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NNIP PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
The United Way Community Service Council The Council of Social Agencies was founded in 1923 "as a means of advising together and planning the social work of the city so that the work of each organization will supplement the work of all other organizations". The agency changed its name to become the Health and Welfare Council and then the Community Service Council (CSC) in 1961. In 1978, CSC merged with the United Way of Greater Indianapolis, later called the United Way of Central Indiana. Over the years, the organization has expanded its original focus on service coordination to include research, planning and advocacy. CSC provides data, technical expertise, issue analysis, program evaluation, funds allocations, and public policy advocacy training for volunteers to become community leaders.
CSC operates through a structure of committees called Impact Councils. There are six impact councils pertaining to the areas of basic needs, self-sufficiency and workforce development, children and youth, violence and safety, neighborhood development, and health and well-being. A similar committee operates outside of United Way proper, in collaboration with the City of Indianapolis and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, focused on strengthening families issues. CSC attempts to find solutions in all of these areas by serving as the primary convener of volunteers, health and human services providers, service recipients, and business and community partners.
The Polis Center The Polis Center, at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, is an academic research center within the IU School of Liberal Arts. The Greek word polis means city, and accordingly Polis concentrates on issues related to metropolitan Indianapolis and other mid-sized American cities. Polis is multidisciplinary, community-oriented, entrepreneurial, and creative in its approach to problem solving. Polis' strengths are in community-based research and analysis and in advanced information technologies, especially geographic information systems (GIS). Working in partnership with other organizations, Polis addresses issues of mutual concern, and with its network of relationships, strives to bring together disparate groups and interests to find common ground.
The Center's purpose is to build understanding of community issues from a variety of perspectives. With a preference for working collaboratively, The Center often serves as the managing partner for gathering and analyzing information, and making it available in a useful and understandable form. Polis aims to help others create a vision of common good and to realize this vision through the use of practical tools and methods. Polis has experience in community development, religion, government, social services, information management, arts and culture, and other areas. The Polis Center has a dedicated staff of 35 full-time employees and working relationships with many other talented and accomplished people, in Indianapolis and across the country. The Polis Center staff has particular experience in managing large complex projects involving a number of participating organizations, and in gathering, organizing and analyzing data collected from multiple sources. Social Assets and Vulnerabilities Indicators (SAVI) As the name implies, SAVI is an electronic database that includes data on community assets such as schools, churches and community centers, as well as information on community vulnerabilities such as crime, safety, poverty and health. SAVI, launched in 1993, is a joint database project of the United Way/Community Service Council of Central Indiana and the Polis Center. Building on the strengths of both organizations, the United Way/CSC handles SAVI training and community outreach, while Polis provides research assistance and collects, analyzes and maps the data. SAVI's mapped and tabular data covers the Indianapolis metropolitan area. SAVI is intended to help human service agencies, governments, community organizations, and individuals conduct research, as well as engage in planning, community development and policy making.
Polis and United Way/CSC are committed to making this valuable information on central Indiana available to many users. SAVI is available free of cost in many public libraries in Central Indiana, and enhanced access sites are also available for a fee. In recent years, Polis and United Way/CSC have made great strides in improving access to SAVI through interactive mapping and data delivery over the web.
PARTNER BIOGRAPHIES: Sharon Kandris, a GIS Project Manager, has more than ten years of experience with GIS applications, analysis, and consulting. She manages several large community information systems covering several disciplines and applies GIS science to improve analysis and decision-making by local governmental and not-for-profit agencies. Amongst the projects that Kandris manages is the Social Assets and Vulnerabilities Indicators (SAVI) Project, a GIS-based community information system for Indianapolis designed to help human service planners and community-based organizations gain a better understanding of their communities and improve their decision-making. She also manages other GIS projects aimed at scholarly audiences and regularly teams with medical researchers to apply GIS to community-based health projects. Prior to joining The Polis Center, Kandris was a GIS Analyst with the City of Concord, North Carolina Planning Department. She received a Masters in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with concentrations in Urban Planning and GIS and a Bachelor of Science in Geography from Northwest Missouri State University. Bob Cross, Director of Research and Planning at the United Way of Central Indiana, directs the development of the Community Assessment, one of the tools used by the UWCI in setting priorities for policy and funding decisions. His previous experience includes positions with the City of Indianapolis in the areas of community development and neighborhood policy, and several years work as an independent consultant specializing in program evaluation and organizational development for social service providers and funding organizations. Bob's educational background includes a B.S. in Political Science, an M.A. in History, and additional graduate study in urban history through the American Studies program at Purdue University. |