Community Profile Books

The Community Profile Book is a document that provides a snapshot of your community and its initiatives focusing on the Evaluation’s 6 criteria. The book is a required informational tool for the judges (the book itself is not evaluated). The judges will use this book while touring your community therefore will require a copy at the beginning of the tour.

Community Profile Book Guidelines

  • Design and comprehensiveness is at the full discretion of the community
  • Lightweight and portable; most communities find no more than 30 pages to be sufficient
  • Plastic coil bindings or duo-tang folders are entirely acceptable

Sample Community Profile Books

There are examples of other Community Profile Books from communities across Canada and a template on the National CiB website communitiesinbloom.ca. Contact the Provincial Coordinator coordinator@mbcommunitiesinbloom.ca if you would like assistance.

Suggestions of what to include in your Community Profile Book

  • Pictures/descriptions of community achievements in each of the six judging criteria
  • Map of the community and with tour route
  • Tour agenda
  • List of contacts/volunteers that judges will be meeting (name and affiliation)
  • Photo captions
  • Brief introduction or description of your
  • Year-round projects and achievements with focus on “new” and major initiatives.
  • Include as much information as possible about the commercial and industrial sectors; describe how businesses are participating in or contributing to each of the evaluated criteria
  • Initiatives in relation with recommendations from past evaluations.
  • Projects and or programs made possible by volunteer and/or in kind involvement.
  • Information on projects and or programs that will not be included in the evaluation tour

Other uses for your Community Profile Book

While the Community Profile Book is simply intended to be an informational reference document for the judges, it may serve other purposes as well:

  • Can become an economic development tool for promoting your community to visitors, potential sponsors, and potential volunteers.
  • Many communities have given copies of their Community Profile Books to their local libraries, Chambers of Commerce, city/town halls, and visitor information centres.
  • Some communities have put their Community Profile Books on their communities’ websites.
  • Others have enclosed their Community Profile Books with grant applications or sold advertising space in their Community Profile Books