Asset-Based Community Development and Asset Mapping

Asset-Based Community Development

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is an approach to strengthening communities by identifying, mobilizing, and utilizing existing individual and collective assets. These assets encompass personal skills, knowledge, existing services, and natural resources. Rather than relying on deficit-based models that treat communities as passive recipients of interventions to fix problems, ABCD positions community members as active co-producers of health and well-being.

Community Capacity and Inclusivity

Deficit-focused frameworks often assign restrictive labels such as "homeless", "unemployed", "mentally ill", "frail elderly", or "ex-convict", reducing individuals to their needs and pushing them toward institutionalization or marginalization. In contrast, ABCD operates on the principle that every individual possesses unique capacities and gifts. Strong communities actively recognize and integrate members from the margins into local community life. An example of this practice is DeAmon Harges, who worked as a "Roving Listener" at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, IN USA to discover the gifts and dreams of local residents to build community vitality.

Core Tools of the ABCD Approach

Implementation of ABCD utilizes specific practical tools:

  • Capacity Inventory: Assesses individual skills, talents, experiences, and interests categorized by head, heart, and hand.

  • Block Connectors: Volunteers who build neighborhood relationships and use questionnaires to gather resident visions, ideas, and potential contributions.

  • Community Asset Maps: Visual or list-based maps that document existing community assets across six categories: people, associations, institutions, physical assets, economic resources, and culture or stories.


City map illustrating local geography and key asset locations

Course Application and Assessment

In project groups of 4-6 members, students identify individual gifts (head, heart, hand) and construct a community asset map for their targeted project community. These deliverables constitute Part A: Pre-Planning, which is worth 10% of the final grade and due in the Dropbox by Sunday of Week 3 at 11:59pm.