“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Needs-based development emphasizes individual or community deficits and looks to outside agencies for resources to meet those needs. Asset-based development(ABD), on the other hand, focuses not on individual or community needs but on their assets and strengths. For example, Asset-based community development(ABCD), a type of ABD, focuses on honing and leveraging existing strengths within individuals and their community. A foundational belief of ABCD is that the solutions to any community’s problems already exist within that community. The place to find them is the assets.
The ABCDE’s of ABCD
ABCD is built on 5 foundations. I have created the mnemonic ABCDE to help people remember these foundations.
A-Asset-based
A foundational premise of ABCD is that everyone has assets and gifts This includes the gift of dreams and passions. Everyone cares for something. As such, each member has something to contribute. It focuses on the assets and strengths of the individuals and community rather than on the needs. And identifies and mobilizes individual and community assets, skills, and passions. The definition of an asset here is broad. An asset can be any good and worthwhile thing. It could be individual gifts, talents, capacities, skills, education, dreams, passions, etc. It can also be associations, institutions, churches. It can be natural resources within the community. Our task is to see poor communities as full of gifts, talents, and possibilities. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “all Men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator. ” The poor have been endowed by their creator with tremendous gifts as well. As such, it is vital to look for resources within the given community–not outside– and refrain from the urge of importing resources and solutions. Only bring in outside resources when local resources have been fully explored and they are insufficient to meet pressing needs. In that case, view outside resources as one would an antibiotic medication to treat an acute disease. It is temporary, given at the right time when it is needed, and only as much quantity as needed (not too little and definitely not too much). Too little and it won’t work. Too much and it would cause too many side effects. Too long and it would cause resistance. Bringing outside resources at the wrong time or in quantities that are too large would undermine local capacity and initiative.
B-Bonding / Relationship-driven
Community bonding and bridging relationships are at the heart of ABCD. At the heart of ABCD is the premise that a good community is built on relationships. Get people within the community who are gifted relationship builders and connectors and empower them. The community developer should seek to build and repair relationships among local citizens, associations, churches, institutions, businesses, schools, etc. Effective communities have their assets connected by strong bonds or relationships so that they complement each other. As Stephen Covey might say, there is synergy. Local assets working together yield more than the sum of their parts.
C-Citizen-led / Community-driven
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” –Lao Tzu
Lao Tzu’s quote above describes the kind of leadership needed for effective community development. And that leads us to the third foundational premise/pillar of ABCD, which is that local citizens are at the heart of sustainable development. The local community members must be in charge and drive the development process. Local citizens must be the ones seen in public and in private leading and driving the efforts of community development. This builds communities from the inside out.
To understand the crucial necessity of citizen-leadership, we only have to ask ourselves:
- Whose community are we talking about? Even if you were born and raised in that community, its not your community alone.
- Whose development are we talking about?
- Whose story is it?
- What better future?
- Whose vision?
- Whose dreams are we talking about?
- Whose reality counts?
- Whose values, beliefs, worldview?
Development is a process of change. Change is difficult. We can hardly get ourselves to change. We absolutely cannot get another human being to change without their willingness to do so. Catalyzing citizen leadership and community-driven change is the only way to really achieve truly lasting change or development.
Leaders within the community must involve other members because the more community members you get engaged in the process, the easier it is to achieve significant sustainable community development. It’s crucial to view local citizens as the actors, creators, and leaders, not as recipients and consumers in the development process.
Empower the community to lead its own future. The goal of ABCD is for sustainable and enduring development that continues long after the community developer is gone whether the community developer was a local individual or an outsider who relocated. That can only happen when local people genuinely take leadership, ownership, and drive their own community’s future.
D-Discovery
A) Ask questions, don’t give answers. Help the community discover it’s calling, and it’s giftedness. Discovering the ideas people have is more sustainable than giving them solutions. A proverb comes to mind that says, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” Proverbs 20:5 NIV. Another translation says, “A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water, But a man of understanding draws it out.” Proverbs 20:5 NASB. The job of a development catalyst is to draw things out of the people.
B) Bring people together to discover a vision and plan for a better future for their community. The vision and dream cannot come from the development worker but from the community.
E-External support
No man is an island.
We all need support from others outside ourselves and our communities to achieve our callings or destinies. However, we must make sure that outside support doesn’t crush personal or local initiative and industry. To effectively leverage outside resources to support local development efforts, its important to note that outside resources and people only play a supporting role, not a leadership role. It’s important not to bring in outside resources to early or in quantities that are more than what is absolutely necessary because that will actually kill local initiative and hurt the local economy, hurting the very people you may be trying to help.
5 Steps of ABCD
Corresponding with the 5 foundatioal principles of ABCD are five steps I recommend for approaching ABCD.
- Asset-Mapping.
- Bonding/Building Relationships.
- Citizen-leadership / Community mobilization or drive.
- Discovery and envisioning.
- External support.
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