Community Scale Document

The Community Scaling Tool consists of five scales arranged in a matrix format (see Table 1). The scales share a common set of five words which establish a range of thresholds: Thriving, Safe, Stable, Vulnerable, and In Crisis. For the purposes of this document, the five scales within the matrix will be referred to as "dimensions" of the overall community. These dimensions are designed to be broadly inclusive of both community conditions and community systems:

Public Policy refers to both the formal written policies of the community as well as the unstated norms adhered to by the general population. Zoning ordinances are an example of a formal, written public policy. Zoning ordinances may or may not be ignored by the public and simultaneously enforced or unenforced by local officials.

Equity covers both economic and social distributions of power, opportunity, access, and freedoms. Sexism, racism, and classism are all equity issues.

Civic Capital captures any activity which a person participates in outside of their immediate family unit including volunteer, social and recreational, religious, and citizenship activities. Civic Capital can also refer to a group of people extending their participation in the community beyond their usual sphere, such as coporate service projects.

Service and Support Systems include all social and human services, public safety, health, education, child care, housing, justice, infrastructure, and government services. Gaps in the "safety net," the extent of collaboration between agencies, and the comprehensiveness of services are examples of community conditions and systems interactions within this dimension.

Economic Opportunity captures the business climate, the labor market, the diversity of the economic base, entrepreneurship, capital stakeholding, and capital resources. Examples of activities within this dimension include strategies to attract or retain jobs, increase job retention and promotion, match labor skill levels with available jobs, and improve new business success rates.

Each of the five community dimensions in Table 1 contains a set of summary descriptive word(s) which describes a continuum of conditions. The summary descriptive word(s) at the threshold levels of "Safe" and "Thriving" capture the vision and values the members of the Community Action Network have brought to their work for over thirty years. The descriptors in the threshold level of "Stable" often refer to conditions many communities consider "normal;" however, "normal" in the lives of many low-income people, and their communities, is a situation which begs for change. General narrative descriptions for each dimension are found in Tables 5-9.

To reiterate a major point, the dimensions of community are broadly stated. There is a functional reason for this large scope: agencies must be able to interpret their local conditions and strategies as appropriate. Each agency approaches its community problems and opportunities with strategies tailored for that community. The "cause" of a particular community condition can vary widely between communities, and the approach to "remedy" that cause will vary based on local resources and motivations. Agencies need the flexibility to explain the problems of their communities and correlate appropriate solutions.

For example, three different agencies operate a first-time home buyers' program in three different counties. One agency runs the program because local pressure from the Community Reinvestment Act created a pool of funding. The agency considers this an Equity issue because capital was not available in the target neighborhoods in proportion to the dollars the residents of the neighborhoods were investing in the local bank. A second agency runs the program because it could offer credit counseling, case management, and other services packaged together which creates a pool of applicants more likely to be financed. This agency considers their project as an expansion of the Service and Support System. A third agency offers the service in conjunction with a coalition of commercial concerns which are trying to stabilize neighborhoods (by increasing home ownership) in order to attract and maintain business/manufacturing jobs. This agency runs the program as part of an overall approach to increasing Economic Opportunity.

Table 1: Community Scaling Tool