OVERVIEW

STEP 1: Mobilizing Resources

STEP 2: Understanding Social Capital as it Relates to Organizational Mission

We recommend that you convene key employees in a social capital retreat to discuss their theory of how they expect that your program leads to increased social capital, beginning with a discussion of social capital. To that end, everyone at the table should have, at a minimum, read this section and this section on the forms of social capital. Here are also other recommended readings on social capital if you want to dig deeper.

Goal of the retreat: to develop a shared understanding of social capital and how the organization would like to build it or believes it is already building it.

Topics to consider:

WHAT TYPES OF SOCIAL CAPITAL TIES YOU ARE BUILDING? (expand)

WHAT ARE YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS? (collapse)

Before analyzing a specific program or programs, it is worthwhile to briefly consider how the organization as a whole and its mission relates to social capital. We define three closely related tasks below, which will frame the evaluation design.

Task 1: clarify the organization's mission if necessary.

Throughout this process, keep the organizational goals clearly in focus. To begin with, the meeting leaders should rearticulate the organization's central mission. This mission might range from "poverty alleviation" to "increasing public access to the fine arts." For most organizations, this is not problematic. However, if the mission is not clear, currently in flux, or in dispute, we recommend that the meeting spend a considerable amount of time on this. We hope that a consideration of social capital goals will also help the group clarify the organization's central mission. [For example, an organization striving to alleviate poverty might realize that its micro-lending approach depends on social capital to be effective: namely, individuals trusting and relying on one another to repay small loans.]

Ongoing example: hear how Jumpahead analyzed their organizational goals.

HOW DOES ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION MAP ONTO SOCIAL CAPITAL? (expand)

WHAT COMMUNITY ARE YOU SERVING? (expand)

STEP 3: Identifying Program Links to Social Capital