ABCD is an approach to community building that focuses on people and their gifts, their social relationships and associations first - before the physical infrastructure, programs and services offered. Here are some tools and resources to help you to apply and share these ideas with your family, friends, neighbours, and colleagues.
A recent case study highlights how the City of Edmonton collaborated with neighbours to develop an Asset-Based Community Development initiative.
This case study outlines how small, rural and remote communities along the east shore of Kootenay Lake in BC brought residents together using an Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach.
This case study highlights how the province was intentional at each step about employing an asset-based approach rather than the more predominant deficit model to the poverty reduction initiative.
This article provides an overview of this process and links to more resources. Abundant Community Initiative in Edmonton, Canada began in January 2013.
In this paper by John McKnight and Cormac Russell, they discuss the four essential elements of ABCD in detail in an effort to answer the following question: “what is distinctive about an Asset-Based Community Development process?”
This publication clarifies the difference between an association and institution, and the different key roles each has in Asset-Based Community Development.
As more collective impact initiatives are launched around the world, many participants are realizing that effective collective impact will not simply occur through better coordination of services, whether this is done by one organization or even a multitude of organizations.
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is about building community. Historically, we have looked at communities based on what they don’t have (asset stripping) instead of looking at the gifts that a community does have (glass half full).
These ABCD publications are developed by the ABCD Institute, as well as individuals and groups within their network. Many are available for free download by clicking on the document title.
In this well written and thought provoking publication, John McKnight examines the analogy of the "three-legged stool" to describe how business, government and civil society each play a role in upholding democratic processes.
This publication will give a brief introduction regarding the nature of Asset-Based Community Development and how it emerged. Of more relevance, John McKnight will reflect on how it has worked, the obstacles and what we have learned.
This guide has tools and recommendations to help groups to learn about the skills, knowledge and experiences that the community has and how to connect them to young people.
This toolkit by ABCD Faculty Member Dan Duncan, explores how we work differently with neighbourhoods and residents.
This guide is intended to help you understand the ABCD process and how to use it to mobilize residents around gifts and skills to build neighbourhoods that are strong and resilient.
This four-part resource kit details the community partnering process used by the Latrobe City Council and Monash University in Australia who worked with people who have been marginalized and helped them build community-based projects.
This practical guide to ABCD Community organizing, includes how to recognize people's gifts, connect neighbours, build associations and how these associations can help to weave strong social fabrics in communities and neighbourhoods.
This list displays a variety of ways - some quick and some more involved - you can use knowledge of a person’s core gift to help them build internal resilience and healthy participation in their community.
This list displays a variety of questions you can ask residents to find out what assets are present in the neighbourhood.
This workbook walks you through how to develop an inventory of the gifts and skills in your neighbourhood. It was developed cooperatively by the Woodlawn Organization, a Chicago neighbourhood organization and the ABCD Community Institute of Northwestern University.
Watch this webinar to learn how to level-up your community development efforts with Dan as he explores Collective Impact through the lens of Asset Based Community Development and Results based Accountability.
In this webinar, Howard Lawrence joined John McKnight and Cormac Russell in a discussion about their newest publication, The Four Essential Elements of Asset-Based Community Development.
—Vickie Cammack, Canadian Social Innovator and co-founder of PLAN
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