NeighborWorks America

Asset Based Community Development

Mobilizing the gifts of people, organizations, and communities
Powerful people and effective programs working together

Western Regional ABCD into Action Training
October 7-8, 2009   Los Angeles, California

Center for Healthy Communities 1000 N. Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012

 


Join us at the California Endowment’s beautiful, open and accessible Center for Healthy Communities for an engaging learning event. This event will focus on asset based community development principles applying them to mobilizing people, organizations, and communities.

ABCD in Action is a learning experience that familiarizes participants with the basic concepts of Asset Based Community Development, teaches tools to put them into practice and provides participants opportunities to develop their skills in using the tools to improve programs and/or the effectiveness of their nonprofit organization. It is a 2 day training and uses a curriculum developed for and approved for CEUs by NeighborWorks America. Most recently we have done this training in Sacramento in partnership with Sierra Health Foundation and in Phoenix with John C Lincoln Health Network.

"The deepest dream of ABCD is that more and more people can come to see truly that 'there is no one we don't need' and that a community without a place for everyone is a community really with a place for no one."

-- Mike Green

     
 

Participants in the training will:

  • Learn the fundamental principles and practices of taking ABCD community building and organizing into action
  • Learn how to engage institutions (health agencies, schools, social services) with their communities and vis-a-versa
  • Learn methods to tap into the unique power of individuals with gifts and their voluntary associations
  • Practice how to build more community engagement and involvement
  • Learn approaches to sustain community organizations and leaders
  • Gain ideas for building successful agency resident/client partnerships
  • Find and mobilize their organizational assets and their community assets to work together for stronger projects and programs
  • Learn practical ways of social network organizing to develop more connected local communities where relationships among people grow
  • Work on real life situations and develop action plans to take home

Part of the training emphasizes how to include and engage traditionally excluded people (usually "labeled" people with physical disabilities or illness, youth, seniors, immigrant communities, etc.)

 

Who should come?

  • People seeking to develop more connected, inclusive, engaged local communities
  • Community organizing, community builders and resident services staff from nonprofit organizations or government
  • Management and resource development staff from nonprofit organizations
  • Community association members and leaders
  • People from local government and non profit agencies (schools, libraries, universities, hospitals, social service agencies) who want to develop new, creative, more powerful ways of partnering with their communities
  • Staff, leaders and young people from youth development organizations and programs
  • Human services workers seeking to support the fuller inclusion of people they support

We particularly welcome and encourage young people to attend and fully participate. We need your voice and wisdom.

 
         
 
Faculty:
     
 
Ron Dwyer-Voss
 

Ron Dwyer-Voss
www.solutionsrdv.com has been a community organizer, community development corporation director, leadership development coach and trainer and an elected school board member.  He began working with the predecessors to the ABCD model of community development
while organizing in Chicago.

Since then he has focused his work with faith based communities, African-American, Latino and SouthEast Asian communities and a mix of urban and rural communities.  He is the past chairperson of the National Community Building and Organizing Iniative of NeighborWorks (NW) America and has provided training in community engagement and mobilization at NW  Training Institutes around the country.  He also trains school board members and administrators in California on how to more effectively engage their communities in local schools, as well as how to mobilize their communities to advocacy. Ron is a husband, a parent of two wonderful teenagers and loves to spend time at the beach and playing in water.

 

"Ron Dwyer-Voss has been organizing or leading urban neighborhoods and small towns since I met him in 1988.  He naturally embraces an asset based approach to his life and work and has developed new ways for resident based organizations and associations to effectively develop power in their communities.” – John Kretzmann, Ph.D., Founder and Co-Director, Asset Based Community Development Institute, Northwestern University.

 
Mike Green
www.abcdtraining.org offers ABCD training and consultation to organizations to engage their local communities as partners for collective action. He is a faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute. Mike teaches and consults throughout North America and internationally.
 

Mike Green

Mike’s focus is the practical implementation of ABCD principles. Mike was the training director of the ABCD Institute’s Neighborhood Circle for four years. Mike is a founding member of the ABCD Training Group. Mike Green, Henry Moore and John O’Brien have published a new book and DVD about ABCD implementation for successful community partnerships: “When People Care Enough To Act:ABCD In Action” (published by Inclusion Press, 2007.)

Mike has worked for over twenty five years as a community organizer and community builder. He has experience developing neighborhood resident organizations, congregation based organizations, and community partnerships to address social and economic issues. Mike has also worked in business, having started three different companies. Mike is a social worker (M.S.W.) and has worked in human services, public welfare, mental health and schools. Mike helped start a small public school in Denver based on ABCD principles. Mike’s work focuses on the question of building more inclusive connected communities with more social networks, connections, and relationships. Out of care and relationship we act.

"Mike has a unique and rich set of experience and skills. We believe that Mike's many years of successful community organizing, community building and ABCD-related work make him an invaluable resource." - John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann, founders of ABCD Institute

 
         
 
Tara Zagofsky Tara Zagofsky
www.tarazagofsky.com specializes in facilitating and training multicultural groups while working in English and Spanish, both in the US and abroad. ABCD is at the heart of her work; she engages each participant‛s gifts in order to co-create strong organizations and vibrant communities.
Tara has over ten years of experience applying ABCD principles together with communities and organizations around the world. She first used ABCD while working as a community organizer in rural Panama. There she mobilized individual and local associations‛ assets to improve health and economic conditions, benefiting the larger community. Since then she has consulted on public engagement strategies with local, state and international governments as well as nonprofit organizations. Some of her previous clients include UNICEF, Organization of American States, University of California and World Wildlife Fund.
 
         
 

How do I register?

Registration is $285* for two-days. Send a check withthe information on the right to:

Apple Pie
P.O. Box 74347
Davis, CA 95617

* The cost includes refreshments and snacks. The facility offers a "healthy and affordable" cafeteria.
**Apple Pie is a non-profit community building organization.

 

Please include this information with your registration check:

Name
Organization and Title
Address
Phone
Email
Fax

 
         
 

Center for Healthy Communities website

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Questions? Need more information?  Contact us! Email Tara at taramirel@gmail.com with “L.A. ABCD” in the subject line, or call (570) 618-0450.

Registration space is limited. Sign up today!