County Steering Committees Assess the 8 Capitals of Wealth
As part of Barren River Area Development Districts 5-year update to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) and Multi-Hazard Multi-Jurisdiction Mitigation Plan (HMP), county-level Steering Committees met for an hour each month from January 2021 to April 2022 to create county-level strategic plans.
During their second month together in the planning process, each Steering Committee reviewed the 8 Capitals of Wealth (as defined by wealthworks.org in the table below).
| The Eight Capitals of Wealth | |
|---|---|
| The Capital | The Definition |
| Individual | The existing stock of skills, understanding, physical health and mental wellness in a region’s people. |
| Intellectual | The existing stock of knowledge, resourcefulness, creativity and innovation in a region’s people, institutions, organizations and sectors. |
| Social | The existing stock of trust, relationships and networks in a region’s population. |
| Cultural | The existing stock of traditions, customs, ways of doing, and world views in a region’s population. |
| Natural | The existing stock of natural resources—for example, water, land, air, plants and animals—in a region’s places. |
| Built | The existing stock of constructed infrastructure—for example, buildings, sewer systems, broadband, roads—in a region’s places. |
| Political | The existing stock of goodwill, influence and power that people, organizations and institutions in the region can exercise in decision-making. |
| Financial | The existing stock of monetary resources available in the region for investment in the region. |
During this meeting, BRADD Staff also reviewed the County Profile Sheets that were used to track initial progress across Steering Committee Meetings. As Steering Committees worked their way through the immense amount of data presented, this profile sheet assisted members with identifying trends early and became key tools when looking at crafting new goal/objective statements later in the process. Each Steering Committee also made use of a custom Google Classroom set up for committee members to share information and review any meeting materials for meetings they could not attend.
County Steering Committees also utilized the 8 Capitals of Wealth to begin identifying Key Indicators of Success. Key Indicators are data points that can be used to show change in a specific category or goal area. For example, when looking at Tourism and Cultural Development, one Key Indicator of success could be an increase in the number of visitors to a specific attraction or district. The conversation around capitals of wealth and key indicators set strong groundwork for the Steering Committees as they looked at creating goal statements and SMART objectives later in the planning process.
To identify those key indicators across the 11 planning categories, Steering Committee members broke into three groups based on their areas of interest/specialty. These three groups were used consistently through the planning process, and steering committee members were able to switch groups as they wished. Group 1 focused on Public Facilities & Services, Public Health & Safety, Infrastructure, and Transportation. Group 2 focused on Economic Development, Downtown Development, and Workforce Development. Group 3 focused on Sense of Place; Tourism & Cultural Development; Affordable, Quality Housing; and Civic & Leadership Development. Once in groups, steering committee members identified 2-3 key indicators for each category that could be used to show ‘success’ in that category.
BRADD staff then compiled the information gathered during this meeting and used it (paired with previous meeting information) to build the foundation for each County Strategic Plan in each of the succeeding monthly meetings. To read more about information covered in other monthly meetings, click here.
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