Many community groups, be it schools, churches, sporting clubs or local councils struggle to know how they can build their community and engage better with their constituents. Many groups understand the importance of having strong relationships between its members but lack the knowledge and tools.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that by building social capital in a community or group, other forms of capital (resources) such as human capital, financial capital and physical capital can move in a positive direction. The more forms of capital that are present, the better the overall outcomes for the community can be.
Great communities can be built using three simple steps:
1. Understand that the strengths of your community matter.
If we start to think about communities as being abundant sources of strengths and resources, we can think about what is possible rather than all of the problems that the community faces.
2. Surface and map the strengths of your members.
It makes sense to know what the strengths of your members are and to invite them to help achieve your community group objectives. As a result, they are likely to be more engaged and happier members of your community.
3. Mobilise those strengths towards the common good of the whole community.
As the strengths of the community are mobilised, the community can be stronger as a result. There are a number of ways in which this can be done. For example, community business directories and/or noticeboards that outline a need and invites members to take part in a larger cause can result in outcomes where needs are met and where everybody wins.
You can begin the process of building a great community by looking for ways to map the strengths of your community. A tool that helps community groups to do this is B2Me. B2Me is a person to person community-based business directory that enables providers of different services (e.g., consultants, carpenters, electricians, accountants, designers, hairdressers, artists) to become visible within a community-based marketplace that is accessible by the whole community.
B2Me Australia is proud to be a wholly WA owned and operated company that is breaking some serious ground in the service provision and asset mapping space. For a limited time only, B2Me Australia are offering a select number of community groups the opportunity to have early access to B2Me. Communities are beginning to line up so to know more, visit facebook.com/B2MeAustralia and register your community's interest by clicking on the send email button.
