The Context

The City of Dublin, a leading Central Ohio community, aspires to be “the most sustainable, connected and resilient global city of choice.” This vibrant City recognized an opportunity to enhance the overall wellness of its residents. With a focus on addressing primary health issues and promoting community wellness, the city embarked on a comprehensive initiative to gather insights from stakeholders and residents to inform strategic actions for improving public health.

The Critical Question

What are the primary health needs in Dublin? How can the City of Dublin best improve the health and wellness of its residents?

Our Solution

Illuminology partnered with the City of Dublin to conduct a multi-phase project incorporating qualitative and quantitative research methods and strategic planning. Illuminology has conducted:

• Interviews with stakeholders in community health
• Focus groups with adults, teens, and children
• A representative survey of City of Dublin adult residents, and
• A community convenience sample survey

Illuminology is currently working with the City of Dublin and the project Advisory Committee, a group of community health stakeholders, to use the research findings to identify health needs in the community and generate an action plan to address these needs.

Illumination

The research findings provided the data needed for the important ongoing process of identifying priority health needs in the community and developing actions to address these needs.

Resolution

Armed with insights from Illuminology’s research, the City of Dublin is forging ahead with generating strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing community wellness. The forthcoming action plan will provide a roadmap for implementing evidence-based practices and fostering positive health outcomes for residents. Through collaboration and data-driven decision-making, the Dublin initiative continues to make strides in improving public health and fostering a healthier, more vibrant community.

The Context

A city’s zoning code is analogous to a body’s DNA, in that they both set the parameters for future growth and development. However, while DNA is subject to continuous evolution, Columbus, Ohio’s zoning code has not had a comprehensive update in more than 70 years. To help it prepare for a not-too-distant future in which a million or more residents arrive to the region, the City recently embarked on a journey to modernize its zoning code.

The Critical Question

Thinking about specific areas where people live, work, or play, what are attitudes towards buildings with different types of heights and designs? To what extent do people support or oppose a variety of zoning and development strategies that the City is considering? And how can such preferences be measured accurately, without introducing bias towards any of the policy or building design options under consideration?

Our Solution

Working in partnership with staff from the City and its community engagement partners, Illuminology created a simple but effective questionnaire that employed both words and images in its public opinion measures. The City and its partners then distributed the survey to property owners, renters, and interested citizens. Illuminology also provided data analytic support to the City and its partners.

Illumination

By following best practices in survey research, this community engagement questionnaire allowed the City to accurately measure public opinion about residents’ willingness to accept different types of development in specific neighborhoods.

Resolution

Overall, more than 7,000 residents provided responses to this community engagement questionnaire that Illuminology created. After a careful analysis of these data, City employees are now using the insights derived from this surveying effort to prepare for a likely modernization of the City’s zoning code. A draft version of Columbus’ new zoning code will likely be made public in Spring 2024, at which point residents will have additional opportunities to voice their opinions about this framework for growth and development.

The events of 2020 have changed our lives in ways we did not imagine when the year began. Throughout it all, the central Ohio nonprofit community has risen to the challenge by serving as the frontline defense for tens of thousands of residents. So it was our great honor to help United Way of Central Ohio and the community of health and human service nonprofits throughout central Ohio with its recent Nonprofit Diversity Study. (Click here to download.)

One of the most interesting findings from this research effort was just how different board composition is compared to staff composition. In 2020, only 23% of health and human service nonprofits have boards with a racial or ethnic composition as diverse as (or more so than) Franklin County’s population.Yet staff composition tends to be more racially or ethnically diverse; 44% of 20% nonprofits have staffs with a racial or ethnic composition as diverse as (or more so than) the general population.

Key findings from and implications of this survey were discussed during a recent Columbus Metropolitan Club panel discussion on this topic, which is available for viewing on Youtube.

Clearly there’s more work to be done on this front. We’re glad to play a small role in advancing this forward.

It’s great to see media picking up different pieces of the story that United Way of Central Ohio, the Human Service Chamber of Franklin County, and our firm is sharing with the public.

WBNS 10TV’s coverage focused on the revenue hit due to cancelled fundraisers, while Columbus Business First’s coverage focused on how many nonprofits are making greater use of online or telephone platforms to deliver their services.

We are preparing for the next wave of this effort to better understand and aid this critical segment of the nonprofit sector. More to come soon!