Leveraging community assets to enhance your nonprofit’s impact

Assets and strengths, not deficits and needs, are the true building blocks of healthy communities. ​Every individual, association, and institution has assets that can contribute to community well-being and justice. Through trust-based philanthropy and participatory grantmaking, nonprofits and grantmakers are evolving how they work. But it is also important to recognize that the communities themselves are filled with unutilized assets.

In this webinar, we will learn the basic principles and practices of asset-based community development (ABCD), and how they can enhance the work we do in the nonprofit sector. We will explore what it means to have an abundant mindset, including an introduction to asset mapping and discovering how the social sector can work in communities using the power of gift-centered practices.

Use the following bookmarks to jump to sections of the training:
00:20 Introducing the moderators
01:21 Introducing De’Amon Harges
02:56 What is The Learning Tree?
03:41 What does it mean for an institution to be ready for asset-based community development?
05:38 asset-based community development overview
06:36 Gifts of individuals
06:55 Gifts of associates
07:07 Gifts of healthy institutions
09:19 Five community assets
09:48 Asset-based ecology
14:32 Head, hands, heart
17:54 Asset mapping
22:38 How institutions can utilize an asset map
24:18 Vitality Index
28:52 Goals of the Vitality Index
29:53 Sections of the Vitality Index
31:22 Sample Vitality index
31:48 Recommended reading
42:41 Q&A