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2023 Annual Report, Empowering Partnerships for Community Development, Southern Rural Development Center, visit srdc.msstate.edu/annual-reports
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Understanding Heirs' Property at the Community Level Training Opportunity Banner

Mapping the Assets of Your Community: A Key Component for Building Local Capacity

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Lionel J. Beaulieu, Southern Rural Development Center

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. 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.

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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