The Iteration of Social Capital

The Iteration of Social Capital
In a democratic capitalist society, social capital may revolve around cooperative interaction between peers that results in productive commercial or noncommercial enterprise.  The focus on peer to peer networks and mutual benefit drives the interaction and the perceived success of the endeavor promulgates future interaction.  When success is achieved by both parties, the process is encouraged to become iterative.   Further innovation is encouraged by input from others who possess skill sets not present in the original exchange and thus is the market place improved and expanded.  Incumbent on the continued success of this entrepreneurial engine is the continual infusion of new ideas and skill sets that were not previously realized.  This requires either a robust educational process or some ability to incubate, focus and apply new ideas to the market place.  Obviously, in advanced democratic societies, education is the centerpiece of the development and application of ideas and schools and universities are the launching point of many of our pivotal advances. 

What other factors impact the growth of social capital?

Mobile Medical Disaster Relief

Great example of social entrepreneurism: LAVE MD

Here is a great article about Social entrepreneurism. LAVE MD is a for profit company that was started to support the non profit, Mobile Medical Disaster Relief. http://www.brentwoodhomepage.com/treating-varicose-veins--cms-8948

David Vanderpool speaks at Texas A&M Bush School Commencement

Augmenting Social Capital in the Developing World

How do we augment social capital in the developing world?        Defined as the expected collective or economic benefits derived from the preferential treatment and cooperation between individuals and groups, this asset is often overlooked in the discussions of advancement in the developing world.  For social capitalism to augment an economy, it must potentially apply to all members of the society.  Unfortunately, in many situations, social capital is available to a small, exclusive part of the population which may actually inflict damage to the remainder through the crucible of racism or elitism.  While social capital is used in all societies in some form, factors exist that decimate its effectiveness and render it unable to provide support to the economic system.

Developing Capital

Just as entrepreneurs use innovative solutions to solve business challenges, the social entrepreneur uses innovation to solve the world's societal problems.  Twenty first century ideas can be recast to address age old problems such as poverty, hunger and disease.  The social entrepreneur marries the robust profit driven world of capitalism with the austerity of the developing world to produce long term, sustainable solutions to the most vexing of challenges.  

The infusion of capital is key in the process of improving life in the developing world. This capital, however, takes many forms some of which are obvious such as physical capital and some of which are more obtuse such as social capital, human capital and spiritual capital but perhaps equally important.  Interestingly, most of the developing world's problems were solved by the developed world some time in the past with techniques that are far less effective than those that we have access to now.  Developing solutions to these issues is not the problem, finding people to implement these solutions is.

Of the types of capital available to the developing world, which do think is the most valuable?

Live Beyond Fund Raiser

We've just finished our first Live Beyond Fund Raiser and it was a great success.  Hall of Fame Head Football Coach, Gene Stallings, was the night's lead speaker.  After having travelled to Haiti the month before with the Live Beyond team, he was passionate about leading the charge to raise funds for the suffering in Haiti.

Rudy Kalis of Channel 4 news did a wonderful job emceeing the evening and brought a unique perspective to the night as only a reporter with his experience could.

Big Daddy Weave provided great entertainment for the packed house with their new top hit, "Love Come to Life".

The silent auction was particularly lively with items from Sheryl Crow, Brad and Kim Paisley and Dolly Parton driving the bidding through the roof.  One of the highlights of the night was the live auction of a quilt made by a group of Haitian orphans in the area in which we work.  It was so exciting to see A-list Nashvillians bidding on a quilt made by poor Haitian orphans!

The 562 people who turned out on a rainy night underscores not only the important work that is being done by the MMDR and Live Beyond Teams but also how generous and passionate Middle Tennesseans are about helping the poor.

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