Every community, large or small has inherent capacity. In December, Tamarack hosted a tele-learning session with Mary Emery from the University of South Dakota. Mary shared information about her work with the community capitals framework which has been used with small and rural communities in the United States to help local leaders uncover the capacity that exists. The community capitals framework is an interesting approach to thinking differently about our communities.
There are seven capitals that communities can draw from including:
- Natural capital: Those assets that abide in a location, including resources, amenities and natural beauty.
- Cultural capital: Reflects the way people “know the world” and how to act within it. Cultural capital includes the dynamics of who we know and feel comfortable with, what heritages are valued, collaboration across races, ethnicities, and generations, etc. Cultural capital influences what voices are heard and listened to, which voices have influence in what areas, and how creativity, innovation, and influence emerge and are nurtured. Cultural capital might include ethnic festivals, multi-lingual populations or a strong work ethic.
- Human capital: The skills and abilities of people, as well as the ability to access outside resources and bodies of knowledge in order to increase understanding and to identify promising practices. Human capital also addresses leadership’s ability to “lead across differences,” to focus on assets, to be inclusive and participatory, and to be proactive in shaping the future of the community or group.
- Social capital: Reflects the connections among people and organizations or the social glue to make things happen.
- Bonding social capital refers to those close ties that build community cohesion.
- Bridging social capital involves weak ties that create and maintain bridges among organizations and communities.
- Political capital: The ability to influence standards, rules, regulations and their enforcement. It reflects access to power and power brokers, such as access to a local office of a member of Congress, access to local, county, state, or tribal government officials, or leverage with a regional company.
- Built capital: The infrastructure that supports the community, such as telecommunications, industrial parks, mainstreets, water and sewer systems, roads, etc. Built capital is often a focus of community development efforts.
Source
The community capitals framework is useful as a tool for local communities to uncover both things they already know about their communities and also those things that they did not immediately recognize. In trying to impact or transform our communities, we need to be in touch with the local context. What exists already that we can leverage versus having to build. Leveraging makes a lot more sense when time and resources are tight. But our natural inclination first is that this idea has to be built from scratch. We often don’t take the time to view the idea through the lenses of community capitals and community context.
This is especially true when trying to deal with complex community issues like poverty. Think about how quickly our communities could scale change if we applied the community capital lens. The assets or capitals we uncovered would certainly become important leverage points for change and impact.
Further Learning: