Here’s a tool you might be able to use to get a better appreciation of the interests, skills, and needs of your constituents, and to help them connect with one another, and with other local resources. You can download the pdf by clicking on the image below. You can also edit and download the form, [...]

“Few people in this country know as much about community building as Jim Diers,” said  Fred Kent, President of Project for Public Spaces (PPS). From 1988 to 2002, Jim led Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods which is “widely known as the most innovative effort in the U.S. to empower local residents” (John P. Kretzmann, Co-director or [...]

In Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Play, Psychology Today columnist Peter Gray asked his readers to help him develop a proposal to build a neighborhood play and learning center “that could serve as a model that communities everywhere might emulate”. I said I’d help, and after putting in a few hours, recommended that he check out [...]

Source: Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization’s Capacity | The Habitat Exchange. A. From Greyrock Commons Co-Housing Community GIFTS I CAN GIVE MY COMMUNITY GIFTS OF THE HEAD Things I know something about and would enjoy talking about with others, e.g., art, history, movies, birds. GIFTS OF THE HANDS [...]

Notes from Building Communities From the Inside Out, by John P. Kretzmann In distressed communities across the United States, savvy organizers and leaders are rediscovering ancient wisdom about what builds strong communities. Serious community builders have no choice but to return to basics, to the communities themselves to rediscover and mobilize the strengths, capacities, and [...]

Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization’s Capacity (2005) is a workbook developed by the Asset Based Community Development Institute which aims to strengthen community-based projects by enhancing both project design and proposal preparation. Based on the premise that “your community’s assets plus your organization’s assets produces strong community-based projects,” [...]