Many of us who worked as community organizers during the days of the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) were well versed in the concept of Asset Based Community Development, or ABCD. Asset Based Community Development is based on the simple idea that local assets are the basic building blocks of a sustainable community. This includes residents with skills, interest and local knowledge about their community.

The ABCD model stands in contrast to a mainstream funding model which views communities as a collection of problems and deficits and funders see themselves as the experts who will treat those problems.

Many of us who worked as community organizers during the days of the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) were well versed in the concept of Asset Based Community Development, or ABCD. Asset Based Community Development is based on the simple idea that local assets are the basic building blocks of a sustainable community. This includes residents with skills, interest and local knowledge about their community.

The ABCD model stands in contrast to a mainstream funding model which views communities as a collection of problems and deficits, and funders see themselves as the experts who will treat those problems.

If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail! But the more tools you have, the more problems start to look like opportunities!

As a community organizer, you always want to have more than one community tool in your toolbox. Community Toolbox is like the hardware store for community organizers!

You can easily get overwhelmed by the number of resources avaialble on Community Toolbox. Tons of how to's on a broad range of community planning topics, such as how to organize your nonprofit, community assessment tools and techniques, and much more!

A branch of Community Toolbox, but for Direct Action.

This toolkit provides resources to support community members working towards racial justice and gender equity, and indeed injustice in its many forms.

These how-to materials can be used for taking action to address systemic racism and gender equity. We hope the resources available through the links below can bolster your own efforts.

Learn about the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations That Matter at the Art of Hosting website. Through the Art of Hosting methodology, you can organize community forums in a way that brings people together to form consensus.

Drawing on seven integrated design principles, the World Café methodology is a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting large group dialogue. Each element of the method has a specific purpose and corresponds to one or more of the design principles.

World Cafe's are an important element of the Art of Hosting Methodology.