Do you know your neighbors' names? Have you signed a petition recently? How about donating blood?

        These kinds of questions, which are being distributed in a nationwide survey called the “Social Capital Community Benchmark,” are posed to help answer the larger question of how people in communities are connected.

        The Greater Cincinnati Foundation this week welcomed the expert on the subject. Robert Putnam will receive the foundation's Jacob E. Davis Leadership Award.

        He is the author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. His research indicates a decline in social capital, which he describes as the connections people make with one another and with their communities.

        The survey, stemming from Dr. Putnam's research, will poll 29,000 people from 35 communities including 1,000 people in Cincinnati. The Greater Cincinnati Foundation is partnering with other foundations to measure each community's connectedness and talk about ways to bring people together.

        “This is not a matter of warm cuddly feelings and nostalgia that didn't exist,” Dr. Putnam said. “School scores are affected by community connectedness and parental involvement.

        “The best predictor of crime is not how many cops are on the streets but how many people know their neighbors' names.”

        The questions will help determine political and religious involvement in communities, as well as the level of philanthropy, volunteering and organizational membership, among other things.

        “Part of our job is to put people together who probably might not talk to each other,” said Kathryn Merchant, president and CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.

        She said the organization has ideas about what things can be done in Cincinnati and relationships that can be built, but will wait for the survey results.

        Those results should be ready in early 2001.

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