The people pictured on the left represent 17 groups from 11 cities who gathered in Evanston this April for training in the ABCD Institute's latest initiative in community-building: the Neighborhood Circle.

This new style of community organizing is asset-based, citizen-led, internally focused, and relationship-driven. It seeks to build strong communities rather than solve single issues that threaten neighborhoods - the more traditional focus of community organizers.

As both a network and a learning circle, the group members' goal is to develop in their individual neighborhoods new approaches to community organizing that draw on the methods and goals of asset-based community development. They will also share these experiences with others in the group.

Each site is identifying and mobilizing neighborhood assets and hiring a paid community organizer to work with voluntary associations already existing in neighborhoods. The goal is to link up the assets of these groups - their people, talents, and social capital‹ into powerful citizen coalitions, which John McKnight calls, "associations of associations." Mike Green, an ABCD Institute consultant and faculty member, is providing technical assistance to these neighborhood groups as they organize from the bottom up and the inside out.

Among the participants at the conference was Fernando Pineda-Reyes, a Denver community organizer, and four of his neighborhood resident leaders, including a restaurant owner. Following the conference, the group returned home with plans to mobilize their community around initiatives involving asset mapping, leadership training, zoning issues, an art workshop, a ski program, and a Spanish club. The group's goal is to "design initiatives that support each other and build citizenship, relationships, advocacy, and community."