Asset-Based Development and Appreciative Inquiry

Start with the Positive

If we want to make our communities stronger, why do we too often start out by listing all of the problems? Why not take a positive approach to planning and managing community development?

These approaches and models, known by a variety of names such as Appreciative Inquiry, Assest-Based Development, or Development Assets, endeavor to avoid the negative aspects of the problem-centered approach by focusing instead on the positive. When the community members take time to identify the positive assets of their communities, they plan and build on the solid foundation of what is already working in those communities.

 

Appreciative Inquiry

Links

Appreciative Inquiry Commons at appreciativeinquiry.case.edu -- Case Western Reserve University, includes the Global Excellence in Management (GEM) program.
 

Asset-Based Community Development

Links

Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD) at Northwestern University. www.abcdinstitute.org -- applying the Kretzmann and MacKnight Model
 

Developmental Assets

Links

Search Institute at www.search-institute.org