You select the city of Denton, Texas for this assignment. Asset Building Community Development of Gary Paul Green & Anna Haines. 4th Edition Chapter 7: Social Capital is the book for reference. Make sure you stay in the range of 300 words. You can look to the web site City of Denton. Plagiarism check, please.
For your assignment this week, read below and begin your research on the social capital part of the project for the community you selected for your course project. Please summarize your findings in 200 words max. Provide a direct reference to the course material properly cite your reference APA style in text and in the reference list.
Assignment Criteria
Identify a local voluntary organization in your community that has been active for several years. You may also used guidestar.org as a resource for additional information about your organization. We are interested in learning about trends in membership, recruitment of new members, retention, and engagement opportunities so please look for membership based organizations such as Rotary. You are welcome to find the information from their website but you may also consider calling the organization and discuss with someone the organization’s membership trends, meeting participation, the backgrounds of the leaders. What generalizations can you make about the participation in the organization? Is the organization doing anything to increase participation? What does the organization do to connect members with other members as well as the broader community. In conclusion, why is it important to monitor the level and type of social capital in the community? Please use a direct reference from our course material or reading to elaborate on why your findings matter to asset based community development.
Below are some ideas to help you get started but you are welcome to use any organization for your research.
Have American’s changed dramatically in their outlook? Are they still concerned about their communities and quality of life issues in a broad sense of the word?
Some other common indicators of social capital are voter turnout, participation in voluntary organizations, and attendance at meetings of local organizations (Green and Haines, 2016). These are just other resources you can use to complement on your responses above. This information is just to inspire your research of your community. Your assignment is to research and write about the role of a community based organization as a mechanism to build social capital locally. You do not need to do both.
Tips for Locating Information:
Voter Turnout – Go to the county Registrar of Voters website for and look at recent election results. In most cases, this should be available online.
City council meetings – Contact the city clerk or city managers office to inquire about average attendance; attend a meeting in person, or view recorded post videos of previous meetings, check the city minutes (these are just suggestions).
