ABSTRACT
When is a community ready to take action to move forward with its strategic vision? The idea of community readiness, and related concepts such as community social capacity or social capital, were developed for both practical and academic purposes to distinguish communities that have all the necessary social tools to embrace the future from those that don’t. From a practical perspective, an ability to assess community social capacity would give community development professionals a better sense of the type and amount of time and staff resources to invest in a single community. In communities with strong social capacities, community developers may be able to accomplish more ambitious goals, and address longer-term issues. In communities with weaker social capacities, specific types of capacity building may be needed before the community is able to effectively take on long-term challenges.
