By Alan Blackshaw, 2020-02-01
I haven’t always been a runner. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t so long ago that going for a run was the last thing on my mind. Now I regularly run 5kms two or three times a week.
When I...
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By John L. McKnight, 2020-01-23
It’s useful to conceptualize what counts as a means of evaluation. Counting is a limited tool. It doesn’t really help much in determining whether there are new friendships and a web of mutual...
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By John L. McKnight, 2020-01-23
Many institutions, agencies, governments and companies seek to develop effective relationships with the neighborhoods or small towns that they serve. Often, these desirable relationships are...
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By Dee Brooks, 2020-01-22
An Overview of Conscious Co-Design by Dee Brooks
Based on reflections of the concept of The Natural and the Open from The Apparatus, by Giorgio Agamben
The overview of Conscious...
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By Alan Blackshaw, 2020-01-20
Introduction
For over a decade I worked in leadership positions in Local Government. This was a challenging, rewarding and often frustrating experience. Over that time I learnt a great...
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By Michelle Dunscombe, 2020-01-17
Bushfire Reflections
The last few months have been challenging for me as the current disastrous bushfires burn across my beautiful Australian landscape from bush to beach. At times I have...
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By Dee Brooks, 2020-01-15
I’m regularly asked about how we blend ABCD with AoH . I wrote a brief overview of our broad approach to blending ABCD and AoH a while ago and as we continue to roll out Art of...
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By Robert Francis, 2019-12-17
A Book Review - David Brooks, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
When I started this book, I did not expect David Brooks, noted author, NY Times op-ed writer and PBS pundit...
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By Bruce Anderson, 2019-12-09
New WHY GIFTS MATTER podcast with John and Peter
Podcast Six is LIVE! John McKnight and Peter Block, authors of The Abundant Community and pioneers in their respective fields of...
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By John L. McKnight, 2019-12-03
For many years before Ronald Reagan’s administration, the Federal Government provided funds to Regional Health Planning Agencies. These agencies oversaw the area health planning focusing on...
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By John L. McKnight, 2019-11-12
In his teachings and writings, John McKnight, co-founder and co-director of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul University, has echoed Alexis de Tocqueville’s appreciation...
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By John L. McKnight, 2019-11-07
One way of classifying associations is in terms of whether or not they are space-bounded. The greatest number of associations are not space-bound. However, our focus has been upon those...
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By Bruce Anderson, 2019-11-05
“Why Gifts Matter”, from the Core Gift Institute…..a monthly series of conversations with people from helping professions, community encouragers, and spiritual traditions who believe that...
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By John L. McKnight, 2019-11-04
One of the unfortunate results of assigning responsibility for marginal people to institutions and professionals is that citizens lose their capacity to incorporate marginal people. Over the...
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By Ron Dwyer-Voss, 2019-10-30
Last year Jim Diers posted a thoughtful reflection on the work of advancing social justice and the limits of ABCD in that work. This got a lot of us talking about ABCD, systems change and social...
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By John L. McKnight, 2019-10-20
The essence of most associational groups is that they are composed of a group of people who care about each other and/or the same thing. By its very nature, this affinity creates outsiders. For...
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By John L. McKnight, 2019-10-10
In many neighborhoods, local associations establish a schedule of meetings and the focus is on what should happen at that time. One of Saul Alinsky’s inviolable rules was “never meet to meet.”...
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By John L. McKnight, 2019-10-01
At a Kettering meeting with City Managers, I was struck by how universally the focus of relationships with community was “problems.” Certainly, problems are one way of defining a part of the...
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Where we once dreamed of livable cities and revitalized neighborhoods, we now bemoan gentrification and displacement. As neighborhood conditions have improved, the small businesses and...
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“First, do no harm.” This dictum is frequently but mistakenly associated with the Hippocratic Oath. Although it was disconcerting to learn that our physicians are not guided by this rule, I’m...
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