Note: These studies are only available in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), a printer-friendly format. You must have Adobe Reader installed on your computer to use this feature. You can download the free Adobe Reader software here.

"The Quality of Life in Boulder County"
The Boulder County Civic Forum tracks fifty indicators of community health and sustainability in four interrelated areas: People, Economy, Environment, and Culture/Civil Society. It maintains up-to-date data for all fifty indicators on its web site. The 2005 report summarized five key trends affecting Boulder County since the previous report, published in 2003.

"The Quality of LIfe in Boulder County" Reports available in PDF:

2007 (file size 76.34 MB)

N.B. individual sections of the 2007 report are also available for download. See the Community Indicators Report page.

2005 (file size 1.5 MB)
2002 (file size 368 KB)
2000 (file size 5.2 MB)
1998 (file size 4.0 MB)

Boulder County Philanthropic Survey: Report of Results (file size: 441KB)
by Erin Caldwell, Eric Merges, Tom Miller; National Research Center, Inc.
October 30, 2000
"One of the major purposes of the survey was to determine in what ways and to what extent Boulder County residents contribute to charities. Respondents were asked about financial giving, non-financial giving such as donating goods or services, and volunteering time to charity." Results are compared to a similar survey conducted for the Denver Foundation.

bettertogether: the report of the saguaro seminar:civic engagement in america (file size: 1.71 MB)
December, 2000
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
www.ksg.harvard.edu/saguaro/ and www.bettertogether.org
"America faces a civic crisis. Once-commonplace activities, such as the dinner parties and community arts performances shown on the map , are slowly vanishing from the American landscape. Increasingly, Americans are withdrawing from communal life, choosing to live alone and play alone. No longer participants, we are becoming mere observers of our collective destiny. Most Americans see no obvious connection between dinner parties and the health of American society and democracy. More worrisome is the fact that many Americans fail to see the connection between political participation and the nation’s well being." Although national in scope, the benchmark social capital survey also included Coloradans.

Survey of the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual & Transgendered Community of Boulder County (file size: 98 KB)
by Susan Marine, Ph.D. and Thomas I. Miller, Ph.D.
October, 2000
Paper copy available on request by sending us e-mail at .
"The survey was conducted to describe the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) Community and to assess the needs of GLBT residents of Boulder County. Results are being used to help determine what programs and services may be funded with money from the Open Door Fund, a project started in conjunction with the National Lesbian and Gay Community Funding Partnership (NLGCFP)."