Communities lack comparable, current data on the conditions that shape well-being.

Local leaders, funders, and residents need reliable information about the conditions that influence community well‑being—such as safety, connection, opportunity, and trust. Yet publicly available data on these conditions are uneven, outdated, or not comparable across places, making it difficult to understand how communities are doing or where investment is most needed. 

To address this gap, the Knight Foundation engaged NORC to develop a rigorous, community‑informed framework for identifying the most meaningful indicators of well-being across the communities in which it invests. Grounded in NORC’s mission to generate data that serve the public interest, this work aims to give civic leaders, policymakers, journalists, and residents a credible, accessible resource for understanding local strengths and challenges. A pilot phase of eight communities in 2026 will lay the foundation for an authoritative, community-informed tool that elevates resident voices, strengthens civic decision‑making, and advances a more accurate, actionable understanding of community well-being.

NORC is developing a community‑informed measurement framework through mixed methods, advisory engagement, and pilot testing.

NORC is collaborating with the Knight Foundation to design and test a framework that defines and measures community well-being using both public and primary data. A central component of this approach is deep engagement with community leaders, Knight program staff, and national subject‑matter experts.

To overcome challenges posed by uneven local data availability, NORC is evaluating a curated set of indicators, determining where primary data collection is needed, and applying advanced analytic techniques to generate reliable, comparable measures across communities. In eight pilot cities, NORC is working with local leaders to design and field community‑driven surveys, so that resident voices shape the data and the resulting measures.

This participatory process—combined with NORC’s methodological expertise—ensures that the pilot framework is statistically robust and grounded in local realities, creating a scalable model for future expansion.