User:Bminalga/sandbox

Introduction
Asset-based community development (ABCD) is a methodology for sustainable development of communities based on their strengths and potentials. It involves assessing the resources, skills and experience available in a community, organizing the community around issues that are moving its members into action, and then determining and taking appropriate action.

==Guiding Principles == Asset-based community development (ABCD) differs from needs-based community development in that it focuses primarily on honing and leveraging existing strengths within a community rather than bolstering community deficiencies.Related to tenets of empowerment, it postulates that solutions to community problems already exist within a community’s assets. Principles that guide ABCD include:

1. Everyone has gifts: each person in a community has something to contribute

2. Relationships build a community: people must be connected in order for sustainable community development to take place

3. Citizens at the center: citizens should be viewed as actors--not recipients--in development

4. Leaders involve others: community development is strongest when it involves a broad base of community action

5. People care: challenge notions of "apathy" by listening to people's interests

7. Listen: decisions should come from conversations where people are heard

8. Ask: asking for ideas is more sustainable than giving solutions

Ethics
Because ABCD relies on existing community assets to create change, it has been criticized for implying that disadvantaged communities have all the resources they need to solve community problems. According the the ABCD Institute [link], however, ABCD methodology recognizes that systemic injustice may require disadvantaged communities to seek assistance from outside the community. ABCD maintains that interventions from exterior sources will be most effective when a community’s assets are leveraged at full capacity [CITE GREEN BOOK]. ABCD is described as a more sustainable model of community development than needs-based community development, which may perpetuate community problems by emphasizing deficiencies and the necessity for reliance on outside assistance. By contrast, ABCD aims to build capacity within communities by expanding their [social capital]. [CITE GREEN BOOK]