Our categories are built on human services wisdom, ensuring every connection is meaningful and easy to find.
Safety & Advocacy
Family & Parenting
Mental Health & Recovery
Healthcare & Wellness
Growing the Community Rolodex
Community Rolodex is being developed as a broad community resource system designed to make local information easier to find, understand, share, and use. The long-term vision includes 12 community categories, recognizing that people rarely experience needs in isolation. A family looking for mental health support may also need childcare. Someone experiencing a housing crisis may need transportation, employment assistance, food support, or legal advocacy. Stronger communities are built when those connections are easier to make.
The planned Community Rolodex categories are:
Healthcare & Wellness
Physical healthcare, preventive care, wellness services, medical providers, and related community supports.
Mental Health & Recovery
Mental health services, therapy, psychiatry, recovery resources, peer support, treatment programs, and ongoing support.
Family & Parenting
Pregnancy, postpartum support, childcare, parenting resources, family programs, youth services, and support across different stages of family life.
Safety, Crisis & Advocacy
Crisis intervention, domestic violence resources, victim advocacy, emergency assistance, safety planning, and services supporting individuals and families during difficult circumstances.
Education & Learning
Early childhood education, schools, tutoring, higher education, literacy, continuing education, and lifelong learning opportunities.
Employment & Training
Job opportunities, workforce development, vocational training, career support, employment readiness, and skill development.
Housing & Shelter
Emergency shelter, housing assistance, rental resources, homelessness services, transitional housing, and pathways toward stable housing.
Food & Nutrition
Food assistance, community meals, food pantries, nutrition programs, maternal and child nutrition, and other food-access resources.
Transportation & Mobility
Public transportation, medical transportation, accessible transportation, ride assistance, mobility resources, and programs that help people reach the services they need.
Financial & Basic Needs
Utility assistance, clothing, household necessities, emergency financial support, benefits navigation, and resources that help meet essential needs.
Legal & Community Advocacy
Legal aid, rights education, disability advocacy, immigration resources, family and housing advocacy, and other services that help people understand and navigate complicated systems.
Community, Connection & Recreation
Community centers, recreation, support groups, parks, volunteer opportunities, social programs, faith and community organizations, and other opportunities that strengthen connection and belonging.
Starting With Four
Although the long-term vision includes all 12 categories, the pilot will intentionally begin with four primary areas: Healthcare & Wellness, Mental Health & Recovery, Family & Parenting, and Safety, Crisis & Advocacy.
These categories were chosen because they frequently overlap and because navigating them can become especially difficult when an individual or family is already under stress. They also provide an opportunity to test one of the central ideas behind Community Rolodex: that better communication and stronger connections between resources can help reduce gaps in care and support.
The goal of the pilot is not to build everything at once. It is to learn.
Starting with four categories allows Community Rolodex to develop relationships with local organizations, understand what information is actually useful, identify gaps or duplication, improve how resources are organized, and learn how people prefer to access and navigate information.
The remaining categories are still part of the project. They are simply part of the long-term growth plan rather than the initial workload.
Growing Slowly and Intentionally
As Community Rolodex develops, additional categories will be introduced gradually. The full 12-category system will eventually create a broader picture of the community while still allowing each area to receive thoughtful attention.
This approach gives the project room to grow based on real community experience rather than trying to build a large system before understanding how it will be used.
The pilot is the beginning—not the finished product.
Community Rolodex will continue growing one connection, one category, and one community relationship at a time.
Integrated local businesses exist naturally alongside community resources, fostering a true ecosystem of support.
Community Rolodex Philosophy