Vital Signs – Our Community’s Annual Check-Up

. . . a catalyst for conversation . . . an opportunity to engage . . . .

Vital Signs is a community check-up that measures the health and vitality of Grande Prairie. While it celebrates our successes, it also tackles tough subjects, highlighting areas of real need in our city.

As a community foundation, it’s essential that if we are going to have a lasting impact today and into the future, we must dig deep to uncover the state of life in our community. Vital Signs helps us do this by providing us with an in-depth look at statistics and facts gathered from national and local sources.

Going one step further, however, Vital Signs seeks to uncover people’s perceptions about different issues. We know that perceptions can tell another part of the story and can very much play a role in our quality of life.

Vital Signs combines those perceptions with hard factual data to uncover the reality in our community.

A Link to Community Priorities

It is the role of the Community Foundation of Greater Grande Prairie to help define the needs that exist in our community, and better inform donors about issue areas and opportunities to make a difference. Vital Signs in a powerful tool that will help guide donors and improve our effectiveness as grant-makers.

The true value of Vital Signs is about making connections, generating discussion, building bridges and most of all taking action.

NEWS RELEASE, Grande Prairie May 4, 2011

Community Foundation Conducting Grande Prairie’s First Quality of Life Check Up

The Community Foundation of Greater Grande Prairie is conducting an innovative community “check up” – Vital Signs – aimed at measuring the vitality within the City of Grande Prairie and identifying significant trends in the community.

The Vital Signs report, to be released this October, is an assessment of Grande Prairie’s quality of life in Key Areas such as the economy, health, learning, housing, gap between rich and poor, and the environment. Grande Prairie joins at least 20 other Canadian communities participating in the national project.

“Grande Prairie's Vital Signs® gives our Foundation, our donors, and the community-at-large valuable insight into our city’s strengths and opportunities,” said Tracey Vavrek, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Greater Grande Prairie. “Vital Signs is essentially a blueprint of life in Grande Prairie that is intended to provide organizations and individuals with a focus to work together to improve the quality of life in our city.”

The reader-friendly Vital Signs report will consolidate research from many different sources, much of it local, to help make connections between issues and trends in areas critical to community well-being. Information for the report is gathered in cooperation with numerous organizations and experts that are researching and collecting data about Grande Prairie.

Support for the project also comes from partnerships with both the Province of Alberta (Community Initiatives Program) and the City of Grande Prairie, who have each provided funding to support Vital Signs. The Grande Prairie Regional College (GPRC) will also provide gift-in-kind support in the form of academic support and expertise in the area of research and data collection.

“I am pleased to hear that the community of Grande Prairie will be participating in this assessment,” said Honourable Mel Knight, Minister of Sustainable Resource Development and MLA for Grande Prairie-Smoky. “Grande Prairie will join a number of other Canadian communities taking part in the national initiative and will gain valuable feedback that will be useful in improving the quality of life for everyone in the area. With assistance from the province’s Community Initiatives Program and the City of Grande Prairie, funding will be provided to support the project. It is also wonderful that the Grande Prairie Regional College will be providing their academic support and expertise in the area of research and data collection. The Vital Signs report will be useful in helping plan for the future health and growth of the community.

”Said City of Grande Prairie Mayor Bill Given: “We are pleased to partner in this project as it complements perfectly the efforts the city is undertaking with our biannual Citizen Satisfaction Survey. The information will help local leaders develop long-term strategies to improve the quality of life in the community based on an understanding of the bigger picture.”

“Post-secondary education is a critical contributor to quality of life in a community,” said Susan Bansgrove, Vice-President Academics and Research at GPRC. “Our College is committed to creating connections to education, experience and community, and the Vital Signs project is a wonderful opportunity to do just that. We are pleased to provide our research expertise and resources in support of this initiative.

”Vavrek said that in its first year of undertaking the Vital Signs project, the Community Foundation felt it would be most effective and manageable to focus on the City of Grande Prairie. In upcoming years, the organization may look at expanding the project into the Peace Region to fit more into our Community Foundation’s reach.

Begun in Toronto in 2001, Vital Signs is now coordinated by the Community Foundations of Canada, working with participating Canadian communities to produce local reports reflecting the health of their own communities. Since expanding to the national scene in 2006, Vital Signs has become the platform for local action among a wide range of community leaders, including governments, not-for-profits, philanthropists, the private sector, and individual citizens.

“Vital Signs is a natural fit for community foundations because of our focus and expertise across the charitable sector,” said Vavrek. The insight we gain over the upcoming months will certainly help our organization, our annual grant program and our donors maximize our ability to achieve high impact and lasting change in our community.”

Visit the Vital Signs Canada website here for more information.