Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is a strategy for community-driven development that empowers neighborhoods in the development process by identifying and mobilizing existing but often unrecognized assets, thereby responding to and creating local economic opportunity. A community’s assets can be broadly categorized into five groups:

 

(1) Individuals: Everyone has assets and gifts, and at the center of ABCD are residents of the community that have gifts and skills that need to be recognized and utilized.
 

(2) Associations: Small informal groups of people, such as clubs, advocacy groups, or any group of people that don’t control anything, but voluntarily come together over a common interest by their individual choice.

(3) Institutions: Paid groups of professionals that are structurally organized, such as government agencies, private businesses, and schools. These institutions help the community capture valuable resources and establish a sense of civic responsibility.

(4) Physical Assets: Land, buildings, space and funds.

(5) Social Capital: community bonds, culture of a neighborhood, social networks

 

My vision for using the ABCD model for starting a hemp block manufacturing plant, under the stewardship of a community land trust(1) would look something like this:

(i) The state/city/county gifts us a plot of land to start operations (ii) fundraise through clubs, advocacy groups, and grant writing (iii) start a community bond(2) and solicit investors, credit unions, and community members to invest in the project (iv) identify and activate individual skills/knowledge from community members and ask them to lend their expertise to the project.

 

Assets that need to be identified, connected, and mobilized in order enact real change:

• The skills of local residents

• The power of local social networks

• The resources of public, private, and non-profit institutions

• The physical and economic resources of local places

• The stories of our shared lives

 

(1)Community Land Trusts: Nonprofits that acquire and manage land at the direction of their membership, composed of residents and other stakeholders. Members usually elect a board that makes decisions based on a tripartite model e.g ⅓ of the board is composed of workers from the facility, ⅓ is people living in the surrounding community, and ⅓ is government officials, housing experts, and other stakeholders. Getting the composition of the board for a community land trust is key as it ensures the trust doesn’t act in the interest of any one stakeholder. Community land trusts can serve as a way for all members of a community to have a say over its future, not just those that can afford to buy property. 

(2)Community bonds - a community finance tool -  community bonds differ from traditional bonds in that they promise more than a financial return, but a community, environmental, and sociocultural return. People invest money not just for their own interest, but to see a tangible impact in their own community. Because a community bond offers to provide more than just a financial return, non-profits can ask to borrow money at lower interest.