John McKnight

Head shot - John McKnight

John McKnight passed on November 1, 2024. He is a great loss for his leadership, his wisdom and his friendship. He was a collaborator in our Summer Institutes for 34 years. His friendship endures.

For 34 years, John’s wit, wisdom, guidance and friendship was at the core of our Summer Institutes where his mesmerizing stories left us all richer and wiser.  On November 1, 2024, John’s passing from this earth-bound phase of his story closes a chapter where we have been privileged to spend time together, listening together, learning together, eating together – for decades.  We will miss his delightful turns of phrase as he entranced us with yet another metaphorical community tale.  But all is not lost because untold thousands of us can recall those stories – those remarkable moments of wisdom and delight.  We honour our friend and mentor.  We will miss him dearly – and we will not forget.

John was the co-founder of ABCD — Asset Based Community Development — an institute, books, world leadership. His remarkable thought leadership has a very special connection to the Toronto Summer Institutes. John is one of the founding faculty members and Hosts of the Summer Institutes — and has been relentlessly consistent in making space in his calendar to lead a module and ABCD in Action every year — for over 30 years!! That is commitment — and friendship.

John McKnight — a creative selection

Co-Director, Asset-Based Community Development Institute

John McKnight’s remarkable thought leadership has a very special connection to the Toronto Summer Institutes. John is one of the founding faculty members — and has been relentlessly consistent in making space in his calendar to lead a module — every year — for over 30 years! That is commitment — and friendship.

John holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Waterloo, Canada and is Professor Emeritus of Communications Studies and Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. For more than four decades his research and teaching have focused on social service delivery systems, health policy, community organization, neighbourhood policy and the incorporation of labelled people into community life. John leads a group of more than 50 fellows around the world and has mentored the likes of Barack and Michelle Obama.

As a result of a national study of local neighbourhood initiatives, McKnight and his long-time colleague, Jody Kretzmann, created the Asset-Based Community Development strategy for community building. Together, they co-authored the basic guide to asset-based community development, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Identifying and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets. This book has become one of the nation’s best-selling guides to community development, and the methods it outlines are now utilized worldwide.

McKnight has also written two additional books – The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits (which came out of a widely popular CBC radio Canada series) and, together with co-author Peter Block, The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighbourhoods.

ABCD Publications

Throughout more than 30 years of community organizing and community development work, John Kretzmann and John McKnight gathered the stories of residents who built stronger neighborhoods by focusing on their strengths instead of their deficiencies. These stories are brought together in Building Communities from the Inside Out, the publication that launched the Asset-Based Community Development Institute. Now a must-have volume for community builders around the nation and the world, “the Green Book,” as it is fondly known, also launched the development of an extensive library of community building publications.

The Abundant Community Tribute to John McKnight

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