NCERA215: Contribution of 4-H Participation to the Development of Social Capital Within Communities

(Multistate Research Coordinating Committee and Information Exchange Group)

Status: Active

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SAES-422 Reports

Annual/Termination Reports:

[01/12/2026]

Date of Annual Report: 01/12/2026

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 10/06/2025 - 10/07/2025
Period the Report Covers: 10/06/2024 - 10/06/2025

Participants

Neil Klemme, University of Wisconsin Madison
Chris Anderson, University of Maryland
Steve Henness, University of Missouri
Jacquie Lonning, University of Minnesota
Matt Calvert, University of Wisconsin Madison
Keith Nathaniel, University of California
Mary Emery, University of Nebraska

Brief Summary of Minutes

I. Goals and planning for upcomming year (Day 1)

The first day of the annual meeting was dedicated to establishing the strategic direction for the upcoming one-to-three-year period. The primary goal is to re-focus on tangible deliverables that allow colleagues to precisely measure the impact of youth development work, specifically as it relates to Social Capital development.

A key initiative is the deepening of the Social Capital Tools subcommittee's work, which has been active throughout the year as a forum for exploring the development of measurement instruments. Recognizing the hiring or consideration of College and Career Readiness (CCR) Program Managers in member states, the team identified CCR as a critical and relevant focus area. The working group will proceed by cross-referencing the "Beyond Ready" framework with existing Social Capital research as a first step in developing new tools centered on college and career readiness outcomes.

Dissemination of the group's research and tools will be pursued through targeted presentations to both professional colleagues and youth audiences. Potential venues for 2026-2028 include the Joint Council of Extension Leadership Conference or major Community Development/Youth Development association conferences. A specific objective is to present at the Ignite Conference (or a similar youth-focused venue) to educate young attendees on the significance of social capital development in their lives. These presentations will also serve as valuable opportunities for data collection to evaluate the efficacy and value of the newly developed materials.

Finally, the team will explore external funding opportunities to sustain research in youth social capital, including potential case studies related to state leadership programs, such as Minnesota's Ambassador program. The immediate focus remains the creation of measurement tools, training materials, and evaluation instruments over the next three years.

II. Program Evaluation and Team Expansion (Day 2)

The second day concentrated on evaluating the longitudinal impact of the group’s foundational resources. A project was initiated to assess the effectiveness of the toolkits developed by the working group over the past decade. This evaluation will involve systematically reaching out to colleagues nationwide who have downloaded the toolkits for implementation in their own programs. The data analysis phase is projected for completion by December 2025 or January 2026.

The team also discussed the imperative to expand membership to introduce new perspectives and expertise, thereby broadening the reach and applicability of the research outputs.

Accomplishments

<h4>A. Short-Term Outcomes and Research Evolution</h4> The establishment of a Social Capital Tools subcommittee has created a focused workstream for exploring and developing metrics to measure how programming impacts youth and community social capital. While Ripple Effect Mapping has been the primary historical method for impact measurement, the subcommittee is strategically shifting to explore other methods, such as Social Network Analysis (SNA), to establish a baseline of youth relationships and track the strengthening of ties over time. Furthermore, members of the team from Wisconsin successfully secured a grant that will fund the development of comprehensive civic engagement programming across the state. This initiative includes funding for ten youth intern positions in each of four selected counties (two rural and two urban), specifically chosen to represent diverse stages of youth-in-governance program development (from newly developed to established programs spanning over 20 years). <h4>B. Outputs</h4> Presentations throughout the past year have successfully connected the working group with diverse colleagues nationally and internationally across both the youth development and community development fields. The team aims to leverage this expanded network over the next five years to pilot new programming, test evaluation instruments, and gather rich case studies. Maintenance of the group's public website (<a href="https://4h-social-capital.extension.org/">https://4h-social-capital.extension.org/</a>) continues to be a core output. The site was overhauled in the past year, ensuring all links are current and providing access to recent team publications and presentations. A Google form remains available on the site for Extension professionals and potential collaborators to express interest in joining NCERA 215 activities. <h4>C. Activities </h4> <h4>Activity 1</h4> <h4>Project Report: Measuring Social Capital Development in Wisconsin Youth in Governance (YIG) Lead Agency: University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension Collaborating Partners: NCERA215 National Research Team, UW School of Education, UW School of Human Ecology (SoHE) Status: UW-Madison Reilly-Baldwin Grant of $120,000 Awarded / Project Commencement Phase</h4> <h3>I. Project Overview</h3> <h4>This project, led by the Wisconsin members of the NCERA215 National Research Team, investigates the development of social capital among youth participating in Youth in Governance (YIG) programs. By utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach, the project pairs academic rigor with youth-led community action. The project is currently in its initial implementation phase following the successful acquisition of grant funding, focusing on two urban and two rural Wisconsin counties.</h4> <h3>II. Activities</h3> The following activities are scheduled for the current funding cycle to establish the research infrastructure and participant cohorts: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Multidisciplinary Internship Recruitment: The project is establishing 40 total internship positions across the four participating counties. These roles are specialized into three tracks:</li> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Research Interns: Focusing on data collection and social capital mapping.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Video Production Interns: Documenting the process and community impact.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Project Interns: Managing the implementation of local community-action initiatives.</li> </ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Training: In partnership with the UW-Madison School of Education, youth participants are being trained in the YPAR process. This framework empowers youth to serve as researchers within their own communities, identifying systemic needs and designing evidence-based interventions.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Social Capital Measurement & Survey Training: The UW-Madison School of Human Ecology (SoHE) is providing specialized support to develop and implement survey instruments. Youth are trained to understand and measure the three pillars of social capital: Bonding (internal peer support), Bridging (cross-group connections), and Linking (connections to power and institutions).</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Technical Media Training: A professional documentary filmmaker is conducting intensive workshops for Video Production Interns, teaching high-level filming techniques, storytelling, and digital advocacy.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Community Need Identification: Youth cohorts in each of the four counties (2 Urban, 2 Rural) are currently in the "Discovery Phase," identifying specific community challenges they will address through their grant-funded projects.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Building Youth Readiness: Designing Programs that Develop Youth Social Capital. Poster Presentation by NCERA 215 Team members. 2025 National Association of Extension 4-H Youth Development Professionals (NAE4-HYDP) Conference. Atlanta, GA.</li> </ul> Impacts: While the project is in its early stages, the following long-term impacts are expected: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Validation of Social Capital Metrics: Through the guidance of the NCERA215 national team, this project will produce validated tools for measuring how YIG programs specifically contribute to a young person’s "linking capital" with local government officials.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Increased Civic Agency: By utilizing the YPAR model, youth will move from "consultants" in local government to "active researchers," increasing their sense of efficacy and long-term civic commitment.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide: By running identical research protocols in two urban and two rural settings, the project will generate critical insights into how social capital formation differs across diverse Wisconsin geographies.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;">Narrative Empowerment: The documentary component will provide a counter-narrative to traditional youth development reporting, showing the lived experience of civic leadership through the eyes of the youth themselves.</li> </ul> Milestones: The success of the project will be monitored through the following indicators: <table> <tbody> <tr> <td> Category </td> <td> Indicator Metric </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Capacity Building </td> <td> Successful placement and retention of 40 youth interns across the four designated counties. </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Research Fidelity </td> <td> Completion of YPAR training modules by 100% of Research and Project interns. </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Methodological Rigor </td> <td> Successful deployment of pre- and post-program social capital surveys developed by SoHE. </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Technical Output </td> <td> Production of four community-specific documentaries (one per county) illustrating the identified community project. </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Civic Interaction </td> <td> The number of documented "Linking Capital" interactions (e.g., youth-led presentations to County Boards or City Councils). </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Community Change </td> <td> Completion of four youth-identified community improvement projects (one per county). </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Indicators: The project is currently utilizing funds allocated for the 40 intern stipends, equipment for film production, and administrative support for the UW academic partnerships. The next major milestone will be the Baseline Social Capital Assessment, expected to be completed once the full intern cohort is seated in the Spring. <h4>Activity 2</h4> <h4>Project Overview: Impact Evaluation of NCERA-215 Social Capital Toolkit </h4> <h4>Subject: Evaluation of Toolkit Implementation</h4> <h2>I. Executive Summary</h2> This evaluation will examine whether the Toolkit successfully provides practitioners with the knowledge and tools they need to intentionally and purposefully implement social capital programming. This evaluation will capture what the quality, effectiveness, and accessibility, usefulness, and usability is of this Toolkit for the development of social capital in youth, specifically for youth in 4-H programs. In addition to assessing the Toolkit for how well it imparts knowledge about social capital programming, this evaluative review will examine whether the Toolkit is effectively developed and written, how it can be improved, whether it achieves the authors stated goals. Specifically, this evaluative review will seek to assess: What are users’ perceptions about the Toolkit’s accessibility, clarity of the goals and strategies presented, and whether these tools are easy to be extracted and implemented. This review will seek to examine what are differences among subgroups’ perceptions about the Toolkit. <h2>II. Activities</h2> The Evaluation The central questions to be addressed by the evaluation include: <ul> <li>Does the handbook achieve the authors stated goals? In fact, the Toolkit has several stated goals, aims, and purposes. The primary goals of the toolkitare as follows:                                                        “The toolkit is designed to help you develop a better understanding of social capital within the 4-H youth development context, and to design program experiences that more purposefully strengthen youth       and community social capital.” (Henness et al., 2023, p.3)                                                                                                                                                                                                                      “The goal of this resource is for readers to apply tools and learning to enhance the overall quality of youth and community development programming. We aim to further the goals of engagement,  opportunity, and equity for all youth as outlined in the National 4-H Strategic Plan 2025)”.(Henness et al., 2023, p.3)</li> </ul> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;">How is the Toolkit utilized and implemented by the intended audience and targeted groups (e.g., youth workers, educators, counselors)? What are their perceptions of the Toolkit? Specifically, how do these groups perceive the Toolkit’s quality, specifically the resources:</li> </ul>  Accessibility   Is the handbook easy to navigate and understand? Quality <ul> <li>Clarity</li> <li>Cohesiveness</li> <li>Conciseness</li> <li>Organization</li> <li>Comprehensive and relevant</li> <li>Is the information accurate, up-to-date, and evidence-based?</li> <li>Usability</li> <li>Utility/Usefulness</li> <li>Feasibility (of implementation)</li> <li>Content     </li> <li>Does the Toolkit facilitate and improve social capital implementation? That is, is the Toolkit a useful resource for helping youth program specialists get up to speed about what Social Capital is? Does the toolkit facilitate implementation?</li> </ul> <h2>III. Milestones</h2> Since the initiation of this evaluation at the end of the last grant cycle, the following benchmarks have been achieved Milestone 1: Synthesize data and findings and develop draft/outline <h2>IV. Impacts (Anticipated and Emerging)</h2> Formal data analysis is slated for completion in February 2026 <h4> </h4>

Publications

Calvert, M., Bublitz, M,. Klemme, N. (2025). Wisconsin Youth Corps: Measuring social capital development in youth in governance programs [Grant application]. University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension; Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. Anderson, C., Nathaniel, K., & Klemme, N. (2025). Building Youth Readiness: Designing Programs that Develop Youth Social Capital. National Association of Extension 4-H Youth Development Professionals (NAE4-HYDP) Conference. Atlanta, GA. Henness, S. & Anderson, C. (Eds.) (2023). Building social capital on purpose: A toolkit for youth and community development professionals. North Central Extension & Research Activity (NCERA) 215: Contribution of 4-H Participation to the Development of Social Capital Within Communities. National 4-H Peer Reviewed. https://4h-social-capital.extension.org/resources/ Downloaded 97 times as of January 2026. Presentations: Calvert, M., Gauley, J., Moya, E. (May 14, 2025) Ripple Effect Mapping with Youth Audiences. Program Planning and Evaluation for National PYD Impact Working Group, online (86 participants). Henness, S. (Feb 12, 2025). Building and evaluating relationship-centric experiences in translational research [Invited Presentation]. Mizzou TecHub. University of Missouri. https://researchtranslation.missouri.edu/communi-tec-i-spring-2025-seminars Henness, S. (Nov 17, 2025). Flash back/flash forward: Youth and adult leaders continuing Missouri Community Betterment. [Invited Presentation]. Sixty-First Annual Missouri Community Betterment Conference. Jefferson City, MO. Henness, S. (Accepted Mar 25, 2026). How does real-world entrepreneurial learning influence youth social capital in rural communities? An exploratory analysis. [Virtual Preconference]. International Social Capital Association Conference. Dubai, United Arab Emirates.