Community Issues and Social Capital

1
Community Issues and Social Capital

• Frank Clearfield
• Director
• Social Sciences Institute

2
Presentation Outline

• 1. Provide an Overview of NRCS Social Science
  Institute
• 2. Review Community Trends and the Concept of
  Social Capital
• 3. Review SSIs Web Based Tools

3
1. Social Sciences Institute
4
Interdisciplinary

• Sociologist
• Economist
• Anthropologist
• Environmental Psychologist
• Community Planner

5
SSI Applied Products and Activities

• 24 Technical Reports
• 36 Fact Sheets -- People, Partnership and
  Community Series
• 8 Web-Based Products
• 34 Leader-in-You Training Tapes
• 2 Training Courses
• 14 Surveys

6
Technology Transfer in FY-03

• SSI reached about 300,000 people
• 52,000 web visitors
• 340,000 web hits
• 30,000 unique web visitors
• 47,700 documents downloaded

Google
7
2. Community Trends and Social Capital
8
Definitions of Economic, Human, Social Capital

• Economic - land, labor, natural resources,
  production
• Human - skills, talent and education of people
• Social - bonds of trust between people in
  communities

9
Changes in Social Capital

• Political
• Civic
• Religious
• Workplace
• Social
• Volunteering

10
Political Participation
Number per million people in organization
11
Voting Turnout
12
Civic Trends

• Activity
• Served on a committee for some local organization
  
• attended a public meeting on town or school
  affairs

• Relative change
• 1973-74 to 1993-94
• -39
• -35

Source Roper Social and Political Trends
surveys, 1973-1994
13
Civic Club Meetings
14
PTA membership ( of families with children
under 18)
15
Church Membership Attendance
members
16
Participation in Work

• Union membership is down to 14 percent in 1998,
  from a high of 33 percent in 1952
• Average membership in 8 national professional
  associations showed increases from the 1930s to
  the 1960s, followed by decreases to the present

17
Social Visits
18
Volunteering Participation in Community Projects
19
What has caused the downturn in social capital?

• Generation change
• Pressures of time money
• Family structure (working women)
• Mobility and sprawl
• Technology and mass media
• DVDs, VCRs, TV, video games, computers (Internet
  access, e-mail)
• Alienation from politics
• Fear of _______

20
3. Web Based Tools
Estimating Social Capital
21

• Technical Note Adding Up Social Capital An
  Investment in Communities
• Web Based Tool, Go to http//www.ssi.nrcs.usda.gov
  / click on interactive tools

22
Building Social Capital

• Identify Recruit Community Leaders
• Develop Partnerships
• Establish Networks
• Inclusiveness
• Understand Small Group Behavior
• Understand Community Power

23
Other Interactive Tools

• Evaluating Locally Led Process
• Leadership Assessment Tool

24
Locally Led Evaluationand Training Package

• CD and web version tool that examines behavioral
  aspects of the locally led planning process
• Repeatable
• Provides an overall score also scores for 9
  areas
• Training module for each of these 9 areas

25
Tool to Assess Leadership Skills
26
General Assumptions about Leadership

• We are not all leaders, nor do we all need to be
• Some people are better at some things than others
• Team members play different roles
• There are situational leaders
• There are multiple dimensions of leadership

27
Leadership Dimensions

• Drive
• Emotional Intelligence
• Building Trust
• Conceptual Thinking
• Systems Thinking

28
Leadership Assessment Instrument

• Rates the user on five dimensions
• Provides hyperlinks
• Articles
• Leader-in-You Tapes
• Fact Sheets

29
Summary

• Reviewed SSI work
• Examined community trends
• Looked at potential opportunities -- social
  capital, locally led evaluation, and the
  leadership assessment instrument

30
Product Requests

• Call 1-888-526-3227 x 2
• Web site http//www.ssi.nrcs.usda.gov/
• Order from Product Catalog
• clearf_at_ncat.edu or 336-334-7058