Mobilizing Communities: Asset Building as a Community Development Strategy

As communities face new social and economic challenges as well as political changes, the responsibilities for social services, housing needs, and welfare programs are being placed at the local government level. But can community-based organizations address these concerns effectively? The editors and contributors to "Mobilizing Communities" explore how these organizations are responding to these challenges, and how asset-based development efforts can be successful. Asset-based development, rather than needs assessment, has become a new paradigm in the community development field over the last fifteen years. Although the approach is widely used by practitioners and promoted by foundations, asset-based development has not been examined critically by researchers until now. "Mobilizing Communities" provides a conceptual framework and practical guidance to community development practitioners. The editors solicited case studies from a variety of geographic settings, regions and racial/ethnic groups. The communities in the case studies mobilize residents around different forms of community capital (e.g., financial, cultural, and environmental capital). The contributors examine the role of public participation, the organizational and institutional structure, relationships with governmental officials, and the outcomes and impacts of the asset-based development projects. Contributors include: Lionel J. 'Bo' Beaulieu, Emily Blejwas, Sarah Dewees, Michael L. Dougherty, Mark H. Harvey, John (Jody) Kretzmann, Rocio Peralta, Rhonda Phillips, Deborah Puntenney, Stewart Sarkozy-Banoczy, Gordon E. Shockley, and the editors.

Gary Paul Green is Professor in the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author, most recently, of Workforce Development Networks in Rural Areas: Building the High Road.

Ann Goetting is Professor of Sociology at Western Kentucky University.  She is the author or editor of three previous books, including (with Sarah Fenstermaker), Individual Voices, Collective Visions: Fifty Years of Women in Sociology (Temple).