Now I Know My ABCD's -
Next Time Won't You Do ASSET-MAPPING with Me?
Every single person has capacities, abilities and gifts. Living a good life depends on whether those capacities can be used, abilities expressed and gifts given. If they are, the person will be valued, feel powerful and well-connected to the people around them. And the community around the person will be more powerful because of the contribution the person is making.-John McKnight, Asset Based Community Development (ABCD)
The ABCD Institute makes asset-mapping child's play! Literally!!! They have developed a program that could be done primarily by the youth of the community. It is so well-designed that it does not require professionals to do it. In fact, it is expressly about reversing dependency on professionals. It is about community development of the people, by the people, and for the people. The design of the program flows from the design of it's originating conceptual system which flows from the spirit of putting people first! It puts people's assets, strengths, and potential contributions first.
The traditional way is to put people's liabilities, weaknesses, and needs first. Asset-Based Community Development puts peoples assets, strengths, and potential gifts to the community first. It makes a difference in how we are thinking about our community and the people who live in it. "You never get a second chance to make a first impression", and the conceptual system with which we approach our community-building work makes our first impressions for us. It blocks people-to-people connections when we start off seeing people as half-empty rather than half-full. Most groups do this out of habit, because "that's the way it's done" or because "that's how the professionals do it" and because nobody has ever questioned it and offered another way.
Building on the work of Saul Alinsky, John McKnight has developed the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern University in Chicago. From this strong organizational platform, these resources are being distributed and established across America and around the world. ABCD is being implemented in Canada from the maritimes to Vancouver. It is also in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Europe, and Australia. Here in the US, many localities are adopting ABCD.
The Minnesota Department of Health website lists the following summary:
Five Steps Toward Whole Community Mobilization
McKnight and Kretzmann offer the following steps, not as a complete blueprint for broad, asset-based community development, but as some of the major challenges they may point to a potential process. They include:
Step 1: Mapping the capacities and assets of individuals, citizens' associations and local institutions that exist and that can be marshaled in the community
Step 2: Building and strengthening partnerships among local assets for mutually beneficial problem solving within the community
Step 3: Mobilizing the community's assets for economic development and information sharing purposes
Step 4: Convening as broadly representative a group as possible for thepurposes of building a community vision and plan
Step 5: Leveraging activities, investments and resources from outside the community to support asset-based, locally-defined development
ABCD is one tool among many complementary approaches listed on the Minnesota Department of Health's webpage on, "Community Engagement and Eliminating Health Disparities".
"Go in search of people.Begin with what they know.
Build on what they have."- Chinese proverb
The Center for Collaborative Planning has three main programs: Women's Health Leadership, Community Partnerships for Healthy Children, and the California Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute. Good health is a function of good community as much as any other factor as research now shows.
Asset-Based Community Development is the kindest approach from a human perspective AND it's the smartest and most efficient approach from a practical buts & bolts organizing perspective. It gives you as complete a picture as possible of the assets & potential assets in your community. It tells you what is available and who is willing to help and to what extent. It takes the guessing out of it. It stops cold the wrangling and whining and arguing over whether the neighborhood organization is half full or half empty. You assume the neighborhood is at least half full. That's more than enough to fill all the organizations in the neighborhood that are working hard to build community in the neighborhood for our children and for our children's children.
WEB-LINKS to Navigational Aids for Sustainable
Organizing:
Organizing:
California ABCD Institute
Center for Collaborative Planning
http://www.connectccp.org/programs/abcd/index.shtml
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