There’s a quote attributed to the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, “Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, ‘We have done this ourselves.’”

While I keep looking for the original source of that quote, let’s turn to another source of ancient learning, the movie I watched more than any other between the ages of 8 and 13. In Three Amigos!, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short play actors famous for their silent film roles as bandit fighters. Fired by their movie studio, they steal their costumes and travel to Mexico to help a village protect itself from a real bandit, the murderous El Guapo.

In one scene, when hope is all but lost, the entire village gathers along with Lucky Day (Martin), Dusty Bottoms (Chase), and Ned Nederlander (Short). “We want to defend ourselves,” a villager says, “but how?”

Ned replies, “By using the skills and the talents of the people of Santa Poco. This is not a town of weaklings. You can turn your skills against El Guapo! Now, what is it this town really does well?”

The villagers think for a long, long, long moment. And then, the voice of a village matriarch: “We can sew!”

“There you go,” says Dusty. “You can sew. If only we’d known this earlier.”

Dusty is unconvinced, but Lucky sees the potential.

CUT TO: El Guapo’s men riding at full gallop toward Santa Poco, while the people of Santa Poco sew furiously.

I won’t spoil the ending.

Whatever your style—ancient Chinese philosophy, or 1986 John Landis film—there’s wisdom in starting with what you have and building on what you know. It’s at the heart of the Strong Towns movement, which eschews high-risk, low-probability megaprojects that can take generations to recover from, in favor of low-risk, high-return investments (little bets) that well up from within the neighborhood, are responsive to real-life needs, and are adaptable.

It’s also at the heart of what I think of as “kindred spirit movements,” including Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). “The appeal of ABCD,” says one report, “lies in its premise that communities can drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilizing existing, but often unrecognized assets, and thereby responding to and creating local economic opportunity.”

Strong Towns talks about starting with the need (“Humbly observe where people in the community struggle.”). ABCD reminds us to address that need by starting with what we have. Rather than becoming, at best, passive observers to the change we want to see—or worse, the clients of large, impersonal, and uncontrollable outside forces—a bottom-up, strength-based approach is active and empowering, creative and flexible, all while nurturing new relationships.

A Tool to Discover Hidden Assets

Every individual has gifts they can use to make their place stronger. Every club, church, nonprofit, business, PTA committee, and neighborhood association has a wide range of assets, too. But it can be easy to lose sight of this amidst the daily grind, or when the challenges are so great.

A few years ago my wife and I led an asset mapping workshop for our church. The church wanted to be more active in our neighborhood. But what could we do? What did we have to offer? Kate and I had been learning a lot about Asset Based Community Development. We’d been able to connect with faith communities around North America through my book, Slow Church, and through our involvement with an organization called the Parish Collective. I’d also been doing some rural community building work through The Ford Family Foundation.

Kate and I pulled from all these experiences (and more) to create the workshop. As I’ve written about before, people took a few minutes to write down, on separate slips of paper, all the assets they could think of in a particular category. Then we had them come up to the front and stick the assets on some butcher block paper we hung on the wall. Even moving through the exercise quickly, the accumulating assets cascaded down the length of the wall and along the floor. It was a powerful reminder of the great abundance that existed even in our little community.

When friends heard about the workshop, Kate and I were asked to lead it for other churches and at a couple conferences. We did this several times and, by request, we also created an activity plan we could share. We heard back from people who led their own workshops at their own church, nonprofit, YMCA, and Salvation Army.

I want to pass along the tool (the activity plan, materials list, etc.) to you, as well. I’ve adapted the plan so that it’s no longer geared toward Christian organizations. I’m also going to summarize the process below.

One disclaimer is that neither Kate nor I are certified experts (if such a thing exists) in Asset Based Community Development. Asset mapping has been a powerful tool for our own local community building, but we drew heavily on the work of others. I mentioned already our Parish Collective friends and the folks at the Ford Institute for Community Building. I also want to credit John McKnight, the cofounder of ABCD. And I especially want to recommend Luther K. Snow’s book The Power of Asset Mapping. While this particular book was written with churches in mind, I recommend it for anyone who wants to go deeper with asset mapping. It is the most practical guide we’ve yet found…not surprising since I’m pretty sure Snow invented asset mapping.

Overview of the Asset Mapping Workshop

1. Preparation and Set-Up

Set up tables and chairs around a room, with about 4–6 people per table, if possible. In the center of the tables put strips of paper, index cards, or large sticky notes (four different colors); lots of markers; and “brain snacks” like granola bars, fruit, nuts, and chocolates. On the wall, attach several large pieces of butcher paper. Spray the butcher paper with spray adhesive.

2. Welcome

Welcome everyone to the workshop and thank them for coming. Be enthusiastic and positive, and be hopeful about the possibilities. Explain the objectives of the workshop, and then give an overview of how the next few hours will unfold. Some of the objectives I typically mention:

To identify our group’s assets: Identify the strengths, passions, networks, and physical assets we can use to make our neighborhood stronger.
To connect our group’s assets: Practice linking some of these assets together to brainstorm actions we can take to get things done.
Get to know each other better: Develop a deeper appreciation for one another’s skills, gifts, and stories.
Introduce us to the asset mapping process: Help us see a new way of moving forward together.

3. Warm-Up

Consider starting with a warm-up or icebreaker exercise. This will provide a foundation for the rest of the workshop by allowing participants to get to know each other better and get creative juices flowing.

Kate and I have started a few different ways, depending on the time available and the group we’re in. We’ve started by having participants come up with some shared agreements. These often include: have fun, take risks, be vulnerable, withhold judgment, and so on. We’ve also facilitated a simple exercise where people identify their core values—community, hospitality, good stewardship, etc.—and then we see how few shared values it takes to unite the whole group. (The activity plan gives step-by-step instructions on this activity, which I learned from my friend Bill Grace.)

I’m wary of icebreakers, but I have to admit that both of these have proven effective. You might have an activity of your own you want to use.

4. Introduction to Asset Mapping (Theoretical)

In simplest terms, asset mapping is identifying the strengths, skills, relationships, and other assets in a place or group—then linking those assets together. The process reminds me of fusion. My understanding of fusion is that when two nuclei are brought together, energy is released. Similarly, when people and assets are brought together, a new energy is released. Here are a couple other reasons I find asset mapping to be so powerful:

It focuses on what is present rather than what is lacking. In fact, our word “asset” comes from Old French and Latin words meaning “enough.” Asset mapping is a Declaration of Enough; we believe we have what it takes to make our places stronger and more resilient.
It reinforces a mindset of abundance (what is here) rather than of scarcity (what isn’t). This in turn cultivates a posture of gratitude and even expectancy; you’ll soon find yourself on high-alert for the assets already surrounding you.

5. Introduction to Asset Mapping (Practical)

Time to explain the process. For this asset mapping workshop, we will be focusing on assets in four categories:

Physical
Individual
Associations & Institutions
Economic

Note: Typical ABCD asset inventories categorize assets into five groups (Individuals, Associations, Institutions, Place-based, and Connections). For better or worse, Kate and I usually simplify for the sake of time.

We explain that we’re going to give a definition of each asset category in turn. For each one, participants will write down as many assets as they can think of on the notecards (or paper, or sticky notes) in front of them. Write one asset per piece of paper, using big font so it can be seen from a distance. We urge attendees to be specific, too. For example, instead of saying “the building,” you might say:

Basketball gym.
Folding tables.
100 chairs.
Commercial kitchen.
Playground.
Extra office or classroom space.

We also urge them to be creative. Sometimes the most useful assets are the weirdest. And we remind participants not to limit themselves to the assets they or their organization own. For example, an asset mapping exercise in our town would include public assets like the creek that runs through town, our walkable downtown core, the city park, the annual pet parade, and so forth.

6. Identifying Assets

From here, we go on to define and identify assets. We define our four categories this way:

Physical assets: Things you can touch, see and feel (e.g., land and natural resources, buildings and space, materials, equipment, location, etc.).
Individual assets: The talents, experiences, perspectives, and skills of individuals. I’ve heard these described as gifts of the heart (What do you care a lot about?), gifts of the head (What do you know a lot about?), and gifts of the hand (What can you do with your hands or body?).
Associational assets: What groups you are a part of, either formally or informally? These could include clubs, businesses, nonprofits, networks, and public agencies, among many others.
Economic assets: Spending power, investing power, your productive capacity to provide valuable goods and services.

The activity plan includes question prompts for each of these categories. After people have taken 3–5 minutes to write down all the physical assets they can think of, they go up and attach them to butcher paper on the wall. Have each table share at least one of the most surprising or interesting assets they came up with.

Then repeat the same process for individual assets, associational assets, and economic assets.

7. Having Fun with Connections

“How do I find a local group to do asset mapping with?”

Learn how to form your own group through our Local-Motive session, “5 Steps to Forming a Successful Neighborhood Group”!

So this is actually my favorite part.

Kate and I randomly select one asset each from each category, four assets total for each table. And then people have to combine the seemingly disparate assets to create a new project, event, campaign, celebration, etc. They also use poster paper to create a poster for the imaginary project. If the first light-bulb moment for participants is seeing the surprising abundance of assets overflowing from the wall onto the floor, then the second aha moment is usually this part—where many people rediscover how creative they still are (it wasn’t lost with childhood). The scarcity mindset is constrictive; starting with abundance frees people up to imagine new possibilities.

I remember the first time I saw this activity done. I can’t remember exactly which assets the table got but they included somebody’s love of biking, the oversized parking lot at the locally-owned pharmacy, the farmer’s market, and the town senior center. The idea the group came up with was a business that would deliver fresh produce by bike to seniors who couldn’t easily leave their house. The pharmacy parking lot would be used as the staging ground, and if the seniors wanted (and the law allowed?) they could deliver prescriptions, as well. Though we came up with the idea for fun, it is a good enough idea for someone to do. Certainly it would have done well in the early months of the pandemic.

8. Final Reflections

After people have created their posters and shared their projects, we reflect on the process. What was it like to focus on what the group had rather than what it didn’t? How did it feel to connect the dots, brainstorming a new project, and creating the poster? What was surprising to you? How can we capture the assets on the wall, so they are available to actually draw from when our group meets to address real-world needs? Oh, and does anyone want to come back to the Pattisons’ place to watch Three Amigos?

So start with what you know, because you and your neighbors know your place better than anyone. And start with what you have, because you have a lot more than you may realize. This is the way to build your Strong Town.

Start With What You Know. Build on What You Have.