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Question: Greetings: I am emailing you from Brunswick, Maine. Our community is about to undertake a community asset/resource mapping process. This process is going to develop a Community for All Ages. We are interested in gathering basic information on this process of asset mapping, the how to get started pieces, software for managing the data and so forth. We have spoken with consultants, but they exceed our financial capcity for this community development. Is there any information that you can share with us or resources to direct us to, that might help us get started? Thanks for your help- Nancy J. W. Porter Community for All Ages Coordinator People Plus Brunswick, MAine 207.729.0757
Answer: It's excellent that you are planning a community mapping project, one which we think can provide many benefits for Brunswick. In our opinion, there are no fixed rules for doing this type of work; we also feel it can be done without high costs and without expensive consultants. This is partly because Brunswick is relatively small in size (we have visited), and also because there's the potential to involve the Bowdoin community in what you are doing. It's a natural internship project for students, while some faculty may have database, mapping, or other community skills that they might provide. The key ingredients we feel are to have a core group of people who are willing to take on the work, a feasible work plan, and then (especially) some agreed-upon ideas for how the data will be used when collected, so that they will provide and keep on providing benefits to people in Brunswick. In other words, once you have completed your mapping, the Community for All Ages may really just be beginning. Some basic background and reading and background will help, though, and we would recommend among other sources the workbooks published by the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern, especially A Guide to Capacity Inventories, A Guide to Mapping and Mobilizing the Associations in Local Neighborhoods, and perhaps those on faith communities, economic capacities, and business assets. These are low-cost guides, with details and order information at www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd/abcdworkbooks.html. Touring this site will also lead you to a sample on-line capacity inventory. You may also wish to consult Chapter 3, Section 8 of the Tool Box, on Identifying Community Assets. Then, get started! The rest is likely to fall into place. We hope some of these thoughts may be helpful to you. Thank you for writing to us at the Community Tool Box; and all best wishes for success in your important work.
Question Date: Fri, 03/16/2007