Flourishing Is More Than Getting Needs Met

When we evaluate programs serving communities experiencing poverty, housing instability, or limited access to health care, we often begin with needs.

Does someone have stable housing? Enough food? Health insurance? A regular doctor? Employment?

These are essential questions. But I have been thinking about another question in my evaluation work: What would it look like to measure whether a community is making progress toward flourishing?

That question has shaped my work with a Community Health Navigator initiative that provides relational, practical, and spiritual support within a high-poverty neighborhood, serving a population that is predominantly unhoused or experiencing significant housing instability. Rather than evaluating only whether residents access services, we have begun looking more broadly at well-being, purpose, relationships, material stability, health-care access, community contribution, and faith and community engagement.

We are now three data collections into that work, with a fourth planned. The findings are still preliminary, but they are beginning to show why looking at flourishing can tell us something that service-use measures alone cannot.

Flourishing appears to be interconnected

One of the most interesting things we are seeing is that different aspects of flourishing do not appear to exist independently.

Mental health, for example, is strongly related to purpose. Across the two directly comparable survey rounds, mental health and a sense of purpose were strongly associated. In the most recent round, 88.9% of respondents who reported improving mental health or doing well also reported having a sense of purpose, compared with 25.9% of those who did not report improving or positive mental health. 

Relationships and material stability are also connected. Positive family relationships were strongly associated with stable housing in both comparable rounds. Friendship was also associated with food security. 

These findings do not tell us which comes first. Stable housing may make it easier to maintain relationships. Strong relationships may help people navigate periods of instability. Better mental health may make purpose easier to experience, while having purpose may support mental well-being.

An evaluation like this cannot establish those causal pathways.

But it can show us something important: the dimensions of a person’s life that contribute to flourishing are deeply connected.

That matters when we evaluate community programs.

From receiving support to contributing to others

One finding has particularly captured my attention.

We asked residents whether they believe they contribute to their neighborhood's well-being. We also asked whether they had reached a personal goal.

The two were associated in both comparable data collections. In the most recent round, the relationship was particularly strong. The association between personal goal attainment and neighborhood contribution reached φ = .70. 

That raises an interesting question for community evaluation.

Should contribution itself be considered part of flourishing?

Community programs understandably measure what people receive: food, housing assistance, health care, benefits, counseling, referrals, and other forms of support.

But people are not only recipients of services.

They are also neighbors, friends, mentors, volunteers, leaders, people of faith, storytellers, and sources of support to others.

Perhaps one sign of a flourishing community is not simply that more people have their needs met, but that more people see themselves as having something meaningful to contribute.

Our data offer another glimpse of that possibility. Neighborhood contribution was strongly associated with spending time with people who share one’s faith in both comparable rounds. In the most recent round, that association was φ = .67. 

Again, these relationships do not establish cause and effect. But they invite us to think differently about what successful community development might look like.

Progress is not necessarily uniform

Looking through a flourishing lens also keeps us from telling an overly simple success story.

Some indicators improved between the two most comparable data collections. Physical health and personal goal attainment increased, as did some measures of faith and community engagement. Among respondents reporting a need for mental-health care, the proportion who were actively trying to care for their mental health or regularly seeing a provider also increased. 

Other indicators moved in the opposite direction.

Reported mental health, purpose, strong friendships, neighborhood safety, insurance enrollment, and story sharing were lower in the most recent community snapshot. Material stability also remains a significant concern. Using an indicator that incorporates neighborhood safety, food, housing, ability to pay bills, and employment, the proportion meeting the community material-stability indicator declined from 35.2% to 29.1%. 

This is precisely why I find the flourishing framework useful.

A community can demonstrate strengths in one area while struggling in another. People can experience purpose while still facing housing instability. They can begin achieving goals while lacking adequate health-care access. They can contribute to their neighbors while still needing support themselves.

Flourishing is not an all-or-nothing state.

Measuring the community rather than the individual

Another distinction in this evaluation is important.

We are not following named individuals and asking whether a particular person became more flourishing from one survey administration to the next.

Instead, we are taking repeated snapshots of the community.

The question is not: Did this particular resident improve?

It is: Over time, is this community showing greater evidence of the conditions and characteristics associated with flourishing?

That means examining changes in the proportion of respondents reporting positive mental and physical health, purpose, meaningful relationships, material stability, health-care access, goal attainment, community contribution, and faith/community engagement.

It also means examining whether these dimensions consistently relate to one another.

The first survey administration was a small pilot using a different instrument, so we treat it as contextual baseline information rather than placing it on the same trend line. The second and third data collections use the same 38-item survey and provide the first directly comparable community snapshots. A fourth collection will allow us to see whether the patterns emerging now continue.

Rethinking what we measure

This work is making me think more deeply about what we ask of community-based organizations when we evaluate their impact.

Counting services matters.

So does documenting whether people obtain insurance, find a doctor, secure housing, access food, or receive mental-health care.

But if our ultimate interest is human flourishing, perhaps our evaluation questions need to go further.

• Do people experience purpose?
• Do they have meaningful relationships?
• Do they believe they can set and reach goals?
• Do they feel connected to others?

And eventually, do they begin to see themselves not simply as people receiving help, but as people capable of contributing to their community's well-being?

Those questions do not replace traditional measures of need, access, and stability. They add another dimension to them.

We are still piloting this approach, and I expect the framework to evolve as we complete the fourth data collection and learn more from the community.

But the early findings have reinforced something I increasingly believe about evaluation:

If a community-based organization’s work is ultimately about helping people and communities flourish, our measures should be able to see flourishing when it begins to emerge.