About the ABCD Insititute

John P (Jody) Kretzmann is Co-Director of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute, a research project of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. ABCD Institute works with community building leaders to conduct research, produce materials and otherwise support community-based efforts to rediscover local capacities and to mobilize citizens’ resources to solve problems. The Institute continues to build on the stories and methods about successful community building reported in the popular book, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets (1993, with John McKnight.)

A much-travelled speaker and trainer, Jody has been a community organizer in Chicago’s West Side, and served as a consultant to a wide range of neighborhood organizing and development groups. In addition to the ACM Program, he has taught at Northwestern University, Valparaiso University and the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.

Kretzmann has worked to develop community-oriented public policy at the national, state and local levels. In Chicago, he served as chair of the Neighborhood Planning Committee for Mayor Harold Washington, and was an active policy consultant through Washington’s four and a half years in office. He serves on a wide range of civic, community, and foundation boards.

For nearly three decades, John L McKnight has conducted research on social service delivery systems, health policy, community organizations, neighborhood policy, and institutional racism. He currently directs research projects focused on asset-based neighborhood development and methods of community building by incorporating marginalized people.

McKnight has been associated with many of the Institute's major research projects since he joined the organization in 1969. These have included research on the urban determinants of health, law enforcement, urban disinvestment and metropolitan government, deinstitutionalized child welfare services, police anticrime programs, and the effects of the perception of crime upon community responses. He also directed the Chicago Innovations Forum, an IPR-based dialogue among neighborhood leaders and innovators in economic, political and social development.

McKnight serves on the Board of Directors of numerous community organizations including the Gamaliel Foundation and The National Training and Information Center. Before joining Northwestern, McKnight directed the Midwest office of the U.S.