Discovering Community Assets – Original material presented by Stacey McCullough

Brief Introduction

As we have discussed before in this series, the community development process is an intentional community directed efforts to enact change. Community development is enriched with the use of different types of data and the process of collecting data can be an important step in understanding the community and soliciting buy-in by other residents and organizations. There is a lot of data available and a community can quickly become overwhelmed with the effort it takes to collect and analyze this information. Early in the process, community development leaders need to adopt a guide, or some way of deciding what questions do we need answered? This will decide what types of data the community should collect. This session reviewed the asset-based community development and the community capitals framework as two examples of how to systematically gather data in a community to inform a formal development process.

Key Points

• An asset-based data collection process, by focusing on the positives in a community, was suggested as a better way to approach community development conversation than a needs-based process.
• In an asset-based approach there are four overlapping asset areas: people, voluntary associations, local formal institutions, physical resources.
• The community capitals framework is another way to measure assets. This approach includes eight different types of capital: financial, built, political, social, human, cultural, and natural capital. More information on the community capitals framework can be found here.

A reflection on definitions:

Is an asset based approach a better way to discussing community development and gathering data than a needs based approach?

In reality, the two are intrinsically linked. A community cannot discuss its strengths without acknowledging its weaknesses. Fundamentally, the community development process is about capitalizing on a community’s assets and leveraging those for further development – often targeted towards improving a weakness. Any discussion about introducing change in the community requires participants to gather resources and rank efforts.

What is the difference between asset-based and community capital frameworks?

These two approaches for measuring assets in a community share considerable overlap. The community capitals approach is more detailed. Communities can integrate both frameworks into a single analysis of the community by assigning assets (people, voluntary organizations, local formal institutions, and physical resources) to a particular capital. Further incorporate needs by creating a barriers column that discusses what factors prevent the community from fully utilizing these assets.

Translating these concepts into practice:

• Depending on the scope of the project, participants may need to devote more energy to listing assets in particular categories.
• Defining assets, which is one part of a situational analysis, can be open ended without focusing on a particular project or targeted to a specific program/project.
• Some of the information you will need to collect will be available from existing data sources, other information will need to be gathered through interviews with local leaders.
• Creating an inventory of community assets can serve multiple purposes in a community: it helps the community think broadly about including citizens and other resources in the development process. It can also create a benchmark of where the community is before a policy is implemented, and it can be data collecting process that also informs the community that there are interested parties who are motivated to act.

In the next session we will be discussing techniques for implementing community development.