Community Alignment Initiative

Community Alignment Initiative

Community Alignment Initiative (CAI) is a project led by IU Service-Learning Program, Bloomington Volunteer Network, and Building a Thriving Compassionate Community to improve the conditions for social service work in Monroe County.

While Bloomington and Monroe County have a lot of different resources to support nonprofits, these resources aren’t always working efficiently with each other. The initiative is an effort to align the work of resourcing agencies to systematically support social services while building new connections between campus, government, and community.

These agencies that support other social services and nonprofits in the community, or nonprofit resource providers will gather to work together on aligning their goals towards identified needs.

• IU Service-Learning Program
• IU Corps
• Bloomington Volunteer Network
• Building a Thriving Compassionate Community
• United Way of South Central Indiana
• Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County

The Community Alignment Initiative is graciously sponsored by IU CITL Service-Learning Program and Community-Engaged Alliance.

Initiative outline

Current state of resource distribution

CAI goals

Community Alignment Initiative has 2 stages: Listening Forum and Alignment Action Plan.

Community Listening Forum (CLF):

• The CLF will be the main source of data gathering for the initiative. The process will bring together large swaths of community nonprofits and social service agencies to discuss their core needs for their operations.

Community Alignment Action Plan (CAAP):

• The CAAP is a year-long follow up process for the nonprofit resource providers to work together and shape their existing resources to best fit the community needs identified in the CLF. Nonprofit resource providers will meet monthly to discuss progress on the alignment of projects. The process will be funded through a stipend that covers the staff and service costs for each agency.