The Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute is extending its growing influence to the healthcare, religious, and philanthropic communities.

A new and independent ABCD Religious Network was formed in the wake of a retreat last summer in which church leaders from six denominations were schooled in ABCD methods by Institute co-directors John McKnight and John Kretzmann. The network provides information and technical assistance to both urban and rural congregations and also publishes a newsletter. The Institute is now working with other religious leaders to see how church judicatories can support congregations in community-building activities.

ABCD is also developing a network of some 20 hospitals and health systems interested in the asset-based approach to community development. In one initiative, representatives from each hospital are working with ABCD to create inventories of hospital resources that can be used to support local community activities and enterprises.

Encouraged by its growing support from the philanthropic community, the Institute is in the process of creating a network of foundations that support asset-based community development projects.

Taking networking a step further, McKnight and Kretzmann are now organizing geographical networks of practitioners in Chicago, California, Colorado, Wisconsin, and South Carolina who have been using the ABCD research in their work. They represent a variety of sectors that include universities, government, and business. ABCD hopes these networks will develop policies and proposals for future action.

The Institute has increased its national “faculty” to 29 members who run training sessions in ABCD methods for community groups and other organizations throughout North America. To assist in the training, ABCD recently published three new workbooks and an IPR report (see p. 6), and has five more guides in the works.

New workbooks. A Guide to Creating a Neighborhood Information Exchange: Building Communities by Connecting Local Skills and Knowledge describes a simple, inexpensive capacity-listing-and-referral service to discover untapped local resources that can be shared by community members.

A Guide to Evaluating Asset-Based Community Development: Lessons, Challenges, and Opportunities, by Thomas Dewar, offers ten principles for implementing approprate and successful evaluation strategies.