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Resident surveys carried out by NeighborWorks Pocatello in its Old Town neighborhood successfully strengthened the organization’s community engagement efforts and created an effective platform for marketing the neighborhood to new and prospective homeowners.
From spacious public parks to a thriving business community to charming streetscapes, the Old Town community in Pocatello, ID, has something to offer everyone. At least that is what housing experts and city officials thought, but something was missing: the residents’ point of view. What did they think?
“Old Town is known as the heart of Pocatello, a place where residents are generally happy,” says Mark Dahlquist, NeighborWorks Pocatello executive director. “But we wanted to make sure we were listening to our residents and giving them a voice, particularly as we were planning new housing developments.”
NeighborWorks Pocatello has led place-based neighborhood housing and revitalization initiatives for more than 20 years in the city's central neighborhoods. In 2013, as part of an effort to help network members measure the impact of their efforts, the Pocatello organization used a NeighborWorks tool called Success Measures to help them formalize a process for measuring resident satisfaction and overall success in the community.
Armed with a quality-of-life survey, trained members of NeighborWorks Pocatello’s board of directors, volunteer committees and the Old Town Neighborhood
Association went door to door to collect resident viewpoints.
“We were happily surprised by the results,” says Dahlquist. “Eighty-five percent of residents said they were satisfied with the neighborhood and they would recommend it to others.”
The survey was more than just data collection for NeighborWorks Pocatello. It created an opportunity for the board and staff members to get out into the community and speak with residents about issues important to them, and also helped reinvigorate the organization’s relationship with the city. In turn, the experience helped residents learn more about NeighborWorks Pocatello and the many ways in which the organization can serve as a resource.
The organization also used the data to leverage a NeighborWorks America neighborhood marketing grant to promote the Old Town district. The marketing campaign has become a successful program, with more than 15 people serving on the steering committee--many of whom are community residents. NeighborWorks Pocatello will conduct a second round of data collection in the summer or next year to compare against the baseline results.
Now the community that is known as the heart of the city also has a resident-focused point of view and NeighborWorks Pocatello has a solid foundation for its housing development and revitalization work.
From spacious public parks to a thriving business community to charming streetscapes, the Old Town community in Pocatello, ID, has something to offer everyone. At least that is what housing experts and city officials thought, but something was missing: the residents’ point of view. What did they think?
“Old Town is known as the heart of Pocatello, a place where residents are generally happy,” says Mark Dahlquist, NeighborWorks Pocatello executive director. “But we wanted to make sure we were listening to our residents and giving them a voice, particularly as we were planning new housing developments.”
NeighborWorks Pocatello has led place-based neighborhood housing and revitalization initiatives for more than 20 years in the city's central neighborhoods. In 2013, as part of an effort to help network members measure the impact of their efforts, the Pocatello organization used a NeighborWorks tool called Success Measures to help them formalize a process for measuring resident satisfaction and overall success in the community.
Armed with a quality-of-life survey, trained members of NeighborWorks Pocatello’s board of directors, volunteer committees and the Old Town Neighborhood
Association went door to door to collect resident viewpoints.
“We were happily surprised by the results,” says Dahlquist. “Eighty-five percent of residents said they were satisfied with the neighborhood and they would recommend it to others.”
The survey was more than just data collection for NeighborWorks Pocatello. It created an opportunity for the board and staff members to get out into the community and speak with residents about issues important to them, and also helped reinvigorate the organization’s relationship with the city. In turn, the experience helped residents learn more about NeighborWorks Pocatello and the many ways in which the organization can serve as a resource.
The organization also used the data to leverage a NeighborWorks America neighborhood marketing grant to promote the Old Town district. The marketing campaign has become a successful program, with more than 15 people serving on the steering committee--many of whom are community residents. NeighborWorks Pocatello will conduct a second round of data collection in the summer or next year to compare against the baseline results.
Now the community that is known as the heart of the city also has a resident-focused point of view and NeighborWorks Pocatello has a solid foundation for its housing development and revitalization work.
