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Where does the New Barn Raising concept go from here?<br />

The acid test of any communication is firstly that it gets attention from its key audience — firstly, those<br />

needing to sustain assets and secondly, those tasked with, or interested in, community development and urban<br />

sustainability. As outlined earlier, the toolkit will be disseminated widely and freely to both of these groups and<br />

can hopefully be a resource that is used in the United States, the United Kingdom, and anywhere else that it can<br />

be read and is needed.<br />

The greater challenge still is to get the toolkit and/or the subject area discussed sufficiently that it engages with<br />

those that do not currently use assets and/or that do not see them as especially worthy of financial support<br />

(whether from taxes or any other sort of resourcing). These groups are not easy to locate, but the toolkit will<br />

be circulated to mainstream national media in the United States and U.K. with a view to hopefully reaching a<br />

broader audience.<br />

Like any toolkit, this one needs to be tested in practical situations by all of the different groups it is aimed at.<br />

Ideally, the toolkit would see the emergence of city asset strategies or periodic state of the city’s assets reports. It<br />

may even be that versions of it are developed for use in particular cities or other countries and languages.<br />

There is also room for ongoing research and knowledge exchange around all of the issues outlined here and some<br />

others including:<br />

• Access. To what extent are assets reachable via walking, cycling, or local public transport systems? To what<br />

extent are crime levels in and around parks affecting accessibility, and how might this be overcome through<br />

design and/or policing.<br />

• Additionality. How do we measure peoples’ overall levels of giving and volunteering to assets? How do we<br />

increase this giving without it taking away from other areas they give to and volunteer for?<br />

• Asset design. What are best ways for designing parks, libraries, senior centers, etc. to encourage high/<br />

optimum use?<br />

• Effectiveness of marketing assets. You saw a lot of different ways of marketing assets outlined but how<br />

good have these been at drawing people in to assets? The evidence base needs strengthening here.<br />

• Promotional videos. How can community and civic groups be supported to make the short videos that, as<br />

was seen, are increasingly important to raising awareness and resources?<br />

• Social networks. How can fundraising and volunteering tap into social networks without this then<br />

reinforcing inequalities in resources and access to resources? Put another way, how can we avoid the wealthy<br />

just helping the wealthy or people of a certain race or faith just helping those of the same race or faith?<br />

• Tax mechanisms. The toolkit outlined numerous tax-related mechanisms for helping to sustain assets,<br />

but how do we choose between these? This is a subject for discussion by tax experts rather than those<br />

interested only in assets.<br />

Concluding Thoughts | 164

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