Motivated by growing interest in accountability, transparency, and data-driven decision- and policy- making, questions about the outcomes and impacts of community development activities and investments are increasingly being raised. The answers to these questions, however, remain frustratingly elusive. While we are able to easily count units of housing built or numbers of small business loans closed, it is much more complicated to determine if, how, why, and when these efforts improve quality of life and life chances for low-income communities. Efforts under this initiative are intended to help build the field’s capacity to capture meaningful community data, improve our approaches to performance measurement and evaluation, and enhance our ability to identify effective and efficient community change interventions.
Publications
Vantage Point: The 12th District Community Indicators Project
The 12th District Community Indicators Project, Issue 1, 2013
Investing in What Works for America’s Communities: Essays on People, Place, and Purpose (2012)
Vantage Point
The 12th District Community Indicators Project Issue 1, 2012
Data and Measurement
Community Investments: Volume 24, Issue 1, 2012
2011 Third Quarter State Consumer Credit Reports
Special Report (December 2011)
Improving Evaluation and Metrics in Youth Financial Education
Special Report (July 2011)
Vantage Point
The 12th District Community Indicators Project Issue 2, 2011
The EITC in the 12th District
Research Brief (May 2011)
Vantage Point
The 12th District Community Indicators Project Issue 1, 2011
Advancing Social Impact Investments through Measurement
Community Development Investment Review, Volume 7, Issue 2, 2011
The Current Landscape of the California Housing Market
Working Paper, 2010-03 (September 2010)
Building Scale in Community Impact Investing through Nonfinancial Performance Measurement
Community Development Investment Review, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2010
Related
FedCommunities.org
FedCommunities.org is a web portal to community development resources from all 12 Federal Reserve Banks and the Board of Governors. Through a single web gateway, users can access hundreds of Fed materials that address barriers to economic growth and promote fair and informed access to financial markets.