The Delaware Community Foundation (DCF) has launched the website DelawareFocus.org, the keystone of the DCF’s new community engagement initiative, Delaware Focus.
According to the foundation, Delaware Focus which will be the state’s first comprehensive statewide indicator project. The initiative aims to help the community develop a data-driven, statewide civic agenda that will help in assessing needs and priorities that can be addressed through philanthropy.
The DCF took on the new initiative as “part of its expanded mission “to build a shared vision for Delaware, grounded in knowledge, inspired by the common good and advanced through philanthropy,” a release stated.
“The DCF is a strong organization with a proud history of helping individuals and organizations build permanent charitable resources for Delaware,” DCF President & CEO Fred Sears said. “But our board recognized that our community has great needs, and we have the capacity and the will to do more.”
Many other community foundations, including DCF’s counterparts in Boston and Arizona, have indicator projects.
Gov. Jack Markell joined the DCF to launch the initiative at the Baby Grand in Wilmington.
“By undertaking this project, driven by data and research, the Delaware Community Foundation will help provide an objective view of our challenges and contribute to implementing solutions,” Markell stated.
Alan Levin, former director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, spoke at the afternoon launch at Delaware Technical & Community College’s Owens Campus in Georgetown.
“Excellent quality of life is essential for a thriving business community and a robust economy,” Levin said. “And we can be much more effective in improving quality of life by using metrics to understand our strengths and weaknesses and monitor the impact of our collective efforts to improve.”
The website will be the central source of data for the DCF’s new community engagement initiative. The site features data and analyses of 71 key community indicators in the areas of demographics, economy and working, financial self-sufficiency, quality of life, health, children and youth, and education.
The data and analyses can help decision-makers, funders, and all community members identify communities’ relative weaknesses and strengths, set priorities, check program outcomes, track progress over time, compare regional trends and foster community dialogue, according to a DCF release.
“To build a unified vision, we need accurate and broad-based information about our community’s most pressing needs and most promising opportunities,” DCF Board Chair Marilyn Hayward said. “Through DelawareFocus.org. we are providing the platform and an initial set of community indicators to ignite and fuel conversations and action statewide.”
DCF is contracting with the Center for Governmental Research (CGR), a Rochester, N.Y.-based nonprofit that specializes in helping communities and organizations use data to evaluate and address needs.
In addition to gathering, analyzing and applying data, Hayward said, the DCF will engage the community in developing and pursuing the civic agenda. The DCF is expanding its staff to create a community engagement team and has established the Delaware Community Focus Council.
The council will be composed of leading community stakeholders from Kent, New Castle and, Sussex County. Using the data from the Delaware Focus website and knowledge gathered through community engagement, the council will find top community challenges and opportunities, and recommend leadership and action opportunities to the DCF staff and board.
The chair of the Community Focus Council will be Doneene Keemer Damon, a director with the law firm Richards, Layton & Finger. The vice chair will be Cindy Szabo, a partner at the law firm Ellis & Szabo in Rehoboth Beach. The list of council members will be announced in November.
The DCF also announced that it will collaborate with the University of Delaware, which was recently designated as a 2015 Community Engaged University by the Carnegie Foundation.
The DCF also is working with the United Way and currently developing relationships with the Rodel Foundation of Delaware, Delaware State University and Wilmington University.
The initiative comes at a time when state government is facing a structural budget gap that could affect funding for programs that aid the poor as well as grants that go to nonprofits. The Delaware Association of Nonprofit Associations has organized a working group that hopes to make its case to legislators and the Markell administration for continued funding.
