Can we fix the social capital gap?
Social capital cannot be ‘built’ and ‘deployed’ top-down to deliver specific policy objectives. Social capital is built by local communities and drawn down by them when addressing issues that matter locally.
Category: Impact Assessment
Are Policymakers Finally Ready to Invest in Social Capital Projects that Work?
Social capital is back in fashion and that can only be a good thing. Of course, for a certain class of analyst and policymaker – of which I am one – it never went out of fashion, but for everyone else it is a curious concept that can often seem like the miracle cure for…
Nobel-winning method can show if levelling up is working
Natural experiments reveal whether investments in neighbourhoods make a difference, says Richard Harries Appearing before the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee last month, Michael Gove laid out his four priorities for the new Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities. These, he said, were to strengthen and improve local leadership and living standards, raise the quality of…
A better way: Takepowerment!
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it. Malcolm X, 1965 There are many in the third sector who find themselves deeply uncomfortable with the notion of “empowerment”. It brings with it an implicit assumption of noblesse oblige. After all, if power…
Trading Up: A new approach to grant making and evaluation
The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) has been a hotbed of talent and fresh thinking since its foundation by Michael Young in 1997. Its latest innovation, Match Trading®, draws on this experience and is attracting interest from across the social sector and within the corridors of government. Match Trading is brand new type of grants…
On Indices and Indecision
If you want to learn what the spirit of the people is by means of arithmetic, it goes without saying that that’s extremely difficult. Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” When CP Snow published The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution in 1959 it seems unlikely he had the voluntary and community sector in mind. Yet more than 60…