Spinning Straw into Gold; How Social Cohesion Leads to Financial Capital

Written by Tim Buckley, November 2024

Financial Capital

CBEL’s most recent Collaborative gathering featured two tiers of community leadership: the first tier made up of three leaders from Neighborhood Family Councils, and the second tier made up of three others, representing city agencies dealing with public safety, education and housing.

A big takeaway from the gathering was this:

• Elected officials and agency heads assemble political capital so that it can be turned into financial capital to solve community problems. Their logic: the more problems solved, the more cohesive and safer the community gets.

• Neighborhood Family Councils have very little political or financial capital to spend. What they are building is social cohesion and social capital.

Why is that a big deal?

• Neighborhood Councils start by building trust. Trust is the basis for social cohesion. As the neighborhood becomes more cohesive, it creates social capital.

• City agencies - partly because of their size and scope - are less adept at creating social cohesion and thus have less social capital to offer the community. Perhaps that’s why there’s often a gap between government spending and social outcomes?

• It was clear from the buzz in the room that morning that pairing those who generate social capital with those who manage financial capital has potential to create a new level of opportunity.Jim Seymour, Executive Director of CBEL, said that ideal social outcomes have four components: social cohesion, social capital, political capital, and financial capital. He said we need all four, and if you don’t have social cohesion as a foundation, the other parts are harder to achieve.

Social Cohesion. According to Judith Maxwell, President of Canadian Policy Research Networks, a social and economic policy think-tank based in Ottawa: “Social cohesion involves building shared values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income, and generally enabling people to have a sense that they are engaged in a common enterprise, facing shared challenges, and that they are members of the same community.”

She went on to say that social cohesion “is a set of social processes that help instill in individuals the sense of belonging to the same community and the feeling that they are recognized as members of that community.”

Without cohesion, civic leaders have difficulty getting clear understanding about the values, problems, and needs of the community they serve.

CBEL’s five Neighborhood Family Councils (NFC) begin by developing cohesion, which gives them the basis for being an amplifier for the values, problems and needs of their neighbors.

Social Capital is the outcome of positive human interaction. Outcomes might include favors that we do for one another, useful information we share, innovative ideas we create, and future opportunities that arise from them. Social capital is not an individual thing but collective. It manifests as a network of connections between individuals who trust one another. With social capital, we can then seek political and financial capital to spend on solutions.

CBEL’s introductory video demonstrates this procedural phenomenon, how social cohesion built social capital which manifest in the renaissance of a city park that had fallen into disuse and misuse. The Hallman-Northgate NFC used its social capital (created in a couple of years’ worth of events in Northgate Park) to build political capital with Salem City Council. From there, it was a manageable jump to receive almost $1 million from the City to build a modern restroom facility in the park.

As the three agency leaders summed up their experience at the Collaborative that morning, a common theme emerged. City leaders value authentic connection with those they serve. When NFC leaders told them of their lived experience with public safety, education and housing, it gave those officials something more tangible and concrete to attach to the needs list they work with every day. As one said, “I’ve got these stories fixed in my brain now, and these are the stories I will tell when it comes to explaining what needs to be done next.”