Creating & Launching the North Carolina Resilience Index – our June Virtual Community Discussion

caryn.barretta@ajah.ca on July 19, 2024

On June 20, 2024 our colleagues at the North Carolina Pandemic Recovery Office (NCPRO) shared their forthcoming tool, the Resilience Index and accompanying dashboard. Natalie Garrett and Kiel Kinkade discussed the challenges their community faced after the pandemic, and the data needed to understand the key issues faced by their community.

During community discussion. attendees were curious about the adoption strategy for the tool, how NCPRO approached communicating about the data sources used to make the Index, and stakeholder management on the scale that the Index required. Key takeaways from the session include: 

  • The problem your data tool is solving is your north star: Use cases are the foundation from which all decisions related to your tool’s features, data, and design should be made. The Resilience Index was built in direct response to a lack of data necessary for local decision makers to fully understand key social, economic, and environmental issues in their communities.
  • Build data tools with your audience in mind: NCRPO learned what their key users wanted from their index and prioritized those features to their roadmap to build buy-in on the tool and adoption. An example feature in the Resilience Index allows users to parse the data in different views that reflect their interests, such as county or council of government.
  • Educate stakeholders about the considerations, strengths, and limitations of your data product to create the right expectations and usage: NCPRO has created multiple versions of documentation to provide to users based on their familiarity with or desire for details on the statistics behind their indices.
  • Build with what you have, with the plan to improve over time: Sometimes the data that exists at the time of development is less than perfect, but you can always plan to improve sources in the future.
  • Collaborative design can build trust: The process of developing a useful data product in close collaboration with decision makers and/or funders can build trust and relationships. Even if you are a newer organization, doing this well can help stakeholders  see you as a responsible partner capable of becoming a trusted source of information.

Slides from this session are accessible here. If you prefer a recording of the presentation portion of this virtual community discussion, you may view one here.

Using Rankings & Reports to Drive Policy Discussions in Your State

caryn.barretta@ajah.ca on February 8, 2024

Join States for the Future and the Common Sense Institute for a conversation about their most recent report and their work in Colorado.

Participants will learn about the process of developing an index that allows us to rank and compare our state’s performance to other states. 

We will be joined by Chris Brown, VP of Policy & Research at the Common Sense Institute, who will talk about his organization’s  recently released annual Free Enterprise Report and Competitiveness Indices. Chris will share how CSI has used these types of reports inspire, facilitate, and frame policy conversations. 

Virtual Learning Series: Using Rankings & Indicators with the Common Sense Institute

States for the Future on January 9, 2024

Want to learn how you can inspire policy conversations in your state with rankings and reports? Then join us at our January virtual learning opportunity: Using Rankings & Reports to Drive Policy Discussions in Your State.

In this virtual learning session, participants will learn about the process of developing an index that allows us to rank and compare our state’s performance to other states and how these rankings can be used to inspire, facilitate, and frame policy conversations. We will be joined by Chris Brown, VP of Policy & Research at the Common Sense Institute, who will talk about his organization’s  recently released annual Free Enterprise Report and Competitiveness Indices. Chris leads the research efforts of CSI to provide insightful, accurate and actionable information on the implications of public policy issues throughout the state of Colorado.

The Common Sense Institute was founded in 2010 to champion Colorado’s economy and to be an educational resource for Coloradans, providing rigorous research on the impact of policies, initiatives, and laws that ultimately shape their lives. CSI’s mission is to provide Coloradans with the resources they need to make informed decisions about the future of their families and the state by helping to ground policy discussions with sound fiscal and economic research. The Common Sense Institute has since opened offices in Arizona and most recently Iowa and Oregon.

Since 2022, the Colorado Common Sense Institute has published three Free Enterprise Reports, which are designed to inspire positive change in the lives of Coloradans. In this webinar, we’ll hear from Chris how exactly they’ve designed the report to support policy-makers and voters alike, what they’ve learned over time, and how they envision using reports to further their vision for their state.

Registration is now closed. Slides from this webinar (including key takeaways) are now viewable here and a recording of the session is accessible here.