WE NEED MORE SPACE

July 16, 2012 Leave a comment

Monika Grasley–Lifeline CDC of Merced County

That is what I keep hearing when I coach folks at a community center… and I love the nagging. :-)   Over the last few months the community is coming together to make things happen… all out of a small (1300sf) community center.

Outside it is sweltering hot with over 100 degrees and not safe due to gang and drug violence (at least for now), but inside is another story.  People from all races, ages and economic groups come together to create a better neighborhood.

In this town there are no playgrounds, no swimming pools, no camps … so they do it themselves!  Community members created a leadership team and together they planned out the summer:  tie dye shirts out of donated packages of Easter egg coloring and old t-shirts,  signing up for library cards and participating in the “Dream Big: Read” program, making crafts projects, having water balloon games, and reading are just some of the ways they are enjoying each other’s ‘gifts.’  The participants are learning to eat healthier snacks through a partnership with the County Human Service Agency, they have Boswick the Clown come visit through a partnership with the library, they are planting a small garden taught by a community member, and they go to the movies.

This community center is transforming! There is not only the “Kid’s Time”, but there are computer classes for seniors, ESL classes, and people using the computers to look for jobs and update their resumes. People are sharing their knowledge and referring each other to organizations to take care of some needs. A Spanish Church calls it their home, a NA group meets twice a week, and a Community Bible Study is there during lunch. There are partnerships with groups, and groups using the facility. The community center is a common place, a place of conversation, a place of sharing, a place of belonging.  What started out 5 years ago as a weekly food give-away is becoming a place where people listen to each other, hear one another’s stories, and help each other out.

More exciting for me though are the deeper questions that are starting to be asked: Who is the new chain store employing? Are these local people? Do they sell fresh local fruits and vegetables? Why do we not have a bank in town and how do we get one? How do we work with the police to get rid of the gangs? These are the questions that tell me that a community is changing. The questions are not about personal comfort, not about ‘what do I get out of it’, not about individual issues only, but about justice issues: local employment opportunities, fresh local groceries, equal access to resources. It is about the systemic issues that need to be addressed.

When we talk about community transformation in the Asset Based Community Development framework  we need to talk about systemic change. I don’t think that it is possible to have individuals change without it affecting the whole community.  But if you get enough people to make small choices acting on the things they care about you will notice change within the community. When individuals change and have access to more resources (by building relationships, exchanging gifts and skills with each other) then they are more likely to look at the bigger issues: Why do they not have access to healthier foods? Why is the library not open more hours? Why do the police not respond to calls? Why is there no employment in town?

So when people want more space… we will look for more space… because people are dreaming big: a place to exercise, have classes (GED, literacy, Bible, ESL), designated reading areas for kids, and so much more. As we work in partnerships with schools, groups, churches and other non-profits we know we are all struggling for funds to make it happen… but a recent $20,000 gift for a stipend for a community member to keep the center open longer is a good start.  :-)

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Betterment to Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Friday Food For Thought: Hospitality

July 13, 2012 Leave a comment

Hospitality by John McKnight

Question: Why is so important?
Thoughts: One key to a strong and satisfying community is the spirit of welcome and hospitality. This spirit powers community by recognizing we need the gifts of everyone, and everyone needs to give their gifts. This calls for a special effort to meet your neighbors who have been marginal or isolated-the strangers in our midst.

Question: How do we begin?
Thoughts: It begins with some very basic questions.

  1. Who are the strangers in the neighborhood. Newcomers, loners, even adversaries.
  2. How do we identify their gifts as the key to connection and hospitality.
  3. How might strangers be connected. Guided by knowing what their gifts are, we can ask what neighbors or associations would value these gifts. How might these people become useful? How do we make the connection?

Our Questions to You:
 What strangers have you identified?
 What gifts do they have?
 How have you connected them to other neighbors?

Posted with permission.  See the original post here.

John McKnight is emeritus professor of education and social policy and codirector of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society. He has been a community organizer and serves on the boards of several national organizations that support neighborhood development.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Neighbors, Stories Tagged with , , , hospitality,

LINCNewOrleans: Building Multi-Community Coalition

July 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Kevin Kieschnick-LINCNewOrleans

LINCNewOrleans seeks to transform community by crossing lines: neighborhood lines, denominational lines, and cultural lines.  Building a coalition between 4 adjacent urban New Orleans neighborhoods is their goal; Marigny, Bywater, St. Claude, and St. Roch.  These four neighborhoods are very close geographically, (just East of the French Quarter), but very different culturally and socio-economically.  They have distinctly different assets and challenges.  LINCNewOrleans is building partnerships with churches in each neighborhood, and has identified a number of young leaders passionate about developing and strengthening their neighborhoods.

LINC’s vision is to build a “QUAD 4 COMMUNITY COLLABORATIVE” where a team from each neighborhood is trained in principles and processes of Asset Based Christian Community Development.  They will then be coached and mentored by LINCNewOrleans leaders on an ongoing basis, gathering together regularly with leaders from the other adjacent communities to share ideas, strategies, resources, and challenges with the larger community, for the benefit of all.

As these leaders are trained and mentored, they engage their congregations and neighborhoods to asset map their own communities, work with community residents to build new visions for strengthening their neighborhoods, and network within the community and across neighborhood lines to strengthen everyone’s work.  St. Roch may have resources and assets that are needed in Bywater, while Marigny might have human or material resources that could specifically benefit the people in St. Claude; that’s the idea of the networking strength.

Presently over 20 young leaders have been identified.  Together with LINCNewOrleans, these leaders are raising support to travel to the Twin Cities to attend the Christian Community Development Association conference this Fall.  Relationships are growing.  Capacity is being built.  And communities are being transformed!

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , LINCNewOrleans

Asking the Right Questions about Serving

July 3, 2012 6 Comments

Unfinished service project: helpful to the neighborhood?

June 2012 By Bob Lupton – FCS Urban Ministries

Planning a mission trip or service project?  Want to make sure you are helping rather than hurting?  The following questions will help you determine whether your service will be transformative or toxic.

Whose needs are you serving?   You want this to be a meaningful experience for your group.  But if most of your planning energy is being invested in ensuring that the event will be “a life-changing experience” for your members, this may be a clue that it is more about serving your group than serving the poor.  This is a particularly difficult question for mission pastors and youth leaders since they are hired to minister primarily to church members.  A well organized, spiritually-motivated, hands-on mission trip can be very satisfying to volunteers and yield moving accounts for back-home reporting.   It is doubtful, however, that a “what-works best-for-us” approach will have transformative impact among those on the receiving end who are expected to accommodate to the schedules and preferences of their resourced visitors.

Is the proposed activity meeting a real need?   An African woman recently told us that as a child she never understood why Americans loved to paint so much.  In preparation for the Americans’ arrival in her rural village her classmates were instructed to deface the school building with mud and stones so their guests would have something to paint.  Her entire school building was repainted five times in the four years she was a student there.  Extreme example?  Perhaps.  But unfortunately it is representative of the make-work projects often created to make compassionate volunteers feel good about serving.  If a project is truly important to those being served, they will be first investors in that effort with their own leadership, labor and resources.

Is the proposed mission a top priority?   A group recently returning from Haiti recounted their experience of seeing mothers carrying infants wrapped in dirty rags and newspapers. Moved with compassion, the mission group purchased blankets and distributed them to the mothers.  The following day the blankets appeared in the shops along the street, sold by the mothers to local merchants.  Discovering the babies still swaddled in filth, the missioners were highly incensed – until it was explained to them that the mothers sold the blankets to buy food for their babies.  Food, not blankets, was the higher priority.  To determine the true hierarchy of need, enough time must be spent among the needy to understand the daily survival pressures they face.  Repairing an inner-city widow’s rotting porch may not be as important as getting her water turned back on.  Adapting our mission to the priorities of the poor is key to redemptive service.

Are the poor capable of doing this for themselves?   The poor are weakened when well-meaning people deprive them of the incentives and rewards of their own hard-won achievements by doing for them what they have the capacity to do for themselves.  As one leader of a micro-lending ministry in Nicaragua lamented when describing the effects of US church partnerships, “They are turning my people into beggars.”  Why get a loan to build their own church, the peasants reason, when the Americans will do it for them?  Predictable by-products of such service include increased dependency, erosion of work ethic, and loss of dignity.  Conversely, indigenous capacity-building is encouraged by joint efforts like co-investing, micro-lending and  reciprocal partnerships.

How will you measure success?   Typically churches evaluate their service projects and mission trips by the number of volunteers involved, the activities performed, and the impact on participating members.  Less attention is paid to the results on the receiving end of charity.  If, however, preserving the dignity and self-esteem of recipients is important to you, then you will want to assess the amount of mutual collaboration, leadership sharing and reciprocity structured into your event.  If your goal is to actually empower those you serve, you will focus less on volunteer activities and more on measurable longer-term outcomes such as leadership development, increased self-sufficiency, and educational and economic advancement.

Is it cost-effective?   The money one campus ministry spent on a spring break mission trip painting an orphanage in Honduras was enough to hire two unemployed local painters, two full-time teachers, and supply new uniforms for every child in the school.  The cost of most mission trips is out of all proportion to the return on investment (ROI) when comparing it against the actual value of the service being performed.  The billions spent annually on such junkets might be justified as a legitimate cost of spiritual development for church members but it lacks integrity if billed as effective mission strategy.  Wise stewardship requires thoughtful assessment of the cost-effectiveness of mission investments.

A few suggestions to avoid mission toxicity.  Mission projects can be genuinely redemptive.  The best ones are joint ventures with mature, indigenous ministries that understand both the culture and healthy cross-cultural partnering.  A few reality-tested principles provide a “code of conduct” to guide invited volunteer guests toward sensitive, mutually transforming relationships:

•  Never do for others what they can do for themselves (teach a man to fish).

•  Limit one-way giving to emergencies (most needs are chronic, not crisis).

•  Employment, lending, investing are best (use grants sparingly as incentives).

•  Subordinate self-interests to the interests of the poor (is this for our good or theirs?).

•  Listen to what is not being said (many needs are not immediately voiced).

•  Above all, do no harm.

This article was republished from www.fcsministries.com and written by founder and CEO Bob Lupton of Atlanta, Georgia. Bob is a Christian community developer, an entrepreneur who brings together communities of resource with communities of need. Through FCS Urban Ministries – a non-profit organization which he founded – he has developed two mixed income subdivisions, organized a multi-racial congregation, started a number of businesses, created housing for hundreds of families and initiated a wide range of human services in his community. He is the author of the books Theirs in the Kingdom, Return Flight, Renewing the City, Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life and the widely circulated “Urban Perspectives”, monthly reflections on the Gospel and the poor. Bob has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Georgia. He serves as speaker, strategist, and inspirer with those throughout the nation who seek to establish God’s Shalom in the city.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Neighborhood Transformation Tagged with , , ,

Monday Rewind: Best Practices–Church as a Gift for Neighborhood Transformation

July 2, 2012 Leave a comment

Originally posted  here in January 2012.

Jay Van Groningen, CFA Executive Director

Over the years, I have noticed that most Christians who get serious about Community Development – serious enough to work at it – try to start the work of neighborhood transformation from a church platform. They hope and expect that a congregation will engage in God’s redemption story in the neighborhood as a lead agent for positive change. They expect that the church will care enough about their neighbors and neighborhood to want to be a lead “player” in the neighborhood redemption story.  They are soon disappointed with Church as agent for neighborhood transformation.  Those who have launched neighborhood transformation from a church platform (be it new church or established church) feel isolated, alone, under-resourced, and disillusioned with church participation. While church is loaded with gifts for neighborhood transformation, their focus and energies seem directed to “healthy church” issues, not “healthy community” issues.

Church can be a good neighbor bringing gifts/contributions to the neighborhood transformation story.  It can be great neighbor – taking responsibility for the neighborhood transformation story. CFA has learned that a best practices approach is to lead neighborhood transformation from outside the church (a non-profit) and to call on the church to bring their gifts (as much as they are willing) in the same way any other institution is invited to bring their gifts to the neighborhood transformation process.  “Healthy church” and “healthy community” is not a problem to be solved. It is a polarity to be managed.  A community is healthier when church gifts are a shaping force; a Church is healthier when as servant/witness it stretches itself in giving gifts for the redemption of the neighborhood it occupies.

Click here to see the original post from January 2012.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Essays, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , ,

Friday Food for Thought: Gifts

June 29, 2012 Leave a comment

Gifts by John McKnight

Question: If we want to create a more powerful neighborhood, what information do we need?
Thoughts: To bring neighbors together there are three kinds of useful information. We have to discover our neighbors’ gifts. We have to seek out local strangers. Finally we need to find out the groups people belong to, the institutions where they work or have connections. We start with the gifts.

Question: How do you find out this information?
Thoughts: You may want to find this information in a visit with individual neighbors or calling a meeting of several neighbors.

Question: If I decide to talk to neighbors, what do we discuss?
Thoughts: It can begin by uncovering the gifts of your neighbors. Here are some ways of thinking about this.

The kinds of gifts: There are four kinds. Three are practical. They are gifts of Head, Heart and Hand. The fourth is what you are willing to teach.
 

Head is knowledge. Do you know about history, language, who lives in that house.
Heart is passion. Love of children, prayer.
Hands is your skills of any kind. Carpentry, handyman, guitar, planning a garden. It is all you can do.
Teachable. What allows the gifts to build the neighborhood is our willingness to teach others.

(Resource: Guide to Capacity Inventories)

Question: How do we ask neighbors about their gifts?

This is not as easy as it might sound.

Your Introduction. Decide whether or not you want to phone a person to get together or knock on their door. Is there someone who will go with you? Friend, family member.

Three Ways to Open the Conversation:

  1. Reference. You are referred by someone. Mary said I should talk to you.
  2. Excuse. You have a specific purpose or excuse. How we can help the kids.
  3. Social. We thought it would be good if we got to know each other better. An invitation;  I would like to invite you and some others for lunch or dinner or picnic so we can meet each other

Re-posted with permission.  Click here to see the original article.

John McKnight is emeritus professor of education and social policy and codirector of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society. He has been a community organizer and serves on the boards of several national organizations that support neighborhood development.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Developing a Community Vision, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , ,

Opening the Neighborhood Treasure Chest

May 23, 2012 1 Comment

This post was originally published by John McKnight on January 11, 2011 at www.abundantcommunity.com.  Click here to see the original post. 

John McKnight is emeritus professor of education and social policy and codirector of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society. He has been a community organizer… read more »

Increasing numbers of Americans are neighborless. They are, in reality, little more than residents occupying a house in an anonymous place.  They often admit that they really don’t know the people who live around them — except to say hello. It is a regretful admission, but in their view of no more consequence than failing to wash the windows of their house.

Failure to see the costs of not having real neighborhood relationships is the primary cause of our weak local communities. And it is this weakness that is eroding our ability to lead productive, satisfying lives in the 21st century.

In this century, we have entered an era when neighborhoods must take on significant new functions if our lives are to improve.  These are the functions that our large institutions can no longer perform, because they have reached their limits.  The medical system no longer has major consequence for our health.  Most police leaders understand they have reached the limits of their ability to provide local security.  An improved environment will be shaped less by laws than our own local decisions about how we heat, light, transport ourselves, and the amount of waste we create.  The majority of our jobs are not going to be provided by large corporate systems.  Small business will be the major job source in the future of new enterprise.   Our mega-food systems provide high-cost, wastefully transported, chemically grown produce that is slowly being replaced by locally produced and healthful food.

Of even more importance is the obvious limit of trying to pay our institutions to raise our children. Even though we say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” we actually outsource most of our child raising.  They have become the children of schools, counselors, athletics, youth workers, therapists, McDonald’s, the electronic industries and the mall.  And we call these villageless children the “youth problem.”

For all these reasons, it is now clear that the good life in the 21st century will have to be grown in the local neighborhood.  Once we see the need for a strong, connected, productive local community, our basic building blocks are the skills, gifts, passions and knowledge of all our neighbors.  It is these neighborly capacities that are most often unknown to us.  It is making these capacities visible and connected that is the basic task of a functioning 21st century.

There are many ways to uncover the productive capacities of a neighborhood.  One innovative approach is illustrative of the possibilities.

In a working-class African-American neighborhood in Chicago, the neighborhood organization has initiated discussions at the block level with local residents regarding their gifts, skills, passions and special knowledge. An example of the information they are making visible is what has been found, for instance, about six randomly interviewed residents on one block.

The six people reported sixteen “gifts,” including being good with kids, a good listener, effective organizer and skilled communicator.

Asked about their skills, the six reported fourteen, including knitting, light repairs, real estate law, computers and cooking.

The twenty “passions” the neighbors reported included skating, correcting building problems, decorating, jazz, gardening and photography.

Of special significance for a “village that raises a child” are the fifteen topics the six neighbors said they were willing to teach youngsters or interested adults.  They include reading comprehension, computer technology, sewing, first aid, mathematics, skating, cooking, real estate and self-esteem.

These six residents did not know of most of their neighbor’s capacities, though they have lived on the block for some time. And no one had ever asked them about their abilities or whether they would share them.

The neighborhood organization has made the capacities of the neighbors visible.  With 30 households on the block, imagine the rich treasures that will be revealed when these “gift” discussions are held with the neighbors in the other 24 households.

It is this hidden treasure chest that can be opened in any neighborhood in North America.  Using these treasures requires connecting the capacities of neighbors. And those local neighbors good at organizing are the perfect local connective tissue.

If you are a person who has discovered and connected the productive capacity of your neighbors, we would like to hear from you.—  And if you are a neighbor interested in initiating the process of opening your neighborhood treasure chest, let us know, and we can share useful materials, and perhaps, connect you to other pioneering neighbors.

~ John ~

Re-posted with permission

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , ,

Friday Food For Thought: Hope

May 18, 2012 Leave a comment

“Hope is the Holy Spirit-given capacity to see above, beyond, or through the immediate ruin and mess all around us, in order to see the final accomplishment of grace that lies ahead.  Hope persists in seeing the world not only as it is, but as it can become.”  p. 16, Communities First

“That’s because you leave today, not committed to the kingdom of any culture, class, or racial group, or the kingdom of America or any other nation state, or even to the kingdom of any church, …; but rather to the kingdom of God, which is meant to turn all the other kingdoms on the head, to break open the unpredictable, and bring new hope to lives, neighborhoods, nations, and even the world. So God bless you in that wholly unpredictable and so needed ministry of hope.”  –Rev. Jim Wallis, CEO of Sojourners

Read the entire post here.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , Christian, Christianity, faith, , hope, inspiration

inCOMMON Community Development

May 17, 2012 3 Comments

inCOMMONOmaha, NE     “What if poverty could be stopped before it started?” One of the thought provoking questions addressed in this short clip from inCOMMON. “The solution to poverty won’t be found in programs, but in people.” [email protected]

Filed under Community Betterment, Community Organizing, Developing a Community Vision (Videos), General (Videos), General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Neighborhood Transformation, Videos Tagged with , , , , Connecting Neighbors, inCOMMON, isolation, Neighborhoods, Omaha, Poverty, service

Ms. Samuels, Peterson Ave, and God’s Glory

May 16, 2012 Leave a comment

Bethany Dudley–Requip

Written by Steve Blom–Imag(in)e, Sauk Village

When I joined the Beautification Committee of Sauk Village this past Summer I saw it as a unique opportunity to be a part of something positive that the community was already doing.  It would be a chance to use my head/heart/hand gift of landscaping, and to develop some relationships.  Little did I know…

As a committee, we re-instated the Hootsie Awards.  This is an annual award given to those nominated by their neighbors for the work they put into maintaining and improving their properties.  As committee members, we were asked to judge the nominated properties in various categories.  Unable to go out with the rest of the committee on a Saturday, I went by myself on a Monday afternoon.  Almost through with the list I turned onto Peterson Ave.

What’s important to note is that Peterson Ave. is “that” street in the Village with the reputation.  It is labeled and avoided.  Comprised of a series of duplexes connected by mismatched siding, boarded windows, and uneven roof-lines people from outside of Sauk Village stereotype the rest of the community using Peterson Ave. as the standard.  My greatest concern was that being parked on the side of the street taking pictures would be viewed by some of the neighbors as another bank photographing a foreclosed home or worse.

“What could anyone possibly do with this tiny piece of property in this neighborhood to be nominated for an award?” was my judgmental thought-of-the-day as I pulled up to Ms. Samuels’ house.  I sat there, somewhat stunned, thinking to myself “THIS is what someone can do.”  A couple of minutes into my note-taking the garage door opened and out walked a woman who is looked at me suspiciously.  I rolled down my window and introduced myself.  Immediately her demeanor changed.  I told her that I loved her yard:  her use of fountains, the pavers and planters, the various ornamental trees and shrubs…”It’s beautiful!”  Ms. Samuels began to cry, looked to the sky and said, “Thank you, God. You have no idea what that means to me today.”  She told me that she understood the reputation of the street she lives on, and that she felt called by God to bring some beauty and peace to this neighborhood.  She shared that she is a breast-cancer survivor, and that she wants to live every day for God’s glory.  This landscape, this simple act of creating beauty, is one of the ways she is connecting with her neighbors.  We talked for a while that afternoon, and before leaving she blessed me with one of those hugs that makes you feel like you are a child being embraced by the Savior himself.

A month later, the winners were announced at the Village Board Meeting.  When Ms. Samuels’ name was read for 2nd place, she jumped over her husband’s legs, danced her way to the front, hugged every person on the committee and the Mayor.  She thanked God not for allowing her to score a touchdown, but for giving her the joy and ability to share his love in this way.  Ms. Samuels’ joy was being 2nd place.  In a room often filled with anger and arguments, this woman from Peterson Ave. filled it with love and peace.

We’re still learning about and developing trust within this community, and we probably always will be, but one of the greatest affirmations up to this point is that God is here in ways I hadn’t imagined.  Despite the labels we are so quick to assign others and ourselves, the evidence of redemption at work is irrefutable.

 

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Who Doesn’t Like a BBQ?–Scott and Sammi’s Story

May 14, 2012 Leave a comment

Rebecca Lujan Loveless–POLIS Institute

Scott and Sammi, residents of The Palms Trailer Park in the Holden Heights Neighborhood of Orlando, care about their neighborhood.  When asked what they think would make The Palms a better place to live, they said, “A place where friends and family can gather to barbecue, socialize and have kids play safely.”

They believe that having this community space will bring people together to get to know one another, which will lead to more trust between neighbors and even diminish petty theft and fighting.

“When you know your neighbor and they know you’ve got their back, they’re less likely to pick a fight with you over stupid stuff,” Scott said.

And after all, who doesn’t like barbecue?

There is a grassy area at the front of the neighborhood between the Trailer One Community Center and the Palms Chapel that is not used or fenced in.  The area borders one of the busiest streets in Orlando.  Kids wait for the bus in the morning, playing on the sidewalk while 18-wheelers race by.  The space has dead shrubbery and is riddled with ant piles and weeds.

Scott sees this area not as the “eyesore” that it is, but as a blank canvas that, if treated properly (with the help of neighbors and other donors), could turn into a place where friendships are grown and ideas and dreams are shared.

Scott is a Master Welder and landscaping expert.  He spent time and energy creating a blueprint for a professional BBQ Pit, Smoker and Griddle.  He also plotted out the landscaping plans, soil grading and re-fencing that he says will be necessary to create a space that is peaceful, safely protected from the busy street and able to hold a vegetable and herb garden.

The project can be accomplished for less than $1000.  Scott and Sammi have already been going door to door, to neighbors, with hand-drawn fliers showcasing the plans, asking people to pitch in.  Scott has also called several companies to ask for donations of cement block, sand and equipment.

Throughout the week you will see Scott out in the space leading volunteers from the neighborhood.  The space is taking shape. Fencing has been installed, shrubs and vines and flowers are planted and being watered by elderly women and young kids in the neighborhood.  Scott is committed to seeing this project come to fruition.  Even before it is complete it is already doing what he hoped: neighbors are coming together with a spirit of solidarity, working hard together, sharing stories, meals and ideas.  This typically overlooked neighborhood is becoming a place of hope.  Thanks to Scott and Sammi…and of course a little bit of barbeque.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Community Betterment, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , , , , , , polis institute,

Friday Food For Thought: Teens and Transformation

May 11, 2012 Leave a comment

A recent post at abundantcommunity.com highlighted the often overlooked giftedness of teens within a community.  We read in the local paper about “troubled youth” and the rising concern over teen apathy, but many teens have found ways to add to the neighborhood story in a positive way.  (And, my guess is that many more would join in if given the opportunity).

The post, written by Laura Fulton, points out the value and energy that teenage youth and enthusiasm can bring to a neighborhood, and five ways to start the process of connecting with teens in your area.  One commenter said that teens in her neighborhood are employed to do community listening and connecting.  Imagine a part-time job where a teen’s voice and ideas are heard, creativity and socializing are viewed as gifts, and relationships and leadership skills are formed.  Sounds like a perfect match!

Teens today are often typecast as surly, disinterested, and uninformed.  I challenge you to talk to a teen in your neighborhood. Ask about their interests, about what they see that works and doesn’t work, and what they would do to change things.  Listen.  Listen.  Listen for their gifts and passions, and begin to rewrite the character description of young people in your neighborhood’s story.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , , teens,

Community Abundance Is Its Gifts

May 7, 2012 1 Comment

This post was originally published by John McKnight and Peter Block on April 26, 2012 at www.abundantcommunity.com.  Click here to see the original post.

Abundant communities start with making visible the gifts of everyone in the neighborhood—the families, the young people, the old people, the vulnerable people, the troublesome people. Everyone. We do this not out of altruism, but to create the elements of a satisfying life.

When we and our neighbors know of each other’s gifts, new community possibilities emerge. For example, the community can play an important role in rearing children and helping them to learn about their own abilities and what it means to be a contributing member of society. . . . By naming and exchanging our individual gifts, capacities, and skills, we open new possibilities to the family and neighborhood.

The Power of Our Gifts

When we choose to make visible the gifts of those around us, we discover several things.

First, working together we begin to take creative responsibility for our families and our lives. We begin to make our neighborhood safer, healthier, wiser, richer and a much better place to raise a family. Instead of feeling alone and overwhelmed by our family dilemmas, we begin to connect with other parents, children, youth and senior by extending our families. We feel the comfort, help, pleasure and tangible support from those surrounding us.

Second, as we share our gifts, all kinds of new connections and relationships are created. We cross lines once drawn between youth and adults, seniors and juniors, the frail and the able. We become a competent community, a group of specially related people.

Third, we begin to understand the limits of money. Our community inventions usually cost little to nothing, and yet they become treasures. We see that you can’t buy more safety, health, wisdom or wealth. But together we can create them. We feel less burdened financially and less dependent on outside institutions. We are finding the citizen way.

Fourth, as we create a future together, we find a new kind of trust emerging. Our neighbors become people we can count on. And they count on us. A profound sense of security begins to emerge.

Fifth, we feel powerful. We find our own way, and that sense of power leads us to hold celebrations, acclaiming our successes while recognizing our frailties and those among us who have passed away.

Finally, we begin to create a history together. We can tell our story. We know how to join in educating our children. We have learned how to engage our old people. We write our own story, and we would love to share it with your neighborhood because we also can learn from your way.

The Power of Associations

Gifts become useful when they are connected to the gifts of others. Connected gifts create associations. Connected citizens are in association and create associational life. This certain kind of connecting is the key to creating abundance in community.

In Democracy in America (1835, 1840), Alexis de Tocqueville was one of the first to recognize that our associations were central to our democracy. Voting, he observed, is vital, but it is the power to give your power away—that is, to delegate your will to a representative.

An association, on the other hand, is a means to make power rather than giving it away. This new associational tool involved using these community powers:

  • The power to decide what needs to be done. This power is not delegated to experts. It is based upon the belief that local citizens, connected together, have the special ability to know what needs doing in their community.
  • The power to decide how we could do what needs to be done. Here again, local knowledge is the basic expertise.
  • The power to join with one’s neighbors to do what needs to be done.

The association is the tool that allows us to produce the future we envision. A citizen is a person with the awesome power to determine and create a common future. And so it is that the association makes citizenship possible. It empowers us because neighbors can decide what needs to be done and how it can be done—and, of greatest importance, they are the people who can do it.

In associations we are not consumers. We are not clients. We are citizens with gifts and the power to make powerful communities.

~John and Peter

John McKnight is emeritus professor of education and social policy and codirector of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society. He has been a community organizer and serves on the boards of several national organizations that support neighborhood development.

In addition to The Abundant Community, co-authored with John McKnight, Peter Block is the author of Flawless Consulting, Community, Stewardship and The Answer to How Is Yes. He serves on the boards of Elementz, a hip hop center for urban youth; Cincinnati Public Radio; and LivePerson. With other volunteers, Peter began A Small Group, whose work is to create a new community narrative and to bring Peter’s work on civic engagement into being. Peter’s work is in the restoration of communities and creating systems that restore our humanity. He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops he has designed to build the skills outlined in his books.

Related:

  • The Club Is Not the Club (Peter Block)
  • Powering America (John McKnight)

Excerpt adapted from “Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods,” Chapter 6 in The Abundant Community, pp 119-126.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Community Betterment, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , ,

Friday Food for Thought: An Oath

May 4, 2012 Leave a comment

From Robert Lupton’s Toxic Charity:

The Oath for Compassionate Service

  • Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.
  • Limit one-way giving to emergency situations.
  • Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.
  • Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served.
  • Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said–unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service.
  • Above all, do no harm.

p. 8-9

CFA encourages the consideration of these questions as you look to serve with the community:

  • Who has the power?
  • Is there a level playing field?
  • Is the relationship equitable?
  • Who is the beneficiary?
  • Is it empowering?  For whom?
  • Which is most likely to produce sustainable change?

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , appreciative inquiry, , , , Communities, , , , , community service, local outreach

A Transformational Step in South Phoenix

May 2, 2012 Leave a comment

Jeff Bisgrove–Neighborhood Transformation, Phoenix, AZ

Fifty people painting a church, a simple event.  One that on its surface doesn’t look all that important, and is not often something we associate with community transformation.  Churches are generally not part of the community in our society, and besides isn’t painting somebody else’s property relief and not really development?

All these points are valid, but if you look deeper into this effort to paint a church, you see a bit more.  The church that was painted has a small and aging congregation.  Their ability to paint their own church was rapidly getting beyond them as the years flew by.  However, the people at the church are involved in the community and are well-regarded by the community, and the community decided they would help paint the church.  Further, they invited their friends from outside South Phoenix to come and help.  So they did.  Together.

Black, Brown, White…the colors mixed together as the paint flowed onto the walls. Young, old and in-between; people from 2 years to 75 contributed.    Many of the people knew each other, since they had worked together on other things in this community over the years.  Painting this community church was another thing they did together.

David Bennett moved into South Phoenix five years ago, with the intent to be in the community, walk with the community, and help the community reconcile and grow.  This area of South Phoenix is riven with gangs, often divided along racial lines.  Black people do not like Brown people and vice versa.  White people avoid the whole thing and do not even drive through south Phoenix.  Against this backdrop, David started to work.    He helps mentor and teach the local kids; walking with them  and their parent(s) to help catalyze them to be more involved in their community.  He involves people from outside South Phoenix to help break down prejudice and further God’s reconciliation.

And this is where the effort is today.  Brown people helping Black people helping White people to paint a community church because the church congregation cannot do it themselves and the community has compassion for them.  This compassion has spread beyond the community to their friends around the city.  No shooting.  No slurs, or gang colors.  No driving the long way around to avoid it.  Simply working together.

This community in South Phoenix, seen by most people in Phoenix as ground zero for police calls, shootings, gang banging and drug activity, is showing more.  More of what God placed there.  It is showing respect, compassion and love for the things that make up the community. It is not the end.  It is a step… a transformational step.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Betterment to Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , , , jeff bisgrove,

The “Who” of Community Development

April 30, 2012 Leave a comment

 

Wendy McCaig–Embrace Richmond, Richmond, VA

One of my most challenging tasks as an Executive Director is answering  the question, “What does Embrace Richmond do?”  When people focus on the “what”, I find they miss the more important question of “who.”  The “what” sounds like, “We helped the residents start a community center that includes a computer lab, a mom’s support group, a food pantry, monthly community fellowship events,  a clothing closet, activities for seniors, an afterschool creative and performing arts program, gardening projects, GED tutoring, vocational mentoring and leadership development training.”  While all these activities meet real needs within a community, the activities themselves are not as important as the residents from the neighborhood who are doing all this work.

When we entered the Hillside Court community more than three years ago, the recreation center had been closed down for several years.  There was a sense of despair in the community.  We heard stories like this one shared by a long-time resident, “Used to be that the recreation center was open to the community and they had all kind of activities for the residents.  Different groups have been in that building over the years;  they always leave.  I don’t believe anything will ever change around here.  I don’t think anyone really cares about this neighborhood.”

The recreation center is once again bustling with activity and over the past three years, we have seen dozens of residents step up and take on leadership roles.   This coming fall, Embrace Richmond will be leading by stepping back.  Our resident leadership team is now strong enough to lead the effort with Embrace Richmond simply contributing the financial and spiritual support they need to keep the center open to the community and thriving.

Above are the pictures of the key leaders who will assume control of the Hillside Recreation Center.  If you ask me “What does Embrace Richmond do?”  I will likely show you these pictures and say, “We support neighbors who build great neighborhoods.”  This is what true community development success looks like, neighbors helping neighbors.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Betterment to Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , , , , Wendy McCaig

Friday Food For Thought: Abundance and Necessity

April 27, 2012 Leave a comment

 

from The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, written by Peter Block and John McKnight

“Our communities are abundant with the resources we need for the future.  It is the awakening of families and neighborhoods to these resources that is needed.  Consumer access to all that business professions, and government have to offer still leaves our lives half full.  Community life fills the glass the rest of the way, and this is why a strong local community is not a luxury, it is a necessity.” (p. 30)

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Community Betterment, Developing a Community Vision, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , ,

The Complexity of the Church Van

April 23, 2012 Leave a comment

Rick Droog–Siouxland Diaconal Conference

From Kurt & Emily Rietema’s stories of life and love in the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas published in the February 2012 edition of  “the Minute”.

This past week a neighborhood teenager put a message on Twitter that said, “You know you’re living in a ghetto when the church vans come in for spring break.” I laughed immediately when I heard it. It was loaded with all the pithy irony of a political newspaper cartoon. I saw the van myself. In fact, it was a van of college students coming to serve alongside us. I cringed when I saw the windows, slathered in orange window paint with Jesus-y messages about what they were intending to do in Argentine.  That teenager’s tweet was so poignant to me because it encrypted volumes of social angst, philosophical treatises on  religious crusading, and cultural commentaries on the idiosyncratic vacationing habits of affluent, white adolescents–all in 140 characters or less. She was bringing to the surface tensions that I’ve only begun to have eyes to see by living here among people who, to state it bluntly, aren’t educated, middle-class, evangelical whites like myself. What I think that girl was getting at in her tweet is that no one likes to feel like someone else’s charity case.  She was getting at the psychological damage that happens when you’re living in a ghetto–not simply the obvious dangers of knowing that kids in the neighborhood are packing concealed Glocks, but the more subtle dangers of knowing that some zealous kid is roaming about her neighborhood with Jesus in his quiver and there’s a target on her chest. The subtext to what she was saying was, “I don’t need to be reminded once again through the haloed glow emanating from your white vans that we’re poor and in need of a savior.”

Coincidentally, a week before, a coworker of mine shared an altogether different story about another church van.  My friend grew up in a prototypical biker family if there ever was such a thing. Her parents would leave home with their biker friends, get smashed, come home, go back to low-wage jobs they detested, and do it all over again the next week while my friend and her brother found themselves mixed up in the chaos of it all. Her mom caught her dad cheating on her and did absolutely nothing about it. They’d often come home and find their parents smoking pot like it was as routine as making a pot of Folgers. There was only one escape for her–a church van that showed up at her house every Sunday. While her parents were still strung out, my friend and her brother would be whisked away into another world and into a new kind of normal that was anything but normal to them. When I asked how she didn’t follow the well-ridden tire marks of her parents and the culture they immersed themselves in she said that there was just nothing in it for her. When that church van picked her up every Sunday morning, she was transported into another world where church people, while mixed up with their own issues of vanity and vulnerability, lived in a way that was so much more compelling. The way of her parents was empty and she was never turning back.  All because of a church van. The kind of church van that I’ve had mixed, missiological feelings about.

Two church vans, two entirely different responses by the people who live in those neighborhoods. One viewed indignantly, the other indispensable.  For most of us, all we need to hear is the legitimately moving story of my friend in order to blow off the cultural critiques of the neighborhood teenager. So what if one girl, armed with a mobile phone and a Twitter account makes a witty, sarcastic comment about another’s efforts to live out their faith in sometimes clunky ways? Look at how those same efforts saved the life of your friend. Those church vans save souls. I don’t disagree. Yet the Twittering teen seems to suggest that the unintentional messages that accompany those same church vans about what who they are and who you are can slowly dissolve and destroy the dignity and soul of another.

In a broken world littered with unresolved cultural tensions how are we to live out our faith when our attempts at reconciliation can be interpreted so wildly different? This past week, we loaded up a group of local, Argentine teenagers on that church van for a retreat at Youthfront Camp West that showed the messiness and beauty of both.

The group of boys that we brought with us were the same ones that have come over to our house for dinner, plus a handful more. During one of our first gatherings, we did an exercise where we explored our own stories and how God has also invited us into a story filled with the same peaks and valleys, moments of brilliance and failure as our own. Finally, during our last session, I came to realize that the Argentine that I knew was not the Argentine that these kids in the public housing project knew. We were discussing how the gospel begins to take root, provide a story, hope and direction for our own lives and then spills out into the world around us. As we asked what they’d change about Argentine if they could, they overwhelmingly said they’d change the violence. While I’ve heard occasional gunshots, it’s far from a regular occurrence. But Antonio said a man was shot on his doorstep about a month ago. Nate said kids were shooting at one another on a main thoroughfare in broad daylight after school last week. When I asked what we could do to be agents of change in this, one of the toughest kids finally cracked. “We need more groups like this.” I pushed him on what he meant.  Another kid piped in. “We need more youth to talk seriously like this. And then to be able to get away from it all, clear out our heads and relax like this and have fun”. For the next few minutes we talked about how more Argentine youth would be interested in being a part of a group like this and what we could do about it.  Lester leaned over to Nate and said, “If I hadn’t come and experienced it myself, I would’ve made fun of it.”

And there it was. The complexity of the church van caught up in that one little statement. It’s easy to make fun of others’ efforts to live out the gospel from afar. But the college students that came with us embodied everything that we’ve been hoping to instill. They were honest about their own relatively healthy upbringings in the face of youth who’d experienced more brokenness than we can imagine. They didn’t   deny their differences. They didn’t make them out into targets. They didn’t try to change the kids’ behaviors and make them quit dropping the f-bomb. They realized they were stewarding a much bigger story in Jesus than cleaning up our externals. They realized a subtle presence is more sustainable than one that shouts and screams for attention–even (and especially) for the sake of the gospel. It’s this that speaks louder than any tangerine tinted messages on any church van. The church van. Vindicated.

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , ,

Four Men Giving Abundantly During Hard Times

April 16, 2012 Leave a comment

Monika Grasley–Lifeline CDC of Merced County

LifeLine CDC has a saying: “Everyone no matter how rich has a need. Everyone no matter how poor has a gift. That is why we build and celebrate community.” ™  We were able to experience that again with one of our partners in Winton, California, a small rural community with over 30% unemployment.  There four men have stepped forward, giving abundantly of their gifts despite hard times.

Two years ago David, a Winton community member, returned to Winton after finishing his 4 year college degree in Business. He returned hoping to find a job but was unable to do so. Instead he started volunteering at the Winton Community Center.  Last year David assisted at the Community Center with the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program, and this year he headed  up the program.  The VITA program helped over 70 individuals and families get their taxes prepared for free and brought over $80,000 back into the community. These low-income families had no other way to get their taxes done during these difficult economic times, and were so thankful for the service.

Winton LifeLine Community Center is a site for the Work Experience Program for the County. These men and women work at the Winton Community Center for a few hours a day learning new skills and helping them with the community work.  George and Francisco came to work with the center because they could not find employment. During the many conversations we found that both have amazing gifts in auto mechanics and are generally able to fix just about anything.

The first project they worked on was a passenger bus that belongs to LifeLine CDC and is being used in Winton. This bus is being used for transporting the youth to do the graffiti abatement, assist moving people, picking up and dropping off donations, and transporting senior citizens to special events.

After successfully fixing the bus they worked on several other projects.  As the team talked about exchanging gifts they came up with the idea of having a car repair clinic. What if these men would help some of the seniors get some minor repairs done and teach some of the community members to do their own maintenance … that would be a blessing for everyone! So the plans are being made to have a community wide ‘car clinic’ and the contacts with the Vintage Car Club will make this an even bigger event!

At the same time Chico came to the center and starting volunteering his time.  In his broken English he stated one day: “I will start cleaning your bathroom. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. I will do it for Jesus and I know how to do it good.” We thanked him and he said “No, thank you, you give me purpose again.”

All four men felt useless, unemployed, and under-used and yet in the context of community conversations all got to use their gifts and abilities to help others.

When we say that everyone has a gift, we mean it! So, not a day goes by when we don’t discover one more gift that makes the community richer, that brings the Shalom of God into the neighborhood. When David assists someone with taxes, he blesses the community, when George and Francisco fix the cars they bless the community, when Chico cleans the bathroom he blesses the community. We often hear about the ‘tipping point’  and we are looking forward to the time when the teams slogan “Putting Winton on the map for something good” becomes a reality!

 

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Community Betterment, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Powering America

April 11, 2012 Leave a comment

This post was originally published by John McKnight on March 1, 2011 at www.abundantcommunity.com.  Click here to see the original post. 

John McKnight is emeritus professor of education and social policy and codirector of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society. He has been a community organizer… read more »

In a neighborhood, people are empowered by the work they do together.  Often, they use this power to confront institutions and advocate for the neighborhood’s self-interest.  In this kind of action, power is understood as our ability to get someone else to do something for us.  This is the consumer power of confrontation.

The other kind of neighborhood power results when we come together to create something for ourselves — from ourselves.  This is the power of citizens engaged in community building.

Many of us think of power in terms of the confrontation approach.  Power is about advocacy, demands, negotiation and control.  On the other hand, community-building is often described as “nice and cooperative,” but not powerful.

In our book, The Abundant Community, we point out that there are at least six community-building characteristics of a neighborhood that empowers its residents:  cooperation, hospitality, generosity, kindness, forgiveness and accepting fallibilities.

Each of these qualities is a power and creates powerful results.

Kindness is the power to care.  A careless society is a weak society. It finally descends to callous practices and brutal disregard for its members.

Hospitality is the power to welcome.  A fearful society is frightened of strangers and weakened by its exclusions of the talents of strangers inside and outside its community.

Generosity is the power to give.  Powerlessness is greatest when we are denied the right to contribute and express ourselves.  That is why prison is so terrible, even though food, clothing and shelter are provided. There is no stronger punishment than denying a person’s power to give.

Cooperation is the power to join with your neighbors to create a future.  Every totalitarian system knows that the greatest threat is people working together in groups, small or large.  In those societies, the power to associate is called a conspiracy.

Accepting fallibility creates the power to enjoy each other in spite of our failures, deficiencies and differences.  It creates the glue that holds us together in spite of our nature.

Finally, forgiveness is the power to forget. Many communities have been weakened for centuries because of an event that happened in the distant past.  Until a community or its members can overcome a pervasive sense of grievance, that community will atrophy in a spirit of retribution.

It is these qualities of community that are the basic source of a nation’s power:

  • power to care
  • power to give
  • power to welcome
  • power to join
  • power to enjoy
  • power to forget.

These powers are abundant and available in every community. When they are manifested, they are more powerful than business or government.  That is why America’s recovery as a powerful nation finally depends on what we do on our own block.

~ John ~

John McKnight

 

Filed under Asset Based Community Development, Community Betterment, Community Organizing, Developing a Community Vision, General Stories, Neighborhood Transformation, Stories Tagged with , , , , ,

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