Lisa Le Fevre: Thank you so much, Mandilee, and welcome again everyone, to our webinar, Introduction to Asset Mapping for Adult Education, Planning and Continuous Improvement. As Mandilee mentioned, this is the first of two webinars on conducting asset mapping and how the approach can serve as a strategy to inform adult education programming, annual, and three-year planning and continuous improvement.

Today, actually, this one focuses on the ins and outs of the asset mapping process, the benefits of engaging in the process, and we will be offering insights on the different methods and approaches used. Ultimately, asset mapping helps take inventory of adult education programming strengths and explores elements involved in implementation. It can also help to identify areas of growth and opportunities.

So before we begin today, I want to do a quick round of introductions. I have the honor of introducing our team of presenters today. We're here from WestEd and we provide technical assistance and support for the adult education field through our work with CAEP. I'm Lisa Le Fevre. I'm a Senior Program Associate at WestEd, and I'm joined by my colleagues whom I'll let introduce themselves, Tran, Greg.

Tran Keys: Thanks, Lisa. Hi, everyone. It's Tran Keys, so WestEd. And I'm a Senior Research Associate, a really excited to be here to talk to you and learn with you about asset mapping.

Lisa Le Fevre: Great.

Greg Hill Jr: Likewise. I'm Greg Hill Jr. And I am also a Senior Research Associate with WestEd, and I'm really pleased to be here and to see so many familiar faces.

Lisa Le Fevre: Perfect Thank you to both. We're happy to have you here to help us today, and I certainly am. And as always, we'd love to take a moment to recognize the Chancellor's Office team, Mayra Diaz and Cora Rainey and the CDE team, Dr. Carolyn Zachary, Diana Battista and Neil Kelly, who support this type of work.

In fact, I think that we might have Neil and we might have Myra on the team here. There we go. If they want to say a quick hello, they can. Myra sent a "Good Afternoon, All."

Neil Kelly: Hello

Lisa Le Fevre: Hello, Neil. Always good to see you. All right. We'd also like to thank the SCOE TAP team for all the organization and support they provide to both us and to you in the field. Everything runs smoothly because of them. And as we're going through, go ahead and introduce yourself in the chat. We do recognize some of you, but we're very happy to see you and have you introduce yourselves in the chat.

So I want to just quickly review our goals. This is a two-part series, so these are our goals for the session. We're really going to be working on understanding asset mapping as a process, identifying the steps that are included, going over and gaining a familiarity with the approaches and resources that can be used, the visual assets that are involved, and also learning strategies for translating asset mapping into actual plans and for continuous improvement.

So next slide, please. Our agenda. Well, we've already done our agenda. We've already done our welcome. We're going to do a quick poll, but then we're going to go over what, why, who, when, where and how of asset mapping. We're going to take a look at a few asset mapping templates and examples that we're going to be from other projects in the field that have been going out there, other assistance that we've provided.

And then we're going to talk about preparing for the second part of the series and launch into discussion, questions, and key takeaways. So now we're going to have a quick poll and Greg is going to help me with this. He's going to launch it. What is your familiarity on a scale of 1 to 5, where one is not at all familiar and 5 is extremely familiar. How familiar are you with community asset mapping? This is a type of asset mapping. Go ahead and submit your answer.

Greg Hill Jr: So we have a smaller group today, so I anticipate we'll get much higher response rates, although we've had great response rates in the previous polls. But it looks like we are only-- we're approaching 68% So there are 16 people, 12, good. good, so we're up to 80%. And while that's-- oop, someone took them down. Tischel is asking a question about the PowerPoint being shared later. And I believe the answer is yes, that will be shared later, but the recording may not be.

All right, let's see. Give folks just another few seconds. We're at 81% OK, good. So roughly, so basically we're seeing 30 and 30% roughly, so 2/3 are not at all familiar or only slightly familiar. There are two people who have some sort of higher degrees of knowledge of asset mapping. And so you're lucky your names are not attached to these responses because we would just call on you. Just kidding. But please, do help share your knowledge either through chat or by engaging with us as we move through.

And of course, lastly, about a quarter are somewhat familiar. And I think that's a pretty good mix. And so there's a lot of folks here who are looking to learn and a couple folks who have some degrees of expertise. And I think it's going to be a nice time. So I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing that.

Lisa Le Fevre: Thank you so much. And we're going to go back to the what. Now, I'm going to transfer it. Thank you so much, Greg, for really facilitating that and everyone for answering. And I'm going to transfer this over to Tran to walk us through the what, why, when, how and who.

Tran Keys: Yes, thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Greg. I love the poll question. And the reason is, since I'm doing this part about what Lisa mentioned, the what, who, when, where why of asset mapping, it helps me to know the audience. And so we have predominantly ones and twos, not at all familiar or slightly familiar. And you are in the right place because we really set this up to be an introduction to asset mapping, in particular, what we're calling community asset mapping. So thank you so much.

Please put your questions in the chat as was mentioned earlier, that will really help us as well. So what is it? What is community asset mapping? Community asset mapping is a systematic, and that's a key word I want to highlight. I probably should have bolded this, Lisa and Greg. It's a systematic process for identifying, for cataloging and mapping the assets of a community. That's really what it is for a community asset mapping.

It's a process for assessing and mobilizing your existing strengths, while at the same time, you're building-- or really you're strengthening relationships among the different groups, the different parts of the organization within the community. And you'll hear it called-- also being called participatory asset mapping, because you're participating in it as a community. So that's another term. And quite frankly, it's just called asset mapping, too. So we have all of these little different terms, but I do like to say community asset mapping for that focus that we are wanting to hone in on.

So that's what of community asset mapping. Next is going to be-- we're going to talk more about what it is in terms of what are our assets? So on the next slide, what you'll see here is a list of different assets broken up by categories. I will not read this to you. You will get the slide deck, as everyone has mentioned here. But really, assets are the-- look at the scientific word, things. Assets are the things that are important to you as members of a community.

And so they vary based on what is important to you. And so it's separated by-- when we work on asset mapping, we try to get folks to put it in buckets. It's easier to think of it in categories. So this list, you'll see categories of individual assets, you'll see institutional assets. Of course, organizational assets is a big one. And those of us who work in the governmental space, whether it's local, state, or federal, we often have to think about our governmental assets.

Don't disregard this one, physical and land assets, like the space, the geography are parts of assets as well. And then cultural assets. OK So this is kind of like a little cheat sheet here about what different types of assets you can imagine. So on the next slide, we're going to dive into why. Why should we engage in asset mapping? So the main reason for why we should engage-- let me see, make sure I'm on the right slide here. So we covered what of asset mapping and now we're on the why. And that's one slide before. Let's see, go back.

There we go. Thank you so much, the why of asset mapping. Why should we even engage in this? The strongest argument is that-- and you can see in the term asset, it's strained space. It really is a strain space approach to community development. It's important process for building on or leveraging existing strengths within the community. This is in contradiction-- in contrast to what you all have heard of in terms of when we say needs, needs-based community development, right, needs assessment, which emphasizes local deficits.

So again, kind of like the other side of the coin, right. And so it assesses the resources, the skills, the experience that are already in the community. And so the benefits of this is that it's quite useful when there is a need to identify assets that can be used immediately. A lot of times that's where the entry point to doing asset mapping. It uncovers overlooked resources and assets. And I think that's a really important one, because in a large organization and a large collaborative and a large group, we sometimes miss things.

And so this effort to be systematic in asset mapping will unearth resources and assets. It provides a positive-- that's why the strengths-based approach comes in, it provides a positive starting point for change. Oftentimes, we are asking folks to change, change behavior, change practice. And the old-fashioned way, let's be real, we would point out what was wrong all the time and kind of disregard what was right as a starting point. So we find that this is actually quite powerful in engaging folks in the work, whatever the work might be.

And then really highlighting existing achievements, talents, and available resources. So that's really the why, the big reason why we want to engage. Next, let's talk about who. Who should be involved in asset mapping. So the who of who should be involved in asset mapping, it depends on what it is you're wanting to accomplish. So really have to consider-- and Greg and I will interact with you a little bit towards the end and please, please sign up for the next webinar where we go into even more depth, but really thinking about who should be part of the team that engages in the asset map, it's actually pretty critical.

You don't want to asset map by yourself. That's what we'll give you the spoiler alert here, don't want to do it yourself. And then the roles, usually, you don't want, just for example, if you are the director of a center or a director of an organization of a group, I really caution against just all high-level directorship level above. It really should be a mix of folks because we have different experiences we bring to the table.

And then I will say a facilitator is critical in this process. And I also say that it should be someone not on the team. And by the facilitator, I don't necessarily mean you need to hire an external consultant, an external person. That's fine if that's what you want to do. Absolutely. And I often am that external person. But I always say you don't-- you don't need me, oftentimes, you can do it yourself within your organization.

All I say is if you're asset mapping on a particular topic, don't have someone in there who has an interest in it to be also the facilitator. You want that person to have a role as a team person as well. OK, so just keep in mind the process is very collaborative. I see that Lisa mentioned that already. Lisa, you're ahead of us, totally collaborative. It's developed from the ground up. It's very iterative. You do one version, but you're going to change it up, right.

It requires time. I'll be honest with you. We're giving you an hour overview, a little bit less. But it requires time to collect, to compile, to evaluate all the information you're collecting, very doable. And it's not useful when there's no common focus of the group. So you have to establish some of these things first, which will bring up. So after the who, then we go to when.

When should asset mapping be done? Well, I say now. If you haven't done it, the quick answer is now. Well, so let me explain. So when you're conducting a community assessment and you need to find assets, like you need to find assets to do the work to mobilize, that's a good entry point for sure. And then when the community includes talented, experienced folks, whose skills are valuable and you know are underutilized, it's a great time to take that opportunity to unearth it.

And then the third bullet point is when you want to strengthen existing relationships, because, again, we know you have relationships out there, and then you want to build new ones that will promote successful community development. You want to keep that going. OK OK. So those are when-- I always kind of say, really, the entry point is, you haven't done it, consider doing it right is one way of thinking about this. So we have a question here. Anything you feel we're missing from this slide? What other reasons and the timing, can you think of for launching an asset mapping, in particular, in your space, adult education.

Lisa Le Fevre: We're opening this up to the participants, so feel free to just come right off of mute. And there's a low hanging fruit answer here. So I think one of the biggest one, when developing a three-- Thank you, Susan.

Tran Keys: Oh my goodness, talk about gold star for Susan. That's wonderful. Also, guess what, y'all. You have, I know what's on your mind. This is perfect. In anticipation of a certain regional plan cycle, thank you, Rick. So a couple of folks mentioned three year plan. Greg, I'd love for you to-- I know you're seeing the chat, too.

Greg Hill Jr: Yeah. And actually, I posed a sort of a hypothetical to you, Tran about-- so everybody understands that there's a requirement for the three-year and annual plans to do needs assessments. And I really appreciate how you particularly contrasted that sort of deficit versus asset approach. But let's say, director is out there. And I'm the director and I say, you know what, I already know everybody. Why should I do this? What other value? How might you sort of respond to that.

Tran Keys: That's a really good question, Greg. You're putting me on the spot. I actually have some ideas, though, because I've done this right. So I've had people say that to me, Greg, believe it or not. Thankfully, it's not a lot, but there are people who are not convinced. And it is not really out of malicious reasons that they're not convinced. It truly is a trend. I have a lot of my plate. My people have a lot on my plate. We already know each other and thanks, but no thanks. Greg, so that's very real.

And my response has been I ask questions to have them tell me more. And in them answering, they have revealed that they actually don't know all the things that they think they know. Just by me, just by not being able to answer certain questions for me. And usually, let me frame this by-- one of my hats I wear is as a program evaluator, Greg, helping folks, develop the logic model and think through their goals and then have to evaluate whether they've met their outcomes or not.

And a lot of part, some of the work involves thinking through their assets. And it's really-- they can rattle off a few, but when I'm lucky enough to have more than just the director in the room, folks under them will say, well, actually my team actually does this one and my team does this one. And it shows that they don't know. And so just a few questions, Greg, that we ask just to make sure if that's the case.

And oftentimes, Greg, if people really truly know their landscape of their place, of their community, there's actually evidence of it. Greg, like artifacts, right. They've already built something. And if you don't have anything, that shows me that you might be missing things. And then just again, talking through it, then there's a realization that I do know a lot, but I don't know it all. And Greg, the director, might know a lot, but the folks underneath are working together. And so they need to be part of that conversation to know more, so that we can move the boat together of the organization. So thank you, Greg. That's fantastic question.

Greg Hill Jr: Great answer. What an excellent alley oop there.

Tran Keys: Yeah so we did the when. And now we're going to go to where, where of asset mapping. So remember, we're saying we're doing all the W's and the H, right. And the W's and the how. So where? It can be done anywhere, I will tell you that. And this slide might seem weird to you. My apologies, Greg and Lisa, jump in. I don't know the context as well as would everybody be in person, as in terms of organization doing this work.

I put everything on the slide because we've done all of this all of these ways and want to share some what works best. So please know all of it can work. I do recommend in person, that's just the most powerful. That's where you're in a room, right. And you have all the stickies, you have all the things you need, and you can read people's expressions and faces. It's just wonderful.

If you're not in that situation, in some projects I work on, it has to be virtual. That can actually work out really well too. And I do say you definitely need a facilitator who's external in that regard. Again, doesn't have to be outside, Tran, Greg or Lisa. It can be in your organization, but really not asset mapping, the thing that needs to be asset mapped, whatever the thing is right.

So it can be definitely done in virtually. And we have great breakout room things we do. There's just wonderful ways to engage in asset mapping virtually. I've also even been a part of hybrid. Now that's tough, I will say. And what is hybrid? Hybrid is that it's a really large group and some folks are together in a conference room, maybe 10 folks if they happen to be together. And then maybe you have 10 other folks who are just across the state, but you want their input, because this is important.

You still can do it, it's just more challenging. There's lots of technical parts in the background. You got to make sure everyone's seeing the same things, and doing the same things, but it can totally be done. OK, so let me pause there because I know that's a lot right there, if there's any questions in the chat, Greg, Lisa, that you wanted to respond to. But that's the where-- it can happen anywhere, friends, anywhere.

Lisa Le Fevre: Tran, there aren't any questions yet. And of course, we invite them and we will be having discussion. But one thing I was thinking about is where doesn't have to be a one-time deal, right. Because this is a process, perhaps the where and when is over an amount of time that maybe some groups come in person, hybrid, virtual, depending on needs as you go along.

Tran Keys: That's right, Lisa. And in a previous slide, I glossed over it. So I'm so glad you said this again. I mentioned the asset mapping is an iterative process. You meet maybe the first time, it's a large group, and maybe then a smaller group because sometimes it's really hard to bring a lot of people together, schedules and all that.

I always joke that the hardest thing about my job is trying to get meetings on the calendar with a large, wonderful group of people, because everyone's so busy. And so it makes sense to make that first effort when you want all that input. And then you have a smaller group, who can hone and kind of wordsmith, right. But again, representative of that larger group. OK. Thank you, Lisa.

So next on, after where, we're going to talk a little bit about how. Excuse me, how-- I think how is next? Yes. All right. How is next. So how is asset mapping done? What are the process? What are the steps? So there's lots of things here, friend, so please know you are getting the slide deck. Just kind of hang with us, let us share these points with you, but you will have the slide deck.

There are different approaches, but the following are really what we call general steps. First is definition, defining your community. And I think that's really critical to do because again, many of us wear multiple hats in our organization. And you asset map for different things. Again, it depends on what it is. So define-- you have to have some kind of boundaries for what your community is.

Second, define what you want to do with the information you collect. It shouldn't be collecting information for collecting information sake. This goes back to everyone is busy. People need-- this will be time commitment, right. So making sure that you define what are you going to do when you get capture this information? Select what assets you want to identify. Identify if an asset mapping activity or is already done.

And I think that one is a key one. Because again, if you're from a large organization, it might be worthwhile to ask around, right. Ask different levels of folks like, hey, have you heard of asset mapping? Do if that's been done in our organization? And I say that because this is actually more true for me for logic models, but in very similar vein, it's happened before where I'm like yeah yeah, we did this five years ago.

And first of all, it was five years ago. It probably would need to be done again in the present, but it actually is nice to see what's been done before, if anything has been done before. You want to develop your data collection plan, you go back to the word I used earlier systematic, right. You're talking to a group of researchers here who are from our organization. We do technical assistance program evaluation research.

And so we-- I conduct asset mapping through the lens of being a researcher. And we can do that in terms of having interviewing people. Focus groups are awesome for collecting data for asset maps. Focus groups are instead of one on one, like interviews, you have a group of 5 to 10 folks, no more than 10. And you ask some key questions, kind of open-ended, semi-structured.

And you get them to-- someone start sharing out and someone will chime in. And it's such rich data that comes out of it. So that's another way we engage in asset mapping surveys. We put together a survey and again, that's where that group of key people who know what it is they want to asset map that they can help come up with the survey questions.

We do-- I do a lot of artifact review. If I'm asked to help an organization asset map, the first thing I do is set up a folder where they are dumping their asset, excuse me, the artifacts and define what an artifact would be in their organization. And I always default, if you're not sure, share it with me. I will-- I will go through it and get back to you. So that's the data collection plan.

We talk about collecting data, and now it's time to collect the data on the assets you mentioned that have been agreed upon. Seven is mapping your community or your organization's asset, that would be a next step. Eight would be evaluate your process and results. And notice it's not just evaluating your results, it's your process as well. And the reason process is there for you to evaluate is you will want to asset map probably other things and at other time points. And so why reinvent the wheel? You want to see what your process was successful or not. So that's why we include process and not just results.

And then of course, always, what are your next steps? What are your next steps? That goes back to number two, defining what you want to do when you finish the data, the information collected. And then I have a note here, it says outcome. In the end, it's really a map, Quote, unquote, map of assets that is produced. And that can take on many different types of forms. We're going to show you some examples.

It could really be a geographic map. A lot of times people will ask a map and it's really a map, a literal map. It could be an assets chart or a graphic. So you'll see some examples of templates we're going to share. Or simply, doesn't have to be fancy. It's a list of assets. So really, it's just to get things down, get things in writing, get things on paper. Not in here. Not the director shouldn't be the only one who knows all of that. It should be everyone knows.

All right. So that was the how. I have a little bit more to say about the how in the next slide, which is to talk about resources that you need. We already mentioned time. Time is the key there. We're giving you an hour, less than an hour overview. And we say that, a great first pass, and it truly is a first pass, an asset map would be three hours minimum, because again, you're convening people, you're having them think and work together.

And I've worked with teams where it really was multiple days, because they just had so much that they wanted to figure out. Multiple assets, even. So it just depends, again, on your need. And then for tools and templates, if you're in person, of course, the wonderful-- what did we do before these wonderful big pads, right? Chart papers, post-its, markers, we often use the circle dot stickers, because after initial ideas are out, instead of having people write it up, you just-- it's kind of like voting.

You make-- you let people put down what their top, whatever it is, in terms of what they're thinking of. So it's a really visual. You get to collect a lot of data that way. And of course, taking photos. I'm usually the one with the camera, making sure I capture all that because it's an artifact of the work you've done. And I mentioned when doing asset mapping is in person, there's a virtual and hybrid. So that's where I have here things like Google Docs in the form of documents, the forms.

Jamboard, although I hear Jamboard is on its way out. But Jamboard was very popular when I was doing some asset mapping a few years ago. All these resources with Google. And I bring up Google because a lot of people have that as part of their suite and it's free. I don't want I don't like to show things that have cost money.

So the other thing I'd put here is mapping and I put Padlet. But Padlet can be used in more than mapping. But the example I use has mapping that I'll show you later on. I want to pause here to see any other thing, anyone in the room, not just Greg and Lisa, but would you add that feel I'm missing based on the work you've done? Greg, I saw you wrote a story map even, can you say more about that?

Greg Hill Jr: Absolutely. So I do some spatial analysis, and I've had the opportunity to play around with different tools at different times. And there are some really great free tools out there. Google Earth actually lets you do this to a certain extent, even where you can. So it's not just points on a map, but actually you can have a more guided user experience where there's additional narrative or visuals and things to really contextualize what you're looking at.

ArcGIS has a free tier as well that is all cloud based or whatnot. And so all this is to say is that, getting back to what, Tran, you were saying before, it's really kind of defining your purpose. And what is-- when it's all said and done, what do you want to be able to say confidently, and you know, that for which you would want an asset like that to provide support? I also have a quick comment on the data collection. And just one note, quickly, is the tools are out there. You can find really good free tools like Google Forms and whatnot to collect information.

I would encourage you, though, if you're going to undertake a sort of a large data collection effort, that you be really thoughtful about what you want to know and focused about it. I feel like sometimes you go into these engagements, we want to know everything. And if we're talking to people, that is their life, that is their time. And so you want to just think really carefully, like, what do I really want to know? Do these questions get at it directly and clearly? And what can I say about it when it's all said and done?

And for that, if you have research folks, say your partner colleges, that is an exceptional opportunity to work with them to see how they can help shape some of those data collection instruments. Or lots of colleges and adult schools and adult consortia have created validated instruments. And this is a great opportunity to just ask around, hey, we're doing this thing. Does anybody have a good survey? Just throwing that out there. And I'm also seeing, these are great.

Tran Keys: I know, my goodness. This is a fabulous, Greg. Could you share that out loud for us-- in case anyone can't access the chat. There's such good comments here, Greg.

Greg Hill Jr: Yes, indeed. Thank you. So Susan says this intersects with stakeholder analysis for projects. Absolutely. Can be used for-- yeah, absolutely, when developing marketing plans. It goes back to defining the community. Fact sheets can help with that as well. What are the characteristics, what sort of inferences can you make about where folks are right in the community? What resource? And I love the fact that you included the geographic resources, because getting programs to where people are. Or getting programs and services near to where other related services are provided, really enhance or help to ensure spatial equity.

Tran Keys: That's right.

Lisa Le Fevre: A couple other comments quickly. Graphic recorders are a great. I'm curious. They'll say what graphic recorder? You mean like people who draw like--

Audience: Yeah, I'll put in the thing. So I've conducted actually community asset mapping sessions specifically around policy making. And so it's a really good way to engage a variety of stakeholders. And it also kind of helps with language barriers as well significantly, actually.

Greg Hill Jr: Is that a picture of you drawing?

Audience: No, no.

Greg Hill Jr: You're amazing. That is fantastic. I mean yeah,

Audience: It's a really great resource. I just-- yeah, we did several for a couple of the San Bernardino Health Department. It spans across-- also for community safety projects and evaluation things. We've used them as well.

Greg Hill Jr: That is so-- I love those. I've seen it in action. I've even talked to an artist friend of mine at different points to be like, can you teach me to draw? Because exactly for the equity entry point, it's so much easier to understand the relationships and retain it. And then lastly, Neil shared student journey maps, Adult Education Block Grant program, journey maps and metrics.

And so this is, I think, really interesting. So Yeah, it really packs a lot of good information into it. I vaguely remember this too. Neil, did you want to say anything about that?

Neil Kelly: No, it's just an example I've seen. There's other ones that are a little more updated, but it's just mapping that student journey because each program, the student has a different journey in that program. So I thought for a visual, sometimes those are really good. So I just threw it in the chat.

Greg Hill Jr: No, that's really good. And I actually think that could be a really valuable part of that defining community a little bit because this is helping to show distribution and sort of that also means helping to well, where should we focus our efforts and how do we want to engage these populations in the asset mapping process? Because it doesn't have to be just everybody who works, for the organization. It can be students. It can be community partners. It can be, anybody you think has a perspective, a voice and is willing to help. So I'm going to-- I think that covers everything. Tran, sorry, I hope I didn't take up too much time.

Tran Keys: No, this was perfect. That's exactly-- I'm just-- I'm like reading. I'm excited. Sorry, there's just so much good stuff in the chat and I'm just loving the share out. So thank you, everyone, for just being so engaging in our chat here. I'm hoping that this will be saved as well because I think just a lot of good resources here, Team, awesome.

I'm almost done. I have a few more slides, Greg, and then I'm going to hand it over to you again. But thank you, everyone, for the share outs. This is fantastic. I want to say something that Neil that just shared, that I want to share an experience I have, which is sometimes when we do asset mapping and our goal is to write, to actually have an artifact at the end, an actual map of something, just that conversation you're having with colleagues, that you know, but because you have different responsibilities, you just don't have a chance to talk about it.

And I have seen like problem-solving sessions happening during asset mapping because something came up that it's like, wow, say more. And it's one of those things where it's really-- I love seeing it. And then I have to do my facilitators hat say, awesome, let's not talk about that now because we have a goal right in our three hours together. But it's such a rich kind of exchange with colleagues that you didn't have because you weren't engaged in this process together.

So, Neil, the map you shared in the chat of the adult education block grant reminded me of one of my projects where that came up. So, thank you. So the next few slides are really just giving you a visual of some templates that I have found that I know folks use. I put the source there that you'll see and it's linked in the resources at the end of the slide. And again, it really is just to give you some different flavors, different examples of how people have done, asset mapping. what they're using as templates. That's why we're sharing these different templates.

So here's one, and you'll notice that the sources aren't even anything in your area. It doesn't say adult education planning. Next time we meet, and again, please join us, it's like in two days, please join us. We'll do more pointedly to adult education. Today is really an overview of asset mapping, community asset mapping. But here's one example of a template that folks use.

On the next slide is another template. And it really is-- it's actually from the same file. And what happens is whatever's populated in that page ahead that looks like a spreadsheet gets populated into a more visual photo. And so that's one example I want to show you. Another one is-- and this is the one we'll focus on tomorrow, Friday, which is another template, and it's called just your community asset map. It's a blank template that again, it's editable. You enter in as you meet and talk.

And then in the next slide, you'll see an example of a completed one from this guide that I often use because it's just a strong example. So again, Friday we'll talk more about it, but we really want you to just see some visuals of what asset mapping can look like. And then did I hear someone?

Lisa Le Fevre: Yeah, Tran, I was just going to ask a question, but it's not more of a question than a comment that I'm looking for. confirmation, maybe. But you mentioned, before, also relying on those artifacts, the ones that get created here, but in prior iterations of processes. So for example, I know a lot of consortia and regions that I've worked with have done SWOT analysis, bring those into here. That's very helpful. So these templates don't have to be a stand alone. You'll use them and fill them out and they can become an artifact, but bring in your other artifacts too.

Tran Keys: Thank you, Lisa. Absolutely, that's correct. And for me, I always, always suggest having in front of you, folks who are working on this as a team, your organization's mission and vision, for example. If there's a strategic plan, that every place has a strategic plan. Usually it's a five-year right, five-year strategic plan that is so worth your while to have that as a artifact as you do your asset map. Lisa, Thank you so much. That is spot on.

My last example for you is-- I think it's my last example on the next slide is Greg mentioned this with his background in GIS geographic information systems. Greg, it has been over 20 years, but I used to use Esri software for-- I know it's been so long. And it's fantastic because we're so visual. We need to see-- look, especially because a lot of we mentioned assets are about people and places.

And so here's an example I want to share. And the source is WestEd, that's the organization that Greg, Lisa and I are from. And here it was just an internal project where really it was kind of like a internal asset mapping, if I could call it that. So it wasn't client based. It was us trying to figure things out for this project, we were working on. And as we were meeting, and if you all don't know what state we're based in, San Francisco, but we're actually all over the US, it's just kind of crazy.

And I'm coming to you from Southern California. And I'll be on call with colleagues from DC, from Florida. And so we were working on this big team, and we really didn't have a sense of where everyone was. And so we just put together. And this one is a simple map in Padlet. We developed this in Padlet. I mentioned Padlet as a resource earlier, so it wasn't anything fancy, Greg, it wasn't the GIS system. We didn't need that.

We just went on Padlet. Someone created it and said, drop this pin, give us more information about yourself. And that's how we ended up, getting a sense. And if you can see all the pink dots, right, the location. In the next slide, what you'll see is me zooming in, me zooming in on Northern California, because there's some clustering going on. And believe it or not, a lot of these people didn't know each other in that area because, again, we work on different projects across the US and so.

But now we're on a project together. And they happen to be here. I put that circle there because in the right, on the right side that's a close up of that circle. And look how clustered. There's so much-- that's all the people that now-- well, I'm sorry, this has been two years ago, but they got together because they could. It was a situation where now, OK, there's enough of us where we can actually meet in person and decide how we want to meet in the future.

But it was just a simple, again, just wanted to give a simple example of very light touch, super easy. And this is one way that we did this. Lisa, can you add me to the map to Tran up in Humboldt County? Absolutely, Lisa. We would love to. But yeah, so wanted you to see in terms of visually what a map could look like. And then think those are the only examples I have. I'm going to turn it over to Greg and Lisa to help us with our discussions and questions.

Greg Hill Jr: Thank you, Tran. That was absolutely outstanding. And that-- if I didn't know better, I would feel guilty because I think I'm supposed to finish a map that is not dissimilar to what you created for some colleagues that I think are in your program. So say I'm working on it. OK, anyway. So I thought it was absolutely fantastic. So we don't have much time for discussion. But let's nevertheless kind of open it up and hear from all of you, what questions thoughts have emerged for you here? How do you imagine this could be helpful for a three-year planning? Just share with us a bit. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Thank you.

Lisa Le Fevre: And feel free to come off of mute too. This is just open now.

Greg Hill Jr: While folks are thinking about it, Tran's actual map there, physical map reminded me of thinking about your asset mapping process, leverage, while leveraging all of you who use TOPSpro, the zip code report. And that actually can be really valuable. So one of the SIS type programs that many adult schools use produce-- it produces a report for the consortia and for each of the schools that identify populations by program areas and zip code.

And so this is-- you could have sort of even smaller teams, sort of focused on engaging with different populations. But OK, so let's see here, a couple. Thank you, Joyce, sharing some positive feedback. Rebecca, interesting, more complete asset maps to get a more solid idea of the end game. Absolutely. And I think some of the links that we've shared show that.

They are often really-- well, this in broad strokes, they are very similar, but the specifics are so unique to the community. Asset maps can also be used to refer students to services, yes, and problems within a region. Absolutely. Right. So it's not just necessarily. It can live beyond, or some aspect of it can live just beyond the planning process and become part of the assets and resources or inform resources that can actually really directly help students.

Lisa Le Fevre: Yeah, and Carla, I really love that one to be able to use it to refer students to services. A lot of times then that map should be viewed and often is as a living document, as providers might shift, as contacts might shift. So keep in mind that these things are alive.

Greg Hill Jr: In fact, to that end. I mean, all of you, we want to show hands. But it is not uncommon for adult schools, community college, non-credit adult programs, as well as two core credits and other supportive services to have at the ready a one-pager that says-- has all of the resources that can be available to students. If you've been clamoring for such a thing, then this is a great opportunity to create one. And if you have one, this also could be a really great opportunity to coordinate with the other folks who have theirs, so that there's a more complete one out there.

Lisa Le Fevre: So how about we move to the next slide, because we do have a few more questions for you.

Greg Hill Jr: All right. So we kind of addressed this a little bit, but we've got some good examples from folks already. Is there anything anyone else would like to add here around how you can utilize or see asset mapping as a resource. Carrick has an asset map. This actually gets really directly to what Rebecca was asking for. That's fascinating.

I see what they did. So yeah, that is, I think an interesting-- if I'm interpreting this right, it goes to-- the link goes to their website. But it is kind of a journey, it's structured like a journey. And when you click on each of the primary links there is another link that shows the programs that are offered, or rather the different program providers, training providers against the offerings that they provide with the key that highlights in-person online, hybrid, other available options.

And I think that's actually a pretty nice example for visualizing that particular set of-- I guess, assets. And yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Lisa Le Fevre: And what I love about the-- Carly, you're sharing here is that you note who you might want to add to the asset map that you already have, which are your AJCCs, you note, and support services, because that's kind of a takeaway from today, which kind of goes to the next slide. Our partners are important.

We can broaden out. And we want to know from you as you're thinking about and as we go to the next webinar, what are three things maybe that you learn today? What are two things you want to consider maybe in more detail? We heard seeing what a complete map looks like is one thing. And perhaps what is one thing you might do? So we're opening that up. Sign up for the next webinar. Great.

What are some of the things you learned today that you might want to learn more about or that you might carry forward? Feel free to put it in chat too. Susan, that is great. Do you want to share a little bit more about this?