The process of asset-based community development

Many community development professionals and others have, or are moving toward, an asset-based approach to community development. Community development process has four main steps moving from community organizing to visioning to planning to implementation and evaluation and back to organizing. Community organizing focuses on mobilizing people within a specific neighborhood or community. Visioning is one method among many, such as future search, to establish a long-range view of a community. During the planning phase there are at least three tasks in preparing an action plan: data collection and analysis, asset mapping, and a community survey. Implementation and evaluation phase in the community development process is the point at which the rubber meets the road. It is the phase where individuals, groups, and organizations are active rather than passive participants in their community.

 

Readings

Haines, A. (2009). Asset-based community development. In R. Phillips & R. H. Pittman (Eds.), An introduction to community development (pp. 38–48). Routledge.