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Asset Mapping: Simple Power

Asset Mapping: Simple Power

How to bring out the good in your group.


With the widespread success of Asset Mapping, I demonstrated that it is possible to create simple tools for immediate and powerful effects on groups and communities. I made a breakthrough in our understanding of positive group dynamics -- how we get things done together for the common good.


Now I have developed and polished Asset Mapping 2.0, an even more powerful and effective version for group leaders, followed by a whole toolbox of techniques and methods to encourage and sustain positive action over time.  I tailor these tools for presentations, training and consultation that are uplifting, practical, and especially relevant to your people and your interests.




What is Asset Mapping?


Luther Snow's Quick and Simple Asset Mapping Experience, or "Asset Mapping," for short, is a process that can be used with any kind of group, community, or network to facilitate positive group collaboration, in as little as an hour.  It is action planning, experiential learning, volunteer mobilization, and positive inspiration, all wrapped in one.

There are three major benefits of Asset Mapping, which are connected in a self-reinforcing cycle of group interaction:

  1. Asset Mapping helps us to recognize assets, strengths and gifts around us – assets that are otherwise overlooked, taken for granted, unappreciated, or outside our vision.
  2. Asset Mapping propels us to identify beneficial relationships and build on them in collaborative action. 
  3. Asset Mapping opens up opportunities for action toward the greater good. 

Use Luther's Asset Mapping to:

  • Break the cycle:  Shift the major pattern of behavior in your group from cycle of neediness and/or conflict to a growing sense of opportunity and power.

  • See how and why individuals make a difference in groups.  Build leadership skills and tools to strengthen and support positive group dynamics over time.

  • Make a greater impact.  Learn how to structure a sustainable organization or community for real and positive change.
 
See here for more information on Asset Mapping.

Strengths on Your Side: Asset Mapping


  • Remarkable success.  Luther Snow's Asset Mapping process is so successful, it has "gone viral" and spread to over 2.5 million users across the US, Canada, and places overseas.  This growing popularity is particularly remarkable because it has happened at the grassroots, from user to user, rather than by the Internet or by commercial marketing.

  • Work with the originator.  When you engage Luther Snow, you are working with the creator and developer of Asset Mapping.  In his experience with over 25,000 participants and hundreds of organizations, Luther has successfully facilitated Asset Mapping in just about every kind of group dynamic.

  • Get the new version.  Luther has strengthened, improved, and developed these understandings and tools into Asset Mapping 2.0, and he shares this advanced work with you.

  • Arrangements for professionals.  If you are a professional who wishes to train and facilitate groups, or your are a group of staff or other professionals, only Luther can permit and empower you to use Asset Mapping.  True to the approach and purpose of Asset Mapping, Luther wants to work with you to adapt and develop this tool with you for mutual benefit, and he welcomes your inquiry.

  • Good Group expertise.  Luther is sometimes called the Good Groups Guru, because he really gets communities and groups.  Participants relate strongly with Luther as a presenter, facilitator, and consultant, and he is generous and collaborative in his work with colleagues working for the common good.

Asset Mapping 2.0: Luther in Action


Personal transformation story.  The clergy leader of an urban congregation was feeling burned out by the pressures and demands of the job.  Following Asset Mapping with Luther, he felt like a weight came off her shoulders.  "More people are stepping up, because they really want to be part of this positive thing," he says.  "I'm learning to open up my style, and I'm not only having more fun, but we're really getting things done!"

Group transformation story.  A rural leader came to one of Luther's presentations at a conference.  She was excited about Asset Mapping, and went home shared it with other Board members of her community group.  The Board caught on immediately, and their new positive focus led to an exciting new project that generated significant funding.  And that project kicked off a wave of new initiative in the community.

Institutional transformation story.  A foundation hired Luther to facilitate Asset Mapping with some of its prospective grantees.  As the groups discovered new strengths and assets in their communities, they opened new ways to partner with the foundation for even wider impact.  The foundation received stronger grant proposals and saw measurable improvement in its funding impact.

Collaboration story.  In a wide rural region experiencing poverty and hardship, diverse community groups came together to share in Asset Mapping with Luther.  Together they developed an innovative, on-line social enterprise that generated income for each community and created opportunities for local entrepreneurs.

Who Uses Asset Mapping?


Asset Mapping works for your group, community, team, network, or association!  Asset Mapping lifts up and builds on the positive spirit of voluntary group participation.  It is meant for any group of people who come together because they want to, not because they have to.  Asset Mapping reminds us why we come together in the first place, and highlights for us all that we can accomplish together when we focus on our strengths and gifts.

The concept of asset thinking and positive action is empowering for individuals as well.  Often, participants say that their participation in Asset Mapping has helped them understand their own situation better and has opened up new opportunities for personal growth.

How to use Asset Mapping:  Terms of Use


Asset Mapping is the creation of Luther Snow, who holds all the rights to its distribution.  Luther chooses to share Asset Mapping on a basis similar to Creative Commons.  That is:

VOLUNTEERS:  Asset Mapping is free to you if you are free.  Luther extends open and free permission to volunteers who work with voluntary groups.  So, whether you are a volunteer Board member working with your Board, a neighbor in a community group, a member of a congregation, or a participant in a membership association, you may facilitate Asset Mapping with your group, as long as you credit it to Luther and this web page.

PROFESSIONALS:  If you are a professional, you must make arrangements to share with Luther.  If you are using Asset Mapping in any context where you are paid and/or the participants are paid, you must contact Luther to propose a mutual beneficial sharing in the arrangements.  This applies to any teacher, trainer, consultant, staff member, or other paid person.  Luther especially welcomes proposals that include some kind of sharing of learning and method:  this is how we "loop back" and grow our movement, consistent with the win-win-win message of Asset Mapping.  Click here to contact us for permission to use Asset Mapping in professional work.

We are working to develop a network on a companion website which will facilitate this kind of sharing and peer-to-peer development.  Look for more information here soon.


Read the book:  Get a copy of bestselling book, The Power of Asset Mapping: How Your Congregation Can Act on Its Gifts,published by the Alban Institute.  It contains detailed notes for facilitating an early version of Asset Mapping, which you may use as a volunteer working with any voluntary organization.  If you are a paid professional, use the book to consider how this might apply to your work and to contact Luther to propose mutually beneficial consultation.

Network. Asset Mapping has grown and improved over the past few years, in part because of collaboration and sharing with people like you.  In months to come we'll be providing more ways to share and collaborate with other leaders in this field on this website.  Meanwhile, check the "Neworking" section of this website and our social networking connections like Facebook and Linked In.  Networking

Engage Luther K. Snow.
  • Hire Luther to be a speaker and presenter at your conference, gathering, or other event.  Get Asset Mapping straight from the source!  Participants praise Luther's presentations for combining positive, interactive process with powerful insight and inspiration.  Your participants will take home skills and insight they can use, right away! [Speaking]

  • Tap Luther to facilitate and lead a workshop or series of workshops for your group or community.  Luther will facilitate Asset Mapping 2.0 with your group, leading to positive group dynamics and tangible action.   You'll tackle the issues that matter most, discover what your people really want to do, and take the action that really works.  And, your leaders will build the capacity to build your group over time. [Facilitation]

  • Bring in Luther to consult and train with your group or community.  Discover the benefits of building on Asset Mapping insights with your group or organization.  Luther will help you see opportunities in even the toughest situations, and train your leaders to respond and act from strength. [Consulting]