11 Drivers of Community Attachment – Ranked. Findings from “Soul of the Community”, a Gallup/Knight study

in community stories

The goal of the Knight Foundation-Gallup Soul of the Community project is to explore how community qualities influence residents’ feelings about where they live, and how those perceptions relate to local economic growth and vitality.

Gallup interviewed a group of randomly selected adults age 18 or older, currently residing in each of the 26 Knight Foundation Communities. Interviews took place from February 17th through April 26, 2009. The interview was approximately 18 minutes long and covered 86 questions. The sample for each community was a representative selection of residential household telephone numbers in the defined area. Once a household within the identified area was reached, Gallup randomly selected one adult within the sampled household. Each county within a community was sampled proportionally to the adult population in each area. About 400 citizen interviews were completed in most of the Knight communities – 28,000 nationwide, over the past two years.

CA Map

Main findings

Overall, 24% of citizens are attached to the community in which they live; 40% are not attached.

Gallup identified two key components of Community Attachment (CA):

  1. Attitudinal Loyalty, describes citizens’ general satisfaction with place, their likelihood to recommend it to others, and their outlook for their community’s future.
    1. 60% of respondents were satisfied with their community (25% highly satisfied)
    2. 57% were like to recommend it to others (30% very likely)
    3. 44% had a positive outlook for their community (17% very positive)
  2. Passion, captures the connection to place and the pride taken in living there.
    1. 66% of respondents are proud to live in their community (38% very proud)
    2. 57% believe their community is perfect for them (29% feel this strongly)

Gallup also identified five key dimensions (domains) of community, and a citizen’s connection to it, which drive overall CA. These five domains describe perceptions of:

  1. the basic structural, economic, and leadership offerings of the community (what the community gives or offers its residents),
  2. perceptions of the community’s openness to different groups (what the community stands for in diversity),
  3. citizen involvement in the community (what citizens give back to the community),
  4. the people connections they have to that community (how citizens belong to the community), and
  5. citizen’s personal state of well being (how the person feels and copes in the environment).

CA ModelCommunities which are strong on all five domains (and thus have high overall attachment) have the greatest opportunity to attract and retain the most desirable citizens for driving economic and social success. Each Domain has a different level of impact on CA. These domains were further broken out into eleven aspects, which affected a resident’s attachment to the community. Together, these domains explain about 40% of the overall variance in CA (based on logistic regression). So if we can move (i.e. improve) these 11 aspects (and more specifically the ones with the highest influence) we should be able to move CA.

In descending order:

  1. Openness – Perceptions of openness of the community to different groups (older people, racial and ethnic minorities, families with kids, gays and lesbians, talented college graduates, immigrants)
  2. Social Offerings – Vibrant night life; good place to meet people; other people care about each other
  3. Aesthetics – Parks, playgrounds, and trails; beauty or physical setting
  4. Education – Quality of public schools (K-12), colleges, and universities
  5. Basic Services – Highways and freeway system, availability of quality healthcare, availability of affordable housing
  6. Leadership – Community leaders represent residents’ interests; leadership of elected city officials
  7. Economy – Economic conditions & prospects, job opportunities, income
  8. Emotional Wellness – The personal well being of citizens (respect, rest, stress, learning)
  9. Safety – Level of community crime; safe to walk within 1 mile of home
  10. Social Capital – The people-connections citizens have to the community and how they share time with others (belong to formal/informal groups/clubs; spend time with neighbors; close friends in community; family in community)
  11. Civic Involvement – What residents give to the community in terms of civic involvement (volunteer; voted in local election; attend local community meetings; work with residents to make change)

Key Attachment Drivers

Learn more: 2009 – Full Report(PDF), 2009 – Presentation(PPT), 2009 – Data (ZIP, DOC, POR – asks for email)

KaBOOM! – Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Play

in community stories

Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at Boston College. He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology; published articles on innovative teaching methods and alternative approaches to education; and is author of Psychology (Worth Publishers), an introductory college textbook now in its 5th edition.

Peter Gray

In Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Play, Psychology Today columnist Peter Gray asked his readers to help him develop a proposal to build a neighborhood play and learning center “that could serve as a model that communities everywhere might emulate”. I said I’d help, and after putting in a few hours, recommended that he check out KaBOOM!, a nonprofit founded by Darell Hammond, who studied under John Kretzmann, Director of the Assets Based Community Development Institute (ABCD Insitute) at Northwestern University.

A 2008 study authored by Deborah Puntenney found that “when implemented appropriately, the KaBOOM! Community-Build process creates a lasting impact on the communities it partners with, both in terms of building capacity, enhancing community pride and cultivating leadership, as well as enhancing the play experience of neighborhood children.” Dr. Puntenney’s researchers conducted site visits and telephone interviews with 110 playspace builders, and reported that:

  • Nearly 100% believe that their KaBOOM! playground positively impacted the quality and quantity of children’s play
  • 94% believe that their playground project helped strengthen relationships among neighborhood residents and among community partners
  • 91% said that the KaBOOM! Community Build model and tools work

The KaBOOM! model (Road Map) comprises eight steps:

  1. KaBOOM! Road MapResearch – Why play matters, the “community-build model,” benefits of a community build model, play equipment appropriate for specific ages, abilities, and types of play, playground safety hazards in old equipment, make the case for a new, community-built playground.
  2. Conceive – Create a project vision and mission statement, form a planning committee, choose a playground site, choose a surfacing and equipment vendor, estimate the project budget, establish a project timeline, create a fundraising strategy.
  3. Organize – Organize and hold the first playspace meeting, start fundraising, finalize planning committee teams, determine the necessary site preparation, create a project website.
  4. Design – Holding a Design Day, working with an equipment vendor to select a design, press materials and media involvement, accelerating youth involvement through the Design Day and service learning projects.
  5. Coordinate – Recruiting Build Day volunteers and captains, creating a contingency plan for bad weather and emergencies, mapping the build site and the Build Day “matrix,” creating a maintenance plan with the landowner and staff, leveling the site and removing old equipment.
  6. Energize – Planning final fundraisers, writing and sending out a media advisory to notify local newspapers, radio, and TV stations, ordering side project materials, confirming delivery schedule for equipment and surfacing, training build day captains.
  7. Build – Equipment and surfacing delivery, organizing materials one to two days before the Build Day, motivating volunteers, rehearsing the ribbon cutting ceremony, taking pictures of the site and securing the area.
  8. Maintain – Sending official thanks you’s, starting your maintenance program, hosting a final planning meeting, supervising, playing and enjoying, RALLY!-ing for play.

The website’s toolkit provides resources (including samples) for every step on the map, including pre-planning, community involvement, volunteer recruitment, fundraising,  construction, and maintenance.

KaBOOM! also provides free online training, and a Project Planner: a free website that aims to help you plan each step of your project, communicate with your team, recruit local volunteers, raise money, get free advice from the professional playground builders at KaBOOM!, and connect you to a community of people like you who are building playspaces around the country.

KaBOOM! Project PlannerClick here to read news articles on KaBOOM!

Feeling Artsy? Help Finish Myrtle’s Mural

in community stories

[ takeaway: murals brings community; and they're fun ]

Wanted: local painters, no artistic training required.

Tomorrow the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project and the South of Navy Yards Artists will roll out brushes, pencils and buckets of paint for the young, and young at heart, to put the final brush strokes on a community mural.

Since last Sunday, local residents have been adding their artistic flair to the 80-foot stretch of wooden fencing that surrounds the gaping hole left by the collapse of a Myrtle Avenue building on June 21. What could have been an eyesore is now a collage of blue, gray, purple, green, red and white mixed with drawings of everything from hearts to peace signs to faces.

“Collaboratively painting large scale murals like this allow the whole community to come together to create something,” said Ellie Balk, a SONYA board member who is supervising the project. “Kids and parents paint together and can walk by later and take ownership of the whole mural. I love to hear people walk by and say, ‘I did that!’”

The mural is part of the Move About Myrtle project that MARP started on Sept. 7, closing off seven blocks along Myrtle Avenue to create temporary, vehicle-free public space on Sundays in September. Tomorrow is the last day of the street closing.

“We organize a number of different activities to take place during the event to ‘program’ this new public space,” said Meredith Phillips Almeida, director of community Development for MARP, which is marking its 10th year. “And this mural is one of those activities.”

Organizers see the mural as an opportunity to build and strengthen a sense of community through painting. Business owners, as well as residents, are appreciating the locally made art.

For Chong Kim, owner of the J. Love Gift Shop on Myrtle Avenue, the opportunity to share art is cause for celebration.

“It is very beautiful,” said Mr. Kim, who brought his grandchildren to see the mural last Sunday. “You see everybody painting with the kids.”

Read the full story: Feeling Artsy? Help Finish Myrtle’s Mural – The Local – Fort-Greene Blog – NYTimes.com By Ines Bebea

Community comes together for library

in community stories

How do you build a library in the middle of the woods?

Pretty Lake Vacation Camp did it with a lot of friends, a lot of donations, and a lot of coincidence.

First, there was Pretty Lake Vacation Camp. The 93-year-old nonprofit free summer camp for area children dreamed of someday having a library for campers to use, said Sue Jones, the camp’s development director.

The camp started a small library during the summer of 2008, but quickly realized it needed a bigger one.

Then there were the “Birthday Girls,” a group of eight, longtime friends in Kalamazoo.

When Sara Jane Bald, known as Missy to many and a member of the “Birthday Girls,” died last October, the women in the group wanted to do something to honor their friend, said Nan Harrison, a friend of Bald. They called Pretty Lake, an organization Bald had been involved with for a long time, and asked to help.

Then Willie Vorbrich called the camp. The junior at Kalamazoo Central High School and the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center was looking for an Eagle Scout project. Jones asked if he could transform a picnic pavilion over looking Pretty Lake into a three-season library.

And finally, the Pretty Lake Library. The library opened during the summer, Jones said, and was an instant hit with Pretty Lake’s campers.

“The kids, they treated it as a true library that just happened to be in the middle of a camp,” Jones said. “It was really neat to see that.”

The new library at Pretty Lake Vacation Camp encourages campers to take what’s inside — books — into what’s outside — nature.

Vorbrich and Pretty Lake designed the converted picnic pavilion with lots of windows so that campers felt outside even when they were inside.

The library started out as a slab of concrete, some posts and a roof. Two picnic tables sat underneath. Jones said it was rarely used.

When Vorbrich, 16, first called Pretty Lake, an organization he had worked with before, he did not expect to build a library. He had never put up a building before, but he enlisted enough help to make it happen.

It took 430 hours of work, he said, and many volunteers from the community.

“I was hoping to do something that would have a lasting impact on people,” Vorbrich said. “I feel very proud. It was a marvelous way to give back to the community and to bring a lot of people together.”

Web site: prettylakecamp.org

Read the full story: Community comes together for library at Pretty Lake Vacation Camp | Kalamazoo News – - MLive.com. By Aaron Aupperlee | Kalamazoo Gazette

‘Friends and Neighbors, Not Just Houses’

in community stories

“We’re always thinking of ways to draw the community together the way neighborhoods were 70 years ago,” Waters said. The aim is to be “a community of friends and neighbors, not just houses — and have fun along the way.”

The glue that holds everything together now is an active Listserv. “Even people who have very busy lives and aren’t able to participate in social activities are still able to be connected,” she said.

Have extra day lilies to give away? Lose a dog? Have an extra ticket to the Nats? Just need an extra hand for an afternoon? Assistance is just a few keystrokes away.

Rather than organizing holiday parties when everyone is busy, the civic association sponsors other events to help residents feel connected, drawing on the talents of those who aren’t usually involved in traditional ways.

Newcomers are welcomed with a green fabric tote bag bearing the Luxmanor logo and including an association directory, a copy of the latest newsletter and some munchies. Once a year, new residents are honored at a cocktail buffet hosted by veterans of the community.

In the late summer and early fall, residents round up school supplies to be distributed to social workers for the foster children in their networks.

A “books and brunch” exchange offers residents a free, fun way to clear out their bookshelves and find new tomes. Waters tells residents, “Bring as many books as you can, take as many as you want. No one’s counting.”

The annual Sunday afternoon event lasts four or five hours as residents munch on finger food, peruse selections and catch up with each other. “We don’t have a community center, so people volunteer by opening their homes,” Stolsworth said.

In spring, Luxmanor hosted its first art show. Varda Avnisan, a 15-year resident and glass sculptor, said, “We discovered a whole community of artists here.”

Luxmanor’s spring garden tours reveal hidden backyard gems. Carefully sculpted rock gardens, poolside settings, and an Oriental-style garden with statuary and a moon gate are often-mentioned highlights.

It was the community’s propensity for children to put up lemonade stands that spawned an additional event last year — a charitable tie-in with the garden tour. She encouraged children to set up lemonade stands and donate the proceeds to their favorite charities. “There was no bureaucracy. I just trusted them to send off their money, and they did,” she said.

During the anniversary’s progressive dinner, in which appetizers and desserts were each hosted by a different family, and dinner was held at eight other houses, Waters researched foods popular in the 1930s. One couple hosted swing dance lessons.

excerpts from Md.’s Luxmanor Uses Ways of the Past and Present to Maintain the Ties That Bind – washingtonpost.com