Asset-Based Community Development

ROLE FOR RESIDENTS

True resident engagement requires govern­ment and institutions to lead by stepping back and creating space for residents to be involved as producers. Initially, it is imperative to determine three roles:

1. things that only residents can do;
2. things that residents and institutions or government can accomplish together as co-producers; and
3. things that only institutions or government can do

Traditionally, individuals have been relegated to one role, that of a recipient of service–a client, customer, or patient. As clients, individuals are objects of service, dependent on the professionals and institutions for their overall well-being.

To unlock the power of community, we need to rethink how to view individual residents . We must acknowledge residents’ skills and identify their existing resources. We must expand their roles beyond that of a client to include serving as advisers and helping institutions provide more useful services. Their greatest value is that of co-producers of their own and their community’s well-being . Rather than just asking people what do you need, we need to ask “What can you contribute? How can you use your existing skills and resources to achieve what you need?”

Residents in the most successful and effective systems participate in all three roles. If a person breaks his leg, for example, he is rightfully identified as a client and patient. If an individual has particular knowledge about her neighborhood and its residents, she may advise an agency on how to most effectively serve the neighborhood and to define what services the neighborhood actually wants/ needs. As co-producers, residents become part of the solution. 

ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

To unlock the gifts in a neighborhood and encourage residents to share their gifts, local governments should support the work of grass-roots leaders and organizers to mobilize the residents of a neighborhood or community to share their individual gifts through the three acts of ABCD: discovering, asking, and connecting.

The role of neighborhood leaders and organizers is to:

• Discover the skills (gifts) of the individuals who call a neighborhood or community home.
• Ask them to share their individual gifts.
• Encourage them to connect with living alone by checking on other individuals who have the same bringing an occasional passions to work collectively for the for them or taking them common good.

To be effective in this effort, governments and institutions must abide by the beliefs that support effective resident engagement and institutional action, which will ensure the successful achievement of the governments’ real long-term results in their communities:

• Everyone has gifts.
• Relationships build stronger communities.
• A citizen-centered organization is the key to community engagement.
• Every resident cares about something and this passion is his or her motivation to act.
• Listening discovers passions and gifts.