You get what you measure. Measure the wrong thing and you get the wrong behaviors.
~ John H. Lingle
The CRC team just published a case study examining the development of a full-fledged community indicators system in Winnipeg, the first in Canada. Led by a unique partnership between the local United Way and a research institute, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), it can serve as a model for implementing community indicators locally across the country. Such a system is critical if communities are going to truly measure what is important to them and their vitality and assess their progress towards sustainable community development. These systems could be more rapidly implemented across the country if other leading research organizations and civil society leaders such as the Canadian Council for Social Development were funded by Canadian foundations.
The community indicators system, referred to as Peg, has been accessible online in its beta version for the last three years. The United Way and IISD have been working to strength and complete the system in preparation for its official launch next week, December 3, 2013. The Peg website contains a dynamic interactive interface that allows explore the indicators and related data, a map feature that provides a spatial context to the indicator data, and also narratives and videos that share stories (related to the indicators) from the Winnipeg residents to add a deeper meaning to abstract data.