Measuring the Performance and Impact of Community Indicators Systems: Insights on frameworks and examples of key performance indicators

Community indicator systems (CISs) are growing in number across North America, Europe, and Australia in an effort to improve evidence-based decision-making in government, business, and civil society.

By providing open access to data and information on community well-being, CISs generally aim to build the knowledge and capacity of communities to work together to improve well-being. However, there is currently a dearth of research on the extent to which CISs are achieving positive impacts on community well-being. Similarly, the research on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems and best practices of CISs is limited. Hence, CISs currently have few resources to which they can turn to design and improve upon their evaluative practices and overall program performance.

This exploratory study addresses this research gap on the M&E practices and procedures in use by CISs, asking: What key performance indicators are CISs using to measure program outcomes and impacts on the community?