Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

See notes available here

The 2023-2024 annual meeting was held virtually. During the meeting we discussed the recent news of our renewal for another 5 years on this project. Discussions centered around new directions for the team and establishing work teams to focus the creation of tools and development of instruments to measure the development of Social Capital. One of the main topics centered around the need to create evaluation tools that can be utilized by colleagues looking to measure their programs impact on social capital development. Some examples that were discussed included Ripple Effect Mapping, training for youth as evaluators and materials for program extenders like volunteers and partners.  

The team also discussed dividing into two sub-teams to tackle projects that interest individual members. This was an approach we used a few years ago and provided the team an opportunity to address multiple projects and allowed members to work on projects that were aligned with individual interests. The teams will report back at scheduled monthly meetings. One team will focus on tools for practitioners for implementation and evaluation and another team will explore grant funding opportunities to expand the research to programming happening around the country. 

Currently, our team consists of 6 states: California, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, as well as some individuals retired from their positions, but still interested in the work. We have developed a list of contacts through our presentations that we will use in the future to expand the reach of our team's research. 

Short-term Outcomes: The team finalized the publication and release of Building Social Capital on Purpose: A Toolkit for Youth and Community Development Professionals.  The Toolkit was reviewed and approved as a supplementary resource through the National 4-H Peer Review process.  It has been subsequently set up as a free digital download on the shop4-H.org site: https://shop4-h.org/products/building-social-capital-on-purpose-a-toolkit-for-youth-and-community-development-professionals. In January 2024, two team members presented a National 4-H Meet the Authors webinar, introducing the resource to a national audience of youth development professionals.  Over 110 pre-registered for the session and more than 30 attended live: https://shop4-h.org/pages/meet-the-author-webinars 

Our group has continued to have presentations accepted at national conferences. Our team continues to share our work locally, within our states and nationally in an effort to spread knowledge of promising program practices. The focus of our presentations over the past year at the NAE4-HYDP National Conference in Pittsburgh (2023) and again at the Community Development Society Conference in Omaha (2024) centered around the second toolkit that our team published last year on how to intentionally incorporate practices into 4-H programming that help youth develop social capital. Some of our team members have had publications and presentations within their states (see below). 

Some of these presentations have allowed us to expand the audience into other fields. For example, Klemme and Johnson presented their work this past year to the Wisconsin Association of Parks and Recreation Department. This is a group that traditionally programs for youth and was interested more in the concept of engaging youth in program plan and park design.  For the CDS session in Omaha, four team members related an integrated youth/community development model and other Toolkit topics to their programming in areas of youth in governance, rural community development, community design/place-making, and community entrepreneurial ecosystems. Among the 10 session attendees were a mayor, a U.S. Census state data center director, a national community program coach/trainer, and an international community development practitioner. 

These presentations have allowed us to connect with colleagues from around the country and even internationally in both the youth development and community development arenas. We hope to engage this network in the next 5 years to pilot programming, evaluation and collect case studies.

Anderson, C., Nathaniel, K., & Klemme, N. (2023). Building Youth and Community Social Capital on Purpose: A Toolkit for Youth and Community Development Professionals. National Association of Extension 4-H Youth Development Professionals. Pittsburgh, PA.

Henness, S. (MO), and Anderson, C. (MD) (2024). Building Social Capital on Purpose: A Toolkit for Youth and Community Development Professionals. Meet the Author(s) Webinar. National 4-H Council.

Henness, S. (MO), Calvert, M. (WI), Emery, M. (NE), & Johnson, T. (WI) (2024). Building Social Capital on Purpose: A Toolkit for Youth and Community Development Professionals. Community Development Society, Omaha NE.

Outputs: 

We continue to maintain a public website to disseminate our project and share relevant resources - https://4h-social-capital.extension.org/. This website underwent an overhaul in the past year. All links were updated and recent team publications and presentations were added to the site.  The site includes a link to a Google form where 4-H and CD Extension professionals and other potential collaborators can express interest and learn how to become involved in NCERA 215 meetings and activities.

A program planning/reporting template from the Building Social Capital on Purpose Toolkit (Section 9) was set up as a survey form in Qualtrics. The template provides a tool for practitioners to integrate social capital into new or existing programs, and as a resource for use in program planning, development, evaluation and reporting. The template can facilitate NCERA 215 team members and others in sharing program examples and starting to build a collection of social capital cases.

Activities: 

NCERA 215 members from WI completed a grant application in 2024 entitled Rural Youth Community Corps, that would have created a model for programming that intentionally builds opportunities for social capital development for youth in communities around WI. The program proposal implemented aspects of a program that would develop youth social capital through building connections to places and the people in those places. Although we didn’t receive the funding this application created the groundwork for the NCERA 215 team to use in the future as we look to apply for other funding in the next 5 years of our project to evaluate the aspects of programming that helps youth develop their own social capital. This will be the focus of one of our team's subgroups moving forward.

One team member is working with colleagues to evaluate civic engagement programming. Using Restorative Justice program and Youth in Governance program participants as subjects, focus group interviews were conducted and results were coded to determine emergent themes. Responses in this study included results coded as social capital and a paper is being written to report the results of the study. 

In addition to the presentations listed above, the following publications and presentations have involved one or more members of our group:

Klemme, N. (2023). Empowering Youth to Transform Communities. Lake Mills Recreation Department, Badger Talks, Lake Mills, WI.

Klemme, N. (2023). Building Social Capital Through 4-H Programming. Lakeview Community Center, Badger Talk, Random Lake, WI.

Klemme N., Johnson, T. (2023) Empowering Youth in Community Design. 2023 All-Colleague Conference. Madison, WI.

Klemme N., Johnson, T. (2024) Engaging Youth to Transform Communities. 2024 Wisconsin Parks and Recreation Department Association Conference. Lacrosse, W

Henness, S. (2023). Real-World Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset,,,, and Yotuh Social Capital: A CEO Program Case Study. Community Development Society. Portland, OR.