Asset-based community development is a methodology for the sustainable development of communities based on their strengths and potentials. It involves assessing the resources, skills, and experience available in a community; organizing the community around issues that move its members into action; and then determining and taking appropriate action. This method uses the community's own assets and resources as the basis for development; it empowers the people of the community by encouraging them to utilize what they already possess. The ABCD approach was developed by John L. McKnight and John P. Kretzmann at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. They co-authored a book in 1993, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing A Community’s Assets, which outlined their asset-based approach to community development. The Community Development Program at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research established the Asset-Based Community Development Institute based on three decades of research and community work by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight.
Principles
Needs-based community development emphasizes local deficits and looks to outside agencies for resources. In contrast, asset-based community development focuses on honing and leveraging existing strengths within the community. Related to tenets of empowerment, it postulates that solutions to community problems already exist within a community’s assets. Principles that guide ABCD include:
Everyone has gifts: Each person in a community has something to contribute.
Citizens at the center: Citizens should be viewed as actors—not recipients—in development.
Leaders involve others: Community development is strongest when it involves a broad base of community action.
People care: Challenge notions of "apathy" by listening to people's interests.
Listen: Decisions should come from conversations where people are heard.
Ask: Asking for ideas is more sustainable than giving solutions.
Inside-out organization: Local community members are in control.
Institutions serve the community: Institutional leaders should create opportunities for community-member involvement, then "step back."
Tools
The ABCD approach utilizes several tools to assess and mobilize communities.
Capacity inventory
Skills Information: lists the many skills that a person has gained at home, work, in the community, or elsewhere. Examples of these skills can include internet knowledge, hair-cutting, listening, wallpapering, carpentry, sewing, babysitting, etc.
Community Skills: lists the community work in which a person has participated to determine future work they may be interested in.
Enterprising Interests and Experience: lists past experience in business and determines interest in starting a business.
Personal Information: lists minimum information for follow-up.
Asset mapping
There are five key assets in any given community: individuals, associations, institutions, physical assets, and connections. These assets are broken down into three categories: Gifts of individuals, Citizens’ Associations, and Local Institutions. Asset maps are used in lieu of needs maps which focus solely on negative aspects of communities. Asset maps, on the other hand, focus on community assets, abilities, skills, and strengths in order to build its future.
Time banks
are an example of using community assets to connect individuals' assets to one another. Neighbors and local organizations share skills with one another and earn and spend ‘TimeBank Hours’ or ‘credits’ in the process, allowing an hour of child care to equal an hour of home repair or tax preparation.
Ethics
Since ABCD relies on existing community assets to create change, it has been criticized for implying that disadvantaged communities have all the resources they need tosolve community problems. According to the ABCD Institute, however, ABCD methodology recognizes that systemic injustice may require disadvantaged communities to seek assistance from outside the community. ABCD maintains that interventions from exterior sources will be most effective when a community’s assets are leveraged at full capacity. ABCD is described as a more sustainable model of community development than needs-based community development, because needs-based approaches may perpetuate community problems by emphasizing deficiencies and the necessity for reliance on outside assistance. By contrast, ABCD aims to build capacity within communities by expanding their social capital. By working with outside resources and simultaneously building trust within the community, more members can make use of a wider array of strengths.
