What are the assets in your community? Focus on the positive and you will be amazed at the results

1. ASSET BASED COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
Arlington Proud Community Development Training

2. ASSET BASED COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT (ABCD)
• Identifies and mobilizes the assets of individuals,
especially those who are “clients” of social services
• Builds relationships among community members,
especially those that are mutually supportive
• Gives community members more roles and power in
local institutions such that citizens lead efforts
• Fosters Social Capital by recognizing that all people
have gifts

3. SERVICE AND VOLUNTEERISM CAN:
•Help address individuals and communities directly
•Address public issues and provide public benefit
•Build relationships among people across various lines of
difference
•Increase the civic capacity of the individuals performing
service (knowledge of community and community groups,
social capital, interest in public issues, political
involvement)

4. BUT SERVICE AND VOLUNTEERISM
CAN ALSO:
•Place people in positions of “privileged” and “needy”
•Place the interests of the server over the interests of those
being served
•Focus on immediate needs versus long term impacts
Charity is not the answer to poverty. It only helps
poverty to continue. It creates dependency, takes away
the individual’s initiatives to break through the wall of
poverty. Muhammad Yunus

5. SOCIAL CAPITAL
• SOCIAL CAPITAL REFERS TO CONNECTIONS AMONG
INDIVIDUALS. THESE ARE NETWORKS AND THE NORMS OF
RECIPROCITY AND TRUSTWORTHINESS THAT
ARISE FROM THEM.
• THE MORE RELATIONSHIPS SOMEONE HAS IN THEIR
COMMUNITY, THE MORE LIKELY THEY ARE TO:
•Be employed
•Volunteer
•Participate in political and civic activities
•Join clubs
•Participate in their child’s school life
•Be honest and trusting

6. NEEDS SURVEY
• DO YOU LACK:
Adequate housing?
Appropriate job skills?
A good work history?
A high school diploma?
Τraining for a career goal?
• DO YOU HAVE:
A history of drug or alcohol abuse?
a felony record?
• WILL YOU:
Lose benefits such as food stamps or Medicare if you
get a job?

7. GIFT SURVEYGIFTS
•GIFTS ARE ABILITIES THAT WE ARE BORN WITH. WE MAY DEVELOP
THEM, BUT NO ONE HAS TO TEACH THEM TO US.
What positive qualities do people say you have?
Who are the people in your life that you give to? How did you give it
to them?
When was the last time you shared with someone else? What was
it?
What do you give that makes you feel good?
SKILLS
•SOMETIMES WE HAVE TALENTS SUCH AS COOKING AND FIXING
THINGS.
What do you enjoy doing?
If you could start a business, what would it be?
What do you like to do that people would pay you to do?
Have you ever made anything? Have you ever fixed anything?
DREAMS
•BEFORE YOU GO, I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR DREAMS, GOALS
YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH.
What are your dreams?
If you could snap your fingers and be doing anything, what would it
be?

9. HOW CAN WE TRANSFORM OUR
INSTITUTION AND COMMUNITY’S LENS
FROM NEEDS TO ASSETS?
• FOCUS ON DEFICITS  FOCUS ON ASSETS
• Problem response  Opportunity identification
• Individual responses  Collective responses
• Focus: Individual  Focus: community
• Fix people  Develop potential
• See people as “clients”  See people as “citizens”
• Programs are the answer  People are the answer

10. STEPS TO TRANSFORMATION
• Rediscover and mobilize the capacities of individuals and
associations
• Put decision making power in the hands of those affected
• Develop leadership inside and outside your organization
• Be a team player inside and outside your organization
• Learn about and build relationships with other community
stakeholders
• Start not with the answer, but with learning conversation
• Do not recruit people to implement the answer, discover what
people care about, how they see the situation, & what they have
to offer
• Mobilize assets to action instead of looking for why people “lack of
motivation”

11. TOOLS FOR ACTION
ASSET MAPPING:
•ASSOCIATIONS
• INSTITUTIONS
• NEIGHBORHOODS
• INDIVIDUALS

12. NEIGHBORHOOD
LEARNING/LISTENING INTERVIEWS
EXAMPLES OF LISTENING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
•Tell us about something good that happened in the community recently
•What gifts, capacities & skills can you share?
•What relationships do you have with others?
•What are the 3 best things about your community?
•What are 3 things that need working on?
•What issues and concerns are you willing to work on?
•Further contacts you would suggest (other people-name, phone, address)
•Who are the connectors in this community/institution?

13. SOCIAL CAPITAL QUESTIONS FOR YOUR
COMMUNITY/ORGAINZATION
•How does your work foster communication and relationship-building
among the people you serve and residents in your community?
•What is your organization’s relationship to community residents? How
accountable is your organization to the people and community it
serves?
•How does your service define and engage constituents? What power
do they have?
•Who do you do business with from the neighborhood?
•What neighborhood groups do you belong to or meet with regularly?
•Are neighborhood people on your board of directors, advisory groups,
or committees?

14. ABCD AND YOUR WORK PLAN
On a piece of paper, write:
•One way that you can link the resources of people,
organizations & the community to accomplish your
goals as a ____________
•The first 4 steps to get it done
•Share your answers with the person next to you.

15. THE GIFTS OF THE
COMMUNITY
• What skills or talents can you
share with your
orgainization/Arlington Proud?
• How can we “unwrap” these
gifts this year?

16. FINAL QUESTIONS?