Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein Flashcards
they all involve creating social capital: developing networks of relationships that weave individuals into groups and communities.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
social capital refers to social networks, norms of reciprocity, mutual assistance, and trustworthiness.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
crime rate in a neighborhood is lowered when neighbors know one another well,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
social capital can be put to morally repugnant purposes as well as admirable ones,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Bonding social capital is a kind of sociological Super Glue, whereas bridging social capital provides a sociological WD-40.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
If you get sick, the people who bring you chicken soup are likely to represent your bonding social capital. On the other hand, a society that has only bonding social capital will look like Belfast or Bosnia—segregated into mutually hostile camps. So a pluralist democracy requires lots of bridging social capital, not just the bonding variety.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
bridging social capital is harder to create than bonding social capital—after
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Community building sometimes has a warm and fuzzy feeling, a kind of “kumbaya” cuddliness about it.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Even as the value of social capital has been more and more widely acknowledged, evidence has mounted of a diminution of social capital in the United States.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the last third of the century witnessed a startling and dismaying reversal of that trend. Beginning, roughly speaking, in the late 1960s,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
We do not yet see evidence of a general resurgence of social connection or involvement in the public life of the community.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
who has seen her neighborhood unravel and then knit itself together;
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
social-capital development.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Better Together aims instead to illustrate some of the ways in which Americans in many diverse corners of our society are making progress on the perennial challenge of re-creating new forms of community,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The U.S. Army uses the term “ground truth” to describe the real experience of soldiers in the field—the moment-by-moment truth of being in combat,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
One lesson is that creating robust social capital takes time and effort.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
it develops through extensive and time-consuming face-to-face conversation between two individuals or among small groups of people.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
we see no way that social capital can be created instantaneously or en masse.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
social capital is necessarily a local phenomenon because it is defined by connections among people who know one another.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
social capitalists.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
social capital is usually developed in pursuit of a particular goal or set of goals and not for its own sake.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
For many parents, it was their first real connection with the school, the first time anyone had bothered to ask their opinions. For the teachers, it was a first glimpse of their students’ lives outside school.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“We make private pain public.” The house meeting was part of the process, a step toward making the pain public in a local group to build the energy and commitment needed to bring that pain—and the actions needed to relieve it—to a wider public stage where officials would have to recognize it and respond.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Organizing is all about building relationships. It’s not about meetings. These are not counseling sessions. They are not an interview. It’s a conversation. You’re building a relationship here.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
And the only way to do this is to leave yourself open to be changed by the conversation.”4 Unlike activist organizations that develop a public agenda first and then try to attract people who support it,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Alinsky believed that reform could best be achieved when the citizens of poor and neglected communities organized and exerted power on their own behalf. He saw doing for others as less effective and as a kind of welfare colonialism.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
we are social beings, defined by our relationships with other people—with “family and kin, but also with less familiar people with whom we engage in the day-to-day business of living our lives in a complicated society.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
How do I get them to follow my agenda?” That’s not organizing. What I mean by organizing is getting you to recognize what’s in your best interest.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Relationship-building is a way of looking at the world, not just a strategy.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the core of its school-improvement efforts has been building relationships: between the school and the community; between students and teachers. Relationships are not just the engine of reform, they are one of the goals of reform.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the IAF organizations see schools, and learning, as embedded in the community, not as isolated institutions that can be fixed by applying the latest philosophy of teaching.13
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“No permanent allies, no permanent enemies” is a core principle.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Abstract ideas do not connect people, and social action, when it is not rooted in the heart of people’s life experience, withers in the face of opposition and disappointment.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
To be effective, these conversations have to be face-to-face, so people can read each other’s emotions, can express sympathy and work through disagreement together.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the problem with a cell phone is that it makes you think you’ve had a conversation.”)
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
When he went to the local Catholic school to enroll my sister, they told him there was no room, not even a desk for her to sit at. He said, ‘If I build a desk, will you take her?’ They agreed. He built a desk big enough for two students, and they admitted her and another girl.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Stories build relationships; they knit communities together.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Leaders and organizers are constantly seeking out new leaders that have some energy, the ability to reflect, a sense of humor, some anger and the ability to develop a following.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
When Moses is overwhelmed by the task of leading the Israelites in the desert, Jethro warns him that he will wear himself out and advises him to delegate authority to capable men who will share the burden and resolve disputes in groups of
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
When someone gives marching orders and others march, you are unlikely to find living relationships and real community.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“one-sided relationship” is an oxymoron.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“I don’t move as fast as some people, but I outstay them, I wear them out.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
his most important work is “finding new leaders that find new leaders.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Gathering people—and especially finding and developing the leaders who can gather people—is the foundation of IAF work.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“There are two sources of power, organized money and organized people. We don’t have organized money, but we have the people.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The Heartbeat of the Community
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Harold Washington Library Center, opened in 1991, is one of the largest public library buildings in the world.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“Now people say, ‘I’ll meet you at the library,’ “Ayres says. “It’s a safe place. It reminds me of the old neighborhood grocery store, where the grocer knew everyone and everyone saw their neighbors.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
neighborhood library as the “heartbeat” of the community.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
I really enjoy coming to a place where such a diverse group interacts positively.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the medium is not the message, the message is the message, and it should be communicated in whatever forms touch people most effectively.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
how to turn the “crowd” into a “congregation,” to use Saddleback terms for distinguishing between the visitors, the consumers of comfort and entertainment, and the committed members of the church community. The answer is small groups.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The idea of being part of a “community” of forty-five thousand calls into question what “community” means.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
In any large organization, people’s sense of loyalty, connection, and identification comes from being part of a smaller team or group who spend enough time together to know and be known to one another.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Joining a small group is the first, essential step in being part of a megachurch rather than just attending it.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Lyle Schaller notes, “Most very large congregations affirm the fact that they are a congregation of congregations,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Atlantic Monthly, Charles Trueheart cites Jim Mellado of Willow Creek on the importance of lay-led “cells” of up to ten people, the small-group cell being “the basic unit of church life.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Warren writes, “People are not looking for a friendly church as much as they are looking for friends.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“The average church member knows 67 people in the congregation, whether the church has 200 or 2,000 attending. A member does not have to know everyone in the church in order to feel like it’s their church, but he or she does have to know some people.”8
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the words “Saddleback Church” in small print. Those signs give church members a reason to say hello to their neighbors: “Oh, you go to Saddleback, too?”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Sharon Carton. “Some people are at that stage where they just need somebody to ask them.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Warren cites a biblical foundation for small-group membership. He mentions that the New Testament uses the phrase “one another” more than fifty times, an indication of the importance of human relationships to Christianity.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the Gospel spread primarily through relationships.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
membership at Saddleback passes through an obligatory small-group membership class (“Class 101”),
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the church has small groups and small-group ministries for every conceivable need and talent:
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
At Saddleback, says Tim Holcomb, “You are expected to be in community; you can’t live on your own. The purpose of your life is to be in community, to love and to give. When you see community work, it makes you want to be a part of it.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Saddleback periodically holds small-group connection sessions, promising, “If you are tired of being a nameless face in the crowd, join us … for one hour and we will help you find a small-group family.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
He believes that the biggest factor in keeping a group together is affinity: people whose concerns, ages, and backgrounds are similar tend to connect and stay together. Eastman says the groups offer “short-term fellowship that can lead to lifetime relationships.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
It has helped immensely to have people we can have that sense of community with.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“God will always sacrifice short-term comfort for long-term gain,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Lyle Schaller writes that “the number-one point of commonality [among very large churches] is absolute clarity about the belief system.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The structures of small-group education and spiritual development at Saddleback are designed to help people move from “the crowd” of weekend attenders to “the congregation” of those who are actual members of the church to “the committed,” who are committed to spiritual maturity, to “the core” of those active in lay ministry. It is a progression, as church staff also say, from “attendees to army.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
People come to Saddleback not despite their isolation and materialism but because of them; they are looking for the community and sense of purpose that their materially successful lives lack.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
living a life of “significance instead of success.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
All staff are encouraged to contribute at least ten percent of their time to helping other churches.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“If you don’t like fellowship on earth, you’re not going to like heaven.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Only one in four American Protestant churches reports an average worship attendance of more than 140.11
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
All Saints, too, has bucked the trend of shrinkage or stagnation in church membership.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
one of the pillars of community building is being heard and telling our stories,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
junior warden Catherine Keig says, “I don’t describe community as sameness; I describe it as difference.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Affinity is a more powerful glue than diversity.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
worth noting that “communion” and “community” are essentially the same word, having to do with sharing, with joint participation.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Lyle Schaller explains: Most of us need a point of dependable stability and continuity in our lives.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
There, as at Saddleback, a combination of shared values, shared worship, and small-group connections creates and maintains a church community.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
certainty has a wider appeal than ambiguity,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Do Something League, a national organization established to encourage community activism and develop leadership skills among young people.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the first principle of Do Something is youth leadership: letting the young members choose
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
In the presidential election of 1972, 42 percent of young people aged 18 to 24 voted, but by 2000 this figure had dropped to 28 percent, the steepest decline of any age cohort.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
civic activism early in life is one of the strongest predictors of later adult involvement.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
scrap the local-chapter model in favor of a school-based one.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
it could tap into existing social groups and existing relationships of trust and cooperation in schools, rather than having to recruit youngsters one by one.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Do Something would benefit by entering communities through the established institutions of local schools.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
taken note of the connections they are making with adults in the community and the ways in which these relationships lead to positive outcomes.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
annual “Kindness and Justice Challenge” in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
For two weeks, students around the country fill out forms describing every act of kindness they carry out—washing
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Texas Industrial Areas Foundation’s Iron Rule: “Never do anything for anybody that they can do for themselves.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the strength of the organization comes from a combination of clarity about its essential principles and behaviors with a willingness to change in light of experience
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
redefining education as more active and participatory. This new initiative reflects the same basic beliefs: that the only way to learn participation is to participate; the only way to become a leader is to lead.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
make personal stories and trusting relationships the foundation of collective action and let their agendas arise from thousands of conversations.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
organizing against an “enemy”—a
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“One Book, One Chicago” program designed to encourage city residents to read the same book at the same time,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
improvements that help bring members of a community together sometimes also disrupt or sever old ties.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
institutions increasingly assume that “everybody” uses computers.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the library is a gathering place, too, like an old town square or the corner grocer Anne Ayres remembers.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
In The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg describes what he calls the “third place,” a place that is neither work nor home where people can spend time together.4
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
A good third place makes few demands on the people who gather there, beyond requiring them to abide by some basic local rules
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
A third place is a neutral ground where people from different walks of life in the community can meet and get to know one another, having in common perhaps only their desire to frequent this particular place.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
disappearance of many third places in America.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“making private pain public.”)
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
describes Chicago as “New York without the attitude”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“hiking the horizontal,” turning that rigid scale on its side so that nothing is categorically above anything else,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
one key to bridging communities and cultures: finding common ground, a meeting place, while recognizing and respecting differences.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
People working together over time is what built connections and understanding.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
To make a ribbon that would stretch from bank to bank, from New Hampshire to Maine, project leaders invited people to write stories of the town and the shipyard on lengths of fabric.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the willingness to trust in an unknown outcome is “an incredible life skill,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Decades of “white flight” to the suburbs had reduced the white population (including whites of Hispanic origin) from 95 percent in 1950 to 16 percent in 1980.4 Banks, planners, and government officials saw neighborhoods with increasing nonwhite populations as being in decline almost by definition.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
banged on doors and introduced themselves to their neighbors. At countless community meetings, at the multicultural festival, through hard side-by-side labor, they helped people in this place connect and reconnect.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the so-called neighborhood initiative would be under the control of outside agencies, not the neighborhood,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Defensive stubbornness seems a more likely reaction to hostile public criticism—certainly a more common one.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
if you live in a neighborhood where people care about each other, you can recover from anything,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
credits that increased sense of safety to a renewed sense of community.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the term urban village had acquired currency from a classic study by sociologist Herbert Gans that described the tragic demise of a once vibrant Boston neighborhood gentrified out of existence in the heyday of government-sponsored “urban renewal” of the 1950s.)15
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
people are in relationship with one another and everyone has a role in the community,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“When I first moved to this neighborhood,” Henriquez says, “everybody was a stranger. Nobody said good morning to each other.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Barros counts the fact of returning young adults as an important sign of successful community development. “They come back because of good relationships and opportunities,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
resident Deborah Wilson, who says, “I’d like to thank DSNI for bringing out the activist in me. I didn’t know I had it in me.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
getting people together to tell their own stories in their own words seemed to create the mutual understanding and sympathy that made collective action possible.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
development without displacement
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“If that happens twice, people feel they’re not welcome and pull out.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Barros says, “The success of this neighborhood has got to be about the relationships we build, because there are going to be conflicts.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
His great skill, according to Grisham, was in bringing people together and introducing them to ideas that he borrowed elsewhere. He was mainly a catalyst; he unlocked other people’s power. “He used the networks around him,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“It began with an individual,” he says, referring of course to McLean. “It always begins with an individual, but there is no way of predicting who that person will be.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
He talks to them about the importance of achieving a critical mass of people committed to the same vision of community development, how not much seems to happen until that critical mass is reached but how, when it is, change can come quickly.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“There’s a myth that the tornado of ’36 brought Tupelo together and started the turnaround. It didn’t happen that way. That kind of crisis can pull people together for a short time, but they don’t sustain the connection.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“It doesn’t stay in business to make money,” Gray says. “It makes money to stay in business.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“Newspapers help give a community its self-definition,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“‘There’s an expectation that if you’re enjoying the benefits of being in Tupelo, you’re expected to reinvest in the community,’
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
If community means mutual influence and mutual dependence,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Saddleback Church From Crowd to Congregation
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
during the last third of the twentieth century involvement in many religious communities across the country slumped, just as more secular forms of community involvement did.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
between 1960 and 2000 church membership, church attendance, and involvement in church-related groups such as Sunday schools, “church socials,” and the like declined by perhaps one third nationwide. Among the so-called mainline churches (Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and the like) the falloff has been even greater.1
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
A sign by the road that curves up from the entrance reads: “First-Time Visitors Use Right Lane for Preferred Parking.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“Our Purposes: Magnification, Membership, Maturity, Ministry, Mission.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Greeters meet churchgoers at every turn—on the steps, the walkway, at the door to the sanctuary—smiling and shaking hands.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“Welcome to Saddleback. Sit back, relax, and enjoy being here.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Everything happens exactly on cue, in a perfectly timed and seamless performance.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and Brentwood Baptist in Houston, Texas, have built facilities that are in effect church-centered malls or small towns, with health clubs and athletic facilities, McDonald’s franchises, banks, and other amenities designed to attract people and encourage them to eat, play, and work as well as worship there.2
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Jesus drew large crowds by speaking directly to people’s concerns in language they understood, not by insisting on traditional forms of Jewish worship,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“There is no such thing as religious music,” he says, “only religious lyrics.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
his purpose, like David’s, is to reach the people of his generation in their own terms
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
This style of organizing was slow, because listening to everyone takes time and building trust and relationships takes time.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Union membership in America had peaked in 1954, when nearly one third of all nonfarm workers (32.5 percent) had belonged to a union; by 1998 that figure had nose-dived to 14.1 percent. By the 1990s this dramatic decline was mirrored in virtually all industrialized countries.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
That “social thing” is the social-capital heart of this story.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
McKenzie expresses: that transmitted information does not ease isolation or connect people in genuine relationships.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Eighty percent of the students are eligible for free lunches, the standard measure of poverty levels in schools.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
It is far more compelling to many seniors . . . if they see a chance to do work not as a single volunteer in a school, but as part of a team with a mission.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the design of Experience Corps incorporates elements of social-capital building to magnify the impact of the individual volunteers.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The nationwide Experience Corps network is overseen by Civic Ventures, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to transforming the aging of America into a source of individual and social renewal.”2
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“community of practice,” a term that refers to informal groups of people who share knowledge and support one another in their common work. “These are relationships with a purpose,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
he visited a nearby “old people’s home” whose residents, also starved for human contact,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the Foster Grandparents program involves more than twenty-five thousand older Americans relating one-on-one to a hundred thousand children a year. It is, according to Freedman, “a hidden triumph of social policy.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
John Gardner, former secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and founder of Common Cause, deliver a talk entitled “Reinventing Community.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
1988, “The Experience Corps,” that expressed the same idea in a few succinct pages. Gardner’s brief essay argued for an institution that would draw on the “talent, experience, and commitment” of older Americans, providing a mechanism for them to give back to society while enjoying an opportunity for learning and satisfaction for themselves.5
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
making this a social-capital story of relationship and engagement, not simply a story about a volunteer program. Commitment is one of the principles—the
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
called for a critical mass of participants in each school because he saw the difference
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The program needs to have a presence, and when we have a team of volunteers we create a critical mass of time,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
having groups of that size has created a supportive community of peers for the volunteers themselves—an experience very different from the isolation volunteers in schools sometimes experience.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
lasting commitment and a sense of genuine participation and connection often depend on having opportunities to develop new skills and take leadership roles. Simply being a “foot soldier” or doing the same thing over and over does not build social capital as readily.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
the “old heads” that Elijah Anderson describes in Streetwise—responsible, experienced older adults who befriended and encouraged youths, surrogate parents who passed on their values and understanding but who lost their authority as neighborhoods declined.7
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Freedman says, “The porch has moved inside the school.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Robert Tietze says, “It isn’t just tutoring, it’s community; it’s about working with children to establish relationships that have a social, emotional, and educational impact.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The relationships also give the children a positive example of what seniors can be like in a culture that sometimes portrays old people as foolish, helpless, or selfish.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
reviving the traditional role of elders passing on a community’s history to the youngest generation, bringing their shared heritage to life.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Building that connection to the past
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“Social connectedness is the heart of Experience Corps, and the connections radiate in so many directions.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
To signal and reinforce the legitimacy of the volunteer group as a real, functioning part of the school, the Experience Corps insists that volunteers have mailboxes in the school office alongside the teachers’ boxes.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
If a school is unwilling or unable to work with us to establish these elements, it may be a sign that the relationship is not going to work, and we will choose not to establish a program at that particular site.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
If support is lacking or halfhearted, the relationship will probably fail.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
supporting a sense of community at the school.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
being there and connecting person to person created understanding and support.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“giving something back,” in the words so many of the volunteers use when asked why they give three days a week to the program.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
In Bowling Alone, Putnam marshals evidence that the postwar baby boom generation does not share that ethic of service to anything like the same degree.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
fundamental UPS value that, for many years, no one who left the company for any reason would ever be hired back.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
America’s social-capital deficit
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The issue of social capital and work has two facets: Work can affect social capital outside the workplace (as, for example, in corporate-sponsored volunteering or workplace flexibility that enables employees to reconcile their professional obligations with their family and community obligations). Work can affect social capital inside the workplace (as, for example, in the ways office architecture or supervisory practices affect relations among coworkers).
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
UPS is, in fact, an even more interesting story because of the role of social capital within the workplace itself.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
UPS does not represent “boutique capitalism,”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
UPS has pursued a more social capital–intensive strategy than many comparable firms. UPS management has followed this strategy not out of altruism, but because of a hard-nosed business calculation that it is a good way to make a profit,
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Tales of cooperation are part of the company’s folklore.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
best advice he got from veterans when he started was “Don’t quit at the end of the day, wait until the next morning.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
The very difficulty of the work draws people together. Being able to “hack it,” showing the strength and persistence the work demands day after day, defines what it means to be “a real UPSer.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
There are other sources of unity, some of them visible and symbolic. Like any uniform, the brown uniform worn by every driver represents membership in a collective enterprise, commonality over individuality. The shared, explicit standards and practices that define many jobs at UPS also contribute to unity.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Ernie Cortés says, “The answer is relationships.”
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
it does not see electronic (or even phone) communication as a substitute for face-to-face contact.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
having clear norms and goals frees up people at all levels to make decisions consistent with accomplishing their tasks.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
UPS is no democracy, but trusting the people who do the work to make the decisions necessary to get it done has been part of the company’s culture for a long time.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
Leadership development—providing opportunities for people to advance within the company—is a key goal.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
organizations that practice “rank and yank”) firing the lowest-rated 10 percent of workers every year, using fear to keep employees up to snuff.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
UPS has what labor economists term a strong “internal labor market.” That is, jobs (including the top jobs) are filled mostly from within.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
“occupational community,” that is, relatively dense and cooperative connections among the employees.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein
