In this quick 5-minute video, Jason Roberts of the Better Block Project describes how he and his community revitalized their streetscapes, turning them from unfriendly industrial spaces into vibrant and welcoming neighbourhoods.
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is not a new concept. About 40 years ago, John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann, took a four-year learning journey, visiting twenty cities and talking to 2,000 people in neighbourhoods which culminated in the book Building Communities From the Inside Out: A Path Towards Finding and Mobilizing a Neighborhood’s Assets. They wanted to discover if people knew who lived on their block and if they do things together. From this journey, 125,000 books have been sold and a movement was created.
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This is an appropriate title for two reasons. First, it is the holiday season, the time of year that we are giving gifts to each other. Secondly, in 2018 we hosted an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) event, and what better way of practicing ABCD than for our members to give their gifts of stories, tools and resources.
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November took me to Australia and New Zealand to meet with colleagues working on community change, community-led development and Collective Impact. I was a keynote speaker and workshop presenter at ChangeFest, a gathering of 500 Collective Impact practitioners in Logan, Queensland.
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In working with community organizations, one of the most common challenges I’ve encountered is the tendency to focus on what we need to do instead of why we are doing it. This happens for many good reasons; not only are all of us are struggling just to stay afloat in our work, but we also have many competing demands on our time and attention. It’s easier to simply meet each of those demands in turn and move on to the next.
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It was in 2004 at the first Tamarack Community Change Institute (CCI) that I first met colleagues from New Zealand. They had travelled the globe to spend a week with Canadian changemakers and to share their perspectives, wisdom and questions. For many of us attending the CCI, this seemed quite exotic, but little did we know that a bond had already been formed and the individuals from New Zealand were keen to learn about Tamarack, our way of working and community change.
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