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MAINE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION [Community
Highlights] [Success Stories] [Press
Release] [Survey
Highlights] 2/28/01 Maine's participation in the social capital benchmark survey has re-affirmed our current community asset-building grant making strategy. It will also provide us with a critically important framework for evaluating and measuring community strength in communities throughout the state, promoting the importance of social capital to policymakers, and positioning our own foundation as a knowledge broker and resource for knowing "what works" in supporting and strengthening a community's social capital. Specific strategies we are considering and/or will pursue include: 1. In the surveyed area (Lewiston - Auburn), we will provide grant support for an early childhood school readiness project that seems to illustrate a "best practice" in both bonding and bridging social capital. The project also responds to at least one dimension of social capital where there's plenty of room for improvement. 2. We are exploring ways to partner with one or more organizations to produce a biennial benchmark report on the State of Maine Communities. Using many of the measures from the survey, we will establish baselines for most communities or groups of communities within regions, highlight communities that exhibit "best practice" examples of social capital, and perhaps even direct grant making efforts to selected projects that are designed to respond to one or more specific dimensions of social capital. A biennial report could also be used to highlight the importance of communities in the overall social fabric, economy, and vibrancy of the state, and position our own foundation as the knowledge broker for what works in communities. 3. Bolstered by the survey, we will continue to use our social capital-building grant making priorities to strengthen Maine communities. We have long understood that our endowment-building and grant-making efforts are really community-building activities. Toward that end, five years ago we revamped our grant making from a traditional model with traditional grant categories to an asset-based model with a set of priorities and screening criteria we believe strengthen communities. The priorities include:
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