Murray Region community-based groups capacity needs assessment: Results of the 2016-2017 baseline survey for Murray Local Land Services

In 2016, Murray Local Land Services, Murray Landcare Collective and Charles Sturt University’s Institute for Land, Water and Society collaborated to develop an innovative decision support framework through which community-based natural resource management groups could assess their own capacity strengths and needs. The framework categorises capacity into different types of capital. This report presents that capacity framework and the first test-case use of the framework via a questionnaire survey of community groups in the NSW Murray region. The survey was predominantly administered during the first half of 2016 with 42 groups responding. Five additional Aboriginal community groups were surveyed in April 2017.

By using different types of capital, our framework advances similar capacity assessment frameworks to assist groups identify the aspects of capacity they may wish to focus on and develop. In particular, our framework organises social capital into three types: bonding social capital (the glue that binds), bridging social capital (the oil that makes for smoother connections) and organisational capital (the nuts and bolts of social coordination). To these are added human capital, and physical and financial capital. Each type of capital is then further articulated into a set of assessment categories, as shown in the figure below (Figure 2 in the report