I know Linda – I’ve know her for many years - Linda used to live in the town I live in but now heads up the United Way in Alexandria – she is interested in providing trainings for the partner agencies she works with. I also work with nonprofits and am interested in providing training for the nonprofits I work with. Since I know her and I trust her – I can call her and have a conversation – she knows me too so we have a level of mutual trust and respect. This makes my job a whole lot easier and between the two of us we are able to expand the training possibilities even further because we each know other people, whose expertise we can draw from! This is using our Social Capital – developing our social contacts so we can better affect our productivity.
I sat in on a session at the MCN’s Leadership Conference called Building Authentic Social Capital through Community Engagement. We were put into circles and then began sharing information about ourselves and specifically what “social capital” we brought to the circle. It was so amazing to witness – people began exchanging business cards so that they could follow up with information……this person had a resource someone else in the room needed…..this person knew someone else whom they could connect to.
It is really so simple. It all starts with building good relationships with people – like Linda.
Holly Witt
Nonprofit Resource Specialist, Alexandria
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