What is social capital?

Who benefits from increased social capital?

Why is this guide needed?

Who is this guide intended to serve?

Who shouldn't use this guide?

How do I navigate this guide?

The process outlined in this guide falls into seven steps which can be found on the right-hand margin of all pages in this guide.

After reviewing the entire guide, each organization must decide how much time to spend on each step.  For example, large organizations with research shops and on-going evaluations may want to skip “Mobilizing Resources” (step 1).  Similarly, some organizations may be more familiar than others with social capital and how they would like to build it and thus will spend much less time in steps 2 and 3 tracing the intersection between the organization and program on the one hand, and social capital on the other.  For every organization, steps 4, 5, and 6 will require the most time and resources.  We also highly recommend that you read pages 28-44 of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Evaluation Handbook which has a useful overview of “outcome evaluation” that will be a helpful complement to this Guide.

Throughout this guide, we’ll have a hypothetical non-profit called “Jumpahead” going through the same Evaluation process.  You may want to find out at each stage how Jumpahead dealt with these decisions or conducted this step of the process.

For a thumbnail description of Jumpahead and why they decided to measure social capital, click here.

Where do I begin?