[This is a cross-post of an article that originally appeared on Our Blocks. We're using this form for a community-building project we started in West Oakland, and hope to get your suggestions. - Thanks; Leo]

Here's a tool you might be able to use to get a better appreciation of the interests, skills, and needs of your constituents, and to help them connect with one another, and with other local resources. You can download the pdf by clicking on the image below. You can also edit and download the form, in spreadsheet format, here (some formatting was lost in the file translation).

The form was designed for residents of multi-family subsidized housing communities. We didn't use some of items from the original Capacity Inventory (Kretzmann & McKnight 1993), but kept them in a separate tab (Skills, column J), so you can just copy & paste as needed.

Most respondents completed the form in under eight minutes, with some, who answered the open-ended questions at the end of the survey, taking up to 15 minutes.

Matt Singh (a fellow founder of the Idealist Silicon Valley group) and I developed the form, which we derived (with thanks) from several sources:

• Mapping Tools and Capacity Inventories from the Asset-Based Community Development Institute
  
• 150 Things You Can Do to Build Social Capital, The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement In America, an initiative of Professor Robert D. Putnam at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
• 366 Community Service Ideas, compiled by Janet Fox, 4-H Extension Specialist
• Organizers Workbook, from the Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center
• An Idealist survey on obstacles to action

We'd appreciate your feedback.

updated by @leo-romero: 10/24/16 05:35:56AM

Leo, thanks so much for sharing this.I like the skills on left and needs on right -- have never seen that before.One suggestion -- in addition to saying the purpose of the survey is to connect their skills, etc. to others and to resources, maybe you'd want to mention the long-term goal of building a stronger community? (or however you'd frame your long-term goal)Please keep us updated on your project I'd love to hear how it develops. Good luck!!!-April

Thanks for the suggestion, April; we'll work it in. That left & right thing was my principal contribution to the work of so many others (noted in the credits). In the process of sharing the survey with others, I stumbled upon Bruce Schuman, an irrepressible do-gooder who also has crazy web/database skills. He rendered the survey onto an online format, here: http://neighborhoodcommunities.netIt's not yet ready for publication, but you can test it to see how it works. Briefly: you click your interests, needs, and skills; click Connect and you'll see people who share your interests, have skills to match your needs, and needs to match your skills. Click on their names to see their profiles. You'll also be able to send them email to let them know you want to connect.I'd appreciate your feedback.