Appreciating Assets

Practitioners with experience of using an asset-based approach to community development have contributed to an important new guide.

Appreciating Assets goes behind the scenes of asset approaches and offers a critical but practical perspective of how these approaches have shaped and will continue to shape community development. 

As well as tips and checklists, the guide is full of questions that groups and individuals need to consider such as ‘when is an asset a liability?’ and ‘what skills are needed to enable – rather than stifle – community initiative?’. It is important reading for anyone currently working in community development, but also anyone engaged in or concerned about the practical realities of the UK Governments Big Society agenda. It offers helpful insights for practitioners, policy makers and community members alike.
 
It was produced by the International Association for Community Development (IACD), with support from the Carnegie UK Trust, and is the outcome of a nine-month enquiry process, initiated at an international event in London in November 2009, which focused on the applicability, challenges and potential of using asset-based approaches in a UK/Irish context.
 
You can view or download Appreciating Assets here on the IACD website.