ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

This chapter discusses community development from the perspective of concentrating and building on community assets rather than focus ig on needs and problems. This chapter outlines the major steps in planning for an asset-based community developments strategy.

Definition of community development

In chapter one, community development is both a process and an outcome, as seen in the various definitions from the literature. More definition about community development in the context of asset, to further characterize community development.

”Community building in all of these efforts consist of action to strength then the capacity communities to identify priorities and opportunities and to foster and sustain positive neighborhood change” (Chaskin 2001:291).

“Community development is asset building that improves the quality of life among resident of low to moderate-income communities, where communities are defined as neighborhoods or multi-neighborhoods areas” (Ferguson and Dickens 1999:5).

“Community development is defined as a planned effort to produce asset that increase the capacity of residents to improve their quality of life” (Green and Haines 2004:vii)

”Community development is a place-based approach: it concentrates on creating assets that benefit people in poor neighborhoods, largely by building and tapping links to external resources” (Vidal and Keating 2004:126).

Critical components of these definitions include:
• A place-based focus
Communities may be through of as the neighborhood, towns, village, suburbs, or cities in which people live.
Example: professional associations, sports teams, religious affiliations, service clubs.
• The building up or creation of assets
The definition of an asset is a resource or advantage within a community (of place).
• The improvement of quality of life
Quality of life is a vague notion, therefore each community must define indicators in order to be able to monitor whether or not improvement is occurring. Quality of life can refer to economic, social, psychological, physical, and political aspect of a community.


Also stated in the above definitions of community development are the following aspects: Financial, economic, environmental, and social sustainability.

More and more, the idea behind community development is to build up resources and advantages in a community so that the community and the individuals within it can be sustained over time.

The approach, while universally applicable, is particularly relevant to non-wealthy communities. This is the notion that, unlike wealthy communities which not only have assets but recognize these assets and use them in the formal economy, many lower income communities do not. (Elok Paikoh - 155040101111013)


Needs-based Community Development

There are two primary methods of approaching community development. The conventional or traditional approach is to identify the issues, problems, and needs of a community. In many low-income neighborhoods, it is easy to pint to problems –vacant and abandoned houses, boarded-up store fronts, empty lots filled with trash, and countless others. By focusing on problems, community residents tend to concentrate only on what is missing in a community. For example, a neighborhood may point to problems such as high unemployment rates or lack of shopping opportunities and identify the need for more jobs and business. If community residents focus only on trying to fix the problems that they see, they may miss or ignore the causes of these problems.

This approach can create unreasonable expectations that may lead to disappointment and failure over time. In addition, this approach can point to so many problems and needs that people feel overwhelmed, and, therefore, nothing is done.

Asset-based Community Development

An alternative approach is asset-based community development. This approach is the reverse of the conventional approach. The idea is to build capacity within a community—to build and strengthen a community’s assets. In contrast to focusing on problems and needs, this alternative approach focuses on a community’s strengths and assets.

This asset-based approach is focused on a community’s capacity rather than on its deficits. For instance, rather than focusing on missing small business, this approach would focus on existing small business and their success. Further, by focusing on its assets, the community as a whole will see its positive aspects.

This alternative approach does not ignore the problems within a community, but focuses first on its strengths and small triumphs in order to provide a positive perspective of the community. (Safira Kartikasari - 155040101111012)


Asset Defined

Assets are the stock of wealth in household or other unit (Sheradden 1991: 96). Assets are a useful or valuable quality, person or thing; an advantage resource (Dictionary.com). Assets are gifts, skill, and capacities of individuals, associations and institutions (Kretzman and McKnight)

Assets can be forms of capital such as property, stocks, and bonds in economic context. There are three opinions about assets of community capital. Ferguson and Dickens (1999) identify five forms, physical, human, social, financial, and political. Green and Haines (2007) identify seven forms, physical, human, social, financial, environmental, cultural and political. Rainey et al (2003) present three forms of capital that they see as essential: human, public (physical), and social.

Three types of capital (physical, human, social) are subdivided into other forms of capital. Physical capital comprise the built environment such as roads, buildings, infrastructure and natural resources such as water, river, sea, etc. Physical capital is largely immobile.

Human capital is defined as the skills, talents, and knowledge of community members. It is important to recognize that not only are adults, but also children and youth are contribute human capital equation. In contrast to physical capital, human capital is mobile because people in and out communities and human can change.

Social capital is refers to the social relationship within a community and refer to the trust, norms, and social networks that are established. It consists of the stock active connection among people, trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible. The importance of social relationship is critical to mobilizing residents and is often a critical component for the success of a project or a program. Social capital comprise formal and informal institutions and organizations, networks, and ties that bind community members together. There are many forms of social capital, formal and informal, strong and weak, bonding and bridging.

In addition, social capital may be subdivided into various forms such as financial, political, and cultural. While these three forms can easily be separated from social capital and each other, social capital is central of these forms of community capital.
All forms of community capital are intricately linked together and necessary for sustaining communities and achieving a better quality of life. (Farida Arhum Ardyani - 1550401011110110)

The process of asset-based community development

Many community development professionals and others have, or moving toward, an asset-based approach to community development. It is shown moving from community organizing to visioning, to planning, to implementation and evaluation and back to organizing.
While illustration moves from one step to another and creates a feedback loop, community development is far more messy and non-linear in practice. Every community is different, and the actual time it takes for each step will differ as well. Some communities may be fairly organized and cohesive and can move through organizing, visioning, and planning in a short amount of time and spend the bulk of their time and effort on implementation. However, other communities may find they are spending a great deal of time on organizing. All the steps in the process appear to take a similar amount of time, but, as indicated above, the amount of time spent on any one step will depend on the community’s residents and what they are trying to accomplish. The illustration includes a step for implementation – the action phase from which outcomes will be felt and measured.this step is a crucial part of the process – it is not separate from it.

Community Organization

Community organizing focuses on mobilizing people within a specific neighborhood or community. It is distinct from other forms of organizing because of its focus on communities of interest. Community organizing may be thought of as a way to mobilize small groups of people to accomplish a particular task. Community organizing uses a problem-oriented approach rather than an asset-based approach. Community residents are mobilized to “solve” a particular problem recognized in their neighborhood.

There are two strategies for mobilizing residents:
1. Social action campaigns
Social action campaigns are those direct actions, like the examples above, that aim to change decisions, societal structures and cultural beliefs.
2. The development model
The development model is more prevalent at the community level. The development model is a way to organize communities of place to accomplish a variety of community goals.
There are several different community organizing models (rubin and rubin 1992). The Alinsky model is probably the most popular and involves a professionals organizer. The organizer works with existing organizations in a community to identify common issues. In contrast, the boston model contacts welfare clients individually at their residences and relies heavily on appeals to the sel-interest of each person. (Dyah Lisna - 155040101111008)

Visioning

Visioning is one method to establish a long-range view of a community. It is often used in the context of community planning, it has also been used to focus on specific topical areas. Many communities have found it useful to create multiple topical visions that can be more detailed and focused rather than creating one broad visions that too vague and broad to bring meaning to the necessary action. There are at least three critical component of a visioning exercise:
1. Inviting a broad spectrum of the community so that many opinions and perspective are represented.
2. Preparing the process that is meaningful, effective, and efficient.
3. Choosing public participation technique to accomplish a vision or multiple visions for a community.

Planning

There are three tasks in preparing an action plan:
1. Data collection and analysis
Data collection and analysis is important to understand current circumstances, changes occurring within a community over time, and the implications of the data collected.
2. Asset mapping
Asset mapping is a process of learning what resources are available in a community. Asset mapping is ongoing exercise, The purpose is to recognize the skill, knowledge, and resources within a community.
3. Community surveys
Community surveys can be useful in identifying issues at the beginning stages of a planning process and/or to refine particular ideas or policies as a community begins to think about its goals or its action plan. (Yuliana Kristanti - 155040101111009)

Public participation

Residents of a community need to participate in and get actively involved in determining the future course of their community. Effective public participation needs to be both functional for the specific goal and meaningful to the public.

Implementation and evaluation

Actions in community development are where change occurs and where people can see tangible results. Need the action plan to lead the specific action in the future. An action plan describes a set of activities that need to be accomplished to move the community toward its future vision or/and goals. An often overlooked but important component to community development is monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring functions as way to take the pulse of a community effort, and evaluation, in contrast, usually occurs after the project or a plan is considered completed. (Fijanatin Alya - 155040101111011)

Challenges of the Development Process

An important caveat to any community development process is that they can be difficult, time consuming, and costly. The difficulty can occur, for example, when many diverse interests cannot or will not find common ground about either specific actions or even the general direction the community should take. Thus, finding consensus and making compromises is not only difficult but can be time-consuming as well. Nevertheless, creating a forum where diverse interests can discuss issues is critical for improvement of a community.

The cost of the process depends on the amount and types of public participation that are used within a process in addition to the amount and types of data collected and analyzed.

Conclusion

Asset-based community development is a promising approach to achieving a better quality of life and sustaining communities not only over time or in an economic sense, but through the development of all forms of capital that are necessary for a community to thrive. (Safira Kartikasari - 155040101111012)

Question
1. What is asset-based development, and why is it different from past approaches?
2. Define the types of assets that a community may have.
3. Name some of the steps in the process of community development and discuss their importance.
4. What is the importance of social relationships in community development?
5. What are some challenges to community development?

Answers
1. Asset-based community development (ABCD) is a methodology for the sustainable development of communities based on their strengths and potentials. It involves assessing the resources, skills, and experience available in a community; organizing the community around issues that move its members into action; and then determining and taking appropriate action. Asset-based community development (ABCD) differs from needs-based community development in that it focuses primarily on honing and leveraging existing strengths within a community rather than bolstering community deficiencies. Related to tenets of empowerment, it postulates that solutions to community problems already exist within a community’s assets.

2. Assets are defined broadly to include anything that is important to the character and function of a community and can be described very generally in the following four categories:
- People
People are your most important asset. The risk assessment should identify areas of greater population density as well as populations that may have unique vulnerabilities. Most hazard mitigation plans focus on physical vulnerability, that is, the risks hazards pose to structures such as houses, apartments, schools, hospitals and infrastructure. However, certain populations or groups may be especially vulnerable to disasters due to age, poverty, race, disability or language barriers.
- Economy
Every community has specific economic drivers that are important to understand when planning to reduce the impacts of hazards and disasters to the local economy.
- Built environment
The built environment includes existing structures, infrastructure systems, critical facilities, and cultural resources. Areas of future growth and development are also an important component when assessing the building environment.
- Natural environment
Environmental assets and natural resources are important to community identity and quality of life and support the economy through agriculture, tourism and recreation, and a variety of other ecosystem services, such as clean air and water. The natural environment also provides protective functions that reduce hazard impacts and increase resiliency.

3. 10 Steps to Community Development :

1. Learn about the community
Whether you want to be an active member of the community, an effective service provider or a community leader, you will have to be familiar with its issues, resources, needs, power structure and decision-making processes. Your initial orientation could include reading your local newspaper regularly, attending community events, reading reports and familiarizing with available services as well as community projects and activities. Close observation of the community as you interact with it will also provide significant insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the community.

2. Listen to community members
You won't be able to learn everything you need to know by reading and observation. You will need to talk to others about their interests and perceptions to put it into context. You can contact community members through formal channels, such as joining a local organization, or informally by chatting with people that visit the library or that you encounter in other situations, such as shopping at local stores or attending school activities. By listening to the community you may identify an area in which there seems to be a common interest in making a change.

3. Bring people together to develop a shared vision
Once you have identified that there are some common interests among community members and you have identified a few individuals who seem willing to work on a community development initiative, the next step is to hold a community gathering. In some circumstances it may be appropriate to invite representatives of specific organizations or sector to attend, but more often it would be a public event for a neighborhood or, for other types of communities, for all the identified members. The purpose of this gathering would be to develop a shared "community vision"; i.e., through imagining their ideal community and discussing their ideas together they will determine arrive at a common vision and some broad strategic directions that all are committed to working towards.

4. Assess community assets and resources, needs and issues
To be able to work effectively in a community development context, you will need to gather some information about your community. It is extremely helpful to undertake a comprehensive community assessment which will collect both qualitative and quantitative data on a wide range of community features.

5. Help community members to recognize and articulate areas of concern and their causes.
In any community development process, it is the community that is in the driver's seat. Community members will define the issues and the process for resolving them, which might be quite different than what would be proposed by an external "expert". However, it is the community members that are most familiar with the situation and, in many cases, have knowledge and wisdom that an external "expert" lacks. By providing tools, resources, meeting space and facilitation, community developers empower the community to start to take ownership of the issues and the development of solutions.

6. Establish a 'vehicle for change'
In most circumstances it will be necessary to create a "vehicle for change" for an organizational change, which in most cases will start as a steering committee. Depending on the circumstances, this nature of the group could range from a few unaffiliated individuals or a coalition of organizations and institutions. In time, the steering committee may evolve into or be adopted by a community organization. There is a wide range of activities that the steering committee will need to undertake to ensure that it will be able to plan, organize, implement and evaluate the initiative effectively, including developing a charter or terms of reference, establishing governance policies, obtaining sufficient resources to carry out the work and identifying potential partners who can contribute to its success.

7. Develop an action plan
Assuming that the community as a whole has set the strategic directions for the initiative, the steering committee will now develop the action plan. Depending on the size of the group and the complexity of the initiative, there may be other steps between setting the strategic directions and the action plan. You may want to create a comprehensive strategic plan containing long, mid and short-term objectives, and mid-level plans for communications, resource development or human resources. In addition, if there are a number of activities or events to plan, you will need a separate action plan for each one. The point you need to arrive at is a well thought out plan that is easily comprehended by community members, clearly links activities with objectives and indicates responsibilities, time frames and resources required.

8. Implement action plan
This is the heart of the initiative, in which financial and human resources, including volunteers and community members, are mobilized to take action. This may take many different forms. Perhaps the community has decided to establish a coalition against homelessness and is working to ensure all organizations that come into contact with homeless persons are able to provide referrals to appropriate sources of assistance.

9. Evaluate results of actions
Traditionally, community development workers have relied more on their own experience, anecdotal evidence from others to guide their practice rather than formal evaluation procedures. Often it is difficult to find reasonable and appropriate measures in terms of the cost and time involved, especially when the desired outcomes, as is often the case with prevention and capacity-building initiatives, may not be seen for several years. However, there are many reasons why it is important to evaluate your work. Most importantly, you may need to demonstrate that you have not caused any harm to others through your actions. Other reasons to evaluate may be to demonstrate the effectiveness of the initiative so that it will be continued, to satisfy funder requirements and to provide information that will be useful to others or to subsequent initiatives.

10.Reflect and regroup

Allow time for the group to catch its breath before embarking on the next initiative. Thank everyone that contributed and make sure there is good follow up communication with media, partner and funders. Celebrate your successes and reflect on any disappointments that might have occurred. Discuss how well the organizational processes and structures worked and identify areas that need some attention before the next rush of activity occurs. Also, it is important to provide a space for participants to reflect on their personal development as a result of being part of the group. When the group is ready to tackle a new initiative, they might want to revisit the community assessment information and the strategic directions and decide whether either of those steps need to be repeated.

4. On the importance of relationships in the successful outcomes any kind of planning:
1. For a human to sustain peak performance, it is not enough to engage the brain; we have to engage the heart.
2. We're very social animals, always watching each other for clues; to sustain a value, we need to see constant reaffirmation from others that it is still a value today.
3. We are each other's context, and have to proactively make an effort daily to give that reaffirmation of our shared values and positive feedback/encouragement for the right thing, not just criticism of the wrong thing.
4. Sustaining that shared spirit is what makes the daily pain tolerable; to paraphrase old wisdom: the spirit can survive any illness, but a broken spirit - who can bear?
5. The side-conversation of any "business" decision has to be a human conversation that says: "We share a goal, we share these values. I really like you. Now, what was it we were arguing over and deciding?"
6. If it doesn't have a spirit, create one; if it has a Spirit, treat that as if it were a living being, with its own "health" and "fitness," and make sure that there's a program to keep it healthy.
7. Beware of solutions based on technology or "systems" that neglect compassion. Compassion is the strongest suit there is, the strength to build on - "He ain't heavy, Father, he's my brother." The "caring" in "health care" is what makes it work. Not caring will kill any business model, cold. We don't build cars. We don't entertain. We care about people and do something about it. And that's what defines us and gets us up in the morning and holds us up 36 hours later.
8. Spiritual issues (above) have a dramatic impact on the bottom line, clinically and financially.

5. Community development is a field which can suffer from a loss of focus and from fuzzy definitions precisely because it is
wide-ranging. This report brings new clarity by identifying the unique contribution community development can make which
is to bring together a particular combination of practices which are scattered throughout the social professions and which, together, make a powerful platform for change. Society needs now more than ever a strong community development occupation with
clear objectives and public endorsement. National policies in the twenty first century need to embody community development values, and building the capacity of the community development occupation will in turn help national policy aims to be
delivered more effectively. The Community Development Challenge is a fresh, penetrating and indeed challenging approach to this field of practice.

Daftar Pustaka

http://www.cdf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/The-Community-development-challenge.pdf
http://www2.epa.gov/international-cooperation/public-participation-guide-process-planning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaluation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation
http://www.ohcc-ccso.ca/en/courses/community-development-for-health-promoters/module-two-process-strategies-and-roles/ten-steps#
http://newbricks.blogspot.co.id/2006/12/importance-of-social-relationships.html