Stage 3:  Inventory community assets

The Data Report you receive will be accompanied by a Workbook that describes the information in greater detail.  Your Workbook will also include a series of questions associated with each of the 12 social and economic indicators, that will help you to flesh out the objective data you received from us.  The Workbook describes the kind of information you will need to consider and provides you with a scoring system to measure your results. 

The resources here will help you identify assets in your community, and to understand more completely some of the larger trends referred the Workbook and Data Reports.

Asset-Based Community Development

Building Communities from the Inside Out:  A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets.  John P. Kretzman and John L. McKnight.  Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University (1993).

The Asset-Based Community Development Institute.  The ABCD Institute spreads its findings on capacity-building community development in two ways: (1) through extensive and substantial interactions with community builders, and (2) by producing practical resources and tools for community builders to identify, nurture, and mobilize neighborhood assets.  http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.html

ABCD also maintains a listserve that is an excellent source of development ideas.

Aspen Institute—Community Strategies Group (CSG)

Especially useful is:  Measuring Community Capacity Building: A Workbook-in-Progress for Rural Communities (1996).  “ ‘Community capacity’ is the foundation for sustainable, long-term growth. It is the combined influence of a community's commitment, resources and skills that can be deployed to build on community strengths and to address problems and opportunities. This book is for leaders and citizens who want to improve the ability of individuals, organizations, businesses and government in their community to come together, learn, and implement a development agenda. The book answers: What is capacity? Why should we care? How do we know it when we see it? How do we celebrate it? Included are dozens of actual measures to gauge progress.”  Out-of-print, but available to download free at:  www.aspeninstitute.org/bookdetails.asp?i=59&d=60

Demographics/Generational Wealth Shift     

Paul G. Schervish, who directs the Social Welfare Research Institute at Boston College, is the primary author of a 1999 study on transfer of wealth that estimates a forthcoming $41 trillion shift of assets between generations.  This huge number revised the old estimate of intergenerational transfer of wealth coming over the 55-year period from 1998 to 2052 of  $10 trillion (estimated by Avery and Rendall in 1990).  Schervish’s study entitled: “Millionaires and the Millennium: New Estimates of the Forthcoming Wealth Transfer and the Prospects for a Golden Age of Philanthropy” is available for free download through his website at:  http://www.bc.edu/research/swri/features/wealth/.

His follow-up article “Why the $41 Trillion Wealth Transfer is Still Valid: A Review of Challenges and Questions” addresses to the most objections and questions raised by his the 1999 study.  The full paper, and an executive summary of it, is also available at:  http://www.bc.edu/research/swri/features/wealth/.

The basic link to his website is:  http://www2.bc.edu/~schervis/.  The link for Social Welfare Research Institute is:  http://www.bc.edu/research/swri/.

Nebraska Community Foundation

http://www.nebcommfound.org.  Nebraska Wealth Transfer.  “A recent study by Boston College projects that over the next 50 years $41 trillion of American wealth will transfer from the current generation to the next generation.  The Nebraska Community Foundation estimates that in Nebraska the wealth transfer will be $258 billion or roughly $5.2 billion annually (on average).  For Rural Nebraska, NCF estimates that the wealth transfer will run $94 billion or nearly $1.9 billion each year (on average).”

This website includes an innovative proejction tool that gives figures on wealth transfer for each county in Nebraska.  The projection includes estimates of the years in which the transfer will be largest. 

US Census 2000

http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html.  Especially helpful are the four-page summaries of census data that are available by town, city, county or state.  Look for “DP-1. Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000” for the area you are interested in:  http://censtats.census.gov/pub/Profiles.shtml.   The QuickFacts are also helpful, though less detailed:  http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/. 

Communities of Color and Philanthropy

Cultures of Caring: Philanthropy in Diverse American Communities is an outstanding report that examines potential ways to expand the use of institutional philanthropy in four population groups:  African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.  Working closely with organizations representing these four groups, the research team studied affluent donors in each group.  “The idea was to learn from givers themselves the lessons that would inform efforts to expand diversity in philanthropy.”

Available as free download at: http://www.cof.org/Content/General/Display.cfm?contentID=235.

“Caring for Each Other:  Philanthropy in Communities of Color”, Lisa Durán, Grassroots Fundraising Journal (September/October 2001), pp. 4-7.

“Creating a Strong Foundation:  One Sorority is Taking Investing in their Community Seriously”, Curtis Simmons, Black Enterprise (January 2003), pp. 49-50.

“Passing Along Prosperity:  Dr. Carey Tucker has Created a Plan for Multigenerational Wealth”, Carmen Brown, Black Enterprise (August 2003), pp. 57-8.

“Why People of Color Need to be Good Fundraisers”, Mike Roque, Grassroots Fundraising Journal (October 1998), pp. 3-5.