I first heard the term “social capital” last year when I met Father Bob Maguire. In his unique way, he managed to get a fairly selfish yuppie like myself thinking about what I could be doing on a daily basis to help those around me. One thing lead to another, and we cooked up this idea for a volunteer service which would enable well-to-do white-collar professionals (and anyone else by the way) who wanted to “get involved” in their local community, but didn’t have a charity or church background (and didn’t want to get one either) a framework for helping re-build the social fabric in their local community.
This site (and the show that will go with it) is the beginning of the fruition of those chat I’ve been having with Father Bob over the last few months.
In the beginning, we’ll be looking at ways that people and businesses around the world are already developing social capital. Soon we’ll also be building a training program and a database to connect people who are prepared to volunteer their time with people who have work for them to do. And more. This isn’t just another podcast. This is a movement. This is an event. This is a multi-year program to build a system that will allow any of us, regardless of country, race, economic situation, religion or age, to plug into a program for getting involved in helping the people who need help in our local communities.
Social Capital makes strange bedfellow. A start-up internet entrepreneur and a 72 year old Catholic priest? Well what about adding a senior politician to the mix.
I was googling the term “social capital” tonight and discovered this article from 2003 in the The Age newspaper in Melbourne which described a vision that the current Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello, has regarding “social capital”:
Costello is ready to promote his big organising idea - “social capital”.
Last week, he began to tease it out on the ABC’s Jon Faine program and in conversations around Parliament House.
By “social capital”, Costello means the myriad relationships and values that can foster and nurture a sense of community, trust and neighbourhood, improving the quality of society and the life of families and individuals within it.
It is difficult to measure social capital, but that does not reduce its importance.
The Treasurer who has talked for eight budgets about economics now says: “You don’t judge the sum of a community just by the economic indicators. There is another facet as well. You judge it by the community and the spirit and the sense of friendliness and the family support. It is worth reminding people that we need to attend to those things as well.”
Surprisingly enough, I think the Pete’s hit the nail on the head. Maybe he’ll come on the show for a chat.
