What is the impact of our projects and program?   How do we tie our projects to the things we are interested in measuring?

Click here for the NW RSDP Sustainability Work Groups current list of Indicators.

Minnesota Milestones provides these reasons to measure results

• What gets measured tends to get done.
• If you don?t measure results, you can?t tell success from failure.
• If you can?t recognize success, you can?t reward it or repeat it.
• If you can?t recognize failure, you can?t learn from it.
  

From Sustainable Measures...

What makes an indicator a good sustainability indicator? What sources of data exist for a particular indicator? How are indicators actually being used? What do indicators say about a community's well-being? These are all questions of concern to anyone involved in community indicator work.

 
There are no perfect sustainability indicators, but there are indicators that address the critical issues of community sustainability. These indicators help us understand and measure progress better than traditional indicators The sustainable community indicator checklist from Sustainable Measures consists of the following 14 questions including these 8 items. 

1. Does the indicator provide a long-term view of the community?
2. Does the indicator address the issue of economic, social or biological diversity in the community?
3. Does the question address the issue of equity or fairness -- either between current community residents (intra-generational equity) or between current and future residents (inter-generational equity)?
4. Is the indicator understandable to and useable by its intended audience?
5. Does the indicator measure a link between economy and environment?
6. Does the indicator measure a link between environment and society?
7. Does the indicator measure a link between society and economy?
8. Does the indicator measure sustainability that is at the expense of another community or at the expense of global sustainability?