Building Community Capacity, Social Capital & Civic Infrastructure
When The Colorado Trust launched the Colorado Health Communities Initiative in 1992, the board was under the impression that the foundation was helping each participating community to develop a strategic plan to address local priorities within the CDC’s public health blueprint, Healthy People 2000. While the 28 stakeholder groups that completed the National Civic League’s 15-month planning process did identify key action steps to improve health, the primary value of the initiative was to introduce a new ethic of participatory decision making within each community and to build the capacity of local residents to work effectively together to advance a shared vision. That experience set in motion a much broader journey to understand the concept of “community capacity” and the roles that foundations can play in building it. The starting point on that journey was a 1998 study that mapped out 5 distinct components of community capacity and used empirical analysis to argue that a community’s health will improve when its capacity increases. Five years later, I edited a book, Promoting Health at the Community Level, which details how capacity was built within 7 of The Colorado Trust’s community-based initiatives. Over the past 25 years, I have partnered with a wide variety of other foundations that have experimented with approaches to build community capacity – sometimes as a strategy advisor, sometimes as an evaluator and sometimes as an academic researcher. Most of these projects have aimed at specific forms of capacity, such as: civic leadership, social capital, civic infrastructure, activism and community culture. Some foundations have also pushed local institutions to be more inclusive and responsive, so that the increased capacity built at the grassroots level is able to translate into actual influence. One of the most informative and rewarding lines of work in this domain stemmed from Robert Putnam’s National Social Capital Benchmark Survey in 2000. Thirty-four community foundations across the U.S. (plus 4 additional private foundations) financed the survey and in return were able to obtain survey results for their own community and for a representative national sample. I served as the academic partner to the community foundations in Winston-Salem and Greensboro for the 2000 survey and when it was repeated in 2006. In that role, I assisted both foundations in understanding the data, identifying the community’s strengths and weaknesses, and developing strategies to address gaps. In addition, I facilitated the National Social Capital Learning Circle from 2006 to 2008 which included the CEOs and other leaders from 19 foundations seeking to respond to their social capital assessments. This provided an up-close view of many different approaches that foundations can use to address issues such as inter-racial trust, engagement in civic life and volunteerism. I have seen impressive successes among the foundations that have sought to build different forms of community capacity, including Incourage Community Foundation’s leadership in creating a more inclusive and agentic culture in rural communities in central Wisconsin. On the other hand, not all models have worked as intended. And even effective models are better suited to some communities than others. Those stories and nuances are documented in various articles and evaluation reports I’ve written over the years. Building community capacity continues to be a rich area for innovation and learning. Community-building initiatives launched over the past 35 years offer important lessons, but it is also important to take into account the dynamic nature of community capacity. The forms of capacity built through prior initiatives were relevant for the community contexts in place at the time. The generations coming of age now will need new forms of capacity and foundations that rely on capacity-building as a strategy will need to continually experiment and adapt.
Contributions to the Field > Building Community Capacity, Social Capital & Civic Infrastucture > Relevant Publications
Promoting health by building community capacity: Evidence and implications for grant makers
This 1998 report published by The Colorado Trust argues that foundations with a mission to improve health can legitimately focus their investments on building community capacity. The report identifies 5 key forms of capacity: 1) skills & knowledge, 2) leadership, 3) collective efficacy, 4) social capital, and 5) a culture of openness & learning. Research is summarized documenting the link between community capacity and health.
Promoting health at the community level
This 2003 book uses 7 of The Colorado Trust's community-based initiatives to demonstrate various ways that foundations can stimulate local organizations and actors to take informed action to address the community's health-related priorities. The introductory chapter provides a theoretical framework for community-based health (including different degrees of local control). The concluding chapter ties together the chapters with overarching lessons about how foundations can build and measure community capacity.
The Colorado Trust’s Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative: Results and lessons for comprehensive community initiatives
This article describes the origins of The Colorado Trust's Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative (CHCI), how it was implemented in 28 communities across the state, how it was perceived by participating stakeholders, and the strategic issues and action steps that came out of each group. Results draw on the evaluation conducted by Ross Conner and his team. We argue that CHCI was able to engage a broad mix of residents in ways that other comprehensive community initiatives have failed to achieve.
Creating a healthy civic infrastructure: The legacy of the Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative.
This article describes the long-term effects that the Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative (CHCI) had on civic infrastructure of the participating communities, including the development of grassroots leaders, the establishment of new organizations to facilitate community-problem solving, new social connections and a stronger focus on the common good.
Building healthy communities over the long run: Lessons from the Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative
This retrospective reflection on the Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative (CHCI) argues that community health initiatives will have a greater impact if they focus on increasing civic engagement and instilling an ethic of shared accountability than if they simply attempt to develop a strategic plan to address current priorities.
Reconciling community-based versus evidence-based theories of change: A case study of the Colorado Trust’s early initiative
Some models of philanthropy argue that foundations should use their resources to disseminate and replicate "evidence-based" programs, while other models emphasize self-determination on the part of the communities the foundations is supporting. Both philosophies were reflected in The Colorado Trust's early initiatives. This article uses polarity management to argue that foundations need to navigate between the orientations rather than committing to one over the other.
The leadership role of community foundations in building social capital
Community foundations are well-positioned to stimulate new thinking and action to build social capital on a community-wide basis. This article describes innovative strategies deployed by foundations participating in the National Social Capital Benchmark Survey and organizes their impact according to a 6-factor taxonomy.
Promoting community leadership among community foundations: The role of the Social Capital Benchmark Survey
Community foundations can be more successful if they play a community leadership role than if they focus simply on donor relations, fund development and grantmaking. The 2000 Social Capital Benchmark Survey provided community foundations across the country with a tool for mobilizing community attention and action to address gaps in trust, volunteerism, leadership and activism.
Strategies for building social capital: Lessons from the Winston-Salem Foundation’s ECHO Fund
This report describes the Winston-Salem Foundation's multi-faceted strategy to build social capital, with a special focus on the ECHO Fund - a grants program designed to spur nonprofits to develop innovative approaches to building trust, connections and civic engagement. The 50 funded projects were evaluated in terms of intent and outcomes. We also assessed whether the foundation was able to entice new programming versus supporting what grantees were already doing.
Achieving communitywide impact by changing the local culture: Opportunities and considerations for foundations.
This article profiles an ambitious place-based effort led by the Incourage Community Foundation in central Wisconsin which focused on shifting the local culture rather than simply developing shared strategies. This took place in a region that had been devastated by a pair of economic dislocations and the loss of a long-time benefactors who had taken care of their communities.
Diversifying civic leadership: What it takes to move from “new faces” to adaptive problem-solving.
The movement to expand participation in community decision making has often failed to recognize that new leaders need skills to fully participate and existing leaders need to appreciate more diverse voices. The Advanced Leadership Institute addresses that gap. This article presents evaluation data from two classes conducted in central Wisconsin.
Scaling up civic leadership: Combining individual-level change and culture change.
Training individuals to be adaptive leaders is one step in creating a higher functioning civic infrastructure, but for these leaders to succeed the culture needs to be conducive. This article describes how the Kansas Leadership Center has operated as both a trainer and an agent of culture change in order to shift how communities across Kansas solve their problems.
Speak Your Peace: A communications strategy for changing community culture.
This article describes the "Speak Your Peace" campaign which the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation co-developed as a means of bringing more civility to political debates, public meetings and everyday discourse.
Evaluation of the Orton Family Foundation’s Community Heart & Soul Program: Key findings from the experience of nine demonstration sites
The Orton Family Foundation developed the Community Heart & Soul model as a means of creating a shared understanding of "what matters most" within rural communities. The intent is to bring residents together around fundamental values and to align development with those values. This report presents findings from an evaluation of the first 9 communities participating in the initiative.
Enticing institutions to become more inclusive and responsive: Lessons from The Colorado Health Foundation’s Locally Focused Work
As one strand in its strategy to promote health equity across the state, the Colorado Health Foundation's Locally Focused Work (LFW) aims to create more inclusive, responsive institutions within the communities where it is investing. LFW uses 2 strategies for this: 1) building the power of local equity champions, and 2) using the grantmaking process to entice institutions to adopt new and expanded organizational-change work. This article describes successes and challenges with the second approach.
Emergent models of place-based philanthropy: A review of six foundations’ initiatives
In contrast to place-based initiatives that rely on centralized planning processes, a newer generation uses a more decentralized approach where foundation staff directly engage with local actors. This article reviews the methods and results from 6 of these more "emergent" approaches.