NIST Special Publication 1190GB-2

Guide Brief 2 –

Identify Social Institutions

This publication is available free of charge from: 

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1190GB-2
NIST Special Publication 1190GB-2 

Guide Brief 2 

Identify Social Institutions

This publication is available free of charge from: 

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1190GB-2

September 2016 

U.S. Department of Commerce 

Penny Pritzker, Secretary

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

Willie May, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director 
Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this

document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately.

Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the

National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that the

entities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose.

National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 1190GB-2 Natl. 

Inst. Stand. Technol. Spec. Publ. 1190GB-2, 5 pages (September 2016) 

CODEN: NSPUE2

This publication is available free of charge from: 

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1190GB-2
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Guide Brief 2 – Identify Social Institutions

Purpose and Scope

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This publication is available free

of charge from: http://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1190GB-2

Guide Brief 2 – Identify Social Institutions

Applicable Section(s) of Guide:

Volume 1, Section 3.1, Identify Social Institutions, p. 33

Volume 2, Section 10.1, Introduction, p. 10

Guide Briefs supplement the Community Resilience Planning Guide 

for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems (NIST SP1190) 

Purpose and Scope

This Guide Brief provides additional 

rationale and guidance regarding Step 2 in 

the Guide—“Understand the Situation” —for 

how to “Identify Social Institutions.” The 

primary intended audience is the social 

dimensions task group of the collaborative 

planning team. The data can be used in 

discussions with representatives of local 

organizations, as well as working with local 

experts on community databases and 

Geographic Information Systems (GIS). 

Section 1 offers a short overview of why this 

activity is valuable to resilience planning and summarizes the types of social institutions and their key 

functions in a community. Sections 2 and 3 describe the basic activities associated with a community 

effort to identify its social institutions. They offer ideas on how a community might carry out this part of 

the process, with suggestions for types of expertise and where to find such expertise in local or regional 

departments, agencies, or organizations. Finally, Section 3 highlights ways in which dependencies among 

a community’s population and the organizations within social institutions might be considered in the 

context of the built environment.

1. Why does a community need to identify its social institutions?

Part of Step 2 in the Guide is to develop an understanding of how a community’s social institutions meet 

or contribute to basic individual, household, and overall needs. This is critical for resilience planning, 

because it involves recognizing the community’s capacities (strengths), vulnerabilities, and dependencies 

among organizations associated with the following institutions: 1) family and kinship; 2) economy (i.e., 

business and commerce); 3) government; 4) health; 5) education; 6) community service organizations

(CSOs); 7) religious, cultural, and other organizations that support belief systems; and 8) media. (See 

inset below, as well as Chapter 10 of the Guide.) For example, it is important to understand the roles that 

CSOs play in supporting the local population on a day-to-day basis to identify how the services they 

provide might be disrupted during and after a hazard event and to consider the potential for such 

disruptions to negatively affect the local population. It is also beneficial to recognize how communities 

access the capabilities their local CSOs provide during response and recovery. Perhaps more importantly, 
Guide Brief 2 – Identify Social Institutions

Why does a community need to identify its social institutions?

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the social dimensions task group should explore how these organizations can become key players in 

resilience planning, as well as how their capacity can be developed to promote resilience by addressing 

underlying social vulnerabilities in the community. Similarly, communities should consider how damage 

to the built environment might affect its other institutions and organizations (e.g., the economy, 

government functions, and education).

Summary of Social Institutions and their Key Functions1

The family unit is typically defined as “a relationship between two or more people who are related by birth, 

marriage, or adoption.” Increasingly, the definition of family has broadened to include extended family members 

(e.g., grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins), or even long-time friends, friends of family, or other individuals who are 

not related by blood or marriage. The family and kinship institution facilitates learning about the world and the 

importance of love, care, and a sense of belonging. (See Section 10.4.1 of the Guide)

Economic institutions facilitate allocation of scarce resources across a society. Producers and suppliers combine 

factors of production (e.g., land, labor, capital) to create goods and services that meet the needs and desires of 

consumers. Availability of production factors, along with the demand of consumers, determines the final mix of 

goods and services produced, supplied, and consumed. (See Section 10.4.2 of the Guide.)

The government provides laws, regulations, and services to protect life and property, preserve peace and well-being,

strengthen group identity and norms, and define social and economic goals for the future. Local governments, which 

are the focus of the Guide, are made up of general and specific purpose entities, and vary in terms of autonomy. 

Some communities have complete autonomy to adopt codes and develop statutes, while others are restricted by state 

regulations. General-purpose entities include county, municipal, and township governments. (See Section 10.4.3 of 

the Guide.)

Health care institutions are comprised of two levels or units. Public health focuses on health at the community level,

whereas health care services typically treat individuals and families within a community. The public health system 

supplies many essential services, including: monitoring health status of a community, informing and educating 

individuals on health risks and protective behaviors, developing policies and plans to promote healthier 

communities, enforcing laws and regulations, fostering community partnerships, evaluating current health services, 

and conducting research. At the individual or family level, health care services promote, monitor, maintain, and 

restore health. Types of care delivered by health care providers within a community include preventative, primary, 

specialized, chronic or long-term, sub-acute, acute, rehabilitative, end-of-life, mental or behavioral health, and home 

health. (See Section 10.4.4 of the Guide.)

Education is the primary social institution dedicated to transferring knowledge, skills, and values from one 

individual or group to another. Formal education—in public, private, or home school settings—can begin in nursery 

school and continue through higher education in colleges and universities. Knowledge, skills, and values transfer in 

other ways within the education institution, including adult education (or continuing education), special education, 

and informal education. (See Section 10.4.5 of the Guide.)

Community Service Organizations (CSOs) are non-profit and non-governmental entities of varying sizes and 

missions that provide services to individuals around the U.S. These organizations tend to operate at a local level, 

often relying on volunteers to support minimal full-time staff. CSOs may assist individuals in meeting basic needs, 

such as shelter, food, and clothing, as well as providing emotional and mental health support. They may also 

enhance the overall quality of life in a community by engaging in work related to neighborhood revitalization, 

affordable housing, food security, accessible transportation, senior citizens associations, community sustainability, 

humanitarian response, medical relief funds, after school programs, youth homes and centers, skill building and 

education, and civic engagement. (See Section 10.4.6 of the Guide.)

Religious and cultural organizations, as well as other groups that support various belief systems, are important to 

society. Generally, organizations in this type of institution foster a sense of solidarity and common purpose. They 

also facilitate social cohesion, emotional support, and social control, and serve as an instrument for socialization.

(See Section 10.4.7 of the Guide.)

Media refers to the channels of communication, including newspaper, magazines, television, and internet reporting,

that disseminate information to large markets (e.g., the entire population of a country) and smaller markets (e.g., a 

community or specific demographic within a larger population). (See Section 10.4.8 of the Guide.)

 1 Each institution is discussed in more detail in Volume 2, Chapter 10 of the Guide.
Guide Brief 2 – Identify Social Institutions

What needs to be done to identify the social institutions in a community?

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2. What needs to be done to identify the social institutions in a community?

Example Questions: 

• What citizen groups and neighborhood organizations can help the planning team understand the various family 

and kinship dynamics in the community? Where are they located?

• What key business and financial institutions serve the community? Where are they located (within the 

community and in the broader region)?

• What/Who are the local government entities (e.g., county, municipal, and township), essential personnel 

(leadership and staff), and facilities (including communications) in the community? Where are these facilities 

and personnel located?

• What is the community's capacity with respect to providing health-related services? Where are these facilities 

and personnel located?

• What/who are the key education entities (public, private, and home school, as well as formal and informal), 

personnel (leadership and staff), and facilities (including communications) in the community? What are their 

capacities? Where are these facilities and personnel located?

• What/Who are the key service organizations and personnel (leadership, staff, and volunteers) in the community? 

What are their capacities? Where are these facilities and personnel located?

• What/Who are the key religious/cultural organizations and personnel (leadership, staff, and volunteers) in the 

community? What are their capacities? Where are these facilities and personnel located?

• What are the key media outlets that serve the community (both within the community and in the broader 

region)? Where are they located?

Obtaining answers to these broad questions—for at least the key organizations in the community—should 

further orient discussion among the collaborative planning team, as well as highlight additional 

organizations and individuals who might be included in resilience planning.

To identify social institutions in a community, the collaborative planning team may ask the social 

dimensions task group to facilitate development of an inventory of social institutions. At a minimum, this 

inventory should include the names, contact information, and locations of key organizations within the 

community. Depending on the institution, additional useful information includes the types of services 

provided, numbers and types of populations served, and other details that can help identify capacities, 

vulnerabilities, and potential gaps in the system on a daily basis and in the event of a disaster. This 

process might result in a single database for each of the eight social institutions or, possibly, a different 

database for each type of institution. 

Specific approaches to identifying social institutions should be determined at the community level. This 

part of the process will be most effective if the social dimensions task group works closely with local 

representatives from each of the eight types of institutions who have a working knowledge of the 

community. Reaching out to local and regional entities, such as city or county planning departments, is 

also advised. As with characterizing the population (GB 8), the task group may consider collaborating 

with area institutions that likely have a vested interest in supporting community resilience activities, such 

as research centers, chambers of commerce, consulting firms, institutes of higher learning (e.g., 

departments of business, economics, geography, planning, political science, public administration, and 

sociology in universities and community colleges), and other organizations. These groups are most likely 

to be in a position to help identify sources of information and data that can contribute to the resilience 

planning process. They may also have access to GIS data to inform decisions about planning for 

resilience. 
Guide Brief 2 – Identify Social Institutions

Next Steps

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A basic inventory can serve as a starting point to facilitate 

understanding of the organizational capacities and vulnerabilities in the 

community (see text box).

The task group should remember that the information needed to identify 

the social institutions and associated organizations may be available, 

although possibly not in a format that is useful or user-friendly. The 

information may not be available and, through this process, gaps in the 

necessary data may be revealed (e.g., perhaps there is not a complete, 

up-to-date list of community service organizations) so the information 

can be collected and added to the inventory. Again, it is beneficial to 

draw upon local or regional expertise to assist in identifying data 

resources and the information needed to advise the collaborative 

planning team. 

3. Next Steps

Once the inventory of social institutions is complete, the task group should have the necessary 

information to work with the collaborative planning team as a whole to identify dependencies between 

community organizations and the local populations served by these organizations. GIS data can be used to 

map organizations (e.g., the types of services they provide and their locations) with demographic 

information about the local community (see Guide Brief 8—Characterize the Population) to visually 

represent connections between the social dimensions in the community. 

Next, the data about the population and the social institutions should be mapped with information about 

the built environment (Figure 1). This will help show locations where social vulnerabilities intersect with 

different aspects of the built environment (e.g., where low income populations live relative to the services 

they need, such as health care, government assistance, and transportation to access these services). Access 

to technical expertise with GIS and mapping of this information will be helpful to engage in this activity.

Combined, these data can be used by the social dimensions task group and by the collaborative planning 

team at large to discuss present and future (projected) needs for the social and built environments. 

Types of information that might 

be included in the inventory of 

organizations:

• Name of organization

• Primary point(s) of contact

• Telephone

• E-mail

• Mailing address

• Physical location (latitude 

and longitude)

• Types of services provided

• Types of populations served

• Types of facilities occupied

• Where employees live
Guide Brief 2 – Identify Social Institutions

References

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This publication is available free

of charge from: http://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1190GB-2

Many different types of data can be integrated into GIS maps, including parcels, land use zoning, topographical 

features, wetlands, demographic distribution, land use/land cover, buildings, infrastructure systems (e.g., 

transportation, water and wastewater, communications), and others. By adding detailed information about 

specific community organizations (e.g., the types of services they provide and their locations) to the maps, the 

planning team can consider local capacities to be incorporated in the resilience planning process. This type of 

visualization will also reveal dependencies and vulnerabilities of these organizations to damage of the built 

environment in the event of a hazard event.

Figure 1. Example of layers in a Geographic Information System [Adapted and redrawn, Ontario 

County New York 2016]

4. References

Ontario County New York. GIS Program Background. Ontario County New York, 

http://www.co.ontario.ny.us/index.aspx?NID=1176. Viewed August 16, 2016. 
This publication is available free of charge from:

http://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1190GB-2