Happy City to make wellbeing measurement tools free for charity use
Melanie May | 3 May 2018 | News
Two online tools are being made freely available to charities across the UK to help measure their impact on wellbeing.
Bristol based charity Happy City is making more of its wellbeing measurement tools freely available to charities across the UK following a £250,000 National Lottery grant from the Big Lottery Fund.
Happy City will use the grant to update its ‘Happiness Pulse’. Developed in partnership with the New Economics Foundation, this is an interactive online survey that paints a picture of a person’s wellbeing, helping to identify ways to increase their happiness. The survey asks people how they think and feel about their lives, what they do to improve their wellbeing and how they connect with others.
The tool will now be developed further so it can be used by organisations to measure the wellbeing of groups and communities. This upgraded version will increase the number of factors being looked at and allow charities to compile and analyse data using tailored dashboards. The tool will be freely available and training will be offered to more than 2000 charities on how to use it, helping them to better understand what works in their local area.
The National Lottery funding will also support Happy City to expand the use of its ‘Thriving Places Index’ across the UK and publish the results annually. The Index, currently available in England and Wales, measures how well a place is promoting wellbeing, looking at a range of elements including equality, sustainability and local conditions.
The Index has been designed to help local authorities and decision makers across all sectors to prioritise the wellbeing of communities in their planning, policies and commissioning. It has been piloted in five areas of Gwent in South East Wales, where it is being used to support cross-sector working.
Joe Ferns, UK Funding Director at the Big Lottery Fund, said:
“Civil society organisations play an integral role in strengthening the wellbeing of people and communities across the UK, but having access to meaningful data is vital to their success. We’re pleased to be supporting Happy City’s ambition to create and share tools which are improving how the charity and voluntary sector can collect, use and share data and insights.”
Liz Zeidler, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Happy City, said:
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“This is a game-changer for our capacity to respond to the growing interest in wellbeing in every corner of the UK. These tools will help to challenge assumptions and change the goalposts of decisions makers around the UK, putting what really matters to people’s lives centre stage.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.