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One of the most unique things I have learned @ Roosevelt Community Church is an asset-based approach to community development. Now I’m still wrapping my head around this but it’s all the difference in the world between charity and empowerment. Here are some blurbs that I’m still working through:

As an alternative approach, the appeal of ABCD lies in its premise that communities can drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilizing existing (but often unrecognized) assets, and thereby responding to and creating local economic opportunity. In particular, ABCD draws attention to social assets: the gifts and talents of individuals, and the social relationships that fuel local associations and informal networks.

Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) point out that if the needs-based approach is the only guide to poor communities, the consequences can be “devastating”… They begin to see themselves as deficient and incapable of taking charge of their lives and of the community. Not surprisingly, community members no longer act like citizens; instead they begin to act like “clients” or consumers of services with no incentive to be producers.

Over time, however, municipal agencies decided to “lead by stepping back”; communities shifted from being “consumers” of services to “designers” of community programs, and, finally “producers” of community (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1999).

ABCD is an asset-based approach that uses methods to draw out strengths and successes in a community’s shared history as its starting point for change (as in appreciative inquiry)

“drawing on social capital and the resources already latently within the community”

I think ultimately what this all means is that charity is not always necessarily a good thing.

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