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Community Asset Mapping

Community Asset Mapping is a way to ensure community ownership in a health project. It involves a process of identifying and prioritizing the community’s strengths and needs and allowing these strengths and needs to determine the project’s direction.1 As Kretzmann and McKnight suggest, community growth cannot happen by focusing only on problems and deficiencies, but rather, it requires a process of “locating the assets, skills and capacities of residents, citizens’ associations and local institutions.”2 By assessing the capacities, assets, and skills, the community is able to develop a plan for addressing concerns.

The Kretzmann and McKnight model takes an inventory of the community’s people and their skills and capacities, as well as community organizations and institutions, including cultural and religious organizations, parks, libraries, schools,  and hospitals, among others.2 The model also identifies ways neighborhoods can play a role in revitalizing their economies and leverage outside resources to support the community-driven development plan.2

The Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) is a similar multi-phase planning tool for improving community health through community-wide strategic planning. Phases include: organization of a planning committee involving community participants; developing a shared vision for a health initiative; various assessments of a community’s strengths, local public health systems, forces of change and health status; and the formulation of goals and strategies.1  The final phase involves  a series of steps, termed the ‘Action Cycle,’ that tie together planning, implementation and evaluation activities in a continuous process.1 The MAPP process attempts to foster optimal community health through wise use of resources and consideration of a community’s unique needs, strengths and goals. The model centers on community partnerships as the driving force behind strategic action.1

Both models lead to the ‘mapping’ of the identified assets as the central aspect to developing strategic community action.

References

1 Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships. (2007). Available at: http://mapp.naccho.org/MappModel.asp

2Kretzmann, JP; McKnight, JL. (1993). Building Communities From the Inside Out. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications.