Building Community
You are in the Building Community section of the Casey Foundation Knowledge Center, which offers resources that are either published or funded by the Casey Foundation.
See also Our Work: Community Change, an overview of the Casey Foundation's investment in this issue.
See all resources on Community Change in the Knowledge Center.
Featured Publications

Peer Networking and Community Change: Experiences of the Annie E. Casey Foundation
2008
Prepared by the Human Interaction Research Institute based on a two-year study supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this report describes 19 peer networking activities in which Casey was a promoter, a participant or both. The report focuses on how the activities support the Foundation's interests in community change and improving philanthropic practice. Results include both good practices and challenges of peer networking, and how these might be applied by Casey and other grantmakers.
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Understanding the State of Knowledge of Youth Engagement Financing and Sustainability
2008
Published by The Finance Project with funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this report provides critical research and analysis to build the knowledge base on the variety and effectiveness of existing youth engagement approaches and puts forth what is known about the costs, financing, and sustainability of these approaches. This report also profiles several youth engagement programs that have implemented a variety of strategies to finance and sustain their work.
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Summary of a Workshop on the American Community Survey
2011
This report describes a data user workshop, cohosted by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, held to discuss opportunities and challenges presented by the American Community Survey, and how the data user community can help the Census Bureau meet these challenges.
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Measuring Change While Changing Measures: Learning In, and From, the Evaluation of Making Connections
2011
The evaluation of Casey's Making Connections place-based initiative was complex and multidimensional, with many moving parts. This case study focuses on just one slice of the evaluation: measurement choices and challenges. It emphasizes three challenges that are particularly relevant to evaluations of community change initiatives.
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Next Generation Organizations: 9 Key Traits
2011
What does a next generation organization look like? CompassPoint Nonprofit Services has developed an organizational self-assessment and reflection tool that offers a list of characteristics. This paper draws on examples from two nonprofits to demonstrate how certain traits are made operational.
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Peer Networking and Place-based Initiatives
2010
This paper presents lessons learned from recent foundation and government peer networking and placebased initiatives, for use byThe California Endowment.
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Metropolitan Contexts for Community Initiatives: Contrasts in a Turbulent Decade
2010
The report updates earlier descriptions and analyses of conditions and trends for key social and economic indicators in the Making Connections and Casey Civic sites, and draws comparisons to trends in the 100 largest US metros. The updated report utilizes April 2010 data on employment, unemployment, and housing markets. It also provides population data current as of 2009 or 2008 (depending upon source).
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