2 nd Future of Australia’s Country Towns Conference Bendigo 11,12,13 July, 2005 Full paper published in The Changing Nature of Country Towns (order forms located on the conference website) Measuring Community Capacity: An Electronic Audit Tool Brian Cheers, Greg Cock, Lib Hylton Keele, Mellissa Kruger, and Hilton Trigg Introduction In this chapter, we present an electronic template to measure community capacity in rural places. Although the template can be readily adapted for other purposes, it was designed specifically to measure community capacity to support local primary industries. The template draws on established rural and community theory and research, provides a scientific tool for communities and government departments to profile and increase community capacity, and is based on residents’ on-the-ground understandings of the concept. Here we present the template, its outputs, the methodology employed in its development, its conceptual foundations, and its uses for policy and community development 1 . Several years ago, the Department of Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA) sought to develop an instrument to measure the capacity of a rural community to support the development of local primary industries and economic growth. Such an instrument was needed for several reasons. Firstly, it is well recognised that community capacity contributes to economic growth and social development in rural communities (Luloff 1996, 1998; Flora 1998; Claude, Bridger & Luloff 1999). Secondly, in response to this evidence, governments seek to increase community capacity, or assume that a community already has the required capacities to conduct a funded project. So PIRSA needed a tool to measure a community’s capacity and match this against capacities targeted by various funding programs. Thirdly, existing instruments are too subjective, general, or narrow; based on vague definitions of community capacity; uninformed by established rural and community theory and research; and/or designed for different contexts. Fifthly, PIRSA required community capacity data that could be integrated with other existing databases of, for example, industry capacity, markets, and the natural environment. Finally, an instrument was needed that is meaningful to, and readily used by, rural people themselves. ________________________________________ This paper was subject to a double-blind peer review process. ISBN number 1920948848 Published on-line by the Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities, La Trobe University www.latrobe.edu.au/csrc/2ndconference/refereed 1 For full details of the template and its development see the full technical report of the project (Cheers, Kruger, and Trigg, 2005), which can be obtained from Hilton Trigg at Rural Solutions SA, Port Lincoln Office, Port Lincoln Office, PO Box 1783, Port Lincoln SA 5606 or email trigg.hilton@saugov.sa.gov.au.