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The Connected Community: Discovering the Health, Wealth, and Power of Neighborhoods
Find out how to uncover the hidden talents, assets, and abilities in your neighborhood and bring them together to create a vibrant and joyful community. It takes a village!
We may be living longer, but people are more socially isolated than ever before. As a result, we are hindered both mentally and physically, and many of us are looking for something concrete we can do to address problems like poverty, racism, and climate change. What if solutions could be found on your very doorstep or just two door knocks away?
Cormac Russell is a veteran practitioner of asset-based community development (ABCD), which focuses on uncovering and leveraging the hidden resources, skills, and experience in our neighborhoods. He and John McKnight, the cooriginator of ABCD, show how anyone can discover this untapped potential and connect with his or her neighbors to create healthier, safer, greener, more prosperous, and welcoming communities. They offer a wealth of illustrative examples from around the world that will inspire you to explore your own community and discover its hidden treasures.
You will learn to take action on what you already deeply know—that neighborliness is not just a nice-to-have personal characteristic but essential to living a fruitful life and a powerful amplifier of community change and renewal.
We may be living longer, but people are more socially isolated than ever before. As a result, we are hindered both mentally and physically, and many of us are looking for something concrete we can do to address problems like poverty, racism, and climate change. What if solutions could be found on your very doorstep or just two door knocks away?
Cormac Russell is a veteran practitioner of asset-based community development (ABCD), which focuses on uncovering and leveraging the hidden resources, skills, and experience in our neighborhoods. He and John McKnight, the cooriginator of ABCD, show how anyone can discover this untapped potential and connect with his or her neighbors to create healthier, safer, greener, more prosperous, and welcoming communities. They offer a wealth of illustrative examples from around the world that will inspire you to explore your own community and discover its hidden treasures.
You will learn to take action on what you already deeply know—that neighborliness is not just a nice-to-have personal characteristic but essential to living a fruitful life and a powerful amplifier of community change and renewal.
- GenresNonfictionActivism
224 pages, Paperback
Published September 27, 2022
36 people are currently reading
267 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 19, 2022
Introduction
When I first heard that Cormac Russell and John McKnight were going to release a new book I placed a pre order with the Book Depository. I was that keen to receive a copy. I’d heard Cormac speak a few times and had facilitated a visit from him to my community. I had seen his Ted Talks, other presentations and read a number of his articles. Each time I walked away more inspired to continue working in Assets Based Community Development (ABCD).
What can you say about John McKnight? If it wasn’t for the research he did with Jody Kretzmann I doubt any of us would be working the way we do now with our local community. The value of their “Green Book” (Building Communities from the Inside Out) is undisputed. It has guided so many of us in the way we work and how we value communities.
With a book about connecting communities from these two leaders in community building in the works cam a high degree of excitement. And I have not been disappointed.
The Arrival of the Book
I received the book a few weeks ago. A small package on my front steps. I opened it quickly. Getting to a package before my 8 year old is always a challenge but I was successful…this time. As usual came the offer of a trial of Audible. This time I took up the option and discovered the world of audio books. I downloaded a copy of the book I had purchased and listened on my way to work and around town, rewinding the sections I needed to hear again when I wasn’t quite focussed. I would then go to the book to re-read the bits and pieces that particularly caught my attention. Not my usual way to read a book but this way I could guarantee getting through the book quickly and thoroughly.
The Book Itself
This is simply a fantastic read. From the dedication on it simply shines “This book is dedicated to regular folks who have committed themselves to enhancing the common good of their neighbourhoods. Thank you for all you do”. What a gracious way to start a book! As someone who has spent the best part of the last twenty years working to connect neighbours to one another and create strong community. The village, if you like, to raise the child this dedication spoke volumes and placed the book on a strong course.
The set out for the book is quite simple. Three distinct, but connected, sections: Discover, Connect , Mobilize. Simple.
In Discover we are guided through rediscovering the value of community, the importance of a focus on what is strong in our neighourhoods and finding the basic building blocks to lead to the next stage. In discovering the building blocks we are uncovering the assets of our communities. Those things that are there, often in plain sight, but often overlooked. The section closes with three simple and effective tools to help us in this process of discovery.
In Connect we are gently led to look for those in our communities who are already skilled and well placed to connect people. Not necessarily the leaders, those people who put their hand up to take charge but those people who are the “goto” people in our neighbourhood. The people who just seem to know someone who can help with a task. They are there to find. We just need to look.
I was heartened to find this section also outlined the seven functions of Connected Communities. I’d read an earlier article from Cormac and John on this very subject and was glad an expanded version had been included in the book. As with the Discovery section the section concludes with three tools for connection.
In Mobilize we are shown how assets and connections can be mobilised for positive change. This is told largely through story. And isn’t that how we always learn the most important lessons in life. Storytelling is a powerful tool when it is well used as it is here in this book. Again, we are given three tools to mobilize the community.
The book concludes on a high note. The Connected Community – Not So Wild a Dream.
The book comes with a discussion guide and resources guides.
One of the things I quite like is that each section commences with a brief table describing what the disconnected community looks like, what the connected community looks like and Keys to the Good Life. This serves as a fantastic summary to what lies ahead.
Conclusion
I really cannot praise this book enough. I trust it will serve as a guide to current and future communities who want things to change, who want to connect who want to find the Keys to the Good Life. I’m certainly recommending it to anyone I can.
When I first heard that Cormac Russell and John McKnight were going to release a new book I placed a pre order with the Book Depository. I was that keen to receive a copy. I’d heard Cormac speak a few times and had facilitated a visit from him to my community. I had seen his Ted Talks, other presentations and read a number of his articles. Each time I walked away more inspired to continue working in Assets Based Community Development (ABCD).
What can you say about John McKnight? If it wasn’t for the research he did with Jody Kretzmann I doubt any of us would be working the way we do now with our local community. The value of their “Green Book” (Building Communities from the Inside Out) is undisputed. It has guided so many of us in the way we work and how we value communities.
With a book about connecting communities from these two leaders in community building in the works cam a high degree of excitement. And I have not been disappointed.
The Arrival of the Book
I received the book a few weeks ago. A small package on my front steps. I opened it quickly. Getting to a package before my 8 year old is always a challenge but I was successful…this time. As usual came the offer of a trial of Audible. This time I took up the option and discovered the world of audio books. I downloaded a copy of the book I had purchased and listened on my way to work and around town, rewinding the sections I needed to hear again when I wasn’t quite focussed. I would then go to the book to re-read the bits and pieces that particularly caught my attention. Not my usual way to read a book but this way I could guarantee getting through the book quickly and thoroughly.
The Book Itself
This is simply a fantastic read. From the dedication on it simply shines “This book is dedicated to regular folks who have committed themselves to enhancing the common good of their neighbourhoods. Thank you for all you do”. What a gracious way to start a book! As someone who has spent the best part of the last twenty years working to connect neighbours to one another and create strong community. The village, if you like, to raise the child this dedication spoke volumes and placed the book on a strong course.
The set out for the book is quite simple. Three distinct, but connected, sections: Discover, Connect , Mobilize. Simple.
In Discover we are guided through rediscovering the value of community, the importance of a focus on what is strong in our neighourhoods and finding the basic building blocks to lead to the next stage. In discovering the building blocks we are uncovering the assets of our communities. Those things that are there, often in plain sight, but often overlooked. The section closes with three simple and effective tools to help us in this process of discovery.
In Connect we are gently led to look for those in our communities who are already skilled and well placed to connect people. Not necessarily the leaders, those people who put their hand up to take charge but those people who are the “goto” people in our neighbourhood. The people who just seem to know someone who can help with a task. They are there to find. We just need to look.
I was heartened to find this section also outlined the seven functions of Connected Communities. I’d read an earlier article from Cormac and John on this very subject and was glad an expanded version had been included in the book. As with the Discovery section the section concludes with three tools for connection.
In Mobilize we are shown how assets and connections can be mobilised for positive change. This is told largely through story. And isn’t that how we always learn the most important lessons in life. Storytelling is a powerful tool when it is well used as it is here in this book. Again, we are given three tools to mobilize the community.
The book concludes on a high note. The Connected Community – Not So Wild a Dream.
The book comes with a discussion guide and resources guides.
One of the things I quite like is that each section commences with a brief table describing what the disconnected community looks like, what the connected community looks like and Keys to the Good Life. This serves as a fantastic summary to what lies ahead.
Conclusion
I really cannot praise this book enough. I trust it will serve as a guide to current and future communities who want things to change, who want to connect who want to find the Keys to the Good Life. I’m certainly recommending it to anyone I can.
November 1, 2022
“At the root of many of the world’s problems is our disconnection from one another and from our natural surroundings,” write Cormac Russell and John McKnight in their new book, The Connected Community: Discovering the Health, Wealth, and Power of Neighborhoods.
“The laundry list of the side effects is long and overwhelming, from severe levels of depression to planetary destruction. Increased polarization is another serious global concern. It does not stop with just political partisanship but is ‘poisoning everyday interactions and relationships.’ This division is a stark account of modern life, and solutions are needed because the consequences of not acting are too serious. Increasingly, people are awakening to the sense that we can no longer stand on the sidelines as spectators consuming the negative side effects of consumer culture. But what to do?” So begins a nonfiction book that has the delicacy of a great literary writer, and the intellectual and statistical heft of a Michael Lewis tome to boot. The ideal kind of culmination, if you ask a fellow writer like me. “Answers vary, from protesting intensely so that we may convince our leaders to get their act together, to investing in science and technology so that we can innovate our way out of these global crises,” Russell and McKnight ruminate on the aforementioned question. “There are many versions of the ‘protest versus progress’ debate and no end of clever suggestions as to how to do each one better and quicker. And though we think both have their place, in the absence of widespread participation at the local level, neither of them convinces us…In this book, we propose a completely different stage on which to take action toward an alternative future. That stage is our neighborhood. Our starting point is not Wall Street, it’s our street. Our true north is what we term the Connected Community, from which we have drawn the title for this book. We define Connected Communities as places where residents nurture neighborhood relationships that enable people to work together to create a Good Life. This definition contrasts with approaches and outlooks that prioritize relationships out side the neighborhood, that separate neighbors from one another and promote individual survival over community wellbeing. Such approaches result in disconnected communities.”
What I appreciate the most about these kinds of ruminations is how the authors are able to provide well-rounded, statistically-backed answers to them. So many books that hold a mirror up to society cop out by wallowing in excess philosophizing, never wanting to confirm or deny what hypothetical truths and/or affiliated solutions can serve as an appropriate change agent to a perceived societal ill. “Our journey…is from disconnected to Connected Communities,” Russell and McKnight state. “Although we recognize that the word community means many different things, here we are zeroing in on just one definition: a group of people residing in a shared place called a neighborhood. We are using neighborhood as a catchall term to speak about all manner of small, bounded geographic communities, including but not exclusive to estates, square mile, block, village, town, favela, or parish. We also acknowledge dispersed communities and people living ‘off country’ and dislocated from their indigenous lands.”
“The laundry list of the side effects is long and overwhelming, from severe levels of depression to planetary destruction. Increased polarization is another serious global concern. It does not stop with just political partisanship but is ‘poisoning everyday interactions and relationships.’ This division is a stark account of modern life, and solutions are needed because the consequences of not acting are too serious. Increasingly, people are awakening to the sense that we can no longer stand on the sidelines as spectators consuming the negative side effects of consumer culture. But what to do?” So begins a nonfiction book that has the delicacy of a great literary writer, and the intellectual and statistical heft of a Michael Lewis tome to boot. The ideal kind of culmination, if you ask a fellow writer like me. “Answers vary, from protesting intensely so that we may convince our leaders to get their act together, to investing in science and technology so that we can innovate our way out of these global crises,” Russell and McKnight ruminate on the aforementioned question. “There are many versions of the ‘protest versus progress’ debate and no end of clever suggestions as to how to do each one better and quicker. And though we think both have their place, in the absence of widespread participation at the local level, neither of them convinces us…In this book, we propose a completely different stage on which to take action toward an alternative future. That stage is our neighborhood. Our starting point is not Wall Street, it’s our street. Our true north is what we term the Connected Community, from which we have drawn the title for this book. We define Connected Communities as places where residents nurture neighborhood relationships that enable people to work together to create a Good Life. This definition contrasts with approaches and outlooks that prioritize relationships out side the neighborhood, that separate neighbors from one another and promote individual survival over community wellbeing. Such approaches result in disconnected communities.”
What I appreciate the most about these kinds of ruminations is how the authors are able to provide well-rounded, statistically-backed answers to them. So many books that hold a mirror up to society cop out by wallowing in excess philosophizing, never wanting to confirm or deny what hypothetical truths and/or affiliated solutions can serve as an appropriate change agent to a perceived societal ill. “Our journey…is from disconnected to Connected Communities,” Russell and McKnight state. “Although we recognize that the word community means many different things, here we are zeroing in on just one definition: a group of people residing in a shared place called a neighborhood. We are using neighborhood as a catchall term to speak about all manner of small, bounded geographic communities, including but not exclusive to estates, square mile, block, village, town, favela, or parish. We also acknowledge dispersed communities and people living ‘off country’ and dislocated from their indigenous lands.”
October 27, 2022
This is a wonderful book with stories and useful guides for asking better questions and practicing Connected Community
"Benjamin Franklin, in The Way to Wealth (1758), wrote:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of a horse the rider was lost,
being overtaken and slain by the enemy,
all for want of care
about a horse-shoe nail.
It's a simple ditty, with a simple but profound message: attend to the small stuff, because it has all kinds of unforeseen yet important impacts on the bigger stuff.
Each time we go out of our way to encourage, support, share, and enjoy a neighbor, we are putting the world to rights on our own street. What better way is there to finish our conversation than to reaffirm the neighborly principles that have been featured throughout this book. These principles can act as our true north in transforming the invisible neighborhood into a visible, vivid, and vibrant neighborhood on our journey toward the Connected Community.
We have commended six neighborly principles (which are also practices or acts) above all others:
1. Discover one another and what surrounds you.
2. Welcome one another and the stranger.
3. Portray one another and your neighborhood in terms of your gifts.
4. Share what you have to secure what your neighborhood wants.
5. Celebrate one another's comings and goings, the plantings and harvests.
6. Envision with one another towards a preferred future.
Each act opens the way toward a culture of care in the Connected Community."
"Benjamin Franklin, in The Way to Wealth (1758), wrote:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of a horse the rider was lost,
being overtaken and slain by the enemy,
all for want of care
about a horse-shoe nail.
It's a simple ditty, with a simple but profound message: attend to the small stuff, because it has all kinds of unforeseen yet important impacts on the bigger stuff.
Each time we go out of our way to encourage, support, share, and enjoy a neighbor, we are putting the world to rights on our own street. What better way is there to finish our conversation than to reaffirm the neighborly principles that have been featured throughout this book. These principles can act as our true north in transforming the invisible neighborhood into a visible, vivid, and vibrant neighborhood on our journey toward the Connected Community.
We have commended six neighborly principles (which are also practices or acts) above all others:
1. Discover one another and what surrounds you.
2. Welcome one another and the stranger.
3. Portray one another and your neighborhood in terms of your gifts.
4. Share what you have to secure what your neighborhood wants.
5. Celebrate one another's comings and goings, the plantings and harvests.
6. Envision with one another towards a preferred future.
Each act opens the way toward a culture of care in the Connected Community."
June 22, 2025
I really wanted to read The Connected Community by Cormac Russell and John McKnight, seeing as they are both well-known practitioners of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). The authors promise to "describe in detail the ABCD practices and principles…being used by neighbourhood associations to co-produce the Good life where they live, and to hold outside institutions to account where necessary" and lay out how the neighbourhood can serve as "the primary unit of change".
Overall, it's a useful and easy to read handbook with practical steps on what to do to build a connected community from ground up. I agree with one Goodreads reviewer who said that for him, The Connected Community is 5 stars as a "guidebook for gathering, listening, and creating collaborative and strategic change within a neighborhood" and 3 stars if you just tried to read it straight through like a book. I've therefore landed on 4 stars as a middle ground.
#1 DISCOVER
This section argues that consumerism is the "number one distractor from the value of what surrounds us" as it suggests that the Good Life is in the "marketplace outside [one's] neighbourhood economy and that local handmade and homemade solutions are not enough. Russell and McKnight argue that local efforts can provide solutions to many challenges communities are facing, as opposed to solutions generated in faraway meeting rooms, by remote organisations.
This is exacerbated when external institutions and professionals look at the neighbourhood as a collection of deficits and problems to be solved, with the solutions being provided by those outside the community and by top-down agencies.
Instead, we should look for these six building blocks of neighbourhoods:
(a) the contributions of residents such as their gifts, skills, passions, experience and knowledge that residents contribute to the collective well-being of the neighbourhood;
(b) the capacities and other resources of associations (i.e. clubs, groups, small local organisations and local networks, both formal and informal) which can help amplify and multiply individual residents' gifts given their reach, ability to shape members' attitudes and behaviours, and to mobilise members;
(c) the community-building supports of local institutions (these differ from local associations in that their members work together for pay and can be for profit businesses or non-profits), which can put their institutional assets at the service of neighbourhood community building efforts, invest in alternatives to their traditional ways of working, being clear about what their will not do to/for/with neighbourhoods as this might take power away from the people they serve;
(d) the built and natural environments of local places;
(e) economic and other forms of exchange (of intangibles and tangibles and alternative currencies e.g. the Brixton Pound and Time Banking); and
(f) local stories, shared heritage and cultural diversity that help foster a culture of connectedness
The authors suggest three tools to help discover gifts and assets within the community: (a) having conversations with fellow residents to share gifts of the head (knowledge), gifts of the heart (emotional traits like empathy and warmth, caring for people at the margins and relational skills), gifts of the hands, and gifts of conscience (principles of fairness and social justice that individuals are willing to stand up for and stand by); (b) playing the We Can Game to help uncover the various gifts that the group possesses; and (c) conducting a community walk and asset mapping to record what you discover under the six building blocks.
#2 CONNECT
This section argues that in disconnected communities, rather than assuming that external leaders need to step in or that residents with potential leadership capacity be trained to step up, we should "broaden the circles of participation within communities and ensure that associational life deepens". This requires seeking out connectors - individuals who nurture local relationships and who sustain the climate to generate relationships. The authors caution that this is not a straightforward task since connectors "tend not to respond to invitations like 'come to our meeting' [and] are equally unlikely to pay attention to flyers looking for volunteers".
The authors suggest three tools for connection: (a) finding connectors by getting together with a handful of neighbours to identify neighbours who possess the qualities of connectors (people who are gift-minded, are trusted by their neighbours, who believe that their neighbours want to contribute to the well-being of the wider neighborhood and what they need is an invitation, and who feel welcome to get involved in other people's 'business' and to invite others into shared efforts). The connecting with those individuals and having a similar conversation with them; (b) having listening campaigns/learning conversations once you've found a circle of connectors, to find out what neighbours care enough to take action on. This helps to unearth what people have energy around, which "in turn can be connected" and matchmade; and (c) organising an Ideas Fair (basically a big party) to bring as many neighbours as possible to have fun and forge connections.
They argue that while not everyone in a community is a connector, most people are waiting to be invited to contribute to one another's well-being and to the well-being of the neighbourhood. Specifically, the invitation to fellow neighbours to connect, apart from being neighbourly, is to contribute to the following community functions: enabling health; enabling security; stewarding ecology; shaping local economies; contributing to local food production; raising our children; and co-creating care. (Here, under contributing to local food production, I was interested to see that the authors cited the "I Wish You Enough" initiative by South Central Singapore)
Individuals' community gifts may be disguised or invisible to institutions and even to most of their neighbours. These gifts can be best uncovered by a neighbour who is a connector, or potentially from the associational life of the neighbourhood.
#3 MOBILIZE
This section lays out some of the guiding principles and tools that create a space where "relationships are leveraged, local solutions have value, the stranger is welcomed, and the Connected Community emerges":
- Stop, look, listen!
- Discover the local resources: find the connectors, uncover the associations and networks, unearth the gifts of head, heart, hands and conscience
- Connect people and passions
- Identify outside resources to match neighbours' investments
- Find and use peace-building practices
- Appreciate what's great, and unlock what might be possible: what can we do with local people power? What can we do with help from outside agencies? What do we need outside agencies to do?
- Gather and celebrate!
- Assure a posture, not a project.
The final chapter is on Useful Outsiders - how neighbourhoods can identify and enlist useful outsiders (and conversely how external institutions and agencies can be Useful, rather than Unhelpful, Outsiders). The authors define Unhelpful Outsiders as those who "seek solely to recruit clients to their services and programmes, because they view the people in the neighbourhood as a bunch of passive consumers [thereby]…inadvertently disabl[ing] a community's capacity to be active producers." External organisations and institutions can be Useful Outsiders, precipitating community action by giving authority to the community to drive improvements and supporting their efforts. This requires reframing the organisational role from "how can I use my authority to fix problems and drive change" to "how can I support local residents to come together to make things better where they live"? Communities can identify potential Useful Outsiders by being on the lookout for the following qualities: those who serve while stepping backwards, those who work to reduce institutional dependencies, those who cheer on community alternatives, who are open and honest about what they can't or won't do; who affirm what communities can do; who are interested in reseeding associational life, not just reforming their institutions; and who are courageous.
Keys to the Good Life:
1. Our Good Life is found in our communities and local economies, not in distant marketplaces.
2. Start looking at the assets and gifts within the neighbourhood, rather than its deficits and the problems to be solved
3. The Good Life is like a cake in that it has ingredients that must be identified and added in just the right amounts to create a life that nourishes and sustains us (see the six building blocks of neighbourhoods).
4. The great innovations in life are mostly not the result of very clever people inventing new and extraordinary things. More often than not they are the result of regular, savvy people connecting ordinary things in extraordinary ways.
5. Many neighbours are happy to contribute and to receive gifts but are waiting to be asked. The Good Life therefore requires "a level of faith on our part, that our neighbours will be there to receive us."
6. The purpose of a neighbourhood is to create the context and essentials for a Good Life for its residents, which requires neighbours to take on functions that only neighbours and their associations can perform (see the seven community functions).
7. Don't wait for a disaster or crisis to strike before initiating a listening campaign in the neighbourhood; get to know your neighbours before you need them.
8. When it comes to building powerful connections across an entire neighbourhood, intentional community building methods are required; these go beuond traditional methods like representative committees, meetings etc.
9. In forging your way towards the Good Life, remember to preserve community authority to change the things that only you and your neighbors can, and make useful alliances with reliable outsiders who understand how to relocate authority and provide support without directing the outcomes.
Overall, it's a useful and easy to read handbook with practical steps on what to do to build a connected community from ground up. I agree with one Goodreads reviewer who said that for him, The Connected Community is 5 stars as a "guidebook for gathering, listening, and creating collaborative and strategic change within a neighborhood" and 3 stars if you just tried to read it straight through like a book. I've therefore landed on 4 stars as a middle ground.
#1 DISCOVER
This section argues that consumerism is the "number one distractor from the value of what surrounds us" as it suggests that the Good Life is in the "marketplace outside [one's] neighbourhood economy and that local handmade and homemade solutions are not enough. Russell and McKnight argue that local efforts can provide solutions to many challenges communities are facing, as opposed to solutions generated in faraway meeting rooms, by remote organisations.
This is exacerbated when external institutions and professionals look at the neighbourhood as a collection of deficits and problems to be solved, with the solutions being provided by those outside the community and by top-down agencies.
Instead, we should look for these six building blocks of neighbourhoods:
(a) the contributions of residents such as their gifts, skills, passions, experience and knowledge that residents contribute to the collective well-being of the neighbourhood;
(b) the capacities and other resources of associations (i.e. clubs, groups, small local organisations and local networks, both formal and informal) which can help amplify and multiply individual residents' gifts given their reach, ability to shape members' attitudes and behaviours, and to mobilise members;
(c) the community-building supports of local institutions (these differ from local associations in that their members work together for pay and can be for profit businesses or non-profits), which can put their institutional assets at the service of neighbourhood community building efforts, invest in alternatives to their traditional ways of working, being clear about what their will not do to/for/with neighbourhoods as this might take power away from the people they serve;
(d) the built and natural environments of local places;
(e) economic and other forms of exchange (of intangibles and tangibles and alternative currencies e.g. the Brixton Pound and Time Banking); and
(f) local stories, shared heritage and cultural diversity that help foster a culture of connectedness
The authors suggest three tools to help discover gifts and assets within the community: (a) having conversations with fellow residents to share gifts of the head (knowledge), gifts of the heart (emotional traits like empathy and warmth, caring for people at the margins and relational skills), gifts of the hands, and gifts of conscience (principles of fairness and social justice that individuals are willing to stand up for and stand by); (b) playing the We Can Game to help uncover the various gifts that the group possesses; and (c) conducting a community walk and asset mapping to record what you discover under the six building blocks.
#2 CONNECT
This section argues that in disconnected communities, rather than assuming that external leaders need to step in or that residents with potential leadership capacity be trained to step up, we should "broaden the circles of participation within communities and ensure that associational life deepens". This requires seeking out connectors - individuals who nurture local relationships and who sustain the climate to generate relationships. The authors caution that this is not a straightforward task since connectors "tend not to respond to invitations like 'come to our meeting' [and] are equally unlikely to pay attention to flyers looking for volunteers".
The authors suggest three tools for connection: (a) finding connectors by getting together with a handful of neighbours to identify neighbours who possess the qualities of connectors (people who are gift-minded, are trusted by their neighbours, who believe that their neighbours want to contribute to the well-being of the wider neighborhood and what they need is an invitation, and who feel welcome to get involved in other people's 'business' and to invite others into shared efforts). The connecting with those individuals and having a similar conversation with them; (b) having listening campaigns/learning conversations once you've found a circle of connectors, to find out what neighbours care enough to take action on. This helps to unearth what people have energy around, which "in turn can be connected" and matchmade; and (c) organising an Ideas Fair (basically a big party) to bring as many neighbours as possible to have fun and forge connections.
They argue that while not everyone in a community is a connector, most people are waiting to be invited to contribute to one another's well-being and to the well-being of the neighbourhood. Specifically, the invitation to fellow neighbours to connect, apart from being neighbourly, is to contribute to the following community functions: enabling health; enabling security; stewarding ecology; shaping local economies; contributing to local food production; raising our children; and co-creating care. (Here, under contributing to local food production, I was interested to see that the authors cited the "I Wish You Enough" initiative by South Central Singapore)
Individuals' community gifts may be disguised or invisible to institutions and even to most of their neighbours. These gifts can be best uncovered by a neighbour who is a connector, or potentially from the associational life of the neighbourhood.
#3 MOBILIZE
This section lays out some of the guiding principles and tools that create a space where "relationships are leveraged, local solutions have value, the stranger is welcomed, and the Connected Community emerges":
- Stop, look, listen!
- Discover the local resources: find the connectors, uncover the associations and networks, unearth the gifts of head, heart, hands and conscience
- Connect people and passions
- Identify outside resources to match neighbours' investments
- Find and use peace-building practices
- Appreciate what's great, and unlock what might be possible: what can we do with local people power? What can we do with help from outside agencies? What do we need outside agencies to do?
- Gather and celebrate!
- Assure a posture, not a project.
The final chapter is on Useful Outsiders - how neighbourhoods can identify and enlist useful outsiders (and conversely how external institutions and agencies can be Useful, rather than Unhelpful, Outsiders). The authors define Unhelpful Outsiders as those who "seek solely to recruit clients to their services and programmes, because they view the people in the neighbourhood as a bunch of passive consumers [thereby]…inadvertently disabl[ing] a community's capacity to be active producers." External organisations and institutions can be Useful Outsiders, precipitating community action by giving authority to the community to drive improvements and supporting their efforts. This requires reframing the organisational role from "how can I use my authority to fix problems and drive change" to "how can I support local residents to come together to make things better where they live"? Communities can identify potential Useful Outsiders by being on the lookout for the following qualities: those who serve while stepping backwards, those who work to reduce institutional dependencies, those who cheer on community alternatives, who are open and honest about what they can't or won't do; who affirm what communities can do; who are interested in reseeding associational life, not just reforming their institutions; and who are courageous.
Keys to the Good Life:
1. Our Good Life is found in our communities and local economies, not in distant marketplaces.
2. Start looking at the assets and gifts within the neighbourhood, rather than its deficits and the problems to be solved
3. The Good Life is like a cake in that it has ingredients that must be identified and added in just the right amounts to create a life that nourishes and sustains us (see the six building blocks of neighbourhoods).
4. The great innovations in life are mostly not the result of very clever people inventing new and extraordinary things. More often than not they are the result of regular, savvy people connecting ordinary things in extraordinary ways.
5. Many neighbours are happy to contribute and to receive gifts but are waiting to be asked. The Good Life therefore requires "a level of faith on our part, that our neighbours will be there to receive us."
6. The purpose of a neighbourhood is to create the context and essentials for a Good Life for its residents, which requires neighbours to take on functions that only neighbours and their associations can perform (see the seven community functions).
7. Don't wait for a disaster or crisis to strike before initiating a listening campaign in the neighbourhood; get to know your neighbours before you need them.
8. When it comes to building powerful connections across an entire neighbourhood, intentional community building methods are required; these go beuond traditional methods like representative committees, meetings etc.
9. In forging your way towards the Good Life, remember to preserve community authority to change the things that only you and your neighbors can, and make useful alliances with reliable outsiders who understand how to relocate authority and provide support without directing the outcomes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 27, 2023
This book serves as an engaging and accessible introduction to realising the strength and power in communities. There are a number of ways of describing this type of work, from asset based community development, to strengths-based working, to systems convening, to mutual aid. My personal introduction to the ideas in the book where from learning about anarchists and mutual aid - a concept that suggests participants voluntarily share knowledge, skills and abilities in a reciprocal nature to meet the needs of a whole, without the need for dominance or hierarchy. One may see a lot of interpretations of mutual aid, and it seems like it's anarchist grounding is forgotten (particularly in the post-COVID era, where statist bodies like governments and health services co-opted some of the language and practices without really understanding the underpinning concept). However, a general principle is that however it may play out in practice, it is when a group of people share to make things better.
'The Connected Community' is not a book about anarchism, but it is a book about people coming together, independent of the 'outside leader' to make their lives better. At it's heart, it is about reciprocation, it's about recognising that to live a good life we need to stop being passive consumers (of big business, of media), and to stop being isolated units of production living in small family units. Instead, what is offered, is that we become citizens of our community, and that our lives are enriched when we participate in our community and both give, receive and share our unique talents and gifts with each other.
In recent years, I have become more focused on asset based community development, partially through my professional life, but also as I am interested in the development of strong communities from both a systems thinking and an anarchist perspective. It seems like a lot of ideas which have been bubbling around in very different fields are coming together (for me at least), and it is interesting how I am at a point where I can draw lines and see connections between very different disciplines and perspectives and see them as a whole.
The biggest praise I can give this book is that it may just be life changing. One of my constant frustrations is that I often see peers and people I have connected with online or learning about doing 'really interesting and amazing stuff'. I then slip into a bit of envy and imposter syndrome because, 'I am not doing really interesting and amazing stuff'. What I have realised is that I can't wait for 'life to happen' - I need to help create a beautiful world and I need help doing it with others. And there is no better place to start than where I live. This book gives the reader all the tools they need to get started.
The book begins with the case for change, and presents some inspirational case studies of what happens when communities start to talk to each other and start to share what is good in their life and how they can help others. I often see lots of real life examples of this - of people who are helping to turn around their homes and community into strong groups with very healthy relationships. The book suggests that knowing people in your community can reduce your risk of dying by 50% in a given year. Quite often the case studies are inspirational but one can also see how hard work it is to create a better life for everyone.
'The Connected Community' is a very practical book. It acknowledges that this is hard work, it acknowledges that it may take time, but with a starting point of, 'the people where you live are your strengths', this difficulty is mitigated somewhat - it is not driven by project plans, outside funding or looking at a community from a deficit model where people and their lives need fixing.
The advice is really simple, which is to start with, 'have conversations with your neighbours', get to know them, get to learn what matters. Much is made of the relational nature of coming together. Newsletters and text messages are not exactly promoted, rather, face to face, in person conversations are the way forward. Essentially, the book asks you to connect with a few neighbours who may care, and ask them if they know anyone who may care also. Once you have a handful of people you can start to learn more and begin to map assets in a community.
The approach to asset mapping is really very simple, it's a case of asking, 'what can I give or offer?,', 'what do I need?', and if there is a need that can't be met by the group, we ask, 'who do we know who might be able to do this?' And then the facilitation and reciprocation of gifts can begin. There are some really nice ways of approaching this, but there is a premise that runs throughout the book which goes along the lines of that thinking on our own we will probably grossly underestimate the gifts a community can offer, and also, that rather than assuming people don't want to help, that actually they are waiting to be asked to help.
I loved the approach to 'gifts' too - because they ranged from the very practical (like how to decorate a home) to more knowledge based (like teaching mothers about breastfeeding) to more fun things like playing an instrument. We all have things which we can share, sometimes we need to coach it out of ourselves and others. The book makes a big point of recognising diversity and finding those normally excluded but when I was reading this, I was thinking about older people and how they are somewhat infantalised by society and viewed only in the context of their needs. One thing I have learnt as I have got older, is the wisdom and the learned and living history of older people and how much this gives us is such a precious gift. The power of the storyteller is vital for understanding who we are...
When I was reading this, I was reminded of a couple of things. The first was when I was in my teens and early twenties I knew a lot of punks, anarchists and new age travellers. Quite often we'd be talking about living in squats or on sites and 'going off grid'. I remember us talking about these anarchist communes we wanted to live in and talking about mutual aid. I remember joking how everyone seemed to be offering their performance art skills and there was a distinct lack of skills such as carpentry, growing food, generating energy. I felt we'd all starve but we'd never run out of unicyclists and jugglers! In the context of this book though, when I was being a little sarcastic at this, I should have then asked, 'but who do we know who can do 'this'....'
The second example comes from my early twenties. I lived in a block of flats in a poor area and I had little. I was off going to protests, bits of direct action, and letter writing and campaigning about the big issues of the day. One of the things I noticed, and I remember writing in a zine about it, was that the most anarchic and radical thing I did was knock on my neighbour's door and say 'Hi'. In our little corner we all knew each other and looked out for each other and helped in our own ways. I had an older neighbour who was in his sixties and struggling to navigate the benefits system and also applying for funding for events. I helped him with paperwork and letter writing to help him with the things he needed. He taught me to dance - he would often say, 'you white boys don't know you have hips' and we'd laugh and drink together. Now 25 years or so later, I still remember his words and helping me to dance better. Now I would call that reciprocal sharing of strengths, but back then it was being a good neighbour. But instinctively, I knew that was about making where I live a better place.
One of the things I love about the book is the consideration of scale and what a community is. The wider the scale the harder it is to change things and it is interesting to think about this in terms of defining boundaries. The examples in the book vary, but it is clear that this approach works at street level, to estate or area to probably small town level - any larger and it is hard to get to know people and build relationships. I also loved the approach to existing group mapping in a community, and how this can be anything from book clubs, to sports teams to friendship groups. The book suggests that the breadth and diversity of these formal and informal organisations is much wider than most people think - and also that whatever the purpose of these groups are, they can probably and will help beyond their 'remit', with a suggestion that these groups are sources of finding and mapping assets in a community.
So we have the case for change, the discovery and mobilisation of people, groups and gifts and then the book goes into the 'what'. Admittedly, this is the lightest section of the book because what matters in one community may be different to another. There are seven broad themes of what a strong community does though with examples of each and what they may mean.
(1) Enabling Health
(2) Assuring Security
(3) Stewarding Ecology
(4) Shaping Local Economies
(5) Growing Local Food
(6) Raising our Children
(7) Co-creating Care
What I like here are some of the examples and how sure, we may start off small with the sharing of food, but what happens when we have a self-sufficient energy supply? What happens when all our food is sourced locally? The world can be our oyster and we don't need to 'demand' the impossible from leaders from elsewhere - we can do it together.
Reading this book I am reaffirmed in my belief that there is immense power in communities to make a genuine difference independent of waiting for politicians and those in power to change. I also think that power is tantalising, exciting with almost unlimited potential. The challenge to all of us is, 'are we going to do something about it or wait'? So, I mentioned this book as a potential life-changer - it is, if tomorrow I start having conversations with neighbours, because who knows what will happen when I do?
'The Connected Community' is not a book about anarchism, but it is a book about people coming together, independent of the 'outside leader' to make their lives better. At it's heart, it is about reciprocation, it's about recognising that to live a good life we need to stop being passive consumers (of big business, of media), and to stop being isolated units of production living in small family units. Instead, what is offered, is that we become citizens of our community, and that our lives are enriched when we participate in our community and both give, receive and share our unique talents and gifts with each other.
In recent years, I have become more focused on asset based community development, partially through my professional life, but also as I am interested in the development of strong communities from both a systems thinking and an anarchist perspective. It seems like a lot of ideas which have been bubbling around in very different fields are coming together (for me at least), and it is interesting how I am at a point where I can draw lines and see connections between very different disciplines and perspectives and see them as a whole.
The biggest praise I can give this book is that it may just be life changing. One of my constant frustrations is that I often see peers and people I have connected with online or learning about doing 'really interesting and amazing stuff'. I then slip into a bit of envy and imposter syndrome because, 'I am not doing really interesting and amazing stuff'. What I have realised is that I can't wait for 'life to happen' - I need to help create a beautiful world and I need help doing it with others. And there is no better place to start than where I live. This book gives the reader all the tools they need to get started.
The book begins with the case for change, and presents some inspirational case studies of what happens when communities start to talk to each other and start to share what is good in their life and how they can help others. I often see lots of real life examples of this - of people who are helping to turn around their homes and community into strong groups with very healthy relationships. The book suggests that knowing people in your community can reduce your risk of dying by 50% in a given year. Quite often the case studies are inspirational but one can also see how hard work it is to create a better life for everyone.
'The Connected Community' is a very practical book. It acknowledges that this is hard work, it acknowledges that it may take time, but with a starting point of, 'the people where you live are your strengths', this difficulty is mitigated somewhat - it is not driven by project plans, outside funding or looking at a community from a deficit model where people and their lives need fixing.
The advice is really simple, which is to start with, 'have conversations with your neighbours', get to know them, get to learn what matters. Much is made of the relational nature of coming together. Newsletters and text messages are not exactly promoted, rather, face to face, in person conversations are the way forward. Essentially, the book asks you to connect with a few neighbours who may care, and ask them if they know anyone who may care also. Once you have a handful of people you can start to learn more and begin to map assets in a community.
The approach to asset mapping is really very simple, it's a case of asking, 'what can I give or offer?,', 'what do I need?', and if there is a need that can't be met by the group, we ask, 'who do we know who might be able to do this?' And then the facilitation and reciprocation of gifts can begin. There are some really nice ways of approaching this, but there is a premise that runs throughout the book which goes along the lines of that thinking on our own we will probably grossly underestimate the gifts a community can offer, and also, that rather than assuming people don't want to help, that actually they are waiting to be asked to help.
I loved the approach to 'gifts' too - because they ranged from the very practical (like how to decorate a home) to more knowledge based (like teaching mothers about breastfeeding) to more fun things like playing an instrument. We all have things which we can share, sometimes we need to coach it out of ourselves and others. The book makes a big point of recognising diversity and finding those normally excluded but when I was reading this, I was thinking about older people and how they are somewhat infantalised by society and viewed only in the context of their needs. One thing I have learnt as I have got older, is the wisdom and the learned and living history of older people and how much this gives us is such a precious gift. The power of the storyteller is vital for understanding who we are...
When I was reading this, I was reminded of a couple of things. The first was when I was in my teens and early twenties I knew a lot of punks, anarchists and new age travellers. Quite often we'd be talking about living in squats or on sites and 'going off grid'. I remember us talking about these anarchist communes we wanted to live in and talking about mutual aid. I remember joking how everyone seemed to be offering their performance art skills and there was a distinct lack of skills such as carpentry, growing food, generating energy. I felt we'd all starve but we'd never run out of unicyclists and jugglers! In the context of this book though, when I was being a little sarcastic at this, I should have then asked, 'but who do we know who can do 'this'....'
The second example comes from my early twenties. I lived in a block of flats in a poor area and I had little. I was off going to protests, bits of direct action, and letter writing and campaigning about the big issues of the day. One of the things I noticed, and I remember writing in a zine about it, was that the most anarchic and radical thing I did was knock on my neighbour's door and say 'Hi'. In our little corner we all knew each other and looked out for each other and helped in our own ways. I had an older neighbour who was in his sixties and struggling to navigate the benefits system and also applying for funding for events. I helped him with paperwork and letter writing to help him with the things he needed. He taught me to dance - he would often say, 'you white boys don't know you have hips' and we'd laugh and drink together. Now 25 years or so later, I still remember his words and helping me to dance better. Now I would call that reciprocal sharing of strengths, but back then it was being a good neighbour. But instinctively, I knew that was about making where I live a better place.
One of the things I love about the book is the consideration of scale and what a community is. The wider the scale the harder it is to change things and it is interesting to think about this in terms of defining boundaries. The examples in the book vary, but it is clear that this approach works at street level, to estate or area to probably small town level - any larger and it is hard to get to know people and build relationships. I also loved the approach to existing group mapping in a community, and how this can be anything from book clubs, to sports teams to friendship groups. The book suggests that the breadth and diversity of these formal and informal organisations is much wider than most people think - and also that whatever the purpose of these groups are, they can probably and will help beyond their 'remit', with a suggestion that these groups are sources of finding and mapping assets in a community.
So we have the case for change, the discovery and mobilisation of people, groups and gifts and then the book goes into the 'what'. Admittedly, this is the lightest section of the book because what matters in one community may be different to another. There are seven broad themes of what a strong community does though with examples of each and what they may mean.
(1) Enabling Health
(2) Assuring Security
(3) Stewarding Ecology
(4) Shaping Local Economies
(5) Growing Local Food
(6) Raising our Children
(7) Co-creating Care
What I like here are some of the examples and how sure, we may start off small with the sharing of food, but what happens when we have a self-sufficient energy supply? What happens when all our food is sourced locally? The world can be our oyster and we don't need to 'demand' the impossible from leaders from elsewhere - we can do it together.
Reading this book I am reaffirmed in my belief that there is immense power in communities to make a genuine difference independent of waiting for politicians and those in power to change. I also think that power is tantalising, exciting with almost unlimited potential. The challenge to all of us is, 'are we going to do something about it or wait'? So, I mentioned this book as a potential life-changer - it is, if tomorrow I start having conversations with neighbours, because who knows what will happen when I do?
December 31, 2023
As soon as I heard the news of its release, I pre-ordered Cormac Russell and John McKnight’s book, “The Connected Community: Discovering the Health, Wealth, and Power of Neighborhoods.”
McKnight is the co-creator of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and author of “Abundant Communities.” That book has some short-comings but it is the standard for understanding ABCD. The pre-sale marketing for “Connected Community” promised to apply ABCD in neighborhoods more deeply.
So, of course, I bought it. That whole idea is at the foundation of my Engaged Neighbor Project.
The book is organized into three distinct but connected sections: Discover, Connect, and Mobilize.
The section on Discover focuses on the importance of what is already strong in your neighborhood (gifts or assets). Often, assets are in plain sight, and we just take them for granted.
The section closes with three simple and effective tools.
For Connect, the author encourages us to connect with those in our communities who are already skilled and well-placed. These are the people who get things done in your neighborhood. These are the people who always seem to know someone who can help. In my opinion, this chapter is focused on social capital.
This section also outlines the seven functions of Connected Communities. In case you are curious, the seven functions of a connected neighborhood or community are: enabling health, ensuring security, stewarding ecology, shaping local economies, contributing to local food production, raising our children and co-creating care.
The Mobilize section outlines how assets and connections can be organized to work together for positive change or neighborhood improvement or leadership.
The book comes with discussion and resource guides. Each section also includes a brief table describing what the disconnected community looks like, what the connected community looks like and Keys to the Good Life.
Each time we go out of our way to encourage, support, share, and enjoy a neighbor, we are paying attention to the small but important things on our street. In doing so, we are helping to transform our neighborhood into a vibrant neighborhood on our journey toward begin a Connected Community.
McKnight is the co-creator of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and author of “Abundant Communities.” That book has some short-comings but it is the standard for understanding ABCD. The pre-sale marketing for “Connected Community” promised to apply ABCD in neighborhoods more deeply.
So, of course, I bought it. That whole idea is at the foundation of my Engaged Neighbor Project.
The book is organized into three distinct but connected sections: Discover, Connect, and Mobilize.
The section on Discover focuses on the importance of what is already strong in your neighborhood (gifts or assets). Often, assets are in plain sight, and we just take them for granted.
The section closes with three simple and effective tools.
For Connect, the author encourages us to connect with those in our communities who are already skilled and well-placed. These are the people who get things done in your neighborhood. These are the people who always seem to know someone who can help. In my opinion, this chapter is focused on social capital.
This section also outlines the seven functions of Connected Communities. In case you are curious, the seven functions of a connected neighborhood or community are: enabling health, ensuring security, stewarding ecology, shaping local economies, contributing to local food production, raising our children and co-creating care.
The Mobilize section outlines how assets and connections can be organized to work together for positive change or neighborhood improvement or leadership.
The book comes with discussion and resource guides. Each section also includes a brief table describing what the disconnected community looks like, what the connected community looks like and Keys to the Good Life.
Each time we go out of our way to encourage, support, share, and enjoy a neighbor, we are paying attention to the small but important things on our street. In doing so, we are helping to transform our neighborhood into a vibrant neighborhood on our journey toward begin a Connected Community.
October 19, 2022
Makes ABCD Principles super "user friendly." If I wasn't a practitioner I would still understand and be able to implement or gain ideas about the principles and practices.
November 13, 2022
I remember reviewing Rekindling Democracy, which was published at the start of the global pandemic, and writing, it’s as if Cormac knew just what we needed right then. And here I am feeling the same about John and Cormacs
words in the latest offering. It’s a book for right now, the present. And it is a gift too.
Not only is it a book for present times, but it does something that few do- it’s speaks directly to those in the neighbourhood who are doing the work. Of course, those enabling and working alongside will get much from it too.
The third important feature of the book is that it uses stories to demonstrate. And for me, that’s so important. I’ve been waiting for a book to come along that I could point people to. Those times when you talk about what you’re doing and people (usually from within institutions) look at you and say, ‘we already do that’. I often find myself lost for words, or wanting to persuade. Now I have another option. Fancy a reading circle? Thank you John and Cormac
words in the latest offering. It’s a book for right now, the present. And it is a gift too.
Not only is it a book for present times, but it does something that few do- it’s speaks directly to those in the neighbourhood who are doing the work. Of course, those enabling and working alongside will get much from it too.
The third important feature of the book is that it uses stories to demonstrate. And for me, that’s so important. I’ve been waiting for a book to come along that I could point people to. Those times when you talk about what you’re doing and people (usually from within institutions) look at you and say, ‘we already do that’. I often find myself lost for words, or wanting to persuade. Now I have another option. Fancy a reading circle? Thank you John and Cormac
March 12, 2023
I read this book for a book club of neighborhood leaders. The authors explain Asset-Based Community Development and offer practical tips for identifying and connecting with neighbors. Their philosophy is the refreshing opposite of scarcity mindset that relies on recruiting outside leaders and dollars to solve community problems.
Learning that a small group of neighbors, or even one neighbor, can start a positive, hyperlocal movement that prioritizes existing gifts and assets helped me to realize our small group is on the right track.
The examples weren't particularly meaningful to me. For example, there's no way our group will have 1,000 30- to 60-mi(nute one-on-one conversations this year. We have only about 1,000 residences.) Still, I feel better prepared to interact with my neighbors and my community in meaningful ways.
At times the writing doesn't flow well. The style is a bit plodding. But it's worth a read -- and discussion.
Learning that a small group of neighbors, or even one neighbor, can start a positive, hyperlocal movement that prioritizes existing gifts and assets helped me to realize our small group is on the right track.
The examples weren't particularly meaningful to me. For example, there's no way our group will have 1,000 30- to 60-mi(nute one-on-one conversations this year. We have only about 1,000 residences.) Still, I feel better prepared to interact with my neighbors and my community in meaningful ways.
At times the writing doesn't flow well. The style is a bit plodding. But it's worth a read -- and discussion.
May 4, 2025
keywords: community, neighbourhoods, mobilising, rakyat, kampung
this is not a complicated book. You can complete it in a few hours, and come away thinking: “well, of course having a connected local community is important. but…”
it is that single “but” which kills us. there is no but. this book makes clear that we’re not just desperately in need of connected communities, the problems that we look towards governments and non-profits to solve through leadership are simply community challenges. no amount of institutions, grants, services and projects can truly:
1. enable health
2. ensure security
3: steward ecology
4. shape local economy
5. contribute to local food production
6. raise our children
7. co-create care
(from Chapter 6: the seven functions of connected communities)
this is not a complicated book. You can complete it in a few hours, and come away thinking: “well, of course having a connected local community is important. but…”
it is that single “but” which kills us. there is no but. this book makes clear that we’re not just desperately in need of connected communities, the problems that we look towards governments and non-profits to solve through leadership are simply community challenges. no amount of institutions, grants, services and projects can truly:
1. enable health
2. ensure security
3: steward ecology
4. shape local economy
5. contribute to local food production
6. raise our children
7. co-create care
(from Chapter 6: the seven functions of connected communities)
January 18, 2024
Both Cormac and John share the spoils of their treasure, being the wonderful wisdom and stories they've picked up along their incredible careers.
This book is for Health, social and political stakeholders.
It's an easy read with instructive practises that can be taken out of the context of the book and used in daily life and professional practise if you're fortunate to work in citizen space with the right co-conspirators of trouble making !
This book is for Health, social and political stakeholders.
It's an easy read with instructive practises that can be taken out of the context of the book and used in daily life and professional practise if you're fortunate to work in citizen space with the right co-conspirators of trouble making !
November 26, 2022
I have worked with local neighborhood groups and youth groups for close to 20 years now. My mentors in local government have constantly encouraged an Asset Based approach to how we view and work with communities. I have read, dogeared, and referenced the "Green Book" by McKnight and Kretzman many times preparing trainings, presentations, and coaching groups. In the last few years, I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to and reading the works of Cormac Russell in his work globally with ABCD.
So when I heard that Russell and McKnight were releasing The Connected Community: Discovering the Health, Wealth, and Power of Neighborhoods, a book that provides a clear and straightforward guide to connecting communities, filled with years of experiences and examples of successful efforts, it immediately became a must read. It did not disappoint.
The book easily weaves the messy and complex experiences that we find in the community into the philosophical and practical aspects of this unique approach. The logical and and smooth flow of the prose make this a captivating and easy read.
As a local government supporter of community, I especially appreciated the later section on our role in fostering a connected community, a perspective that is often pushed to the side or overlooked. I also see that, while not directly referenced, many of the theoretical and philosophical views strongly align with my own understanding of Judaeo-Christian teachings and the role that the local church can play in being both a model and a catalysts for connected communities.
I highly recommend this book to both professional and volunteer, connectors and supporters. (I've already bought and shared 3 copies with my work team!)
So when I heard that Russell and McKnight were releasing The Connected Community: Discovering the Health, Wealth, and Power of Neighborhoods, a book that provides a clear and straightforward guide to connecting communities, filled with years of experiences and examples of successful efforts, it immediately became a must read. It did not disappoint.
The book easily weaves the messy and complex experiences that we find in the community into the philosophical and practical aspects of this unique approach. The logical and and smooth flow of the prose make this a captivating and easy read.
As a local government supporter of community, I especially appreciated the later section on our role in fostering a connected community, a perspective that is often pushed to the side or overlooked. I also see that, while not directly referenced, many of the theoretical and philosophical views strongly align with my own understanding of Judaeo-Christian teachings and the role that the local church can play in being both a model and a catalysts for connected communities.
I highly recommend this book to both professional and volunteer, connectors and supporters. (I've already bought and shared 3 copies with my work team!)
February 10, 2023
5⭐️ Guidebook for gathering, listening, and creating collaborative and strategic change within a neighborhood.
3⭐️ If you just tried to read it straight through like a book.
3⭐️ If you just tried to read it straight through like a book.
March 7, 2024
3.75 stars
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews