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 kinds of relationships government or any institution might have with a neighborhood and local people. However, the possibilities of productivity are also limited by the idea that what we are about is problems. 

In the five communities where we have Asset-Based Neighborhood Organizers, two of which are supported by local government, people are associating the name for the main activity as “connecting.” The connections are not about problems. They are about possibilities and creativity. They result in collective action growing out of the desire people have to make their neighborhood ever more livable. It is probably the case that if these newly connected people were engaged by institutions around problems that require meetings the whole activity would begin to wither away.  

It is important to recognize that the language we use to define the purpose of an association or meeting often puts people in a box that limits their productivity. The “problem” box usually focuses on a negative aspect of community and a resolution provided by institutions. The asset-based approach is a box that usually focuses on creativity produced by citizens. One of the reasons we may have so little productive citizen creativity at the local level is that people buy into the belief that the purpose of getting together is to deal with a problem. There is another purpose that is probably more important and that is engagement that mobilizes citizen creativity and contributions. Perhaps we need a name for this. It is not problem solving. It is mobilization of creative vision.

Some 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 community “developer” in all of Canada was at the conference. He pointed toward a middle aged man named Gaeton Ruest, the Mayor of Amqui, Quebec.

I introduced myself to Mayor Ruest and asked about Amqui. He said that it was a town of about 6,000 people on the Gaspe Peninsula amid the Chic Choc Mountains. It is located at the intersection of the Matapedia and Humqui Rivers. These rivers are the richest Atlantic salmon rivers on our continent and Amqui is the regional center for fishing for these salmon.

Gaeton invited me to visit his town and a year later I was able to do so. I found that all the people in the town were French-speaking. A great deal of the economic base of the community was from fisher people who came to fish for the rare Atlantic salmon.

Walking down the street with Gaeton, two men approached him. There was a long conversation in French, which I did not understand. After they were finished Gaeton explained to me what had happened. He said that the town had put nets on salmon streams in order to keep them near Amqui and accessible to the fishing guides. The two men reported that somebody was cutting the nets to let the salmon go upstream where they could poach them. Gaeton responded, “That’s terrible. What do you think we can do about that?”

The men thought for a while and then told him three things they thought could be done.

Gaeton replied, “Is there anybody who could help you do those things?”

“Yes,” they responded. “We know a couple of other fisherpeople who could help.”

Gaeton said, “Will you ask them to join you to meet with me at City Hall this evening?” They agreed.

That evening I joined Gaeton at the meeting with four concerned people. He insisted that their discussion be held in the City Council’s meeting room. 

Gaeton led a discussion of how the group could deal with the salmon poaching problem. By the time they were done, they had specific plans and specific people committed to carrying them out. 

Then, Gaeton asked, “Is there anything the City can do to help you with the job?” The participants came up with two ways the city could be helpful. 

Gaeton then said. “I am making you the official Amqui Salmon Preservation Committee. I want you to hold your meetings in the City Council Meeting Room because you are official. I want you to come to City Council meetings and tell the Council people how you are coming along.” 

The convener of the National Association of Community Development Organizations told me that the process I just observed was repeated over and over by Gaeton who was a longtime mayor. As a result, the convener said that in Amqui, hidden away in the Chic Choc Mountains, almost all the residents had become officials of the local government and the principle problem solvers for the community. 

Every public official can learn a great deal from the Mayor of Amqui. He starts with the premise that the residents are principle problem solvers. This means they have the best ideas about what needs to be done. It also means that they have the best knowledge regarding who can do what needs to be done.

Working on the basis of these assumptions, the Mayor’s, functions involved:

• Listening carefully to the problem definition and solutions of citizens
• Convening residents to develop a plan of action involving themselves and their ideas.
• Offering to supply support for resident initiatives rather that assuming the City was the problem solver in the community.
• Making residents into official actors with responsibility and authority over their initiative.
• Creating an experience that will lead residents to feel they have ownership in the community.

Amqui flourishes because the Mayor acts on three principles:

…First, determine with residents whether problems can be resolved by the citizen’s acting together using their own community resources.

…Second, can the municipality enhance the collective citizen resources by providing supportive municipal assets.

…Third, there will be some problems that cannot be resolved with citizen resources, even if supported by government assistance. In these cases, the municipality must take full responsibility.

The sequence of these three steps is critical, if citizen participation and production is to be achieved. The first question needs to be: can citizens define the problem, create solutions and implement the solution. The last question is what must the municipality do.

We 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 member of the group, Julie Filapek, has prepared a wonderful report on what these groups have found in terms of neighborhood knowledge and how they have gone about connecting that knowledge to young people. 

To view the report, A Guide to Identifying and Sharing a Neighborhood's Educational Assets with Young People

The 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 initiatives. Over 4 years, a research team at the ABCD Institute at Northwestern University collected reports of these initiatives in 20 North American cities. Over 2000 cases were documented based upon neighborhood residents' responses to the question, "Can you tell us what local residents have done together that has made things better."

Each of these cases was then analyzed to identify the basic resources used to achieve the neighborhood improvement. Based on this review, the data demonstrated that regardless of the goal of each initiative, five resources were variously used. The research team named these resources "assets.” They are the neighborhood building blocks used in over 2000 successful neighborhood initiatives. A detailed description of these assets and their use is the subject of "Building Communities From The Inside Out."*

The analysis of the initiatives revealed a second finding. Every initiative involved the connection of local assets that had not been previously connected. And the data also demonstrated that these connections required an "activator"- an individual, association or institution that initiated the connection.

The ABCD research provides clear evidence that the basic ingredients of successful neighborhood initiatives involve the identification of local assets and their active connection. Therefore, an evidence-based proposal for a neighborhood initiative should show that it will identify local assets and activate their connection.

A workbook that guides local project initiators through an asset-based planning's process that assures evidence-based methods is "Discovering Community Power.”

Two other invaluable resources regarding the evidence-based question are:

1. ABCD Faculty member Tom Dewar's ABCD publication titled "A Guide To Evaluating Asset-Based Community Development,” available on our website under publications.
   
   
2. The ABCD Institute has been unique among groups fostering community development because of its special focus on the first two assets - capacities of individuals and their means of empowering that asset, local associations. As we support the work of the associational world, we are enhancing the production of "social capital." This "capital" is the result of the very act of associating as citizens, no matter what the associational purpose. The concept is that in working together voluntarily we produce all kinds of wellbeing, independent of the stated purpose of our group because we produce social capital.

The best evidence for this proposition is in Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking study, "Bowling Alone.” Putnam had over 100 assistants combing the research literature to identify the benefits of associational life. This research produced strong evidence that associational activity improves education, child welfare, safety, neighborhood productivity, economic wellbeing, health and democracy (see Section 4). The documented research is cited throughout the book and is invaluable in showing how the ABCD focus on enhanced local associational activity has multiple outcomes that, in sum, may be more significant than the stated goal of a particular initiative, e.g., a group of children learning how to use local assets to create a garden will also have improved physical and mental health because of their new associational relationships.

*A sixth asset, stories, was identified after the publication of this book. See “The Four Essential Elements of an Asset-Based Community Development Process,” page 5.