From P2P Foundation

Community Assets = the collection of human and organizational skills existing in a community, and which can be inventoried for common enrichment.

It is the name of a movement that aims to inventory such assets.

URL = http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd/abcdbackground.html

Description

"Community assets are key building blocks in sustainable urban and rural community revitalization efforts. These community assets include:

• the skills of local residents

• the power of local associations

• the resources of public, private and non-profit institutions

• the physical and economic resources of local places."

(http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd/abcdbackground.html)

Annemarie Suffola: "Every person in this community is gifted. Resilient communities exist where the gifts of the members are identified, valued and mobilized. A person’s gifts can be divided into three categories: “gifts of the head", or what they know most about; “gifts of the hand", or what skills they have and “gifts of the heart", or where their passions, values and commitments lie." (http://www.omidyar.net/group/foodchain/ws/sufolla/#what-are-community-assets)

Asset-Based Community Development Institute

"The Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD), established in 1995 by the Community Development Program at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research, is built upon three decades of community development research by John Kretzmann and John L. McKnight. The ABCD Institute spreads its findings on capacity-building community development in two ways: (1) through extensive and substantial interactions with community builders, and (2) by producing practical resources and tools for community builders to identify, nurture, and mobilize neighborhood assets." (http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.html)

More Information

Following is the 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. [1]