What Your Organization Can Do
- Invite local government officials to a lunchtime discussion with your staff and volunteers.
- Host a blood drive for employees, volunteers, and clients.
- Provide release time to employees for volunteering on community activities.
- Provide meeting space for local community organizations.
- Form a fitness/health group with your co-workers. Exercise together!
- For nonprofit and community groups: think about how to involve different types of volunteers. If you serve the elderly, how can you bring in kids? If you serve kids, how can the elderly help?
- Join the United Way campaign.
- Form social groups -- softball teams, hiking clubs, bridge circles, theater clubs...
- Have a barbecue picnic for staff and nearby residents.
- Schedule a half an hour "get together" before staff meetings.
- Log into www.bettertogether.org and learn more about the growing national discussion around strengthening social capital.
- Participate in your local United Way Day of Caring.
- Have movie night at your organization -- with popcorn during and discussion afterward.
- Establish a matching grants program: match charitable contributions by your employees.
- Set up a voter registration table in your organization.
- Invite school groups to have a field trip at your site.
- If a plow clears the snow from your lot, offer to plow the lot of the local daycare center.
- Invite kids from a community or school art program to paint a "community mural" on the side of your building.
- Hold staff and/or volunteer discusssions about social capital, and what you can to to help increase it. (NHCF is eager to help with this. If you think your organization might like to have a roundtable discussion about how you can work to strengthen social capital, send us a note. Whether we merely provide materials to help your discussion, or join and help facilitate the discussion, social capital will only take off when we all put on our own thinking hats. While we will not be available to help you until the fall, we will be available and eager then.)
- Every month have one employee volunteer to host an inhouse party to socialize and have fun. Each party has a theme and everyone brings their favorite appetizer-and items to be donated to a nonprofit such as canned food, baby supplies, etc.
- Send us your idea
Download Our Updated Brochure on Social Capital
It includes the list of links to web resources on Social Capital, public policy ideas, and other Social Capital building ideas you and your organization can do! in PDF (Portable Document Format) files, which can be accessed from your browser and printed on most standard printers if you have the Acrobat Reader browser plug-in from Adobe. Acrobat Reader is available free.