Watershed planning can lead to policy innovation and action toward environmental protection. However, groups often suffer from low engagement with communities that experience disparate impacts from flooding and water pollution. This can limit the capacity of watershed efforts to dismantle pernicious forms of social inequality. As a result, the benefits of environmental changes often flow to more empowered residents, short-changing the power of watershed-based planning as a tool to transform ecological, economic, and social relationships. The objectives of this paper are to assess whether the worldview of watershed planning actors are sufficiently attuned to local patterns of social vulnerability and whether locally significant patterns of social vulnerability can be adequately differentiated using conventional data sources. Drawing from 35 in-depth interviews with watershed planners and community stakeholders in the Milwaukee River Basin (WI, USA), we identify five unique definitions of social vulnerability. Watershed planners in our sample articulate a narrower range of social vulnerability definitions than other participants. All five definitions emphasize spatial and demographic characteristics consistent with existing ways of measuring social vulnerability. However, existing measures do not adequately differentiate among the spatio-temporal dynamics used to distinguish definitions. In response, we develop two new social vulnerability measures. The combination of interviews and demographic analyses in this study provides an assessment technique that can help watershed planners (a) understand the limits of their own conceptualization of social vulnerability and (b) acknowledge the importance of place-based vulnerabilities that may otherwise be obscured. We conclude by discussing how our methods can be a useful tool for identifying opportunities to disrupt social vulnerability in a watershed by evaluating how issue frames, outreach messages, and engagement tactics. The approach allows watershed planners to shift their own culture in order to consider socially vulnerable populations comprehensively.

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Business failure is a natural part of the development lifecycle. In a healthy economy, the formations and dissolutions of small firms drive innovation through the process of creative destruction. However, an excessive level of involuntary closures lowers both economic mobility and community social capital. We partnered with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s Office (NCSOS) to identify factors that might be driving involuntary firm closures using administrative data. This analysis outlines our recommendation to use an exploratory open-ended survey instrument which targets dissolved firm owners. We believe the methodology is indicated due to the inherent challenges of getting survey data from this population. With a relatively small number of responses, an open-ended survey would allow for a hybrid-thematic analysis framework which combines a data-driven inductive approach with a deductive theoretical (a priori) template of codes. Our recommended analysis lens complements phenomenological qualitative inquiry by connecting the respondent’s open-ended answers to theories in the business failure literature.

Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) are grassroots organizations that provide equitable access to financial capital. While a robust body of evidence supports the ability of CDFIs to promote holistic and sustainable development, attempts to systematically evaluate the industry have yielded disparate and often confounding results. We apply an institutional theory lens to examine challenges to meaningful data collection, impact measurement, and program evaluation. Our data show how regulators, major funders, and third-party rating organizations have applied indirect and direct pressures that have systematically lowered the capacity of nonprofit CDFI loan funds. This combination of coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphic forces has (1) hampered meaningful data collection, (2) created a lack of staff expertise in these areas, (3) raised the cost and complexity of utilizing technology systems to improve evaluation processes, and (4) fostered industry norms which de-prioritize meaningful evaluation. The data suggest several ways for stakeholders to improve these trends. For example, funders might consider providing support which builds organizational capacity via unrestricted operating grants and recurring financial commitments.

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