Community Quality-of-Life Indicators

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).

• Part I: Everybody Counts.- Noel Keough, Sustainable Calgary State of Our City Reporting: Pathways to a More Sustainable, Just and Resilient City.- Donald Matteson & Tracy Sawicki, We Can’t Fix What We Don’t Know is Wrong: Developing Community Indicators for Often-Ignored Populations.- Bijan Kimiagar, The most important voices are the ones we hear from the least: Community-based assessments in collaboration with families and community-based organizations.- Terry S Atkinson & Kimberly L. Anderson, From Idea to Reality: Creating and Implementing an Early Literacy Action Plan With Community Partners.- Part II: Resilience Planning.- Patrick Brixler, Community Resilience in Austin, Texas: Measuring social vulnerability and multi-hazard exposure to drive collective action.- Lubaina Rangwala, Data-led Resilience Planning for Localised Action.- Susie Maloney, Beyond a ‘tick-box approach’ for local government climate change adaptation: Learning through doing with M&E.- Meghan Gabil, The Cost of Sea Level Rise for Vinalhaven, ME: Spurring Action through Collaborative Data Analysis.- Part III: Aligning Community Indicators with Professional Standards.- Patsy Kraeger, Rhonda Phillips and Frank Ridzi, The Community Foundation - Community Indicator Interface: Exploring Connections and Applications.- Peg Thomas, Advancing SDG-Strategy 8.B.1 by Developing And Measuring the Impact of a Specific Youth Workforce Development Model Called Earn And Learn.