When Val Rodriguez founded Empowering Families in western Nebraska, she already knew her organization was making a difference. They were helping immigrant families, developing young leaders, building bridges across cultures, and increasing civic participation. What she couldn’t answer was a deceptively simple question: How do we measure whether people actually feel they belong? That question led her to the Belonging Barometer.
Originally, Rodriguez discovered the Belonging Barometer while completing graduate research on how changing demographics were shaping community life. What appealed to her was its simple, no-frills approach: print the survey, make a few thoughtful adaptations to fit the local community, and start listening. She tailored a handful of questions to better reflect her county and then administered the 10-question survey, collecting responses from 369 residents through churches, community events, a soup kitchen, email, text messages, and wherever people already gathered. It wasn’t a complicated or highly technical process, but it gave her the insights needed to get started. The results surprised her.
While many residents reported feeling connected to people and places they knew well, such as their church, neighborhood, or close circle of friends, they were far less likely to feel connected to the broader community or to believe they could influence the institutions shaping their lives. Trust in local systems was low, and many described an “us versus them” dynamic across the community. These findings were not specific to one racial or ethnic group, or based on immigration status. Community members in Scotts Bluff County, including their White counterparts, have a low sense of belonging. Those findings changed everything.
Rather than treating the Belonging Barometer as a one-time survey, Empowering Families began using it as an ongoing management tool. One example is Youth Arise, a seven-week civic leadership program for at-risk high school students. Participants complete belonging assessments before and after the program alongside other leadership measures. In one recent cohort, the percentage of students reporting a strong sense of belonging increased from 61% to 89%.
The organization also uses the Belonging Barometer findings to shape new programming. Conversations with Native American residents revealed that belonging varied dramatically depending on the setting. Participants described feeling connected at the Lakota Lutheran Center but disconnected in other community institutions such as public meetings.
Perhaps most importantly, implementing the Belonging Barometer prompted Empowering Families to rethink its mission and evolve its purpose. The organization used what it learned to develop new cultural programming, including Lakota language classes and cultural retreats designed to strengthen both belonging and cultural pride. Originally focused on education, civic participation, and empowerment, Empowering Families now explicitly defines its work around building community belonging through education, civic participation, and bridge-building.
The next step is to create a countywide belonging strategy involving healthcare, education, economic development, nonprofits, and local government. The findings from the Belonging Barometer have also helped Empowering Families articulate the need for this work and position it as a fundable community initiative, providing a framework for securing resources to sustain and expand belonging efforts.
Rodriguez believes the biggest lesson is that organizations don’t need expensive consultants or complex research projects to begin. They need a simple way to listen, learn, and act on what their communities are telling them. “You’re trusted individuals in the community,” she said. “You are the trusted messengers.” For Empowering Families, belonging stopped being an abstract idea. It became something they could measure, improve, and build together.
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