Resources for Community Change Leaders

Leaders with expertise in specific skills contribute to improvements in the health of communities. Explore this link to learn more about how to plan, implement, and evaluate community health improvement initiatives.

Building evaluation into program design

Choose Your Tools and Methods Wisely in Evaluation (IDEO Innovation in Evaluation Series. 2009)
Coalition Assessment Survey : A rating sheet that assesses how coalitions are performing in the areas of: membership, group process, internal and external communication, mission, evaluation, and achieving goals. From the King County Department of Community and Human Services, Community Service Division, Community Organizing Program (King County Community Organizing Program and Developmental Research & Programs)
Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential (Taylor-Powell E, Rossing B, Geran J. University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension, 1998)
Evaluating System Change: A Planning Guide (Hargreaves MB. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. April 2010)
Evaluating Systems Change (IDEO Innovation in Evaluation Series. 2009)
Evaluating your coalitions (Institute for Sustainable Communities)
Fact and Fiction (and How to Tell the Difference) in Data Visualization (IDEO Innovation in Evaluation Series. 2009)
Healthy Youth Coalition Evaluation : from the national community anti-drug coalition institute, a list of more than 25 downloadable coalition assessment tools (Alliance for Youth, Healthy Youth Coalition, Santa Clara, CA)
How Might We Measure in the Appropriate Timeframe? (IDEO Innovation in Evaluation Series. 2009)
How Might We Use the Right Tools and Methods for the Task? (IDEO Innovation in Evaluation Series. 2009)
How Might We Zoom Out to Evaluating With a Systemic View? (IDEO Innovation in Evaluation Series. 2009)
In the Nonprofit World, Numbers Don’t Tell the Whole Story (IDEO Innovation in Evaluation Series. 2009)
Introduction to Program Evaluation for Public Health Programs: A Self-Study Guide : U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Office of the Director, Office of Strategy and Innovation (Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005)
Planning a Program Evaluation (Taylor-Powell E, Steele S, Douglah M. University of Wisconsin Extension, Cooperative Extension, Program Planning and Evaluation, February 1996)
Western Michigan University. The Evaluation Center

Design Thinking

Design thinking (Brown T. Harvard Business Review. June 2008)

Media Advocacy

Communicating Public Health Information Effectively: A Guide for Practitioners : Chapter 6 (Nelson DE, Brownson RC, Remington PL, Parvanta C. Washington DC: American Public Health Association; 2002)
Community Media Workshop (Chicago)

Methods used to achieve public health goals

Cochrane Public Health Group
Evidence Based Public Health (Brownson, Ross C., Baker, Elizabeth A., Leet, Terry L., and Gillespie, Kathleen N, Editors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)
Frameworks & Modules for Building Healthier Communities (KU Work Group)
Guide to Community Preventive Services : a website hosted by the CDC that has evidence-based recommendations for programs and policies to promote population health
Theory at a Glance: A Guide for Health Promotion Practice (2nd Edition) (Glanz, K., Rimer, B. National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH Pub. No. 05-3896. Washington, DC: NIH, September 2005)
UW School of Medicine and Public Health Ebling Library : links to additional resources on evidence-based public health

Organizing for social change

The Midwest Academy

Policy Advocacy

The Institute for Sustainable Communities : an organization with a mission of helping ordinary people influence the key institutions and decisions that shape their lives and a deep-seated belief that societies thrive only when their nonprofit sectors are strong and autonomous. The Institute for Sustainable Communities has a number of resources for you to consider when you are planning a policy intervention. Handout summarizing the 9 Questions.
The Institute for Sustainable Communities : Handout summarizing the 9 Questions

Public Health Policy

KaiserEDU.org : designed to provide students, faculty and others interested in learning about health policy easy access to the latest data, research, analysis, and developments in health policy. This site includes narrated slide tutorials, background reference libraries, and issue modules on current topics and policy debates.
Legislative Toolkit: Tools to Build Effective Relationships with Policy Makers (Wisconsin Public Health Association. June 2001)
The Health Policy Guide : a database of policy-based strategies to improve the health and well being of our communities. The Health Policy Guide was put together by the Center for Health Improvement in California. Their aim is to improve the public's health by providing effective strategies and interventions designed to reduce the incidence of preventable illnesses, injuries and deaths.

Social Ecological Model

System, environmental, and policy changes : Using the social-ecological model as a framework for evaluating nutrition education and social marketing programs with low-income audiences (Gregson, J., Foerster, S. B., Orr, R., Jones, L., Benedict, J., & Clarke, B. et al. Journal of Nutrition Education, 33(Suppl 1), S4-15. 2001)
Theory at a Glance: A Guide for Health Promotion Practice (2nd Edition) (Glanz, K., Rimer, B. National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH Pub. No. 05-3896. Washington, DC: NIH, September 2005. Pages 10-12)

Social Marketing

Basics of Social Marketing. How to Use Marketing to Change Behavior (Turning Point)
Carrots, sticks and promises : A conceptual framework for the management of public health and social issue behaviors (Rothschild ML. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 63, No. 4. (Oct., 1999), pp. 24-37)
Lessons from the Field. A Guide to Social Marketing : Social Marketing and Public Health (Turning Point)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention : a useful collection of social marketing resources, including associations and organizations, case studies in social marketing, conferences and professional education, social marketing journals, and websites and online courses
What is Health Marketing? : a website maintained by the CDC with information about health marketing and how to effectively use communication in public health
Wisconsin social marketing case study : Wisconsin changes intervention target based on formative research results

Sustaining the effort

Ensuring Success for the Long Run (Institute for Sustainable Communities. Accessed September 27, 2010)
The Donors Forum of Wisconsin : a professional membership association for grantmakers in Wisconsin. For over 25 years, the Donors Forum has been Wisconsin's resource for philanthropy. Their resources include the Common Grant Application form, which is used or accepted by many Wisconsin foundations.
The Foundation Center : the nation's leading authority on philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants.

Systems Thinking

Improving Health in the Community: A Role for Performance Monitoring. (IOM. Committee on Using Performance Monitoring to Improve Community Health. Washington DC: National Academy Press; 1997. Chapter 2 and pages 95-96)
Medicine and Public Health: The Power of Collaboration (Lasker R. New York Academy of Medicine. 1997)
Systemic Intervention for Public Health (Midgley, G. American Journal of Public Health. March 2006, vol 96 no 3, pages 466-472)
Systems Thinking and Modeling for Public Health Practice (Leischow, S., Milstein, B. American Journal of Public Health March 2006, vol 96 no 3, pages 403-405)