Page 62 - 1-Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development by Norman Walzer (z-lib.org)

What’s Culture Got to Do with It? 51

Each community can map its individual assets, including skills, talents,
experiences, income, and individual and home-based businesses. There are
also organizational assets: business and citizen associations, religious
groups, and other informal networks. Secondary building blocks include
those assets which are within the community but controlled by outsiders.
An asset-based approach to entrepreneurship begins with a comprehen-
sive analysis of a community’s positive core and then links that knowledge
to the heart of any strategic change. It is a discovery of everything which
brings a system to life. An asset-based approach links people to the hidden
and obvious potentials in their community. They can see changes they
never thought possible, and people can be mobilized with enthusiasm,
confidence, and energy. It tends to bring out the best of “what is” and “what
can be.” For example, compare the following two questions. The deficit-
based approach question might ask, “Why don’t we have many entrepre-
neurs in our community?” In contrast, the asset-based approach question
might be, “What makes extraordinary entrepreneurship possible in our
community?” The former question encourages self-doubt while the latter
can trigger spontaneity, discovery, dreams, and innovation.
If Mora, New Mexico (pop. 5,000), was examined from a deficit perspec-
tive in the mid-1990s, one would see low-income rural families and a de-
clining textile industry. Mora’s leadership concentrated on local assets—the
natural beauty of their surroundings, a vibrant rural way of life in spite of
low income, a history of working in textiles for almost 300 years, people
wanting to stay in their ancestral homes, and the potential for an increase
in cultural tourism.
Tapetes de Lana was created in Mora in 1998 to revive the lost tradition
of weaving and to subsidize the incomes of low-income families. It started
with $20,000 and a newly formed nonprofit agency to offer job training
alternatives for families on welfare. History and tradition played an im-
portant role as residents learned to do hand spinning, natural dying, and
weaving. Weavers built looms with scrap materials. In contrast to initial ex-
pectations, many of the weavers are men. They produce wool quilts in tra-
ditional and contemporary designs. Customers are interested in hearing
stories about the product, which adds value to the quilts. As business grew,
Mora’s weavers have started specializing in alpaca wool and now work
with alpaca breeders to spin 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of wool per day. Other
spin-offs include an art center, a pottery studio, and a community-based
mill, and there are plans to expand into a theater and a rural development
center. By focusing on local assets, Mora has built a thriving cottage in-
dustry and improved the quality of life and hope for its people (Gomez
2005).
The asset-based approach fosters a “can do” attitude because a community
realizes that it has a range of assets over which they have some influence.