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The aim of the monthly Asset-Based Community Development Community of Practice (ABCD CoP) is to go deeper into the practice of ABCD and explore helpful tools and resources.
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Be inspired by Neighbours Journal – a monthly e-newsletter featuring the latest news, articles and events from Tamarack’s Deepening Community Practice Area.
Welcome to ABCD Canada!
This space is dedicated to illuminating and deepening ways to apply the principles and practices of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) and other strengths-based approaches to community change.
In 2016, Tamarack Institute's Deepening Community Practice Area was chosen by renown community-builder and ABCD co-founder John McKnight, to serve as the home for ABCD Canada. John’s rationale for choosing Tamarack’s Deepening Community Practice Area as home for ABCD Canada highlights the importance and uniqueness of our work. He says, “we have many programs focused on policy and institutions but too few focused on enabling citizens and associations to be producers in their neighbourhoods.”
ABCD’s emphasis on strengths, connections, citizen leadership and its recognition that individual gifts become powerful when they are connected together echoes deeply with our own practice and approach to community change. In our experience, communities that collaborate are more successful at addressing complex issues like poverty, equity, community safety and community well-being because they are able to harness the talents, knowledge and strengths of diverse perspectives.
Featured Resources
Nine Ways to Create an Asset-Based Recovery Plan
These nine ideas are the result of a design-thinking workshop to help citizens, organizations and governments to think about how they look at the assets that came from the pandemic and build them back better.
Asset-Based Community Development Recovery Framework
As cities and communities start to look at recovery, how do we learn from what has happened and move forward in a better way? Many recovery models have been created to help the economy thrive or to reduce risk management and disaster.
The Transformation of the Functions of Communities and Police
Listen to this three-part interview with John McKnight and Mike Butler, the now-retired Chief of Police of Longmont, CO. Mike has a vision for the role of police and communities that has been much more effective than most of the current police reform efforts.
“The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”
— Alexis de Toqueville
“ A neighbour is connected to people. A neighbourhood isn't a place. A neighbourhood is a culture that calls forth the contributions of the gifts of the people who live there."
— John McKnight, Founder and co-director of Asset-Based Community Development Institute
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