Report

Resilience in a downturn: The power of financial cooperatives

Johnston, Birchall

Released by the International Labor Organization, this report focuses on how financial cooperatives survived the global economic crisis and succeeded while many investor-owned banks struggled. Tracing their history from Germany in the 1850s to the present, the author, Johnston Birchall shows how these financial cooperatives continue to provide banking services to people with low incomes, to stabilize the banking system, to regenerate local economies and to create employment. The report recommends that government promote and partner with financial cooperatives as a means of fostering stability, development and poverty alleviation. 

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Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA: The Emerging Federal Framework

Donna C. Folkemer, Laura A. Spicer, Carl H. Mueller, Martha H. Somerville, Avery L. R. Brow, Charles J. Milligan, Jr. and Cynthia L. Boddie-Willis
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Raising Student Voices: Student Action for University Community Investment

Joe Guinan, Sarah McKinley and Benzamin Yi

This new report from The Democracy Collaborative and the Responsible Endowments Coalition seeks to connect struggling communities to local institutional wealth through engaging student activism. The report profiles three administration-led initiatives and three student-led initiatives, as well as five potential future partnerships, where institutional investments are directed into local communities in a way that empowers low-income residents, develops small businesses, and generates sustainable economic development. 

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Moments, Movements, and Momentum: Engaging Voters, Scaling Power, Making Change

Manuel Pastor, Gihan Perera and Madeline Wander

A new report from the University of Southern California’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity examines Integrated Voter Engagement (IVE) as a means of organizing individuals to affect positive change in their communities. IVE aims to engage voters not just at election time but also in the interim to build a permanent infrastructure for civic engagement to achieve social justice. Looking specifically at state-based IVE (particularly in Florida, but also in Ohio, California and Virginia), the authors argue that this approach has the potential to forge alliances — between unions and community groups, for example — that can scale up and have national impact.

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Toward a Sustainable and Responsible Expansion of Affordable Mortgages for Manufactured Homes

Howard Banker and Robin LeBaron

CFED’s national initiative Innovations in Manufactured Homes (I’M HOME) Loan Data Collection Project released its findings from a two-year study of more than $1.7 billion in manufactured home mortgages. Key findings from the study include analysis showing that mortgage performance for manufactured homes is comparable to similar site-built homes and sometimes actually outperforms them, and that mortgages for manufactured homes can be made with low down payments and alternative credit. The I’M HOME project is part of an effort to expand affordable mortgages to owners of manufactured homes and ensure that they have the opportunity to build wealth through homeownership.

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Growing a Resilient City: Possibilities for Collaboration in New York City’s Solidarity Economy

SolidarityNYC

SolidarityNYC’s latest report Growing a Resilient City: Possibilities for Collaboration in New York City’s Solidarity Economy presents their vision for an interconnected economy in the wake of Hurricane Sandy where communities take control of their own development in a grassroots, bottom-up, and democratic manner. The result of a “listening and building process,” this report examines the challenges and possibilities for connecting organizations working towards social change from community credit unions to worker cooperatives. Responses were divided into the following categories: growing visibility, strengthening organizations, building economic power, building political power, and structures for collaboration. 

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Economic and Community Development Outcomes of Healthy Food Retail

Erin Hagan and Victor Rubin

A new report from PolicyLink examines the economic development benefits of improving healthy food access. Authors Erin Hagan and Victor Rubin argue that new grocery stores, corner stores, farmer’s markets, and other food retailers generate significant economic activity in all communities, and specifically in low-income communities. The report encourages researchers to consider the economic benefits (not just the health benefits) of innovations in food retail, distribution and production, such as financing incentives, urban agriculture, food hubs, and federal assistance programs. The report concludes by offering a series of recommendations to help understand and promote the economic benefits of improved access to healthy food. 

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