Bending the Curve Toward Thriving: From National Insights to Community Action

Fewer than half of American adults are thriving. That's one of the central findings of Thriving Together in America: Trends, Discoveries, Community Action and Advice for Leaders, a new report from Gallup and The Rippel Foundation.

As of September 2026, just 48.1% of U.S. adults reported that they were thriving, a decline of more than 10 percentage points from the peak recorded in 2021. Americans' optimism about their futures has also weakened, and young adults have experienced especially steep declines.

These findings reinforce an urgent question: How can we move beyond declining well-being to creating conditions that help more people thrive? This question is central to our work at the Institute for People, Place, and Possibility (IP3). Improving well-being requires understanding people’s lived experiences as well as the conditions shaping those experiences. It also requires strengthening communities' capacity to learn and collaborate.

We were honored to contribute to the recent report, which brings together national research, practical lessons, and community examples that show how the science of thriving is being translated into meaningful local work. Several of the featured communities are also valued IP3 partners.

For readers who want to carry the report’s findings into local practice, IP3 and Community Initiatives Network developed a companion resource: Advancing Community Change Through Catalytic Well-Being Measurement: A Primer for Community Stewards. The Primer builds on the report by exploring what this work can look like in communities and offering practical guidance for getting started.

From Measuring Thriving to Strengthening Vital Conditions

Gallup's research offers an important perspective on how Americans evaluate their lives, both today and five years from now. Its Life Evaluation Index distinguishes between people who are thriving, struggling, or suffering, giving communities a meaningful way to understand well-being beyond traditional economic and health indicators.

But, knowing how people are doing is only part of the picture. The Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being provide a framework for understanding the conditions everyone needs every day to thrive, including humane housing, meaningful work and wealth, lifelong learning, reliable transportation, a thriving natural world, basic needs for health and safety, and Belonging and Civic Muscle.

Understanding who is thriving, struggling and suffering alongside the Vital Conditions allows communities ask powerful questions:

• How are people experiencing their lives, and how hopeful are they about the future?

• What community conditions may be contributing to those experiences?

• Where are opportunities to strengthen conditions and remove barriers to thriving?

• How can residents, institutions, and cross-sector partners organize around shared priorities and sustained action?

  
  

The questions point toward a broad role for measurement: helping residents and partners learn together and use what they learn to guide action. 

Communities Are Putting Thriving Into Practice

While the national declines in thriving are sobering, communities across the country are demonstrating how to turn shared commitment to thriving into meaningful local action.

The Thriving Together in America report highlights several communities using well-being measurement, cross-sector partnership, and shared frameworks to build trust and inform local strategies. From rural West Virginia to the Inland Empire of Southern California, each community brings its own priorities, partnerships, and approach. Together, they demonstrate how the Vital Conditions can provide a common foundation for understanding community well-being, connecting people and organizations, and moving toward coordinated action.

IP3 is fortunate to work alongside several of these communities, helping build a strategy combining data, digital infrastructure, learning resources, and collaborative tools to support the work:

Inland Empire Vital Conditions Network: Connecting Data, Belonging, and Regional Action

Across Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, the Inland Empire Vital Conditions Network brings regional partners together to advance well-being and thriving. With leadership and support from the Inland Empire Community Foundation, the network uses the Vital Conditions as a shared framework for learning, collaboration, and investment. The Inland Empire’s experience shows how data can serve as a starting point for deeper work to strengthen belonging, civic participation, and collective action.

IP3 developed the network’s digital and data infrastructure, including a regional learning hub, Vital Conditions dashboards, a network directory, and other resources that make information accessible and actionable. Together, these tools help partners connect, identify needs, and align and coordinate initiatives around regional priorities.

Contra Costa Together: Making Community Assessment a Catalyst for Action

In California, Contra Costa Together brings public health, philanthropy, community organizations, and residents together to advance health and well-being across Contra Costa County, California.Supported by Contra Costa Regional Health Foundation and regional partners, this effort uses the Vital Conditions to connect traditional community health assessment with broader questions about the conditions that shape people's lives.

IP3 developed the initiative’s digital and data infrastructure, including community resources, indicator dashboards, and collaborative assessment tools that help partners combine data with community insights, identify shared priorities, and coordinate action to improve community well-being.

North Sound ACH: Supporting Regional Learning Across Diverse Communities

The North Sound Accountable Community of Health brings together healthcare organizations, Tribal Nations, and community partners across northwest Washington to advance regional well-being. Its regional network has developed and piloted approaches to understanding residents' experiences of well-being, including a survey offered in English and Spanish. The resulting findings and corresponding dialogue resources create opportunities for partners to explore what thriving means across different communities.

For six years, IP3 has supported the network through shared digital learning and resource infrastructure built on Community Commons Spaces, helping partners access data, share knowledge, and collaborate around community priorities and approaches to improving well-being. This work demonstrates the importance of sustaining connections and learning infrastructure across a diverse regional partnership.

Thriving Together North Central Washington: Building a Shared Picture of Well-Being

Thriving Together North Central Washington brings together residents’ experiences, community data, and the Vital Conditions to advance regional well-being.The initiative has gathered residents' perspectives through surveys, community events, partner organizations, and outreach designed to include voices that might otherwise be missed.

IP3 supports the initiative through data visualization, public dashboards, and digital resources that help partners identify community priorities, inform local decisions, and track progress over time. The result is an approach that connects residents' experiences with broader community conditions and creates a foundation for tracking progress over time.

Healthy Communities Delaware: Aligning Community Investment With Well-Being

Healthy Communities Delaware brings together public, private, and nonprofit partners to invest in community-driven approaches to improving well-being across the state. The initiative invests in efforts that strengthen community conditions and expand opportunities in places experiencing persistent challenges.

IP3 supports this work with data tools and resources that help partners understand community conditions, inform investments, and advance opportunities for communities to thrive. Its inclusion in the Gallup and Rippel report highlights the important role of philanthropy and cross-sector investment in strengthening the conditions that make thriving possible.

The Infrastructure Behind Lasting Change

Through IP3 ASSESS, Community Commons Spaces, network directories, and strategic consultation, IP3 helps foundations, health systems, public agencies, and community collaboratives build the infrastructure for shared learning and coordinated action.

That support takes different forms, from helping a foundation explore the Vital Conditions in its region to creating a regional data and learning hub, supporting a collaborative community assessment, and making partner relationships and resources easier to navigate. Our goal is to use technology and strategic support to simplify complex collaborative work, strengthen partners’ capacity, and help communities focus more of their energy on creating meaningful change.

Bending the Curve Together

The national trends documented in Thriving Together in America are sobering. But they are not the end of the story. Across the country, communities are already showing what it looks like to organize around a shared aspiration: all people and all places thriving, no exceptions.

If we want to bend the curve toward thriving, we need to do more than measure where we stand. We need to strengthen the Vital Conditions, build our collective capacity to act, and keep learning together as we move toward a better future. At IP3, we are encouraged by the leadership of our partners and proud to contribute to the infrastructure that supports their work.

Interested in putting the Vital Conditions into practice in your community? Connect with IP3 to explore how data, learning infrastructure, and strategic support can help move your work forward.

Explore More

Thriving Together in America: Trends, Discoveries, Community Action and Advice for Leaders (Gallup and The Rippel Foundation, October 2026. IP3 contributed to this national report.)

Advancing Community Change Through Catalytic Well-Being Measurement: A Primer for Community Stewards (IP3 and Community Initiatives Network, Fall 2026.) This is a practical resource for communities seeking to connect well-being measurement, the Vital Conditions, and collective action.