December 1998 Asset Mapping: A Powerful Tool for Communities
P art of a series of four workbooks the Laboratory’s Rural Education Program is developing to support community education, the Mapping Community Assets Workbook shows readers how to approach community development from a positive, creative perspective, one that builds on strengths and resources.
"From a community development perspective, it helps to think of our communities in terms of their wealth—in people, things, services, and resources that they possess," says author Dr. Diane Dorfman. "To build from what you have requires asking different kinds of questions to learn different kinds of things about where you live."
Learning how to ask what communities have to offer begins a process of building and developing. It brings knowledge, skills, and capacities out into the open, where they can work together to everyone’s benefit. As the web of assets grows, so does the potential for the community.
An asset map is an inventory of the strengths and gifts of the people who make up a community. Asset mapping reveals the assets of the entire community and highlights the interconnections among them, which in turn reveals how to access those assets.
The workbook’s engaging, lively style invites active participation on practically every page. Through a series of questions and exercises, readers first learn to uncover their personal assets, both tangible and intangible, material and nonmaterial. Then they expand to take stock of their community, listing all of its special features. Readers also learn how to design a questionnaire to uncover the hidden assets in their community, those from people or places that are not familiar.
"Connections to people can also become connections to resource-filled institutions. Likewise, a connection to an organization or institution may actually conceal a personal relationship," notes Dorfman.
Asset mapping can be a tool at many stages of the community-building process, and involve many different participants. It is particularly useful as a starting point in the process. Once the assets are identified and accessible, a variety of new ideas about directions for community building may follow. As more people come into the process, bringing ideas as well as skills and resources, new approaches to old problems can evolve.
The workbook also explores the school’s role in community building. Often overlooked, the school can play a big part in building connections to a place. School and community-based curriculums can help kids know more about where they live and see the value in that place. Students can learn biology at the local pond, or history from interviewing senior citizens who may have participated in the founding of the town, labor strikes, migrations, or an international war. By participating in community projects, students see important roles for themselves within their communities.
The most important thing a school has to offer are its students, says Dorfman. If a community is to thrive, it must have an identity, economic vitality, and sustainability. Getting kids to identify with a place can make them feel more connected to it—they have more reasons to stay there, and this helps the community achieve sustainable change.
To order a copy of the Mapping Community Assets Workbook, please go to the Document Order Form in this newsletter.
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