Introduction to Bringing the Vital Conditions to Life through People, Place, and Possibility

When we at the Institute for People, Place, and Possibility (IP3) write stories for Community Commons, we approach them from the viewpoint of our Commons members: we consider what you need to know and how this information will help you. 

You may have seen content about the “Vital Conditions for Well-Being” framework on the Commons; perhaps you’re wondering what a framework is, and how you might relate the Vital Conditions to your work. Through several stories,we’re going to help you learn all about the Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being framework and share specific implications for your community change work.

To begin, framing is a way of structuring or presenting an issue or problem and provides helpful context. Frameworks organize information, content, and even data into categories that make sense and are easily tied to action; they provide a unique perspective on an issue and can help dictate and convey the purpose and direction of your initiative or effort.

The Vital Conditions provide a useful framework for conceptualizing holistic well-being and the Conditions that give rise to it, as well as identifying levers for community change and improvement. 

This framework brings together major determinants of health, exposing how multi-faceted parts of a whole work as a system to produce population well-being. The Vital Conditions help change-makers consider the properties of places and institutions that all people need all the time to be healthy and well.

The upcoming series will help bridge the connection from understanding what each Vital Condition entails to identifying how to improve the Condition in your community and where to start. Inspired by our organization’s name -- IP3 -- we’ve structured this series to showcase People successfully improving Conditions at the local level, Places who have built up momentum worth modeling, and inspiring Possibilities to drive your work. 

We invite you to learn all you can about the Vital Conditions through these resources -- we hope it’ll be a helpful way to think about and approach your community change work.