This asset mapping presentation focused on community strengths. Many community organizations focused on the needs or deficits of the community. Every community had needs and deficits that needed to be attended to. But it was also possible to focus on assets and strengths—emphasizing what the community had, not what it didn’t. Those assets and strengths could be used to meet the same community needs and improve community life. To draw upon a community’s assets, we first had to find out what they were (The Community Toolbox, Assessing Communities, 2024, para. 1-3).
Asset mapping allowed exploration of the strengths of all individual community members, a community’s physical structures and places, and the community services offered (e.g., education, businesses, nonprofits). The key was to explore “how they could be harnessed to meet community needs and to strengthen the community as a whole” (The Community Toolbox, Assessing Communities, 2024, para. 3).
Dr. Jenny Dunkle has been a social work educator for 12+ years. She currently works as an IRB Administrator in the Rutgers University Office of Research. She can be reached at [email protected].