SEED Certification

Guided by Ethics, Framed by Community Values

Making a national metric to evaluate locally based projects is a complex process. The SEED® Network depends on our Mission and Principles (shown below), which were based on a survey of 200 SEED Network members from across the country, to guide the criteria that constitutes the SEED metrics. However, a bottom-up, value-definition process must take place to develop the priority structure for each project based on a community's collective interests.

SEED's Mission is to advance the right of every person to live in a socially, economically and environmentally healthy community.

• SEED Principle 1: Advocate with those who have a limited voice in public life.
• SEED Principle 2: Build structures for inclusion that engage stakeholders and allow communities to make decisions.
• SEED Principle 3: Promote social equality through discourse that reflects a range of values and social identities.
• SEED Principle 4: Generate ideas that grow from place and build local capacity.
• SEED Principle 5: Design to help conserve resources and minimize waste.

Quantitative and Qualitative Measures

The quantitative and qualitative measures developed within each SEED project submission are context-dependent, always derived from SEED's five principles and mission statement. These measures serve as a guide to indicate what goals a project achieves throughout the design and implementation processes. The measures further serve as a threshold — no SEED Principles will be violated during the project — as well as a means to define success as determined by each community for each project. This is a contextually relevant, from the bottom-up decision making process, not a numerical measurement based on a top-down pre-determined set of rules.