Civic Engagement: SRDC Series #227

Mapping the Assets of Your Community: A Key Component for Building Local Capacity-Abstract
June 2002

Document
Capacity Inventory of Individuals
Community Participation and Leadership Inventory
Inventory of Local Institutions Worksheet
Group Skills of Volunteer Organization Members
PowerPoint Presentation

In this material, a procedure for mapping the assets of a community is described. The approach is one that has been developed by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight in their book, Building Communities From the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets [4]. It is a process that can be used in any community, and offers an effective strategy for involving a variety of people and organizations in helping bring about improvements in a communities.While this document embraces many of the key concepts advanced in the Kretzmann and McKnight volume, we seek to extend their work in two important ways. First, we offer a creative strategy for uncovering the pool of individuals who have the ingredients for taking on greater community leadership responsibilities. Second, we discuss the role that community asset mapping can play in promoting the type of community development that is concerned with engaging local people in community enhancement efforts. Before moving into a more in-depth treatment of asset mapping, we wish to offer an overview of the needs assessment process. We describe this approach and contrast its key features with those associated with community asset mapping. While brief, our discussion is intended to illustrate that local ownership of the needs assessment effort is less likely to occur if not preceded with a sound community asset mapping activity.