Money and the Civic Impulse
When you enter the storefront office of a neighborhood organization in Montreal, the first thing you see is a large sign:
Continue reading →Differentiating the Functions of Institutions and Associations:
In the community-‐building world, a significant number of local initiatives fail because the participants are not clear about the difference between the functions of associations and institutions. This failure most often occurs when institutions attempt to take on functions that are actually better performed by associations.
Continue reading →ABCD Workshop Harvest DePaul University 2018
Participants shared; their name, where they are from and then answered the following question:
What makes your heart sing?
Continue reading →What is Asset Based Community Development (overview)
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is a strategy for sustainable community-driven development. Beyond the mobilization of a particular community, ABCD is concerned with how to link micro-assets to the macro-environment. The appeal of ABCD lies in its premise that communities can drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilizing existing, but often unrecognized assets, and thereby responding to and creating local economic opportunity.
Continue reading →LESSON 1 – Asset-Based Community Development and Early Organization
In this lesson, you will learn how to recognize and use all of your available resources in the planning and development of your community garden. Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is a framework for organizing of any kind – not just for gardens – that emphasizes the strengths and assets of a community and its members and makes the most of these assets for the particular development project.
Continue reading →Neighboring Toolkit
A Guide to Implementing Neighboring and Its Asset-Based Community Development Principles
What we now know is that the most effective local communities are those where neighborhoods and citizens have reclaimed their traditional roles. The research on this point is decisive. Where there are “thick” community connections, there is positive child development. Health improves, the environment is sustained, and people are safer and have a better local economy. The social fabric of neighborhood and family is decisive.
Continue reading →A Basic Guide to ABCD Community Organizing
The Culture of Community
Every community creates its own culture – the way the community members learn, through time, how to survive and prosper in a particular place. Displaced people lose their culture. But it is also possible to lose a community culture even though you stay in a place. Many people have lost their culture, even though they live in a neighborhood.
Continue reading →Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center Organizer’s Workbook
Asset Based Community Development – Start Here
How you perceive the neighborhood that you live or work in is going to profoundly influence the way that you act. Typically a neighborhood is seen from the perspective of its largest defi cits. “That is a dangerous neighborhood”,
Continue reading →Introduction to “Building Communities from the Inside Out:
A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets,” by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight.
This is a guide about rebuilding troubled communities. It is meant to be simple, basic and usable. Whatever wisdom it contains flows directly out of the experience of courageous and creative neighborhood leaders from across the country.
Continue reading →Exemplary Materials For Designing a Community Building Initiative in a Neighborhood
The materials that follow were developed cooperatively by The Woodlawn Organization, a Chicago neighbourhood organization, and the Asset Based Community Institute of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
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