Communities can relate their projects to the various outcomes and pick a single measure of that outcome from the menu or design their own measure. To date, a number of communities and multicommunity groups, such as Resource Conservation and Development Councils, have found the menus serve a basis to create their own measures to gather over time. Nonprofits and agencies can then aggregate the data from each community by outcomes to report multi-area impacts over time. The principal purpose, however, remains to provide a way for local communities to measure progress toward local goals. A vital community has the capacity to use, sustain and renew the resources and skills it needs to thrive over time-and to become the kind of community its residents want it to become.
Measurement gives feedback to make communities more effective.