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Blogs
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...Read MoreFor 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...Read MoreA Conversation with John McKnight, Co-Founder of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute by Albert Dzur, National Civic Review
By John L. McKnight, 2019-11-12In 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...Read MoreOne 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...Read More“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...Read MoreOne 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...Read MoreLet’s Get Explicit: Social Justice in Asset Based Community Development
By Ron Dwyer-Voss, 2019-10-30Last 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...Read MoreThe 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...Read MoreIn 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.”...Read MoreAt 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...Read MoreWhere we once dreamed of livable cities and revitalized neighborhoods, we now bemoan gentrification and displacement. As neighborhood conditions have improved, the small businesses and...Read More“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...Read MoreCommunity is built on relationships and people develop relationships through frequent contact with others. So, if you want to build community, you need places to bump into other people. The...Read MoreOriginally posted on the Jeder Institute For more than 10 years now I have been blending over 20 years of Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) experience with Art of Hosting (AoH)...Read MoreA Guide for Government Officials Seeking to Promote Productive Citizen Participation
By John L. McKnight, 2019-01-31Some years ago I attended the annual Canadian Conference of Community Development Organizations. Several hundred groups were attending. The convener of the conference told me that the best...Read MoreA Guide to Identifying and Sharing a Neighborhood's Educational Assets with Young People by Julie Filapek and John McKnight
By John L. McKnight, 2019-01-29We have had an Education Workgroup for some time. It has involved 9 neighborhoods involved in identifying knowledge assets of local residents and connecting them with local young people. One...Read MoreAsset-Based Community Development Methodology Insures an Evidence-Based Initiative
By John L. McKnight, 2019-01-17The asset-based research reported in " Building Community From The Inside Out " is an analysis based upon what may be the largest database ever collected of successful neighborhood improvement...Read MoreThere's a couple of great stories happening on the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/429625007423984/Read MoreAs a proud practitioner of Asset-Based Community-driven Development (ABCD), I’m convinced that every person and every neighborhood has abundant and often underutilized strengths that can be...Read MoreMy ABCD experience and learning – for Thought and Discussion - By Brian Nugent
By Brian Nugent, 2018-01-23I have worked in international aid and development for a long time and about 10 years ago I started using the ABCD approach along with other such methods to engage and work with communities....Read More
