This system uses more than forty indicators and a variety of data-collection tools--including surveys, interviews, and focus groups--to quantify the effects of housing, economic development, and community building programs at the personal, organizational, and community levels. This array of tools allows NeighborWorks to measure success not just quantitatively but qualitatively, looking beyond the numbers to detect sustainable positive change.
The underlying philosophy is that a community development initiative cannot be judged successful just because it puts a family in a home; rather, it must be able to say that, by doing so, it has improved the community, the family’s quality of life, and the family’s economic potential.