ABSTRACT
At the end of 2003 the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa awarded a grant of more than a half million rand to researchers in the Unit for Religion and Development Research (URDR) at the University of Stellenbosch to conduct a research project under the working title, “Developing a Praxis for Mobilizing Faith-Based Organizations for Social Capital and Development in the Western Cape” (short title: “FBOs, Social Capital and Development”).1 Awarded in the NRF focus area of “Sustainable Livelihoods: The Eradication of Poverty,” this project opted from the conception stages for the concept of “social capital” to build a perspective on the social development role of faith-based organizations (FBOs)—the Christian churches but also broader and more generic expressions of religiously inspired non-governmental organization and practice2-in postapartheid South African society.
