Community Foundation to Participate in Major Research Project Studying Connecticut’s Quality of Life

Connecticut Wellbeing Survey to Play Strategic Role in Setting Foundation’s Course; Critical Data to be Made Available to Local Schools, Municipalities

New Britain, Conn., April 14, 2015 – The Community Foundation of Greater New Britain has joined a list of dozens of charitable organizations, government agencies, health care providers, universities and others taking part in the 2015 Community Wellbeing Survey, the most comprehensive survey of quality of life ever conducted in Connecticut.

The Foundation’s Board of Directors recently awarded a grant of $30,000 to join the research study, which commences later this month. DataHaven, a New Haven-based non-profit group managing the study, will conduct interviews with some 15,000 randomly selected state residents covering issues such as community vitality, health, family economic security and individual happiness.

The Community Foundation plans to use the information as part of its strategic planning process in determining the most significant local issues facing Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington. The input will be vital, according to Jim Williamson, president of the Community Foundation, as the Foundation considers major, new community leadership and funding initiatives. The Foundation also plans to share the local data with school districts and municipal officials in its four-town area for their own planning use.

By this fall, the Foundation expects to have data prepared for its use by DataHaven from telephone surveys of some 900 randomly selected citizens in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington.

“Insight and information is the key to understanding the issues that are most important to those who work in, live in and raise families in our four communities,” said Williamson. “The Community Foundation’s very being is tied to our communities’ greater good, and this comprehensive study could not be more welcome, more timely and more vital to our collective future.”

“This is a nationally recognized program that provides neighborhood- and regional-level information not available from any other source, with a mission to produce the highest-quality findings on the issues that are most meaningful to residents of all of Connecticut’s towns and cities,” said Mark Abraham, executive director of DataHaven. “With this detailed snapshot, state and local community leaders will be able to better serve the health and well-being needs of communities across Connecticut.”

In Greater Hartford and New Britain, the program has drawn more than $100,000 in support from the Community Foundation and other collaborators including the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Trinity College Center for Urban and Global Studies, Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Johnson Memorial Medical Center and others.

DataHaven is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a 25-year history of service to Greater New Haven and Connecticut. DataHaven’s mission is to improve quality of life by collecting, sharing and interpreting public data for effective decision-making. DataHaven is a formal partner of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership, a collaborative national effort by the Urban Institute and approximately 40 local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood information systems in local policymaking and community building. To learn more, visit www.ctdatahaven.org.

Established in 1941, the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain connects donors who care with causes that matter in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington. It does this by raising resources and developing partnerships that make a measurable improvement in the quality of life in each of these communities. For more information, visit www.cfgnb.org.