Community Engagement
How are the relationships within a community built? Many within a community seek ways to engage and become involved within their community. In this page, we are able to study the participation in various areas to determine the level of community engagement within Colorado Springs.
Report summary:
Community Engagement
What is the process by which community organizations and individuals build ongoing, permanent relationships for the purpose of applying a collective vision for the benefit of the community?
Key Indicators
In vibrant communities, people share many different ways of creating connection—to their neighbors, to people with shared interests and values, to places of commerce, culture, recreation and learning, to fellow citizens in need, to solving community problems, and to creating opportunities. In this section, the manner in which members engage in their community, as an individual or in a group, is explored. The effects of the pandemic extended beyond the initial restrictions, transforming the way many in our community interacted and maintained connection with others and the community. With these lasting effects in mind, this section also identifies online community engagement as it emerged from necessity and has remained a popular avenue of connection.
This report explores community engagement measures in the following areas:
- Group Engagement
- Neighborhood councils
- Civic & social membership organizations
- Individual Engagement
- Library usage
- Religious service attendance
- Voluntarism
- Charitable giving
- Creative vitality
- Local news media usage
- Engaging local government online
Click on an indicator to learn more about it! Be sure to use the infographics and additional resources for the full experience.
Neighborhood Councils
Healthy neighborhoods are at the core of regional city planning, such as PlanCOS (approved in 2019) and Envision Woodland Park 2030 (adopted in 2021), and is a key consideration in county master plans, such as the Your El Paso Plan (adopted in 2021) and Teller County’s 2020 Amended Growth Management Plan.
Engaged citizens know and talk to their neighbors and are aware of neighborhood needs and issues. Healthy neighborhoods develop structures to intentionally identify priority needs and to work together to address them. Neighborhood networks include, but are not limited to, formal homeowner’s associations (HOAs), informal groups, and nonprofit organizations that work with community members to connect them to their neighborhoods.
The city of Colorado Springs works with nonprofit organization Council of Neighbors and Organizations (CONO) to coordinate neighborhood networks, monitor the creation and progress of neighborhood plans, and train and resource neighborhood leaders.
As of September 30, 2021, CONO’s registry listed 868 active organized neighborhood communities in El Paso County, including 74 neighborhood associations and 794 HOAs.1 While CONO’s database does not include Teller County, 18 HOAs with Teller addresses were recently listed in the state HOA registry,2 which brings the total of known neighborhood associations in Colorado Springs MSA to 886. New registrations accounted for 2.1% of all El Paso and Teller HOA listings in the state registry.3
Participation in voluntary groups and membership associations is linked to a variety of positive outcomes, including increased civic participation, engagement with community problems, social trust, and personal health.4, 5 The Census Bureau provides an available, trackable measure of membership associations per 10,000 residents through its County Business Patterns data.
Colorado Springs residents’ participation in associations closely mirrors statewide levels, although communities in the West tend to lag behind the national average.
6 U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Pattern tables; County Health Rankings
In 2021, Colorado Springs ranked 3rd of 6 peer communities for participation in membership associations.
7 U.S. Census Bureau
Library Usage
Libraries are welcoming public spaces that are hubs of learning, education, collaboration, workforce development, entrepreneurship, and entertainment for people of all ages, backgrounds, interests, and aspirations. More than nine in 10 adult Americans have used a library, and 63% feel that the loss of a library would have a “major” impact on their community. Library services are especially valued by families with children, people of color, the unemployed, the elderly, and those with disabilities.8
Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) is the third-largest library system in Colorado by circulation, with 370 full-time equivalent staff and 350 volunteers.9 PPLD is one of the most-visited places in the Pikes Peak region and accounts for 96% of library resource circulation in the metro area. Three other public library systems that also serve the community include: Security Public Library, Rampart Regional Library District (Woodland Park), and Southern Teller County School/Public Library District (Cripple Creek).
Community involvement in libraries is reflected in three measures: Circulation (resource engagement), Library Visits (physical engagement), and Registered Borrowers (percentage of people prepared to engage). Colorado Springs’ per-capita circulation has been close to the state average in recent years. Registered users are fewer than the state average (42% vs. 54% statewide in 2022), but the smaller proportion is made up for with greater activity per user.10
11 Library Research Service
COVID-19 had only a small effect on the proportion of registered users in Colorado Springs, but circulation dropped by almost a third and library visits fell by two-thirds. Activity has seen a slow and incomplete recovery following COVID-19, and Colorado Springs’ recovery has been slower than the statewide average. In 2022, Colorado Springs libraries recorded circulation of 6.7 million resources, or 8.8 per resident, recorded among 321,243 registered borrowers.
In peer communities, suburban library systems shoulder a larger relative share of library activity than in Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs ranked 4th of 6 communities in circulation per capita in 2022; it ranked 5th of 6 in terms of proportion of registered borrowers. Colorado Springs has achieved this standing even while PPLD has ranked last in community funding among the 10 largest library systems in Colorado, with local revenue per capita of $49 in 2022.12
13 Institute of Museum and Library Services, Library Research Service, Idaho Commission for Libraries, New Mexico State Library, Texas State Library & Archives Commission.
Increased community funding (median among the 10 largest libraries is $82 per resident) would allow PPLD to expand on its record of innovation and collaboration to reach new areas and audience segments. Recent examples of innovation include the Pikes Peak Culture Pass for PPLD cardholders, PowerPass partnerships for local school districts, and a co-location partnership with the Manitou Art Center.
Religious Service Attendance
Attendance at religious services directly reflects engagement with faith communities. Additionally, for residents of the United States and other countries, regular attendance of services is linked to increased voting in elections, increased joining of community groups and other voluntary organizations, and increased happiness.14
Elevated Insights is a Colorado Springs-based market research firm that monitors aspects of community engagement, including religious service attendance, through its annual AskCOS® syndicated tracking survey. In 2021, 35% of Colorado Springs-area residents said they regularly attended worship services, either in person or online. That proportion was nearly unchanged from 2017, when 36% of AskCOS® respondents said they regularly attended religious services.15
Some private research companies monitor religious service attendance, but direct comparison data at the peer-community level was not freely available.
Volunteerism
Charitable organizations benefit communities in numerous ways. They…
- …improve lives
- …are building blocks of democracy
- …are where Americans come together to solve problems
- …are laboratories of leadership
- …are promoters of civic engagement
- …are economic engines16
Nationally, 23% of Americans volunteered their time to serve a charitable organization in 2021, in the midst of COVID, down from 30% in 2019.17 Data for Colorado Springs MSA and peer communities has not been included in reports since 2017. At that time, based on pooled data from 2012 to 2015, 30.7% of Colorado Springs residents volunteered, which ranked 4th of 6 peer communities (ahead of Albuquerque and Austin).
United Way serves a large number of charitable organizations in every community. At a micro level, more recent comparative data is available from individual United Ways. Among five peer communities reporting volunteer data in a recent year, Colorado Springs ranked 1st for both total volunteer hours and total volunteers.18
19 Pikes Peak United Way, other United Way websites
Charitable Giving
In 2021, individuals and families in the United States gave $390 billion to charitable organizations. Most of that giving (64%) came from taxpayers who itemized charitable contributions on their tax returns. Researchers analyze county-level IRS data for patterns of generosity and civic engagement.20
While giving levels vary by economic conditions and changes in tax policy, Colorado Springs residents have consistently given above state and national averages. In 2021, they gave 5.8% of their adjusted gross incomes to charity.
21 Internal Revenue Service
Colorado Springs’ charitable giving also compares favorably to peer communities, ranking 1st of 6 for charitable giving relative to income.
22 Internal Revenue Service
Creative Vitality
According to local development experts, “Arts and culture…play a crucial role in increasing, diversifying, and sustaining public participation; navigating contentious issues; and fostering productive public dialogue and decision making.”23 To measure the overall quality of a community’s creative vitality, the Western States Arts Federation developed the Creative Vitality™ Index (CVI), which combines per-capita data on creative industries, occupations, and cultural nonprofit revenues into a single measure that can be compared across communities.24 Downtown Partnership of Colorado Springs’ monitors the community’s CVI. The city has established a goal to see it increase.25
Colorado Springs’ creative economy supports more than 11,000 jobs that yield $812.3 million in earnings. In recent years, CVI values the metro areas close to the national average. In 2017, Colorado Springs’ CVI mirrored the national average. In 2021, Colorado Springs’ CVI was 0.84, or 16% below the national average. Local jobs in the creative sector numbered 11,589.
26 Western States Arts Federation, Downtown Partnership of Colorado Springs
While updated Creative Vitality Index data was not available for all peer cities, a similar measure, SMU’s Arts Vibrancy Index, provides figures for all U.S. counties. In 2023, El Paso County scored 92 out of 100, which ranked 4th of 6 peer communities (considering only the county with the largest population).
27 SMU Data Arts
Media Engagement
People who are well engaged in their community stay abreast of local news. Colorado Springs research firm Elevated Insights monitors local media usage as part of its AskCOS® syndicated tracking survey. In 2022, it found that 95% of Colorado Springs residents accessed at least one local source of news.28
Newspapers are no longer the dominant form of media—The Gazette ranked fourth among local media sources on the 2022 AskCOS® survey—but comparative readership data is available. For the October 2023 to March 2024 audit period, The Gazette’s average Sunday circulation (print and digital combined) was 30,730, which reflected distribution to the equivalent of 10% of households in the metro area.29 That ranked 4th out of 6 peer communities for circulation as a percentage of households.
30 Alliance for Audited Media, U.S. Census Bureau
Due to re-sharing, a newspaper’s total readership is much wider than its circulation. The Gazette’s total readership during the audit period was estimated at 242,809, or 40.6% of its newspaper-defined market, which closely approximates the Census Bureau’s estimate of the 18-and-over population of the Colorado Springs MSA.31
Engaging Local Government Online
One indicator of citizen engagement with local government is web traffic. Municipalities and other government entities track unique site visitors32 over time. While not all visitors will be community members, relative levels of activity can be calculated by per-capita visits by dividing visits by community population.
Trend data was obtained from three Colorado Springs-area municipalities. Monument’s activity from 2016 to 2020 showed a consistent upward trend; Colorado Springs’ traffic over the same period showed a slight decline followed by a two-year increase. Fountain’s three-year trend was relatively stable.
In 2020, across all communities, the average per-capita site visitors was 14.2.
33 Peak Progress Community Engagement Council
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Social Associations