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CQL: Building Social Capital

The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University lists CQL as one of the “organizations that are about building or harnessing social capital”—connections among individuals, personal and reciprocal relationships. While well established that social contacts—with families, friends, social groups, employers, and co-workers, among others—improve quality of life, they can prove very hard to measure accurately.

CQL’s Social Capital Index ^® provides a clear and effective means for organizations to assess their social capital, and further determine what actions they need in order to build social capital networks. Equally important, it affords data that allow organizations to focus attention on community factors such as education, transportation, employment, health care, and housing, which register the impact of the presence or absence of social capital, and which affect all community members.

Consequently, the Social Capital Index ^® furnishes support for program improvement not only to the groups it specifically serves, but also to the larger social configuration as well.