A funders collaborative in Houston, led by the Rockwell Fund, Inc., hired BTW to assist them with planning and evaluating a new initiative to build the capacity of Zip Code Assistance Ministries (ZCAMs) in the region.

ZCAMs are faith-based nonprofits providing emergency social and human services. This initiative, called the ZCAM Organizational Development Program, was modeled on OCGI, a project that BTW evaluated for three Bay Area funders several years ago.

Part of BTW’s work with the Houston initiative was to develop and facilitate an annual reflection and learning session for funders, ZCAM executives and key program partners. In preparation for the reflection session in September 2006, BTW put together a paper on the formation of social capital.

This paper explored how social-capital formation relates to building organizational capacity, creating a culture of collaboration and shared learning among ZCAM leaders.