Journey Through Calumet

What are Social Assets?

Social assets are the relationships people create to address the needs of everyday life. You see them daily-- when you pass a church, community garden or school, when you go to your place of employment, or attend a street fair or neighborhood meeting. These buildings and gatherings are the tip of the iceberg: such visible assets exist because of the many social relationships, values and ideas that went into creating them. It is through these assets -- people connecting over important issues, values or beliefs -- that things are accomplished, organizations are formed, buildings are built, biodiversity is conserved, the environment is protected and community is strengthened. The least visible parts of assets are often the most important. It is through people's values and how people connect that action is taken, change occurs and ideas become reality.

What is an Asset Map?
Social asset mapping creates an in-depth understanding of a community by identifying local resources, networks, places of importance, prevalent issues, how these are already connected, and where potential connections exist. Such an understanding creates numerous possibilities for new and innovative approaches to community empowerment that are compatible with the maintenance of healthy environments.

All communities have assets that can be used as the building blocks for economic and social development. We have been using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to literally map these assets. Our experience has demonstrated that physically locating assets on a grid can make them less abstract, and enables people to better see the relationships between assets across and within communities.

We chose to display six types of assets and an example for each type. Examples were chosen for facilitating interaction between multiple types of networks including: organizational (grassroots and regional), institutional, friendship and kin based, ethnic, generational and those connected to community brokers. Explore several salient assets we've found across the Calumet region. These assets as well as the networks they create are displayed on an interactive map of the communities.