Community Issues and Social Capital Frank Clearfield Director Social Sciences Institute

Presentation Outline 1. Provide an Overview of NRCS Social Science Institute 2. Review Community Trends and the Concept of Social Capital 3. Review SSI’s Web Based Tools

1. Social Sciences Institute

Interdisciplinary Sociologist Economist Anthropologist Environmental Psychologist Community Planner

SSI Applied Products and Activities 424 Technical Reports 436 Fact Sheets -- People, Partnership and Community Series 48 Web-Based Products 434 Leader-in-You Training Tapes 42 Training Courses 414 Surveys

Technology Transfer in FY-03 CSSI reached about 300,000 people 52,000 web visitors 340,000 web hits 30,000 unique web visitors 47,700 documents downloaded Google

2. Community Trends and Social Capital

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

Changes in Social Capital Political Civic Religious Workplace Social Volunteering

Political Participation Number per million people in organization

Voting Turnout

Civic Trends Activity Served on a committee for some local organization attended a public meeting on town or school affairs Relative change to % -35% Source: Roper Social and Political Trends surveys,

Civic Club Meetings

PTA membership (% of families with children under 18)

Church Membership & Attendance members

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 1930’s to the 1960’s, followed by decreases to the present

Social Visits

Volunteering & Participation in Community Projects

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, ) Alienation from politics Fear of _______

3. Web Based Tools Estimating Social Capital

TTechnical Note: Adding Up Social Capital: An Investment in Communities TWeb Based Tool, Go to click on interactive tools

Building Social Capital Identify & Recruit Community Leaders Develop Partnerships Establish Networks Inclusiveness Understand Small Group Behavior Understand Community Power

Other Interactive Tools Evaluating Locally Led Process Leadership Assessment Tool

Locally Led Evaluation and 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

Tool to Assess Leadership Skills

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

Leadership Dimensions Drive Emotional Intelligence Building Trust Conceptual Thinking Systems Thinking

Leadership Assessment Instrument Rates the user on five dimensions Provides hyperlinks –Articles –Leader-in-You Tapes –Fact Sheets

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

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