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NNIP PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
Community Research Institute Institutional Setting The Community Research Institute (CRI) at Grand Valley State University is a partnership of the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation (GRCF). CRI's mission is to assist nonprofit organizations with the acquisition of information and technical skills that will help them understand the evolving needs of the community, document these needs for grant applications, and measure the success of programs in West Michigan. In the 1990's Dr. Donna Van Iwaarden, faculty member at the School of Public and Nonprofit Administration (SPNA) at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) produced a document that summarized data about the Greater Grand Rapids area under the name "Community Data Initiative" (CDI). In 2001, with funding from the GRCF, Dr. Van Iwaarden and a newly appointed CRI Research Fellow and SPNA faculty member - Dr. Mark Hoffman, began evolving the CDI into an organization called CRI creating what she dubbed a "data - sharehouse." Since then, CRI has been building its capacity to support the data - sharehouse concept, or Community Information Systems (CIS) by acquiring key data sets including census, housing, crime, voting, vital records, and public assistance information to help support the work of nonprofit organizations. Today, CRI areas of work include: Program Evaluation Services: Evaluation services assist organizations in assessing program effectiveness. Specifically: Developing an evaluation design and measures to determine whether a program in having its intended impact Designing data collection forms and procedures, and databases to capture and record data collected Analyzing data and presenting results and conclusions from the findings A Community Information System: CRI is committed to building a growing "data-sharehouse" for neighborhoods and the region. Specifically, Creating partnerships with community organizations to monitor changing local and regional social conditions Disseminating information and reports through its website, always with consideration for privacy of individuals and households Documenting information about data to increase community awareness on local, state, and federal sources of information and ways in which it can be used University resource: CRI also provides opportunities for Grand Valley's faculty, staff and students. Specifically: Promoting the use of CRI services and tools among university research staff and faculty for research purposes Providing internships to students from public administration, criminal justice, social work, geography, and information science that focus on how to document and analyze a variety of data sets and apply different technologies for community analysis
PARTNER BIOGRAPHIES: Mary B. McDonald, PhD, is the Director of the Community Research Institute at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership. In that capacity she works with the acquisition of community data and, with her colleagues both analyzes and disseminates that information for the purpose of community planning, programming and accountability. Dr. McDonald is regularly involved with both community-based and university based research in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. Mary's research specialty is community organizations, capacity-building and social capital. She has conducted research in these areas through University Outreach Partnerships at Michigan State University and the "Families and Communities Together" at MSU. Mary received her Ph.D. from MSU in Family and Child Ecology in 2002. Gustavo Rotondaro, MUPDD, is the Associate Director of the Community Research Institute at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership. In that capacity, he is responsible for data partnerships and management of the CIS data content. He also coordinates the development of interactive tools for community analysis and data dissemination. Gustavo received his Masters of Urban Planning Design and Development (MUPDD) from the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University and Geographic Information Systems certifications in MapInfo and ESRI products. He had worked for the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization in Cleveland and the Northern Ohio Data and Information Services at the Urban Center at Cleveland State University.
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