University-Community engagement: What does it mean?

I want to reflect on the nature of Community-University engagement, its role, challenges and achievements. In this I start with `engagement and what that might mean in the context of a university-based research centre. There are, of course, many forms of engagement, but I wish to focus specifically on engagement as coproduction of knowledge. In this, our partner in the co-production of knowledge is the community, or rather civil society. I re-examine the nature of community, and the role of civil society in todays society. The article then outlines one significant research programme that emerged from the work of a university research centre, the Centre for Australian Community Organisations and Management (CACOM), at the University of Technology, Sydney. This research namely the story of social capital research was initiated by a request from community partners and was carried out in collaboration with them

Complex systems leadership in emergent community projects

The literature on community development rarely addresses the issue of emergent leadership. Community development is a non-linear process which may arise from the initiatives of people within the community, utilizing their social capital with relatively few economic or human capital resources. Yet to answer the question of how the community is mobilized for development, the issue of leadership must be addressed. An individual or a group must mobilize the community for this purpose. As Barker et al. (in Leadership and Social Movements, Manchester Unity Press, Manchester, 2001) argue, leadership is an essential element of change. In this paper, we explore the issue of emergent leadership in five community case studies. The theoretical lens of complexity theory is used to analyse the ways in which leadership emerges. Seven themes emerged, some of which were consistent with complexity theory. © Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2010 All rights reserved

Networking through loose and strong ties: An Australian qualitative study

Given the significant role attributed to community organizations by many social capital scholars, it is appropriate to investigate the dynamics of that process. In particular, Woolcock and Narayan (World Bank Res. Obs. 15(2): 225-249, 2000) have suggested that bridging and bonding are two different types of connections, whereby bridging is associated with loose ties across communities and bonding is associated with strong ties within a limited group. This qualitative study explores the loose and strong ties of 39 participants connected through community organizations in rural and urban New South Wales. The results suggest that loose and strong ties are not synonymous with bridging and bonding. In general loose and strong ties differ in degree rather than in kind and people prefer to bridge through their strong ties. The interesting exceptions were ties to professionals, which were highly trusted but defined as loose ties. It is suggested that a model for a high social capital society might be a chain of well-bonded groups each with strong links to some other groups

The politics of social impact: 'value for money' versus 'active citizenship'?

There is growing interest in identifying the social impact of everything: academic research, funded projects, organisations themselves, whether in public , private, or community sectors. The central questions are first what benefits do organizations create and deliver for society and second how do we measure these benefits? These questions are notoriously difficult to answer and yet go to the heart of efforts by governments and civil society organisations to create a better world, to generate social value. The importance of finding a way to measure social impact becomes all the more crucial when it comes to arguing that the benefits obtained far outweigh the cost of producing those benefits, and indeed the benefits may directly or  indirectly increase economic wealth. This line of thinking has started to generated various attempts in Australia and elsewhere in the neo-liberal world, to find objective indicators of social impact, and preferably to frame these in terms of monetary cost and benefit.  Indeed there is increasing insistence on the part of funding bodies that we measure the social impact. However, exactly what it is that we should be measuring remains contested and elusive</jats:p

Implications of government funding of advocacy for third-sector independence and exploration of alternative advocacy funding models

This paper examines the effect of funding contracts on the capacity of third-sector organizations to effectively advocate. The relationship is not simple or obvious, with some organizations reporting 'mature relationships' with particular (state) departments, and others reporting difficulty with state or federal government jurisdictions. The paper spells out the negative effects of conflating service funding and advocacy. The paper concludes by exploring alternative institutional arrangements for the resourcing of advocacy including the establishment of a Public Interest Fund administered independently of any government department, one not requiring specific service contracts but rather evidence that it is advocating for the broader public good

The intersection of social capital and power: An application to rural communities

The central aim of the article is to examine the relationship between power and social capital within the cultural, historical and spatial contingencies of three rural communities in Australia. These communities are West Wyalong NSW, Broken Hill NSW and Maleny Qld. Each has variously experienced the threats of deindustrialisation, revitalisation, and commercial development pressures (Beaver and Cohen, 2004). To understand how these communities have addressed their circumstances we examine each in turn within the overriding analytical framework of social capital. We find that social capital is used in different ways in each community. The article is prefaced by an exploration of the core theoretical concepts: Social capital, bonding bridging and linking and power, followed by a brief analysis of each of the three cases. © 2007 eContent Management Pty Ltd

Managing sustainable non-profit network organizations

We draw upon a case study conducted within a non-profit network organization to propose five dualities which are central to understanding effective management of non-profit networks. We then examine strategies that address these dualities, based on new approaches to leadership, performance measurement, governance, coaching and creative management of dualities