Bridging the Gap Between Asset/Capacity Building and Needs Assessment: Concepts and Practical Applications

In the groundbreaking text, Bridging the Gap Between Asset/Capacity Building and Needs Assessment, James W. Altschuld examines the synthesis of two antithetical ideas—needs assessment and asset/capacity building. At the heart of this approach is a focus on assessing the strengths and assets that communities have and demonstrating how to make those assets stronger. The author explains the foundation of needs assessment and asset/capacity building, discusses their similarities and differences, and offers a new hybrid framework that includes eight steps for how they can be done jointly for better results. The author then applies a checklist for judging the quality of this approach to six cases that represent real-world applications of hybrid principles. The last chapter demonstrates how such efforts might be studied in the future, emphasizing ways findings and results from hybrid ventures can be used effectively. A wide range of examples, tables, and figures appear throughout, with insightful discussion questions at the end of each chapter to facilitate meaningful discourse.