The Roundtable on Community Change was established as a forum in which leaders working on some of the country’s most innovative and promising efforts to revitalize poor communities could meet to discuss the lessons that are being learned by community initiatives across the country and to work on common challenges they are facing. Since 1995, the Roundtable has focused on the problems associated with evaluating community-based interventions and has issued several publications exploring various dimensions of evaluation theory, methods, measurement, and analysis.

As a part of its work, the Roundtable examines the contribution of community-building strategies to improve social, economic, and civic outcomes for children, youth, families, and neighborhoods; build the capacity of local governments and communities to work more effectively toward common goals; and explore and apply innovative learning methodologies to community-building topics. The Roundtable is known for its pioneering work on Theories of Change and community building evaluation.

In 1997, the Roundtable began documenting the progress of community change efforts through its signature series, Voices from the Field. Through listening and learning from practitioners, foundations, and public and private sector leaders, we identify effective policies and practices. We then bring that learning to the field through publications, convenings, and presentations.

We are currently focused on helping a variety of organizations apply the lessons from our latest Voices from the Field publication, including learning in real time, developing better connections between neighborhoods and regions, and aligning public and private resources for community benefit.