The Science of Thriving Together

Measuring Thriving Helps Us Understand Well-Being

Thriving Together begins with a simple but ambitious “north star” goal: all people and places thriving, no exceptions. To move toward that goal, communities need ways to understand how people are actually experiencing their lives, and how to improve them. That is where the science of thriving is valuable. Measuring thriving offers a credible way to understand not just whether people are getting by, but whether they see their lives as going well now and if they are headed in a hopeful direction. The science of thriving offers a valid, useful measure of one core dimension of well-being: people’s evaluation of their own lives.

Thriving includes how people think, feel, and function and how they evaluate their lives as a whole. One of the clearest ways to assess that dimension is through Cantril’s Ladder, a validated, two-question measure developed in 1965 that asks where one feels they stand now, and where one thinks they will stand five years from now. Gallup describes this as a measure of life evaluation, noting that it captures well-being closer to “judgments of life” rather than fleeting feelings.

The Cantril questions are simple but not simplistic. Gallup’s research found that the present and future items work together as a reliable measure of life evaluation, and that responses can be meaningfully grouped into three categories: thriving, struggling, and suffering. The measure is powerful because it is rooted in people’s own perspective—communities can understand how people are experiencing well-being, rather than relying solely on important but slower-to-change community-level indicators.

  Resource: Gallup: Life Evaluation Index

Measuring thriving gives communities a scientifically grounded way to hear directly from people about how life is going. Because it is rooted in self-evaluation, validated through extensive use and testing, and sensitive to change, it offers a credible way to understand one essential dimension of community well-being.

How Cantril’s Ladder Measures Thriving

Cantril’s Ladder asks people to imagine a ladder from 0 to 10, where 10 represents the best possible life for them and 0 represents the worst. There are two simple questions: Where do you stand right now? And, where do you think you will stand five years from now?

Together, the two items—present and future—create a stronger measure than either question alone. A distinct strength of the scale is that people self-anchor based on their own perspective. In other words, the measure does not impose an outside definition of a “good life”; rather, it asks people to define and evaluate it themselves.

In practice, the Cantril questions are often accompanied by additional questions on physical, mental, and financial health, belonging, and demographics. These added questions provide context, reveal differences across groups, and deepen understanding of what may be shaping patterns of thriving, struggling, and suffering.

To make results easier to understand and act upon, responses can be scored and grouped into three categories: thriving, struggling, and suffering. People are considered thriving when they rate their current life at 7 or higher and their future life at 8 or higher. They are considered suffering when they rate both current and future life at 4 or below. Everyone else is considered struggling.

These categories are grounded in evidence, not guesswork. Gallup developed them by analyzing datasets from hundreds of thousands of respondents across more than 150 countries and examining how ladder ratings related to “daily affect, experiences, and health problems”. Used this way, Cantril’s Ladder gives communities a clear, practical way to understand patterns of thriving, struggling, and suffering.

What Shapes Well-Being in Communities

Cantril’s Ladder sheds light on how people experience and evaluate their lives, but this is only one part of well-being. If the north star is all people and places thriving together, no exceptions, it is not enough to know who is thriving, struggling, or suffering; we also need to understand what is happening in the world around those people and what could make a meaningful difference, especially for those who have been struggling and suffering. To move from understanding to action, communities also need to explore the conditions shaping lived experiences and opportunities to thrive.

That is where the seven Vital Conditions come in; the framework helps examine the context that shapes the access, opportunities, and constraints people experience every day. The conditions are: basic needs for health and safety, humane housing, meaningful work and wealth, lifelong learning, reliable transportation, a thriving natural world, and belonging and civic muscle. Looking at these conditions alongside thriving, struggling, and suffering data helps explain what may be driving patterns of well-being in a place and points to where community conditions can be strengthened.

Looking at urgent services alongside the Vital Conditions helps communities see both where immediate support is needed and where they may be underinvesting in the everyday conditions that help people thrive over time. Urgent services are the supports people may need under adversity to temporarily regain or restore health and well-being. They are necessary for a safe and healthy community. But communities cannot urgent service their way to thriving. When people do not have reliable access to the Vital Conditions they need every day, they are more likely to need urgent services.

In other words, Cantril’s Ladder helps us understand how people are doing. The Vital Conditions help us understand what may be shaping how they are doing, and together they inform a path toward improvement. This distinction matters for community change. When communities measure who is thriving, struggling, and suffering, they gain a clearer picture of lived experience. When they also examine the Vital Conditions, they gain insight into where to focus change efforts so all people have the foundations they need every day to thrive together.

Measurement Can Catalyze Community Change

Measuring thriving in community does more than produce data—it invites people to reflect on their lives and circumstances, imagine what is possible together, and enter a broader conversation about how to improve well-being for all. Because Cantril’s Ladder is rooted in people’s own assessment of their lives, it creates an opening for reflection that is personal, immediate, and meaningful.

That reflection becomes more powerful when it happens in community. When communities measure thriving, struggling, and suffering and look at the vital conditions alongside those results, they create an opportunity to build shared language and understanding about what influences well-being and strengthen capacities to work together to improve it. The numbers show patterns, expose disparities, and spotlight root causes. Dialogue and lived experience humanize statistics and prompt action by revealing what is behind the data. Together, they tell a deeper story about how access, opportunity, and constraint are being experienced across a place.

 Resource: Black Thriving in America 2025

In this way, measurement catalyzes community change. Rather than being purely retrospective or passive, measurement becomes part of how communities learn together, align around what matters, and build the capacity to collaborate.

Measurement can be catalytic because it helps communities:

• Invite reflection: Asking people to assess their lives creates space for people to pause, take stock, and imagine a different future.

• Build shared language: Measuring thriving and the Vital Conditions gives communities a common way to talk about well-being and what shapes it.

• See differences across groups: Looking at results across age, race, and geographies can reveal who is thriving, struggling, or suffering in different ways and where inequities may be concentrated. 

• Pair data with story: Survey findings and Vital Conditions become more useful when interpreted alongside lived experience and community dialogue

• Grow connection and shared meaning: Making sense of data together can deepen understanding, strengthen relationships, and help communities align around what matters most. 

• Focus action: Once communities can see both patterns in thriving and differences across groups, they are better positioned to target resources, partnerships, and change efforts where they are needed most.

Moving Into Action: Tools for Measuring Well-being

If your community is interested in measuring thriving, you do not have to start from scratch. There is a growing set of tools, survey instruments, and practical guides to help with measurement, exploring the conditions shaping well-being, and using learnings to inform action.

Some communities start small; others build a broader measurement and learning approach over time. In either case, the most powerful tools are the ones that help people make meaning together—connecting data, lived experience, and community conditions in ways that support shared action.

One place to begin exploring is the nation-wide Thriving Together Dashboard, shaped in partnership by IP3 and The Rippel Foundation. This dashboard highlights data from a focused set of 25 indicators spanning the vital conditions for health and well-being, as well as three community spotlights. The additional resources below can support next steps for communities that want to deepen understanding, strengthen alignment, and move toward a future where all people and places can thrive.

How Communities Are Measuring Thriving

Communities across the country are already putting this into practice. These examples show how thriving data can do more than describe well-being—it can help spark dialogue, deepen understanding, and guide action around the conditions people need to thrive. Looking at these conditions alongside thriving, struggling, and suffering data helps explain what may be driving patterns of well-being in a place and points to where community conditions can be strengthened.

Imagine Fox Cities was among the first regional collaboratives to use Cantril’s Ladder as part of a broader well-being survey to understand who in the region was thriving, struggling, or suffering. Over a six-month community listening process, partners gathered input from nearly 3,000 survey respondents and convened 81 small-group conversations with the help of 28 volunteer facilitators. The survey explored personal and community well-being and was offered in print and online in English, Spanish, and Hmong to widen participation. Community members then helped review thousands of comments from the conversations and open-ended survey responses to identify shared themes. That collective sense-making helped shape the region’s Living Vision, giving partners a common direction for advancing the well-being of both people and place. The regional health system (ThedaCare), United Way, and Winnebago County Public Health have continued to measure thriving and make results available through the Fox Valley Data Exchange. FVDEX ensures that all community members have access to information and insights that enable collaborative decision-making and action-taking to enhance the overall wellbeing of their communities.

Thriving Together North Central Washington (TTNCW) used a well-being survey that includes Cantril life-evaluation questions alongside broader well-being measures to assess thriving across the region. The surveys were available in English and Spanish. With support from more than 50 partner organizations, TTNCW collected over 2,700 surveys in 2024 at community events, online, and through focused outreach to underheard voices. They then paired the findings with community dialogues and Vital Conditions data to build shared understanding of what helps or hinders well-being. The results now serve as both a baseline for tracking progress and a catalyst for ongoing community conversation and action. Survey findings are available through TTNCW’s Wellbeing Report.

North Sound ACH:

North Sound ACH and the North Sound Collaborative Action Network use Cantril’s Ladder as the core of a broader well-being survey, pairing the life-evaluation questions with additional questions on health, belonging, and demographics to add context and nuance. The survey was shaped by partners in the regional Measuring Well-Being Community of Practice, who first piloted it within their own organizations and then refined it before a broader launch in 2025. Offered in English and Spanish in both digital and paper formats, the survey was collected primarily through partner organizations and the residents they serve, resulting in 685 responses; outreach through senior centers, Meals on Wheels, and other partners also led to especially strong participation from older adults. North Sound has also developed dialogue resources to support shared understanding of the findings, with those tools expected to play a larger role in the next measurement cycle. Readers can explore the results in the 2025 North Sound Well-Being Report and related measurement resources.

Inland Empire Vital Conditions Network, in partnership with University of California Riverside:

The Inland Empire Community Foundation as co-lead for the Inland Empire Vital Conditions Network engaged the University of California Riverside Center for Community Solutions (UCR), used Cantril’s Ladder as part of a broader survey on well-being, belonging, and civic muscle to better understand how residents across Riverside and San Bernardino counties are experiencing life in the region. Unlike some community-led distribution models, this effort used a more formal survey process: UCR fielded a regionwide survey of 2,381 adults between June 17 and July 2, 2025 through Dynata, a national survey research firm, and paired those results with publicly available data across the other Vital Conditions. The resulting report offers a detailed look at thriving in the Inland Empire and is framed as a resource to help catalyze conversations around regional strategy. Readers can explore the findings in Building Common Ground Through Data Report or the online companion report.

Across these communities, measuring thriving did more than produce a snapshot of well-being. It helped shape what happened next. In some regions, thriving is now part of the ongoing health system, United Way, and public health assessment processes, supporting continued tracking and shared prioritization. In others, the findings have led to foundation investments that bring community organizations together to build belonging and civic muscle, expanded support for community arts and local artists, and encouraged new workforce practices and services for employees who are struggling or suffering. The process has also strengthened relationships among partners, helping communities work together more effectively to multisolve and create the conditions for more people and places to thrive. Together, these efforts point to one of the most important lessons from the science of thriving: when communities measure well-being in ways that invite reflection, dialogue, and shared meaning making, measurement itself can become part of how lasting change begins.

The Institute for People, Place, and Possibility (IP3)—the stewards of Community Commons—plays an active role in supporting this work, often in collaboration with partners. If you’re interested in learning more and exploring possibilities, please reach out; our team can work with you directly and bring in or connect you to our partners as we better understand your goals and needs.