Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization’s Capacity

in Asset-Based Community Development

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,” the workbook guides reflection on a proposed project’s relationship to community assets and helps connect the two sets of assets within a particular project. Key tools include an illustration of community and organizational asset-mapping as well as illustration of a typical “power ladder” depicting community decision-making. Discovering Community Power will be of interest to organizations seeking to develop projects in partnership with its local community.

In Section One of this manual, we will introduce a series of questions designed to guide your reflections about a proposal’s relationships to five categories of community assets. These include:

  1. Local residents – their skills, experiences, passions, capacities and willingness to contribute to the project. Special attention is paid to residents who are sometimes “marginalized”.
  2. Local voluntary associations, clubs, and networks – e.g., all of the athletic, cultural, social, faith-based, etc. groups powered by volunteer members – which might contribute to the project.
  3. Local institutions- e.g. public institutions such as schools, libraries, parks, police stations, etc., along with local businesses and non-profits – which might contribute to the project.
  4. Physical assets – e.g. the land, the buildings, the infrastructure, transportation, etc. which might contribute to the project.
  5. Economic assets – e.g. what people produce and consume, businesses, informal economic exchanges, barter relationships, etc.

In Section Two, we will provide questions to guide you in asking about your own organization’s wide range of assets, and their relationship to the proposed project.

In Section Three, you will find additional tools and illustrations to help you connect your proposal and your organization with community assets.

In Section Four, you will find information about the ABCD Institute.

via Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization’s Capacity | The Habitat Exchange.

See also: Capacity Inventory samples