Description
Asset mapping is a tool for mobilizing community resources; it is the process by which the capabilities of individuals, civic associations, and local institutions are inventoried. It involves documenting the tangible and intangible resources of a community, viewing it as a place with assets to be preserved and enhanced, not deficits to be remedied. Assets may be persons, physical structures, natural resources, institutions, businesses, or informal organizations. The asset-based community development process involves the community in making an inventory of assets and capacity, building relationships, developing a vision of the future, and leveraging internal and external resources to support actions to achieve it. Asset mapping is positive, realistic (starting with what the community has), and inclusive.
Steps
The Canadian Rural Partnership recently put out a handbook detailing three approaches to asset mapping that have been used in Canada, with step-by-step guides to workshop design. They include:
- The Whole Assets Approach takes into account all the assets that are part of people's view of their immediate community as well as the surrounding rural world. It is a systematic and balanced way of assessing community assets, including natural, social, economic and service components of the community system. Because communities are not islands unto themselves, the Whole Assets Approach means going outside the community to see what is important about the surrounding and interconnected areas. This approach is comprehensive and although it takes longer than others, it can provide a complete map of the community and its support system.
- The Storytelling Approach produces pieces of social history that reveal assets in the community. It identifies how assets that are often hidden or dormant can be put together with other assets to bring to light previously unnoticed assets. Often, a story will emerge about the success of human capacity and the people who made it happen—people with vision, leadership, energy and community interests at heart. These stories generally have a happy ending.
- The Heritage Approach produces a picture (map or list) of those physical features, natural or built, that make the community a special place. Assets include natural heritage features (such as a river, a sugarbush, a park or beach), as well as built features (such as an old bridge, a defunct steamboat, a historic building or a long-time favorite coffee shop). Almost anything from the landscape can be part of a community's heritage, if the people who live and work there feel it is significant to them.
Pros and Cons
A primary strength is the potential for adjusting the process in many ways for different levels of technology and participation, different timelines and budgets, different types of communities. Since asset mapping can also include a wide range of attributes (natural and built features, community spirit and intangible values, etc.), it can also be more comprehensive than many of the other processes. The only conceptual gap in the process is elements of character that are not considered assets, or that do not already exist; processes like visioning are better able to describe what the community would like to become. The flexibility can be a drawback as well, since any good asset mapping process will require a significant amount of creativity and organization, though the Canadian Rural Partnership’s workbooks offer a good head start.
Examples
- Ontario, Canada’s Rural Dialogue, 2001
- Sample asset mapping worksheets are offered by the Columbia Free-Net.
- Michigan State University’s Capable Communities Center lists additional examples.