A free event for voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) organisations.
A significant aspect of the work that VCFSE organisations do is about fostering social relationships. The social relationships that members and beneficiaries form in the process of engaging with organisations and the benefits that these can bring may be considered as one of their key impacts on people’s lives and on local communities. Yet, articulating these ‘softer’ outcomes of their work is a well-known challenge.
This free event, part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2024, will present social network analysis (SNA) as a method to evidence this often-intangible contribution that VCFSE organisations make. SNA could help these organisations to promote their work to policymakers and funders. Better understanding the nature of the social relations that form in the course of their work could also assist organisations with service design and improvement.
Join Nick Crossley, Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, and Susanne Martikke, research lead at GMCVO, to find out about SNA and explore its suitability for a voluntary sector context.
This event will give VCFSE staff and volunteers the opportunity to:
- Get an overview of SNA as a method
- Hear about a study that has applied SNA to a voluntary sector context
- Try out data collection for SNA
- Reflect on barriers and opportunities to organisations’ use of the method
This event is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Science 2024, celebrating the impact of social science research on our lives and exploring the theme of "Our Digital Lives".