Beginning in the summer of 2005, a group of individuals and organizations involved in developing and using civic indicators gathered to consider the state of indicator field in Colorado and to explore ways to collaborate and fill in some of the gaps in available and actionable data.
At the core of this effort is the belief that in order to promote the civic health of communities, we must first be in agreement on what civic health is and how one knows that it is increasing or decreasing. Often times it is the very act of defining it as a community that is most important, but participants agreed that there is a need for some common tools and indicators that define civic health at various levels--from the neighborhood up to the state level. Based on these common indicators, communities can share data and common strategies for improving the level of civic health in their own communities.