newcomers to participate meaningfully in the community?
5. A Clean Environment
Are the water, air, and land clean and healthy?
6. Vibrant Arts, Heritage, and Culture
Are there galleries, concerts, and celebrations? Are there many people working in cultural and creative occupations?
7. Sense of Community
Is the community home to a diversity of types of people: ages, occupations, races, languages? Do they talk to each other, and is there is a strong sense of belonging?
8. Community Entrepreneurship
Does the community support entrepreneurs and is it looking strategically for opportunities? Are new ideas encouraged?
9. Physical Space
Is the built environment beautiful and pedestrian-friendly, with an unhurried, neighbourly feeling? Do the community and its residents take pride in the buildings, parks and grounds?
When the focus group discussion is complete and everyone has filled out the questionnaire (at a meeting or online) CIEL’s expert team analyzes the results and creates an easy-to-read, graphically interesting report (click here for a sample) which includes recommendations for actions based on the questionnaire and focus group results.
The report is then sent to everyone who participated, and may be circulated more widely.
"This process is so necessary.”
- CVI participant, South Glengarry, Ontario
The Focus and Action Phase
The focus and action phase consists of a meeting to which the entire community is invited, held four to eight weeks after the assessment session.
At this meeting, in a structured process, a facilitator asks the community to vote on priority actions – either strengths the community wishes to build on, or weaknesses the community wishes to address – based on the results of the questionnaires and the discussion groups. Each community member participating is also asked to vote only on those actions he or she is willing to put his/her time and energy into. CIEL has found a far greater likelihood of success using this process.
Following that priority-setting exercise, a “reality check” is performed in small groups in order to determine if there is actually enough resources and energy in the community to move forward with each potential action (normally no more than 3 actions). If a specific action is voted as a priority by the group, but there is no one at the meeting willing to volunteer to take it forward, that action is dropped. Those designated for action are those that received many votes and have a core group willing to work on it.
The Community Sponsor
To carry out the CVI, a local steering committee takes on the role of community sponsor, assisting in the coordination of the CVI locally, and inviting the participant survey group. In addition, the community sponsor helps to organize the meetings and arranges media and publicity. The steering committee should have representatives from a local economic development organization, the municipality, business, and other community organizations.
The community sponsor also plays an important role keeping the actions on track after the Focus and Action Phase by providing support for the action groups. This could take the form of offering meeting space, writing a grant proposal, etc. In effect, the community sponsor acts like a Shetland Sheepdog, ensuring the process is herded in the right direction. However, CIEL has found the process to be most effective when the action groups (made up of energized community members) are supported by the community sponsor, rather than the sponsor trying to do everything.