The Brandon Area Community Foundation launched their first Vital Signs report this past week to a roomful of stakeholders from across Westman.

The Wednesday noon meeting was held at the Keystone Centre where Bev Cumming and Brian Cottom shared statistics and stories about the benefits and accomplishments of the BACF, as well as the needs of the communities in Westman.

Bev Cumming steer-headed the initiative together with Laura Kempthorne, General Manager of the BACF. The goal of our community check-up report is to identify the granting needs in Brandon and the area we serve states Bev Cumming, past Chair of BACF and Chair of BACFs Vital Signs committee. We want to understand our communitys strengths and needs in order to work together and move forward.

Brian Cottom is the Director as well as the Secretary for the BACF. Cottom is also on the Investment Committee for the Foundation.

It is a compilation of information about our community in a number of different areas, says Cottom. Its helping us to figure out how healthy is the community. Are we doing good things? And, were using that information to help guide us as to how we grant money from the Foundation.

Theres always a need, he says, and what were trying to do is develop a process where we can direct money to areas where we think the greatest need or the greatest benefit it.

Historically, I think weve been doing it, explains Cottom, but more by good luck, than by good management. So, this will hopefully give us the tool to be a little bit more intentional with our granting and looking in areas that need help and in areas where if we come to the table, we might even be able to fix it.

So, its just a different way of doing our work.

Statistics shared in the Vital Signs report includes data on population, education & literacy, physical and mental health, housing, homelessness and poverty, sports and recreation and more. With the aid of the Brandon University Faculty of Health Studies and Student Research Unit, data was collected and compiled to measure several indicators of community needs and vitality in several areas.

Cottom says there was some unexpected data in the report that they didnt expect to see. The biggest thing that stood out is, we were thinking that with this information it was going to answer questions. What we very quickly found was its making us ask more questions.

So, while it doesnt answer all of what we were hoping it would answer, I think that now the questions that we are asking are better questions and getting us much better quality information about some of these areas that I dont think we were aware of before.

The BACF Board of Directors has members from a variety walks of life and skill sets that they bring to the table, and which they lean on to make informed decisions upon the awarding of grants. Cottom says this report has brought questions even to those with the expertise in specific areas.

Questions raised include the question of the overlapping of services when looking at the data on homelessness and poverty in the area. Cottom says the statistics raises the question as to how to enable social services to be better utilized and cost-efficient by bringing all the stakeholders into the same room. Were finding that there may be a duplication of efforts and we are now focusing on and asking the question, How can we help? And, when it comes to funding, who is the right party to support?

Or, is there an opportunity that if they work together and put their skill-sets together we can come to the table with some granting and can we achieve something that is more than what each of us would have achieved on our own.

From the podium Cottom shared how the BACF looks at impact investment when looking at granting applications. Later, he cited the example of how funding a local day-care in a small community has the impact investment that theyre looking for.

A small community with a good day-care facility has both people living and working in their own community and not leaving their community. So, we realized that a day-care is a key asset for a small community. So, if we could provide funding to help them get these facilities constructed, that was a very clear example of impact investment; our investment in that daycare was going to make a huge difference in that community.

These are the kinds of things that the Vital Signs report will help us with.

This community assessment report is based on the principles of Community Foundations of Canada and measures a number of indicators of community needs and vitality in several areas.

Vital Signsis a national program led by community foundations and coordinated by Community Foundations of Canada that leverages local knowledge to measure the vitality of our communities and support action towards improving our collective quality of life.

More than 65 communities in Canada and around the world are using Vital Signs to mobilize the power of community knowledge for greater local impact.

For your own copy of the Brandon Area Community Foundation Vital Signs report, visit the BACF office in Brandon.

See the rest here:

Taking the Pulse of the Community through 'Vital Signs' - DiscoverWestman.com