John McKnight (Part 2): Making the Vehicles Visible
/Greetings friends! Welcome to Part 2 of this three-episode series in which hosts Adam and Matt sit down with the literal founder of asset-based community development, John McKnight.
Hopefully you had a chance to listen to the first episode in this series, which is titled "John McKnight (Part 1): Have You Been Out in the Garden?". If you have not, we would highly suggest going back and listening to that episode first, as this episode will pick up right where that one left off.
If you have not yet read a little about John, here is a bit of description...
John began community organizing when he was in his early twenties, and since then, he has done everything from training Barack Obama in community organizing to developing an entirely new model of community development. This model that he developed is of course asset-based community development, or ABCD, and we, the Neighboring Movement, consider ourselves asset-based community developers. That being said, John has always been a hero of ours, and over the years, we have followed his work closely and been deeply inspired and influenced by his practices. He is incredibly kind, absolutely brilliant, and a gifted teacher who always tells the perfect story in order to illustrate a point. We are so very honored that John was willing to sit down on the front porch with us, and we are so excited to share these three episodes with you all!
In this second episode, John starts by detailing the last three of the five categories of assets that all communities possess and that he started describing in Part 1. Then, he details what the work of asset-based community developers looks like moving forward and how we as citizens gain power. Of course, all of this is interspersed with incredible stories, and we are so excited for you to hear them! As one final note, this episode is dedicated to all of our Canadian neighbours out there; we have been referring to this episode as the "Canada rocks!" episode, and you will soon see why. We hope you enjoy, and don't forget to tune in next Tuesday for Part 3 and the finale of this series!
If you would like to learn more about John and his work, please check out the following resources: