Welcome to the Community Asset Building World Wide Web Site!

Our work involves rebuilding troubled communities. It is meant to be simple, basic and usable. Whatever wisdom it contains flows directly out of the experience of courageous and creative neighborhood leaders from across the country.

Most of this work is devoted to spreading community-building success stories. These stories are organized into a step-by-step introduction to a coherent strategy that we have learned about from neighborhood leaders. We call this strategy "asset-based community development."

A New View of Community

Before beginning to outline the basic elements of this approach, it is helpful to remember how so many of our communities came to be so devastated, and why traditional strategies for improvement have so often failed.

Asset-Based Community Development

Our work is designed to help communities to recognize and map their assets - the individuals, local associations and institutions which make up the sinew of the neighborhood - and to mobilize them for development purposes.

Asset-Based Community Development Institute

Many people and organizations around the country are revitalizing their communities from within. Meet some of them and learn about the work they're doing.

We want to continually improve this site,
so please send us your comments and contributions.