Community Foundation set to explore quality of life in Northern Ireland

A team of researchers from the Community Foundation’s Vital Signs project will hit the streets of all eleven council areas over the coming weeks and months with research findings due to be released in October 2016.

Vital Signs research, which is carried out by more than 70 Community Foundations in a host of countries throughout the world, including over 20 regions in the UK, will help the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland act on priorities, guide philanthropy and target its funds to where they are most needed locally.

The research will see people across Northern Ireland being asked to grade the areas they live in when it comes to issues such as; health and well-being, education, the environment, civic engagement, poverty, community safety, arts & culture, the economy, work and housing.

Through Vital signs, the Community Foundation will highlight the issues and geographical inequalities that exist across the region and will also celebrate Northern Ireland’s successes.

Speaking about Vital Signs, Community Foundation Chief Executive Andrew McCracken said: “This survey is really a health-check on key local issues. It’s crucial that we have a strong evidence base to guide our work and using existing statistics from a variety of sources, combined with our extensive community engagement, we want to directly discover what issues concern people and what their aspirations are for their communities.

“To get a picture of how we are living today, we plan to explore people’s opinions on the whole range of issues that affect everyday life, we’ll look at things like; quality of work and wages, levels of youth unemployment, housing affordability and availability, new business opportunities, access to services, as well as things like whether people feel they have access to recreation and arts & culture to name a few. We also want to know what people are proudest of in their areas and over what issues they would like to see the greatest change.”

Andrew continued: “The answers provided in this survey will help us to identify trends which will guide our work, enabling us to be more strategic in terms of where funds go. We will use the information to help communities come together to act on priorities and opportunities and the findings will also help us to provide donors and philanthropists with up-to-date information about community need, guiding their giving for maximum impact.”

“In the meantime, to help kick off the research and to find out more about Vital Signs please go to www.vitalsignsni.org to take part in a short on-line survey. We hope people will want to start a conversation with us about how we can work together to address some our region’s most critical issues and we’d love to hear from anyone who would be keen for us to visit their areas,” said Andrew.

Keep up to date with the latest Vital Signs news via Facebook: Community Foundation for Northern Ireland and twitter: @CFNIreland