All the thinking and principles explored throughout this week reach their practical expression in a single, concrete exercise: the tripartite asset map. This is not an abstract planning tool. It is a structured, participatory practice that gathers the people who constitute an organisation and invites them to physically draw the full map of what they hold together.

The act of drawing the map together is central to its value. When the people of an organisation sit together and collectively articulate what they know, what they can do, what space they have access to and who they know in the wider community, they are doing something that no strategic planning template can replicate: they are discovering themselves as a community of assets rather than a team of functions.

Why mapping must be participatory

The tripartite asset map derives its power from its participatory nature. When the map is drawn by a consultant or a small leadership group working in isolation, it produces a document. When it is drawn by the whole community of the organisation, in a shared space and through a shared process, it produces something more valuable: a shared experience of self-discovery that shifts the collective understanding of what the organisation is and what it holds. The specific contents of the map matter, but the deeper transformation is the one that occurs in the room as colleagues discover capabilities, connections and resources in one another that they had no idea existed.

The three domains of the map

The first domain is human capital: the collective mapping of what the people of the organisation know, what they can do, what they care about and what they are connected to beyond their formal roles. This domain uses the framework of gifts of the head, heart, hands and conscience as its primary categories.

The second domain is physical capital: the mapping of spaces, buildings, equipment, digital infrastructure and logistical capacity that the organisation holds or has access to, including borrowed spaces and the material resources of board members and volunteers that have never been counted as organisational assets.

The third domain is civic capital: the mapping of the organisation’s relationships with its constituent community, peer organisations, professional networks and the individual connections of staff and board members. This is typically the richest and most underexplored domain.

From map to mobilisation

The tripartite asset map is not complete when the drawing is done. Its value is realised through the mobilisation conversation that follows: which of the mapped assets are currently underutilised, which could most effectively serve the organisation’s current priorities and what specific actions would move the most promising assets from potential to practice? This conversation replaces abstract goal-setting with something more grounded and generative: the specific question of which gifts, spaces and relationships already present could be combined in new ways without requiring additional external resources.

Questions for reflection

If you were to bring a completely blank asset map to your next team gathering, which of the three domains, human, physical or civic capital, would your colleagues populate the fastest, and which would be most surprising?

What specific skill, connection or resource does your team possess that is currently dormant because it has never been explicitly mapped or invited into service of the shared work?

Think of a current strategic challenge facing your organisation. If you consulted the tripartite asset map before any external procurement, what internal assets might offer a partial or complete solution?

What would be the practical steps to organise a participatory asset-mapping session within your team or organisation in the next month?

Inspired by: Puntenney, D.L. (cited in Russell, C. and McKnight, J. (2022) The connected community: discovering the health, wealth, and power of neighborhoods. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.)