The ABCDs of Helping People Invest in Themselves—and Each Other
By Claire Brady, EdD
One of the must-reads in my inbox each week is the Weaver Newsletter from Weave: The Social Fabric Project. Their stories consistently remind me that community-building isn’t magic—it’s intentional, relational, and rooted in the strengths people already carry.
A recent edition highlighted the work of a Wichita, Kansas neighborhood using Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) to transform their community. The newsletter tells the story far better than I can, but here’s the piece that stopped me in my tracks: this neighborhood—often labeled by outsiders as “high crime” or “high need”—didn’t begin by fixing problems. They began by noticing what was already strong.
Neighbors who watched each other’s children.
Neighbors who held keys to each other’s homes.
Neighbors who checked in, showed up, and cared.
It was all there—under the surface—waiting to be recognized and woven together. The Weavers piece is a beautiful example of what happens when communities focus on gifts instead of gaps, and invite people to invest in themselves and one another.
And that, to me, has direct and powerful implications for higher education.
Why ABCD Belongs in Higher Education Right Now
The ABCD model, as described in the Weavers story and the Asset-Based Community Development Institute, is built on five core principles:
Everyone has something to offer.
Everyone has gifts.
Asking questions is more powerful than giving answers.
Relationships build community.
Institutions can’t succeed without engaging the whole community.
If you’re in Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, Enrollment, or Campus Operations—you already know this. These principles are the foundation of how we build belonging, support student success, and nurture resilient teams.
But in the midst of staffing shortages, budget pressures, rising student mental health needs, and constant calls to “do more with less,” it’s easy for our lens to shift toward deficits. We start scanning for problems, risks, gaps, and constraints. ABCD invites us to flip that script.
Asset-Based Thinking on Campus
Just as the Wichita neighborhood started with what was strong, higher ed leaders can ask:
What strengths already exist within our student organizations, staff teams, and academic departments?
What assets—skills, passions, networks—do our students bring that we haven’t tapped into?
What existing spaces, traditions, and micro-communities can become engines of belonging?
How might our our employees thrive if we centered their gifts instead of their workloads?
In the Weavers story, neighbors reclaimed a neglected park and reimagined abandoned motels into housing—not because someone handed them a blueprint, but because someone asked: What can we do with the strengths we already have?
Imagine that mindset on our campuses:
A first-gen student group leading peer mentorship design.
Dining or Facilities staff shaping a new customer-service model based on their lived experience.
Residence hall communities rethinking shared spaces using their own creativity.
Faculty using students’ existing strengths to co-design learning experiences.
Small strengths, when woven together, create big outcomes.
A Call to Recenter Our Work on Gifts, Not Gaps
Higher ed is full of gifted people—students, staff, faculty, alumni, and partners who care deeply about our mission. The Weavers Newsletter is a weekly reminder that when we anchor in strengths and relationships, transformation becomes possible.
The Wichita story is not mine—but its lesson absolutely is: The path forward in higher ed isn’t just solving problems. It’s unlocking the assets already here.
And if a neighborhood can do that with coffee, conversations, and front-door connections, imagine what our campuses could create when we lead with gifts, community, and possibility?
