Building your personal social capital

Bryan Miller | 18 November 2009 | Blogs

According to Wikipedia, social capital is:

“a sociological concept used in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health and the social sciences in general to refer to connections within and between social networks… variety of definitions share the core idea “that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so do social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups”.

I found an interesting article on how to build one’s social capital and written by Ecademy’s founder, Penny Power, and wanted to share it with the UK Fundraising community and gather your thoughts.

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Forget the fact that as the founder of a social network for business she obviously has a vested interest in getting people to use it. What she says makes sense and I predict that we will see the importance of individual social capital growing in the future.

For recruiters it’s definitely a buyer’s market which means individuals need to find ways to differentiate themselves beyond just their specific work experience. Building our social capital gives us greater value to potential employers.

BUT, here’s the rub; how many charity recruiters actually pay attention to anything that isn’t in the cut and paste ‘supporting statement’ and ‘skills profile’ paragraph format?

Come on people! If we want to recruit the best talent, we need to think outside the standard-sized, process-drive box and look to factors like an individual’s social capital.

Your thoughts welcome as ever.

See previous blogs on recruiting fundraisers and how to be an appealing candidate for reference.