In more detail
Community assets are resources communities can use to get things done. Examples could include:
- meeting places
- social networks
- volunteers
- land and buildings
- contracts and businesses
- business supporters
- a farmers’ market
- members' and their enthusiasm and wisdom
- relationships with the managers of local public services
- a network of community groups
- projects which help people share - like timebanks and toobanks
- community groups.
Some community assets are land and buildings, but most aren’t. Some are owned, but many aren’t (you can’t legally own a relationship or a network) and some could be managed and not owned and they would still be assets. Some of the list relate directly to the aims of the community group (which might be to provide a community centre or affordable housing). Some assets are indirectly related – they earn money which enable you to do other things. Some community assets are intangible – networks and relationships for example can be vital resources, but they aren’t things you can touch or get valued by an estate agent. Finally, the assets which one community has in a neighbourhood aren’t necessarily shared by others in the same neighbourhood – unless you have some means for exchanging and sharing them – like a timebank or a toolshare, for example.
Making an Inventory (and Map it)
If you aim to plan and make a better your neighbourhood a better place to live, you might find it useful to make a list (an inventory to use a formal accounting expression) of relevant community assets? When you do, bear in mind community assets might:
- include land and buildings but are not just land and buildings
- be owned by the community, or might be managed by it or simply be usable by it
- relate to the aim, directly or indirectly, of making the locality a better place
- include dedicated public servants and local business people who care about the place as much as you
- be things you can lay your hands on and might also include relationships, understandings and networks
- include tools, but the skills to use tools can be more important and valuable
- be owned by a community group or someone else, but not worth much if you have no way of trading and exchanging favours and resources
- liabilities – that is things that get in the way of doing what you want to do. Community centres can be full of asbestos. Contracts can be impossible to deliver at a profit. Trading activities can make a loss. And relationships can be based on you doing everyone a good turn and never getting one back.
Social Value
When you have made a list of local community assets, you can work out out what value they currently have (to do with how they are being used at the moment). You can also think about what social value could be added by using assets in different ways (ie how they might be used in future). Rather than worrying about who (if anyone) owns partocular assets, think about how they could be used to add more social value to the neighbourhood?
| Key Facts:
Community assets aren't just land and building, but also relationships, networks, people and skills etc. If you wan to work out how to make them benefit your neighbourhood then make a list and think about how they could be used in different ways. |
Page Links from here
The Locality website explains community assets
You might also be interested in looking up an approach called Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and the ABCD Institute which were pioneered by John McKnight and John Kretzmann who wrote Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing A Community’s Assets in 1993
And on this site:
OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.
BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.
| created: 2016-06-12 14:47:33 | by: admin | status: f published |