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About ABCD
The Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD)is co-directed by John L. McKnight, director of community studies at IPR, and his long-time collaborator in community research, John P. Kretzmann, an IPR senior research associate. Challenging the traditional approach to solving urban problems, which focuses service providers and funding agencies on the needs and deficiencies of neighborhoods, Kretzmann and McKnight have demonstrated that community assets are key building blocks in sustainable urban and rural community revitalization efforts. These community assets include:
Impetus for the new institute came in large measure from the overwhelming response to McKnight and Kretzmann's 1993 guidebook, Building Communities from the Inside Out, which has had a widespread distribution of more than 70,000 copies. In an era of federal budget cutting and downsizing in favor of local and state initiatives, the book's emphasis on examples of successful local community development and the "glass half-full" rather than "half-empty" struck a responsive chord in hundreds of local and national groups. Also, John McKnight's 1995 collection of essays in The Careless Society added provocative ideas to the debate on community revitalization and proposed a prescription for generating "authentic citizen communities of care." Expanding from the hundreds of talks given by McKnight and Kretzmann at a wide range of domestic and international institutions, the ABCD Institute has developed a North American ABCD Faculty. This adjunct faculty group has 32 highly skilled practitioner/trainers who have worked as consultants, workshop leaders, and speakers for the many and diverse constituencies interested in ABCD ideas. The Institute also shares its findings in the ABCD Workbooks series and in various related publications . The workbooks provide practical resources and tools for community builders to identify, nurture, and mobilize neighborhood assets. Some current projects at the ABCD Institute, which may result in new publications, include research on:
Though the words "community" and "assets" now seem to be in every political speech and corporate report, the last five years have seen real community innovations and policy reforms at foundations, community organizations, local governments, schools and universities, faith-based communities, and service and health agencies. The new approaches have profoundly affected the ways in which public, private, and non-profit leaders now attack the development challenge. The ABCD Institute gratefully acknowledges major funding from the Chicago Community Trust, in consultation with the Kinship Foundation, and additional funding from the Kellogg Foundation, the J. M. Kaplan Fund, and the Self Family Foundation For additional information about the ABCD Institute, send email to abcd@northwestern.edu or call 847-491-8711 (phone) or 847-467-4140 (fax). You may also write to us at: ABCD Institute, School of Education and Social Policy, Walter Annenberg Hall, Room 148, Northwestern University, 2120 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208-4100.  back to top |
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