We’re all waiting for it with bated breath: Wednesday’s release of The Community Foundation’s biennial Boulder County TRENDS report, a cornerstone of our work. We compile the data in TRENDS to inform ourselves and focus our efforts, and to provide a widely-used community resource. In recognition of its 20th anniversary, the new report will also include data points from the last 20 years to offer an historical context to the indicators we’ve tracked over time.
Upcoming presentations and distribution of the TRENDS report will reach more than 8,000 Boulder County residents, nonprofits, businesses, community leaders and others. The inspiration and origins of TRENDS, however, are perhaps lesser-known. Indeed, the publication – produced as part of the Boulder County Civic Forum, the research arm of The Community Foundation – had its beginnings outside the foundation.
“The Civic Forum grew out of the Boulder County Healthy Communities Initiative in 1995,” says President Josie Heath of the national movement, then funded statewide by The Colorado Trust. “That initiative was very much a precursor to a lot of the work we do today.”
In addition to TRENDS, the Civic Forum’s research has inspired the Boulder County Health Improvement Collaborative, the Boulder County Leadership Fellows Program and the Expanding Leadership Initiative, among other current foundation projects and programs.
“I’m grateful to the individuals whose vision and early leadership of the Civic Forum paved the way toward identifying and measuring what it means to achieve a healthy community,” adds Heath, one of the program’s founding committee members. “I’m especially proud that, as we peeled off the layers of what’s great about living in Boulder County, we were able to reveal and acknowledge opportunities for change, correction and improvement.”
Heath recalls the day when the early leaders of the Civic Forum made the case for “incubating” the program at The Community Foundation. “The Civic Forum needed a home and, although we were very small at the time, our Board of Trustees agreed to bring it in-house on a conditional basis.”
John Tayer, President and CEO of the Boulder Chamber, also served as a founding committee member and an early sponsor of the Civic Forum. “We plugged along through three iterations of healthy community indicators over a number of years,” he says. “It became clear that there was a great opportunity to address the issues that the indicators brought to light.”
But, according to Tayer, something was missing in the early days when the indicators were being developed, tracked and measured. “We needed a way to tackle our most pressing issues – like early childhood school readiness – through funding and volunteer engagement,” he says. “Josie recognized the need to marry the indicators with the capacity to take action.
“The Boulder Chamber makes it a priority to focus on sustainability efforts in partnership with The Community Foundation and other community interests. That’s why we’re proud to continue to support TRENDS by sharing access to the data across our business channels. We want to make sure that economic sustainability is on the community’s radar, on par with social and environmental sustainability.”
The TRENDS report also highlights the county’s many strengths. “I continue to be surprised and impressed by how high we rank in terms of art, creativity and innovation,” says Heath. “Perhaps we don’t acknowledge our startup community, and what’s working really well, as much as we could.
“As I look at some of the new data that we’ll be releasing soon, I’m very encouraged, too, by the decline in our teen birth rate, and the resources and opportunities available to our young women.”
An historical perspective of the Boulder County Civic Forum
Among the handful of other founding committee members are Cindy Schmidt of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and Susan Foster, also formerly of UCAR. Schmidt recalls the Civic Forum’s first home.
“At the dedication of the Walter Orr Roberts Institute in 1993, Senator Tim Wirth remarked that a first challenge of the institute would be to look at how Boulder County might become a truly environmentally sustainable community,” she says. “So we applied to The Colorado Trust for a grant, and the Boulder County Healthy Communities Initiative became one of the first projects of the Walter Orr Roberts Institute.
“Had he lived, Roberts would have been involved right from the start. He was a leader on climate change, and both he and his wife were very involved and passionate about this community.”
Adds Schmidt, “That UCAR would care so much about the community to dedicate staff time, office space and funding to the healthy communities work is remarkable. I was very lucky to oversee the initiation of the project.”
Schmidt subsequently hired Foster as the Civic Forum’s first director. “We began to engage the community by asking questions about the challenges we face in building sustainability,” says Foster. “In community forums all over the county, we discussed everything from urban congestion to population growth along the Front Range. We defined several projects and priorities, including what is now the TRENDS report.”
Foster remembers early community concerns, some of which persist today. “People were concerned about poverty and the preservation of open space. But I don’t think any of us anticipated the increase in minority populations along the Front Range, and how to sustain diversity.”
Describing the TRENDS report as the “wonder accomplishment” of the Civic Forum, Foster says it generates dialogue about how to address emerging issues in ways that are measurable over time. “It’s a reliable resource that allows us to build on past knowledge and experience,” she says. “We’re in this together, and the TRENDS report helps point the way forward.”
Concludes Heath, “The Community Foundation embraced the work of the Civic Forum with the entrepreneurial mindset that’s pervasive in our community. In that same mindset, we continue to tackle the issues head-on.”
To access the 2015-2016 TRENDS report online, we invite you to visit our website on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
Join us Friday, Sept. 11, at the Longmont Public Library Meeting Room (409 Fourth Street, Longmont) for a presentation on the new TRENDS report, 9:30-11:30 a.m. Or, to schedule a presentation on TRENDS key findings, contact TRENDS Director Erika Stutzman at 303-442-0436, ext. 130, or Erika@commfound.org.
