Factors Affecting Civil Society

By Peter Schirmer, Ryan Atkinson and Jeff Carroll

Ultimately, the strength of a community’s civil society depends upon its social capital—the attitudes and social norms people have in their daily interactions with one another. Increasing trust or community pride is indeed a daunting task, but our findings suggest that at least one way to accomplish this is through leadership development programs. Civil society will also grow stronger if its participants have more resources at their disposal. Thus government and funding are important in the building of civil society, even if they do not affect its foundations. In this chapter, we look at these three factors—leadership development training, government, and funding—and how they strengthen civil society.

Leadership Development Training

Local chambers of commerce or educational institutions typically sponsor leadership development programs. They can be found in communities across Kentucky, and some are statewide in scope and membership. Examples include the Kentucky Women’s Leadership Network, Leadership Bowling Green, Leadership Boyle County, and Leadership Kentucky. The Brushy Fork Institute in Berea sponsors a leadership development program for the Appalachian region that includes not just Kentuckians but citizens of other states in the region, too. And Governor Patton’s Appalachian Advancement Action Plan, initiated in the spring of 1998, calls for the creation of Leadership East Kentucky as a means to "develop leadership and build civic capacity."

Leadership development training positively affects communities by teaching people to be capacity builders, capable of leveraging resources, nurturing participation, building consensus, and leading from the "bottom up" rather than the "top down." According to Angie Woodward, President of Leadership Kentucky and Professor Ron Hustedde of the University of Kentucky, the new philosophy of leadership training teaches people to rely on the knowledge and experience of each group member. Moreover, it stresses empowerment of group members when leaders act as group servants.

Leadership development training also impart considerable knowledge about the communities that leaders will serve. "Focus on several key issues and treat them well," write Hustedde and Woodward. "Participants should understand how the community is pulled and tugged in different directions by certain issues and explore how some of those differences might be reconciled."(1) As for specific skills, leadership development training should teach community visioning, listening, collaboration, conflict resolution, facilitation, imagination, interviewing, negotiation, and volunteer management, among other things. Leadership training programs should also conduct discussions around innovation, continued discovery, courage and sacrifice.(2)

The typical leadership training program lasts six to nine months, with one or two meetings per month, and usually is not very large, with 50 being about the maximum size. Participants ideally represent the diversity of their communities.

According to Hustedde and Woodward, after completion of a leadership training program, participants develop closer working relationships with one another and may even participate in special learning activities or action programs as alumni. The following sections further explore the effects of leadership training, first at the individual and then at the organizational level.

Leadership Training and the Individual—One problem with comparing trained leaders with the general population is that Kentucky’s trained leaders are not a representative group of citizens. Compared with the random sample of people who participated in our telephone surveys, trained leaders, on average, have four more years of schooling, are more likely to live in urban areas, and are disproportionately male. But by far the biggest difference between Kentucky’s trained leaders and the general population is their household income. Forty percent of the general population reports a household income of $25,000 or less, compared with only 3.3 percent of Kentucky’s trained leaders. The numbers are nearly reversed for household incomes of $120,000 or more: 2.7 percent of the general population versus 33 percent of the trained leaders.

Figure 1: Trust, by Leadership Training and Education Level

Having made these caveats, we offer a comparison of the responses of trained leaders and the general public to questions about attitudes and activities in civil society.

Trained leaders exhibit high levels of trust regardless of education level. In the general population, trust depends on education and is lower than that of trained leaders at all education levels (see Figure 1). Civic pride is also higher among trained leaders—at all education levels about 50 percent of them say they are extremely proud of their communities. Among the general population, 33 say they are extremely proud.

Comparing rates of volunteerism is of little use since one of the typical requirements for participation in a leadership program is prior volunteering. Thus we find that over 90 percent of Kentucky’s trained leaders say they have volunteered in the past 12 months. One variable we can compare is hours volunteered. Active volunteers in the general population contribute, on average, 12 hours and 30 minutes per month, just ten minutes less than active volunteers who have received leadership training. However, as Figure 2 shows, the distribution of hours volunteered differs for the two groups. A larger percentage of volunteers in the general population gives very few hours—six hours a month or less—while the handful of volunteers who give 60, 70, even 90 hours per month brings up the average for the entire group.

Figure 2: Distribution of Hours Volunteered

One of the strongest pieces of evidence demonstrating the effect of leadership development training at the individual level is our finding that volunteer hours increase in the years following participation in a leadership development class. Even accounting for a variety of other factors, most importantly age, we predict that a person’s monthly volunteer hours increase by an average of 15 minutes each year after graduation from a leadership training program.(3) For example, we would predict a college-educated, 46-year old male who graduated from a leadership training program last year to volunteer about 11 hours per month, while we would predict a college-educated, 46-year old male who graduated from a leadership training program nine years ago to volunteer about 13 hours per month (8 additional years X 15 additional minutes per year = 2 additional hours). This may reflect the fact that once people become involved in one volunteer organization, they meet people and learn of needs and opportunities in other organizations. As they build a network of connections over the years, they increase the number of hours they volunteer.

Figure 3: Volunteer Hours Rise After Leadership Training

Trained leaders are also much more likely to have organized a civic or community group. About half have done so, compared with only 10 percent of the general population. Nearly 90 percent of trained leaders have participated in such a group, while only 45 percent of the general population have done so. Perhaps most significantly, as discussed in the next section, we find that trained leaders have a strong positive effect on the community projects they organize and lead. We now examine these effects at the organizational level.

Leadership Training and the Organization—When we surveyed representatives of the 156 projects listed in Appendix A, we inquired about the background, education and leadership training of the people who started the projects. We also asked whether leadership training was judged to have been effective in promoting the success of the projects. The responses below are those of the representatives of the projects, who were not necessarily the trained leaders of the projects.

Nearly 60 percent of the projects were started by an individual who had received leadership development training or by an organization whose members had received such training. To add some perspective, the alumni mailing lists of 20 Kentucky leadership programs have a total of about 1,600 members, including duplicates. In other words, they represent less than one tenth of one percent of the adult population. And yet, 60 percent of the projects we found were started by someone who had received leadership development training.

Figure 4: Leadership Training and the Organization

Moreover, leadership development training was overwhelmingly deemed a success: representatives from 95 percent of the projects with trained leaders said they were more successful as a result of the leadership training (see Figure 4). Representatives from 69 percent of the projects that did not have trained leaders said they would have benefited from such training.

Figure 5: Funding Difficulties for Projects

Leadership development training is more prevalent in projects started by nonprofit organizations or government agencies than in projects started by individuals or businesses. Two thirds of nonprofit-initiated projects and almost three fourths of government-initiated projects have people who received leadership training, while only half of the privately initiated projects do. Also, trained leaders are more likely to be paid employees than volunteers, even if the project was started by individuals or an informal group.

Projects with trained leaders tend to have larger budgets. For example, nonprofit-initiated projects without trained leaders have a median annual budget of $2,750, while nonprofit-initiated projects with trained leaders have a median annual budget of $15,500. The same is true of government-initiated projects. This finding may suggest that having a trained leader helps projects find and manage more funding. On the other hand, it may simply reflect the fact that leadership training is expensive, and projects with more money can more easily afford to enroll their members in leadership development programs. However, strong evidence supports the former hypothesis: projects with trained leaders are much less likely than those without trained leaders to report having trouble with funding (see Figure 5).

Projects with trained leaders are also twice as likely as those without to report high levels of government involvement and are more likely to report that government assisted them. The average percentage of funding coming from government is 38 percent for projects with trained leaders and only 22 percent for projects without trained leaders. Thus, trained leaders may be more successful at obtaining government assistance.

Finally, projects with trained leaders report higher levels of success. We asked, "On a scale from 1 to 5, how would you rate the success of the initiative?" and 88 percent of projects with trained leaders rate themselves a 4 or a 5, compared with 78 percent of projects without trained leaders. The average score for all projects with trained leaders is 4.5 and for projects without trained leaders, 4.2.

The Role of Government in Civil Society

Figure 6: Projects Initiated by Each Level of Government

Civil society, as we noted in the introduction to this report, is based on voluntary participation by private individuals who work to improve their communities and to solve problems. Yet government can and does play a role by offering information and technical expertise, by organizing groups, and by providing funds. Our survey of the 156 projects listed in Appendix A found that 2 in 10 projects were initiated by a government agency, mainly county and state government, and over half of the projects received some money from government. By comparison, 3 in 10 projects were initiated by a nonprofit organization and the rest—about half of the projects—were initiated by a business, an individual, or an informal group.

Respondents for the projects were asked, "On a scale from 1 to 5, how would you rate the degree of government involvement in your initiative?" Government-initiated projects, as expected, report the highest levels of government involvement with an average score of 4. Nonprofit-initiated projects had an average score of 2.5 and privately initiated projects report even less government involvement, with an average score of 2.3. We also asked whether the government helped, hindered, or had no effect on the projects. Only 5 percent of the projects replied that government hindered their efforts, and 30 percent said government had no effect on them. The rest report that government helped. Figure 7 shows that as the level of government involvement in a project increases, so does the likelihood that respondents say government helped.

Yet government does not always help projects reach their goals. Six of the projects cited government red tape as their most significant obstacle to success (3 of the 6 were privately initiated and two were nonprofit-initiated).

Figure 7: Government Involvement and Effectiveness

Government can help by planning, coordinating and staffing projects, but perhaps the simplest way is by giving financial support. Government is, by far, the largest financial contributor to the projects, contributing a total of $12.3 million to the 126 projects that shared budget information, compared with $3.5 million from nonprofit organizations, $2.6 million from individuals, and $1.6 million from businesses. The median contribution to projects that receive financial support from the government is $12,450, and nearly one third of the projects receive at least half of their funds from government. Even projects not initiated by the government rely on it for funding: 27 percent of the privately initiated projects and 20 percent of the nonprofit-initiated projects receive at least half of their funding from government.

The Importance of Funding in Civil Society

Funding for the 156 projects differs greatly. Fourteen have no budget at all, and six have an annual budget of $1 million or more. Table 2 shows approximately an equal number of projects with budgets under $1,000, budgets between $1,000 and $10,000, between $10,000 and $75,000, and over $75,000. Their funding sources differ significantly: the largest projects depend heavily on government funding, while the smallest receive as much money from individuals as they do from government agencies. Table 2 probably understates the role that businesses and individuals (and to a lesser extent, government) play in funding civil society, since nonprofit organizations such as the American Red Cross and the United Way of America frequently act as conduits for charitable giving from the private sector.

Table 1: Funding of Community Projects, by Budget Size

The number of volunteers participating in a project is clearly related to the size of the budget, although the ratio of dollars to volunteers grows quickly. Projects with the smallest budgets spend about $15 per volunteer while projects with the largest budgets spend over 100 times that amount per volunteer; the government spends about $5 per volunteer in the smallest projects and nearly $1,100 per volunteer in the largest projects.

Figure 8: Financing Difficulties by Budget Size

Regardless of how a project is initiated or what its function is, funding is a major problem. Forty-five percent of the projects report that funding was an obstacle to starting, and 62 percent report that funding is an obstacle to continuing. Unfortunately, trouble with funding at the outset does not bode well for the future: 9 out of 10 projects that had problems finding money to start have problems finding money to continue. By comparison, less than half of the projects that had adequate money at the start have problems finding money to continue. Larger projects—those with an annual budget over $10,000—are much more likely to report funding problems than smaller projects. Nor are government-initiated projects insulated from funding problems. They are just as likely as privately initiated projects to report problems and more likely to do so than nonprofit-initiated projects.

Does funding affect the success of the projects? Yes and no. Budget size has a statistically significant effect on success, but as a practical matter the differences are not especially large. Projects with the largest budgets have a somewhat higher average success score (4.7 versus 4.2 or 4.3 for the others), but success scores are generally high across the board. The average success score for projects that report funding problems is very nearly equal to the average success score for projects without funding problems.

Conclusion

Leadership development training supports civil society at both the individual and the organizational levels. People who have received such training are far more likely to participate in and lead community groups, to volunteer more hours, and to initiate civic projects.

Government plays an important supporting role for many projects, and it actually helped initiate approximately one fifth of the civic projects we surveyed. Projects use government facilities, training, and resources—financial and otherwise. All of these contributions help the projects. However, government assistance is hardly essential. Many projects are started and run quite successfully with virtually no help from government. The appropriate role for government agencies can only be determined on a case-by-case basis, but in general it appears that projects that have many volunteers and require large sums of money most need government assistance, which usually comes in the form of dollars.

Even funding is not absolutely essential to the success of a project. About one quarter of the projects listed in Appendix A have an annual budget under $1,000; many have no budget at all. Yet money clearly does have some impact on the projects: budget size is highly correlated with the number of volunteers a project has and therefore probably does affect the scope of the projects.

Before we move to our discussion of actions that could strengthen civil society, we should point out that the data we present here may systematically understate the importance of leadership training, government and funding for the simple reason that we could only survey successes. Information about aborted efforts to start a civic group is almost nonexistent, so we have no way of knowing how many projects failed because they could not obtain funding, were unable to receive assistance from a government agency, or suffered from poor leadership. If we were able to look at the reasons why projects fail, we might be able to present even stronger evidence that the factors discussed here affect civil society.

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Footnotes

1. Ronald J. Hustedde and Angie Woodward, Designing a Rural Leadership Program and Curriculum Pub. No. IP-54 (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service): 3. Return to text.
2. Hustedde and Woodward 4. Return to text.
3. The predictive model included the following variables: age, education, years since leadership training, gender. Parameter estimates are in Appendix: Model Estimates. Return to text.