WHAT IS ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT?
“Asset Based Community Development” or ABCD looks for, and starts from people’s gifts and strengths (assets). These assets equip people to create local opportunities and respond to needs and challenges in their neighborhoods. ABCD goes beyond any individual’s gifts or particular group’s strengths to consider how these may come together to create broader changes for the common good within a community.
Where a deficit-based approach starts by identifying needs, asset-based community development identifies and builds upon community strengths. ABCD empowers individuals, associations to come together, with institutions in support when required, to develop their strengths, working together to build on the identified assets of all involved!
PRINCIPLES OF ABCD
- Everyone has Gifts: Each person in a community has something to contribute!
- Relationships Build Community: People must be connected for sustainable development.
- Citizens at the Center: Citizens must be viewed as actors— not as passive recipients.
- Leaders Involve Others: Strength comes from a broad base of community action.
- People Care: Listening to people’s interests challenges myths of apathy.
- Listen: Decisions should come from conversations where people are truly heard.
- Ask: Generating ideas by asking questions is more sustainable than giving solutions.
More Resources
Sources: The Tamarack Institute; The ABCD Institute; Jay Van Groningen, Great Lakes Urban
