Community Commons

Community Commons is a cross-sector digital platform that provides data and tools for learning, connection and collaboration to support alignment among change-makers working to advance equitable community health and well-being.  Network Impact worked with Community Commons to clarify and track how the platform was being used and in what ways engagement with the platform contributed to outcomes for members, their collaborators and their communities.  Network Impact leveraged existing software to design a method for back-end data collection on user engagement. The data were then integrated with user survey data to explore how engagement relates to impact. 

Across key measures, the combined data showed greater impact for users who were more engaged. One of the core hypotheses in the Commons’ Theory of Action was that increased engagement with the platform’s tools would increase users’ knowledge, skills and capacity, a hypothesis that was supported by Network Impact’s evaluation research. A greater share of more engaged users reported increased knowledge about community conditions and needs as a result of using the platform. A greater share also reported increased confidence using data when: 

• Assessing and understanding community needs

• Telling a story with data

•  Educating others

Learn more about connecting engagement to impact to support networks here.  

Project engagement: 2013-2015