Compass As a Resource
How will Compass be used?
There are numerous ways Compass data can be applied, many unforeseen. The steering committee's greatest hope is that Compass will be used as a springboard to launch whatever ideas people have to improve our community. With that said, possible uses of Compass include:
- Community Organizations and Service Providers can use Compass for a variety of reasons. For example, it's a quick research tool for grant writing. Agencies can also use Compass to post their outcome statistics, showing how they have helped impact a particular need-a report to the community, if you will. They can use it to help demonstrate need for their programs or to determine where the gaps are and collaborate with other similar agencies to fill such a gap. Compass can also help assess long-term program impacts by providing answers to such questions as: 'Does our program need to expand?' or 'Are we having an impact at the community level?' Overall, Compass can help agencies prioritize where they want to invest their time and efforts and eventually avoid duplicating services offered by other agencies.
- Funders, such as United Way and local foundations can use Compass to prioritize their spending. By having this objective source of information, funders can truly see which are the greatest community needs and fund accordingly. Then, a few years later, they can measure progress on a community-wide basis. To sum it up, Compass lets funders take a systemic approach to funding so their dollars can have a lasting impact.
- Local Government such as the County and cities can use Compass to develop policies and programs designed to impact priority areas, to prioritize internal funds, to justify the need for external dollars, and eventually, collaborate with other organizations to address key issues.
- Educators can use Compass to prioritize program funding. It can help administrators decide which curriculum is most needed by letting them keep an eye on vital measures like math and science scores, graduation rates, or even the physical health of students.
- Special interest groups, such as environmentalists and crime prevention groups can use Compass to track issues important to them over the long-term. The data can help them make decisions on what actions they want to take, such as forming a community initiative or developing a community education program.
- The community-at-large can use Compass to simply stay more informed on issues that matter to them. For example, a person could track air quality or the amount of open space preserved over time. Compass gives people a quick answer to questions about Larimer County, saving precious time rather than having to dig for information themselves.
- Anyone can use Compass to unite over particular issues. It could eventually be used to create a long-term, community-wide plan to improve the quality of life in Larimer County.
Compass is a community status report that is continually updated and expanded. It is free to anyone, but is maintained by the Larimer County Division of Health and Human Services and United Way of Larimer County.
Linking to Compass
You are encouraged to add a link to Compass on your website. You may want to add one of the following brief descriptions or tag lines so that users on your site have some idea what Compass is.
Compass presents statistics describing the quality of life in Larimer County, CO.
Compass, A living report on the well-being of our community
Compass, Pointing the way to a better Larimer County
What if You Needed to Know? [pdf], Press Packet
How to Reference Compass
People are encouraged to use the information provided in Compass. When this information is used in publications or proposals, we would appreciate an acknowledgement.
A simple acknowledgement could read:
This information was provided by Compass of Larimer County, a service of Larimer County Department of Health & Human Services and United Way of Larimer County. www.larimer.org/compass
If this is presented electronically, you may want to make the words Compass of Larimer County a link to the site and avoid printing the web address. If it is in print, please do print the web address.
Because Compass is intended for grant writers and researchers among others, it is likely that many users will need to reference the information gained from Compass in endnotes or a bibliography.
We recommend using American Psychological Association style for electronic references. The specific format you use will depend on the part of Compass you are referencing. Measure pages have dates, while the overall site does not. The reports listed in the Executive Summary have a particular author, while the measure pages do not. Larimer County hosts the Compass website and staff from Larimer County Division of Health & Human Services performs day-to-day management of the site (including writing the pages). This information may be helpful to you in citing Compass appropriately.