Using your community's strength

It’s easy to see the needs or ‘gaps’ in your community and to focus on meeting needs with extra money and resources. ‘Filling the gaps’ is very important, but many people overlook the strengths that already exist in their local community. To use a well known metaphor, they see the glass as half empty rather than half full.

For example, many rural communities struggle to provide adequate services for an ageing population. This is a very real need, but often older people are seen only as recipients of services, rather than skilled, experienced and motivated community members.

Researchers such as Kretzmann and McKnight suggest that outside resources such as grants will be much more effectively used if the local community is actively engaged in using existing skills, abilities and resources to build on their strengths as well as address their problems. This is the basis of the ‘asset based’ approach to community development.

Many community strengths are not immediately obvious, and it takes some creativity to discover what skills and abilities are available in the community, and how they might be used.

Strengths and resources that are often ‘hidden’ in communities include:

• the skills and talents of individual people
• the resources offered by local associations and organisations
• the resources offered by institutions such as major employers, schools, and the council
• land, property, buildings, parks or the environment
• local businesses or industries
• the arts, culture and heritage of the community.

Extra resources

• A starting point for information about asset-based approaches is the communitybuilders.nsw website and the US-based Asset-Based Community Development Institute.
• A key resource in this area is Kretzmann J.P. and J.L. McKnight. 1993. Building Communities from the Inside Out —- A Path Towards Finding and Mobilising a Community's Assets. Chicago: Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, Northwestern University.