Mobilizing Community Assets

Starting where you are

Take a look around and see how the community already mobilizes its assets and capacities. For example:

• neighbors help each other out by looking after each other's children
• people volunteer to repair community buildings like churches and mosques
• local clubs organize public events for everyone to enjoy

These actions contribute to community building. They maintain and strengthen relationships between people.

More can be done to mobilize the assets and strengths of any community. The way forward is to connect up the different assets a community possesses in creative new ways.

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Brainstorming New Ways of Building on Assets

The key to mobilizing the assets of a community is to bring groups of people together to brainstorm ideas and build new connections. First the results of the Local Assets Inventory can be presented so that people get to see their community in a new light. Then community members can be invited to imagine new ways of connecting, contributing and developing together.

What can individuals contribute?

Not just the professional or expert in the community, but the ordinary person with her talents and passions. 

What can groups contribute?

Especially those who are often dismissed as not having anything to offer such as elderly women, unemployed youth, immigrant newcomers or people with disabilities.

What can associations and institutions contribute?

From religious and sports groups to neighborhood associations and pet clubs, all community organizations have networks that have something to contribute.

What can the formal business sector contribute?

Business owners with a strong local connection will have expertise in various areas of business development that they could share.

What can the physical environment contribute?

Each place has unique gifts (plants, animals, climate, land forms) and inherited infrastructure (roads, harbors, bridges, buildings) that can be creatively used by the community.

These contributions can be put together in new ways that mobilize them for community building and economic development.  

• When a community starts with needs and problems, solutions come from outside.
• When a community starts with assets and strengths, mobilization is led from within.
• When a community comes  up with ideas for  how to mobilize their own assets, support is not far away.