Asset-based community development

Learn how asset-based community development builds on local strengths and connections to create positive change.

What is asset-based community development

Asset-based community development (ABCD) is an approach to working with communities that focuses on the strengths of a community, rather than the challenges, issues or needs within the community.

ABCD recognises that every community already has valuable skills, relationships, groups, spaces, traditions and resources. It brings these assets together to support local priorities and solutions and encourages communities to lead the change they want to see with services and organisations acting as partners, rather than directors.

How it works

ABCD focuses on identifying, mobilising and strengthening existing assets within a community. Typically, assets are identified as one of the following:

  • individuals - people's skills, knowledge and lived experience
  • associations - local groups, faith organisations, clubs and informal groups
  • institutions - schools, libraries, NHS and council services
  • physical assets - parks, buildings, community spaces
  • economic assets - local businesses, community enterprises

There are then five core principles (identified by Nurture Development, one of 11 strategic partners of the ABCD Institute), which focus on being:

  1. Citizen-led - asking residents what they can do puts them in the driving seat of change. They take the lead by using what they already have and can then secure what they need from outside agencies, such as the council or NHS.
  2. Relationship orientated - the power of relationships is often undervalued but it can bring groups together to amplify and multiply the capacities of individuals, ensuring the societal whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
  3. Asset-based - starting with 'what's strong' rather than 'what's wrong', being present to the capacities and resources that exist in every community rather than viewing the people and place by the sum of their problems, and setting aside the utopian impulses to fix, save and deliver, and instead be curious, collaborative and humble.
  4. Place-based - neighbourhoods, small towns, villages and estates are the scale at which local people come to believe they can make an impact, and it's at this hyper-local level where individuals can connect assets together and come up with innovative solutions that are not within reach of top-down institutions.
  5. Inclusion focused - building on the principle that everyone has a gift, skill or passion that can contribute to the societal whole.

In practice, activities can include:

  • asset mapping with residents
  • identifying and connecting informal community leaders
  • supporting grassroot groups to thrive
  • facilitating resident-led decision making
  • encouraging collaborations between communities and services

How ABCD is used in Portsmouth

Taking a community-centred or strengths-based approach to work around health and wellbeing isn't new for Portsmouth, but asset-based community development has encouraged a new way of working with communities, rather than doing to communities.

Now, ABCD is an approach taken by many teams across the council and other organisations, to work with communities.

Healthy Living in Paulsgrove and Portsea

In spring 2023, partners from Health and Care Portsmouth - a collaboration between Portsmouth City Council, HIVE Portsmouth and the NHS - began two pieces of work to help address health inequalities in Paulsgrove and Portsea.

Both projects have taken an ABCD approach; getting to understand the community and residents at a much deeper level than ever before, building trust and relationships with local people and organisations, and identifying whether residents reported a positive impact on their health and wellbeing because of the ABCD approach in their community.

The work is led by the Community Health Development Team within Public Health at Portsmouth City Council, but it is a partnership approach through Health and Cre Portsmouth that has enabled the pieces of work to thrive and develop. 

An evaluation of the work is currently being written and is expected to be published in 2027.

Neighbourhood health

Understanding our residents, their communities and what matters most to them is central to Portsmouth's approach to neighbourhood health (Portsmouth Neighbourhood Health Strategic Plan 2026-2029).

The ABCD approach taken in Paulsgrove and Portsea - which informs our neighbourhood work - highlights the importance of familiar faces, local organisations ad trusted community leaders. People value being known, welcomed and listened to, and often place as much importance on trusted relationships as on formal services. Residents want support that is local, approachable and joined up, without having to repeat their story across multiple organisations.

ABCD also demonstrated the value of building on local assets to strengthen community resilience, develop sustainable local responses, and improve trust between residents and services. Portsmouth's neighbourhood model therefore works alongside communities, recognising and mobilising local strengths rather than focusing solely on need.

Part of our neighbourhood health work is to develop three pilot community wellbeing hubs in the city, as a way of bringing health and care services closer to where people are.

Portsmouth Place Partnership

The Portsmouth Place Partnership is a Sport England-funded collaboration bringing communities and organisations together in some of Portsmouth's most disadvantaged neighbourhoods to understand and tackle the barriers that prevent people from being active, using community insight, partnership working and test-and-learn approaches to create healthier communities.

Portsmouth was invited by Sport England to become a Place Partnership in 2023 - targeting investment towards communities experiencing high levels of physical inactivity, deprivation, social need and health inequality. There are five priority locations within Portsmouth for the work: Landport, Buckland, Paulsgrove, Somerstown and Portsea, with £1.5million being invested into Portsmouth up to March 2028.

Importantly, the Portsmouth Place Partnership isn't a programme for funding sports activities. It is about looking at the circumstances that influence whether people can be active and healthy, and how communities and local partners can be involved in finding and delivering solutions. The approach for this part of the work is through asset-based community development.

Pride in Place

Pride in Place is a government-funded, long-term, community-led neighbourhood investment programme that will see £20million invested into Paulsgrove and Landport over the next 10 years.

The programme is intended to strengthen communities, improve local places and facilities, and, importantly, give residents much more influence over priorities and spending.

Each neighbourhood has a Neighbourhood Board, which listens to residents, agrees priorities and develops a 10-year plan. The approach for developing the plan and engaging with residents is through asset-based community development.

ABCD training

Portsmouth City Council is currently exploring opportunities to offer a one-day introductory course to asset-based community development. More information coming soon, but if you'd like to attend the training, please contact Hayley Cook at Hayley.cook@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.

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