1. Cause or Effect in BR&E Visitation Programs
Social Capital
Cause or Effect in BR&E Visitation Programs

2. Social Capital What is Social Capital?
How does it relate to BR&E Visitation Programs?
Does increased social capital lead to more local development?

3. Vital Economy Healthy Ecosystems Social Equity
Community Capitals
Human Capital
Natural Capital
Social Capital
Vital Economy
Healthy Ecosystems
Social Equity
Political
Capital
Cultural
Capital
Built Capital
Financial Capital

4. Social Capital is: Building Mutual Trust Constructing a Formation of
shared future
Formation of
groups
Strengthening
collective identity
Group
collaboration

5. Social Capital Bonding Bridging Tight, exclusive networks
Strong distinction between insiders and outsiders
Single answer focus
Bridging
Open and flexible networks
Permeable and open boundaries
Legitimization of alternatives

6. Dimensions of Social Capital: Implications for Area Development
NDSU Extension Center for Community Vitality,
Dimensions of Social Capital: Implications for Area Development
Bridging +
Clientalism
Regional change driven by goals of outsiders
Progressive Participation
Regional change driven by community-determined goals -
Bonding +
Extreme individualism
Rich solve problems
through financial capital
Poor have few options
Strong Boundaries
Regions resists change, often groups within the regions don’t trust each other and do not cooperate
Clientalism- high bridging with low bonding
Extreme individualism – low bridging and bonding
Strong boundaries – low bridging but high bonding
Progressive Participation – high bridging and high bonding -
Source: North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, C. Flora and M. Emery

7. Yogi Berra’s Example of General Reciprocity
“If you don’t go to somebody’s funeral, they won’t come to yours.”

8. Social Indicators
Relationships
Communication
Individuals
Programs

9. Honesty and Trust give communities “measurable economic advantage”
Tangible benefits
Firms spend less on “surveillance” if they can trust public and employees
Firms spend less on legal services or wondering how they will lose in a relationship
Firms spend less on checking compliance with contracts if they can trust partners, employees, customers
Intangible benefits
Firms have a more trusting outlook on exploring partnerships
Exploitation of cluster opportunities becomes more viable
Greater level of trust between firms and government agencies, assistance organizations, general public, etc.

10. How Does Social Capital Work?
Social Capital helps communities resolve problems and make group decisions
Social Capital reduces the transaction costs of doing business
Social Capital broadens perspectives, opening the doors to new ideas.

11. Mission of BR&E Visitation Programs
Help existing firms survive and grow:
Using a process for learning about the concerns of local businesses and setting priorities for BR&E projects to address those needs
To build the capacity of the community to implement both BR&E programs and other local economic development efforts

12. Higher levels of social capital help build capacity to improve the community’s economic situation

13. Social Capital and BR&E
Utilizing a continuous model presents a different challenge in building social capital in a community than do the other BR&E models.
The Management and Operations Teams, in collaboration with the Stakeholders, should determine how the community’s social capital can best be enhanced.
Building social capital is a tremendous part of setting the stage for the economic expansion of existing businesses.
How can you as the BR&E Operations Team/Task Force coordinator develop social capital in your area?

14. Questions

15. Creative Commons License
This work carries an attribution non-commercial share alike license.
Trained and certified instructors by BREI or the Cooperative Extension System are allowed to remix, tweak, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as they credit the original authors and they must license their new creations under the identical terms. This work can be downloaded and redistributed, but all new work based on this work must carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.