By: Jamie Rae Walker, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist-Urban Parks, The Texas A&M University System
Asset mapping is the process of identifying and mobilizing local resources. It consists of inventorying and understanding community capital, which is any local asset that could produce more assets. Some examples:
- Built capital: The infrastructure supporting a community, such as bridges, health systems, power plants, streets, and water systems
- Cultural capital: Forms of knowledge that people use to gain advantage when participating in social life—style of dress, education, etiquette rules, language, rituals, and traditions
- Financial capital: Any economic resource that is measured in money, such as credit, income, investment, security, and wealth
- Human capital: The collective skills of all people in the community as well as their education, health, interests, and motivations
- Natural capital: Natural assets such as air, landscapes, soils, and water • Political capital: A person or group’s goodwill, inclusion, influence, power, trust, and voice in a community
- Social capital: The value of being part of a group that enables individuals to achieve something that they couldn’t on their own. It incorporates networks of influence, cooperation, goodwill, leadership, reciprocity, relationships, and trust.
The asset-mapping process can help engage citizens and build community relationships to solve problems and create opportunities using local resources. In the process, the community inventories the areas that pertain to its goals and identifies how they can be linked to each other to make stronger impacts.
This process contrasts with the standard practice of many cities, which focus on problems and needs and often lack adequate citizen participation. These communities rely on external programs and sources to help them address trends such as youth migration and aging infrastructure.
Local leaders could use the asset mapping process to catalog their community capital owned by all entities. Community capital for parks could include:
- Built capital: Amphitheaters, aquatics centers, barbecue grills, basketball courts, dog parks, golf courses, historical buildings and sites, landmarks, ornamental landscapes, pavilions, picnic areas, playgrounds, restrooms, skateboard parks, sports fields, tennis courts, and trails
- Cultural capital: Agricultural heritage, annual events, historical populations, and special populations
- Financial capital: Budgeted funds, grant money, and event revenue
- Human capital: The skills and interests of event participants, fitness enthusiasts, residents living near parks, park users, staff, vendors, and volunteers
- Natural capital: Local geology, lakes and ponds, and significant native plants, wildlife, and natural areas such as flood plains
- Political capital: Local boards, city council, schools, state parks, and wildlife agencies
- Social capital: Connections developed between interested groups across age groups, economic classes, nationalities, and races
What communities can do
Identifying community assets can help local leaders determine which of their goals can be accomplished within the community and whether such activities are environmentally, financially, and socially sustainable. The key is to recognize, inventory, and capitalize on local strengths:
- Conduct an asset mapping process relevant to a current community goal. Use photographs, maps, surveys, and interviews to identify the talents of local individuals.
- Inventory previously overlooked strengths of local citizens and organizations. List associations in the community, including formal organizations such as the Lions Club and informal associations such as recreational groups.
- Connect community assets to multiply their impact. Determine how local institutions such as hospital and school systems can coordinate with the identified resources to solve local problems.
- Mobilize these assets to work together to reach community goals.
The asset approach is a continual process focusing on local strengths and capacities. It works best when leaders map and synergize assets to multiply their effectiveness. For the process to evolve with the community, you will need to update the asset documents and build relationships continually among the identified social capacities.
For more information
For help in engaging in a community asset mapping process, contact your local county agent (http://counties.agrilife.org/) or a Community Resources and Economic Development (CRED) specialist.
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