Catalyst for Community Vitality
It’s essential that every nonprofit organization have something akin to a “theory of change.” After all, we are all held in the public trust and granted special privileges and tax breaks because we are doing something for the public good somewhere.
At Craigslist Foundation, for example, we believe that engaged communities and neighborhoods are the cornerstone of our society — that where we actually live, work, and play on a daily basis has significant influence on our well being as a people and a culture. We also believe that attention to local communities, and the public good at this level, has been overshadowed in recent decades by increased focus on communities of interest, geographic mobility, and globalization.
Our theory of change is that place-based communities and neighborhoods must be strengthened if our society is to flourish and our democracy advance — and that Craigslist Foundation can play a catalytic role in assembling the talents of key partners and collaborators capable of offering people in communities the tools and resources they need to take greater responsibility for where they live, work, and play. This translates into a role for us in convening successful organizations and people across all sectors — nonprofit, government, business, philanthropy — to work intentionally and together toward building stronger local communities and economies.
It also translates into the creation of programs, services, and internet applications that can develop community leadership and stewardship capacities, give broad access to success stories and promising practices from one locale to another, offer people ways to articulate priorities and aspirations for their communities on a regular basis, establish simple ways to measure the impact of individual and organizational contributions to community building and progress, and provide opportunities for community journalism to fulfill its potential to lift up the assets, stories, and narratives on a hyper local basis.
The staff and board of Craigslist Foundation, along with our partners and collaborators, believe we see a significant fulcrum for change in our society — engaged communities and neighborhoods — and we have offered possible ways we can be involved in strengthening the places where we live, work, and play. We are now eager to have input to our thinking, and to be stretched with additional ideas, recommendations, support, and constructive criticism. Ultimately, it will take a vast and inclusive community of community builders to bring new health and vitality to one of our longest lived institutions — our local communities — and we invite you to tell us how you’d like to participate.
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