In an Al Jazeera article Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz presents a critical perspective of Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century— emphasizing how democratizing ownership of capital can address the vast wealth inequalities that Piketty so powerfully documents.
Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz joined BALLE co-founder Michael Shuman in a conversation on how to build sustainable communities through inclusive local economic development.
Senior Research Associate Thomas Hanna and Andrew McLeod of Collective Seeds Consulting Cooperative guest edit Grassroots Economic Organizing(GEO)’s blog series, Scaling-Up the Cooperative Movement.
This new toolkit from the German Marshall Fund offers policies and practices to empower communities to preserve civic assets such as public parks, libraries, and recreation centers in the face of public and private resource constraints. Based on research conducted in Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Baltimore, the guide offers a range of strategies to raise money, awareness, and community involvement for the preservation of community assets.
Jane Duong, Alvina Condon, Katie Taylor, Marisabel Torres, Lindsay Daniels and Valerie R. Wilson
Alliance for Stabilizing Our Communities (ASOC)
The Alliance for Stabilizing our Communities — a collaboration between National CAPACD (Coalition of Asian and Pacific Americans for Community Development), the National Council of La Raza, and the National Urban League — has released the findings of a national survey of bank account ownership and use in communities of color. To reduce continued disparities and close the financial services access gap, the coalition recommends a multi-faceted approach that combines technological innovation, bricks-and-mortar bank branches in communities of color, financial education, and asset building programs.
Kathleen P. Enright, Jeffrey Bradach, Abe Grindle, Katie Merrow, Patrick T. McCarthy, Michael Smith, Carla Javits, Daniel Cardinali, Dr. Robert K. Ross, Nancy Roob, Jane Wei-Skillern and Lori Bartczak
Grantmakers for Effective Philanthropy
A wide range of non-profit leaders, including Carla Javits of REDF, Michael Smith of the Social Innovation Fund, Patrick McCarthy of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Dr. Robert Ross of the California Endowment discuss ways to scale impact in this Grantmakers for Effective Philanthropy report. Among the key findings for funders: provide flexible, long-term support; invest in capacity building; fund data collection and analysis; and support movements (and not just organizations)
This report, prepared by the Democracy Collaborative and submitted to the City of Jacksonville, Florida, highlights key strategic opportunities to leverage existing assets to build wealth in a neighborhood facing concentrated poverty and disinvestment.
Peter Dreier, Saqib Bhatti, Rob Call, Alex Shwartz and Gregory Squires
Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley
Measuring how communities have recovered from the national foreclosure crisis, the Haas Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, has analyzed the concentration of underwater homes by race and income. The findings reveal geographic “hotspots” of underwater homes and how the legacy of predatory lending has concentrated these homes in African American and Latino communities. The report recommends a range of loan restructuring strategies to assist severely impacted communities.
Former Democracy Collaborative researcher, Thad Williamson, will soon begin his new job as Director of Richmond, Virginia’s Office of Community Wealth Building, the first municipal office of its type in the nation. Born out of recommendations from Mayor Clinton Jones’ anti-poverty initiative, the Office aims to address the structural causes of poverty that have left 27% of residents in poverty.
Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz expands on his vision of a cooperative and community-sustaining economy with Editor Scott Gast of Orion magazine.
Gar Alperovitz and Democracy Collaborative Senior Fellow James Gustave Speth have chapters in a new anthology, edited by leading environmental studies scholars Robert Costanza and Ida Kubiszewski. With contributions from over 40 thought leaders in the field of sustainable development, the anthology advances a shared vision of sustainability and establishes priorities for the transition to an ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable future.
In this new book, Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin and Nathans Cummings Fellow Margot Brandenburg make the case for impact investing as an alternative to traditional investing and philanthropy. Intended as a primer for retail investors, high-net-worth individuals, foundations, and others wishing to broaden the social and environmental impact of their investments, the book highlights opportunities to invest for social good around the world.
“There is a symbiotic relationship between the health and resilience of a country’s economy, and the health and resilience of a country’s people,” notes Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, in his introductory remarks. In this paper, Dallas Fed economist Elizabeth Sobel-Blum aims to provide guidance to financial institutions seeking to comply with Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) obligations—as well as their customers, partners and target communities—regarding ways to leverage neighborhood assets to build community wealth and reduce health disparities.
This new report, authored by Democracy Collaborative Senior Fellow Marjorie Kelly, offers a comprehensive framework of community investing, ownership, and wealth control models to enhance the social, ecological, and economic well-being of rural areas.
Democracy Collaborative senior fellows Marjorie Kelly and Joe Guinan and senior researcher Thomas Hanna each contribute chapters to a new free e-book, Democratic Wealth: Building a Citizens' Economy. The authors discuss economic institutions, alternative economic system designs, and forms of democratic ownership. This open Democracy and Politics in Spires series, hosted by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, advances the conversation on visioning an economic system that serves the common good.
In the latest publication in Great Transition Initiative’s sustainable development series, John Fullerton challenges the preeminence of modern finance. Limiting finance capital and the environmental deterioration and social instability that it encourages, Fullerton writes, requires transforming our economic system. By broadening public ownership of finance, through such means as sovereign wealth funds, public banking, and public utilities, Fullerton contends that nations can limit environmental degradation and manage long-term growth.
Aspen Institute and Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute
In a new paper, Maureen Conway of the Aspen Institute and Steven Dawson of PHI (Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute) argue for comprehensive workforce development strategies that not only promote mobility for low-wage workers, but that also improve the conditions for those remaining in low-quality jobs. The brief highlights best practices in workforce development and outlines a multipronged approach to improve conditions through advocacy, policy research, job training, and education on workplace standards.
Analyzing income inequality by state, Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price document the sharp rise in economic inequality over the last 35 years. Sommeiller and Price find that between 1929 and 1979, a time of rising minimum wages, low levels of unemployment, and union contracts, the share of income held by the top 1 percent declined in all but one state. But since 1979, every state has endured widening inequality. The authors caution that this shift will likely persist, unless states begin to create policies that support a more balanced economy.
The City of Chicago and six other anchor institutions have joined the University of Chicago on the newly launched Chicago Anchors for a Strong Economy (CASE) initiative, which will link local businesses to anchor procurement and provide technical assistance to 100 local firms.
A two-volume encyclopedia containing more than 130 signed entries, Achieving Sustainability covers economic and environmental ideas, as well as governance, demographic, and socio-cultural aspects of the concept. Democracy Collaborative Research Director Steve Dubb along with Executive Director Ted Howard and Research Associate Sarah McKinley have contributed the chapter “Economic Democracy”, which outlines the history of the economic democracy movement, highlighting community wealth building strategies such as community development finance institutions and cooperatives.
In a new report from the Center for American Progress, Joel Rogers and Satya Rhodes-Conway of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) outline policies that cities can adopt to become more inclusive and sustainable. The authors espouse democratic organization as a critical component to social equity and wealth creation and highlight the critical linking of anchor procurement strategies and employee ownership, as seen in the Cleveland Model, to strengthen local economies and stabilize communities.
The recent rise of the commons and the sharing economy seems to suggest a growing recognition of the fact that our health, happiness, and security depend greatly on the planet and people around us.Sharing Revolution: The essential economics of the commons highlights the many ways, new and old, that people connect and collaborate to advance the common good and develop greater economic autonomy. The Cleveland model is also featured.
In a recent study examining minority entrepreneurship opportunities, the Greenlining Institute invited California’s twelve largest banks to share their supplier diversity practices. The authors found that though people of color represent the majority of California’s population, only 7.72 percent of bank contracts go to minority-owned businesses. The Institute offers a series of recommendations to reduce contracting disparities and to foster wealth and job creation in communities of color.
The American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) has developed a new guide to help independent business owners, localist advocates, and local officials promote local business and community wealth building. The guide outlines strategies to build successful “Buy Local” campaigns that encourage consumers to shop at locally owned stores. It includes tips and resources for campaign content development, message framing, targeted marketing, and execution.
In September 2013, the Institute for a Sustainable Future hosted a Duluth, Minnesota conference for nearly 200 leaders active in healthcare delivery, public health, hospital administration, and community service organizations across the state. This paper builds on key lessons learned at the event and explores how the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for community engagement by hospitals can be directed to improve community health and vitality. It emphasizes how placed-based strategies can improve health outcomes, including linking anchor institutions to local procurement, employment, and housing initiatives.
In September 2013, the Institute for a Sustainable Future hosted a Duluth, Minnesota conference for nearly 200 leaders active in healthcare delivery, public health, hospital administration, and community service organizations across the state. This paper builds on key lessons learned at the event and proposes next steps for hospitals to leverage the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for community engagement to improve community health and vitality.
Jonathon Ward, Margaret Christie, Addie Rose Holland, Dan Rosenberg, Jeff Rosen and Sam Stegman
CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture) published a new case study on Real Pickles, an organic food business that raised half a million dollars through a community investment campaign to transition to worker ownership.
Costanza, Robert, Kubiszewski, Ida, Giovannini, Enrico, Lovins, Hunter, McGlade, Jacqueline, Pickett, Kate E. , Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Kristín, Roberts, Debra, De Vogli, Roberto and Wilkinson, Richard
Robert Costanza joins other sustainable development advocates to discuss the implications of setting national policy goals based on levels of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in a recent issue of Nature. The authors argue that the use of GDP as a measure of progress fuels social and environmental instability. They outline alternative measures of progress that take into account indices such as net savings, ecological impact, life expectancy, and civic engagement to provide a more comprehensive measure of wellbeing.
In his new book, Commons Strategies Group co-founder David Bollier describes the logic and ethics of the commons, as well as the growing international movement, especially in Europe and the global South. Bollier maps the field from information commons such as Wikipedia to common spaces such as community gardens. The book also covers threats to the commons, such as enclosures and private property rights.
In this new guide to community investment, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) identifies finance options and other investment tools to reinvigorate regional economies, create high-quality jobs, and restore the environment. BALLE offers this guide as a resource to help re-shape financial capital flows to support local self-sufficiency and ingenuity.
Brooks, Jennifer, Wiedrich, Kasey, Sims, Lebaron Jr. and Medina, Jennifer
The Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) employs its annual Assets and Opportunity Scorecard to assess states’ commitment to reducing financial insecurity. This year’s scorecard measures the pervasiveness and effectiveness of polices that help people learn financial skills, build human capital, increase earnings, create affordable financial products, generate wealth, and protect consumers. CFED ranks states’ outcomes in five issue areas—Financial Assets & Income, Businesses & Jobs, Housing & Homeownership, Health Care, and Education.
In the November/December edition of Rural Cooperatives magazine, the United States Department of Agriculture featured Green City Growers Cooperative, the third worker-owned enterprise established by the Evergreen Cooperatives. The article highlights how Green City Growers created twenty-five jobs while transforming eleven acres of abandoned lots into a productive urban greenhouse. The article also provides insight for how cooperatives can partner with city governments, anchor institutions, and foundations to stabilize local economies.
City Controller Alan Butkotvitz recently commissioned a citywide survey, which found that Philadelphia’s “eds and meds” spend over $5 billion annually on good and services. This finding has prompted Butkotvitz to explore opportunities for how local anchor institutions can boost local employment by shifting 25 percent of their procurement to local vendors. The Democracy Collaborative was pleased to be asked to contribute to the report.
Elaine Arkin, Paula Braverman, Susan Egerter and David Williams
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America released a new report that emphasizes the impact that socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, unemployment, housing, and crime, have on overall health outcomes and life expectancy. To address these social determinants, the Commission provides three key recommendations: increase investment in early childhood development, more effectively integrate health into community development, and reorient health professionals and healthcare institutions to invest in community strategies that help people lead healthy lives.
A new Cleveland Foundation report highlights the achievements and lessons learned from the Greater University Circle Initiative—a robust partnership among the city’s anchor institutions to foster economic and community revitalization. To date, the Initiative has created three employee-owned companies through the Evergreen Cooperatives Initiative, developed a workforce training center, launched an employer-assisted housing program, catalyzed changes to the city’s public transportation system, spurred over $140 million in new, public-private development, and helped direct an increasing percentage of the institutions’ more than $3 billion in purchasing toward local businesses.
This article in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Magazine Communities & Banking, highlights the Wellspring Upholstery Cooperative, a new worker-owned business supported by over fifteen anchor institutions and community-based organizations in Springfield, Massachusetts. Established by the Wellspring Collaborative, a network of worker-owned companies modeled after the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland and Mondragón Cooperative Cooperation in Spain, the upholstery cooperative will leverage the purchasing power of anchor institutions to employ ex-offenders and the underemployed.
The International Organisation of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Cooperatives
In a new study that provides the first comprehensive understanding of the global worker cooperative landscape, the International Organization of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Cooperatives (CICOPA) finds, based on data from more than 25 countries that worldwide 111,000 enterprises employ over 2.9 million people across a number of industries, from manufacturing and social work to real estate and education.
A recent report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance reviews municipal enterprise models and energy policies from around the country that have helped cities reduce energy use, save money, and create local jobs. Profiling case studies in New York, Tennessee, and California, the report demonstrates that cities have a wide range of tools at their disposal to broaden the base of locally controlled wealth.
In a recent report sponsored by the Metcalf Foundation, ecological economists Peter Victor and Tim Jackson outline conditions for a green economy at a community scale. Questioning the nature of prosperity itself, the authors explore necessary changes in the organization of business to promote economic stability, social justice, full employment, and lasting (environmental sustainable) prosperity. They describe community-based companies and finance alternatives, including the Evergreen Development Cooperative Fund, and how they contribute to local self-reliance, community resilience, and democratic engagement.
As real income levels have stagnated and traditional politics remains deadlocked, communities are looking for new avenues to educate and employ themselves, from social enterprises and cooperatives to community development corporations and credit unions.Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz reviews the impact of these community wealth building organizations as well as the challenges of supporting these organizations and structuring new local and national institutions that foster efficient, effective, stable, and equitable local economies.
Jody Heymann of UCLA and Magda Barrera of McGill University bring experts together from the fields of public health, climate risk, urban and regional planning, sustainable agriculture, and water governance in a new book that examines economically viable solutions to the environmental challenges that disproportionately impact the world’s poorest populations.
A new article by Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz and community development associate Keane Bhatt provides ten concrete action steps that individuals and groups can take to foster democratic economies and build community wealth. Using on-the-ground examples, this article shows how to engage credit unions, build employee-ownership structures, work with hospitals and universities to forge community partnerships, invest money responsibly, support thoughtful economic development, and encourage a green economy. Integrating these action steps into daily life will help change the nature of wealth and asset ownership in a way that is more responsive to community need.
A new paper from Living Cities analyzes the structures and behaviors of effective cross-sector partnerships to provide a framework for how to best achieve measurable impact.Author Alison Gold examines four cross-sector partnerships to show what traits are needed to build a strong foundation for the partnership, what factors influence the partnership’s success, and what behaviors will produce high-impact partnerships. Intended as a tool for cross-sector partnership members and funders, this paper provides a means for reflecting on how best to use partnerships to create sustainable change.
This policy primer from Shareable and the Sustainable Economies Law Center catalogues innovative local policies that city governments have used to help residents share resources, co-produce, and create their own jobs. Focusing on food, housing, transportation, and job sharing, this guide is intended to help cities build community wealth and develop more resilient and democratic local economies. More broadly, the sharing economy highlights how governments can structure infrastructure, services, incentives, and regulations to support this new economy.
A new report from the Hitachi Foundation highlights policies and practices that improve wages and employee loyalty while also boosting competitiveness and profits. Titled Doing Well and Doing Good, this report profiles 14 healthcare and manufacturing companies (out of 90 identified) that have implemented innovative workforce strategies that help workers gain skills, retain and/or advance their jobs, and generate greater value. Calling these companies “pioneer employers,” this report identifies that they all share a common vision and ability to reorganize and engage workers toward key business goals, including: innovating new products and processes, raising product or service quality, reaching new markets, and increasing productivity.
The Catholic Health Association and Health Care Without Harm have released a booklet that encourages healthcare leaders to engage and partner with individuals, organizations, and communities to improve community health by addressing environmental factors outside the hospitals walls instead of just within. Acknowledging that poor environmental quality adversely impacts vulnerable populations already at high risk for bad health, this publication argues that strategic environmental health programs can help reduce inequities in health, particularly in underserved communities. The booklet offers detailed steps and strategies for integrating programs that address environmental health with broader community benefits compliance efforts.
Moderated by the Anchor Institution Task Force, this special issue of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement details the successes and challenges of anchor institution–community partnerships and discusses what it takes to create and sustain effective collaborative strategies. Topics covered include: what it means to be an anchor institution, how to build coalitions and collective expertise, engaging the arts, how colleges can support entrepreneurial ecosystems, the role of higher education in Promise Neighborhoods, and the role of service-learning in promoting anchor institution work. Detailed case studies are presented from Syracuse, Widener, Miami Dade College, Tulsa Community College, Lehigh, University of Michigan, and University of Tennessee.
In this National League of Cities paper, author Julia Pulidini argues that broadband access promotes local economic development, improves environmental sustainability, provides efficiencies in local government services, strengthens public health and public safety, and increases educational opportunities for millions of Americans. In order to level the playing field, this paper recommends not only making broadband widely accessible to local governments but also giving them the tools to effectively use this technology.
This National Community Reinvestment Coalition paper advocates for the idea of “age-friendly banking,” highlighting the importance of providing effective and tailored financial products, services, and protections specifically for older adults. In the wake of the Great Recession, older adults are often susceptible to financial fraud and scams. This paper aims to expand the dialogue between community-based organizations, aging networks, and financial institutions on how to develop and implement age-friendly banking strategies and initiatives.
This study seeks to introduce a framework that can assist anchor institutions in understanding their impact on the community and, in particular, their impact on the welfare of low-income children and families in those communities.
This report from the Center for American Progress aims to jump start a policy conversation that advances “inclusive capitalism,” or workplace practices that compensate a broad base of workers through profit sharing, worker cooperatives, and employee stock ownership. Examining studies and examples of inclusive capitalism, authors David Madland and Karla Walter demonstrate how inclusive capitalism can improve both company performance and employee well-being, while also addressing some of the fundamental problems our country is facing including weak economic growth, high unemployment, and dramatic wealth disparities. The report additionally catalogs existing government policies that support inclusive capitalism.
This essay by Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz and Research Director Steve Dubb opens the academic symposium journal issue on “Alternatives to Capitalism” which provides a collection of essays that explore the broader implications of community wealth building for creating a new economy.
In the wake of the most crippling economic downturn since the Great Depression, it is becoming increasingly evident that the United States is facing a myriad of serious problems that can no longer be solved by a stalemated political system.1 These challenges will inevitably require the conceptualization of a vision for comprehensive systemic change, and a major component of this is the question of what to do about the large private corporations that presently, to varying degrees, imperil our economy, threaten our democracy, and impede progress on environmental issues.
At the annual BALLE conference this past June, Stacey Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance highlighted the importance of building a national policy agenda that supports local ownership. Mitchell addressed why changing public policy is essential, the need for framing a compelling narrative to assert change, the importance of building the appropriate components of a national policy agenda, and indicated some first steps to take. Using compelling examples from specific sectors, such as local food and local banking, Mitchell shows that while real change is occurring, major structural forces impede progress and that remaking public policy is critical to moving past those barriers.
This new book from PolicyLink and the Center for American Progress offers policy recommendations for building a prosperous economy by ensuring that all are able to participate and achieve their full potential – particularly communities of color that are quickly becoming the nation’s majority. As the nation undergoes profound demographic shifts, equity has increasingly become an economic imperative. Comprising essays and policy solutions from leading thinkers and trailblazing activists across multiple policy arenas, this collection explores issues from education and workforce development to democratic participation. The book aims to advance the national conversation beyond focus on what’s wrong to looking for what works.
This new guide offers ideas and advice on how to strengthen the local economy in your town through buying local, highlighting new entrepreneurs, investing locally, and more. With how-to tips, videos, and other useful resources, the Guide to Going Local provides tools in four key areas: building pride in place, fostering local entrepreneurship, buying locally and sustainably, and investing locally.
This Lincoln Institute of Land Policy study, entitled Regenerating America’s Legacy Cities, examines new strategies for rebuilding and reinventing the economies of older industrial cities that have experienced dramatic job and population decreases over the last few decades. Authors Alan Mallach and Lavea Brachman detail how these “legacy cities” can employ land-use planning tools that reflect the changing economy and social fabric to support new forms of economic development.
This collection of essays, drawn from excerpts in Commons Magazine, is intended to improve our understanding of the “commons” and “placemaking” movements that aim to restore a sense of place in communities, while promoting public space and engagement. Focusing on community assets, these movements promote an integrated approach to urban planning that seeks to create public spaces that promote people’s health, happiness, and well-being. The collection includes best practice examples — ranging from Bogata, Colombia to the Netherlands to Boston — of strategies for building community and reclaiming public and open space.
This paper from the Anchor Institution Task Force (AITF) is a review of existing literature on anchor institutions that seeks to provide insight on the role of anchors in the transformation communities and guide future research. The paper finds that while an understanding of anchor institutions is growing, the field needs to extend the base of knowledge and continue to encourage institutions to have a leading role in the building of democratic communities and local economies.
A recent study from the Center for Housing Policy shows that, for the third year in a row, working renters face increased housing costs. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) collected in 2009, 2010 and 2011, this paper shows that despite falling mortgage rates and home prices, more than one in four working renter households (26.4 percent) spent more than half of their income on housing in 2011. This paper asserts that some of the underlying causes of these trends result from a loss of work hours among low- and moderate-income households and rising housing costs for renters, while housing costs dropped for owners.
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.
Last month, New Era Windows Cooperative opened as a worker-owned cooperative in Chicago after a five-year struggle to preserve their livelihoods. This In These Times article by author Kari Lydersen details the workers’ struggle that began in 2008 when Republic Windows and Doors threatened to shutter the factory, inspiring the workers to occupy the facility.After the new buyer Serious Metals failed to bring the business back, the workers decided to take matters into their own hands, negotiating a buy-out of all the equipment and the facility itself with the help of the United Electrical Workers union. The new worker-owners worked with the microfinance group The Working World to help finance the purchase and with the Center for Workplace Democracy to learn the ins-and-outs of business management.
In this recent report, Alex Brill of Matrix Global Advisors quantifies the macroeconomic impact of S-corporation Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) companies in 2010. Using publicly available data from the Department of Labor, the report finds that S-corporation ESOP companies account for 1.4 million jobs, $77 billion in labor income, $246 billion in output and $27 billion in tax revenue nationwide. The author argues additionally that the structure of these ESOPs leads to greater firm longevity as well as higher wages, greater job stability, and increased retirement plan contributions. Furthermore, the report shows that S-corporation ESOP companies are more resilient in an economic downturn, resulting in positive impacts for workers, customers, neighborhoods, and local economies.
In the face of economic insecurity, this policy memo from CFED argues that an asset building approach can help families build their financial assets as students, homeowners, or entrepreneurs, thereby empowering individuals to steward their own resources more effectively and contribute to their own economic success. Highlighting how many Americans lack basic financial security, the memo calls for federal policy reforms that give low-income households better access to the financial tools and knowledge they need to build a secure future. Recommendations include improving tax incentives for low- and middle-income savers, reauthorizing the Assets for Independence Program and reviving US savings bonds.
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.
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.
On April 24th, The Democracy Collaborative’s Executive Director Ted Howard presented testimony before Illinois’ Governor’s Task Force on Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Enterprise. His presentation and companion brief outlined low-cost, high-return steps that could be implemented in Illinois to help build stronger communities.
Martha H. Somerville, Gayle D. Nelson and Carl H. Mueller
The Hilltop Institute’s Hospital Community Benefit Program has released a new online resource, the Community Benefit State Law Profiles, and a companion brief, Hospital Community Benefits After the ACA: The State Law Landscape. The Profiles present a comprehensive analysis of each state’s community benefit landscape as defined by its laws, regulations, tax exemptions, and, in some cases, policies and activities of state executive agencies. As state policymakers and community stakeholders assess their state’s community benefit requirements (or the absence of such requirements) in the wake of national health reform, these tools provide a contextual basis for consideration of these policies and those of other states in comparison to federal community benefit benchmarks.
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.
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.
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.
In a recent article in YES! Magazine –— whose Spring 2013 issue is centered on cooperatives in the new economy — author Amy Dean looks at how the United Steelworkers (USW) union is aiming to use employee-run businesses to create new, middle-class jobs to replace union work that has shifted overseas. Union co-ops differ from other worker-owned co-ops in that they allow worker-owners to appoint a management team and then bargain collectively with management. Citing the Evergreen Cooperatives as a model, USW has started pilot cooperative organizing efforts in Pennsylvania and Ohio, including the Pittsburgh Clean and Green Laundry Cooperative and the Cincinnati Union Cooperative Initiative. The latter already has one co-op up and running — an urban food hub enterprise called Our Harvest.
New book from political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz, the co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, outlines how we can democratize wealth and build a community sustaining economy from the ground up.
This guidebook organized by the California Financial Opportunities Roundtable (CalFOR) identifies roadblocks to and develops recommendations for leveraging existing resources and expanding opportunities for sustainable economic development, job growth and wealth creation. Solutions range from micro-finance to new bonding authorities as well as innovations within traditional investment classes.
Gamaliel’s latest study, Community Organizing As Job Creator, argues that more investment in community organizing leads to multiple economic benefits including job creation and community stabilization. Examining the achievements of the Gamaliel network over the last five years, the study finds that the network directed over $16.6 billion toward infrastructure development, education and transit that created and saved a total of nearly 640,000 jobs. The report is intended not just for community organizers, but also elected officials, businesspeople, government agencies, and any advocate for the common good.
A new report from Good Jobs First shows how state and local governments waste billions of dollars in subsidies used to lure business across state lines while businesses use job creation “blackmail” to demand greater rewards. The result is a shrinking tax base for states, reducing needed resources for education, infrastructure development, and job development as well as unfair job redistribution. After examining the states where these practices are most common and harmful, the authors recommend policies that reduce interstate job competition.Ultimately, the authors call on the federal government to use incentives to curtail these practices.
Reviewing scientific literature, this World Bank report warns that greenhouse gas emissions will lead us to a four degree Celsius global warming in this century. The report outlines a range of risks that a four degree increase could provoke including extreme heat waves, severe droughts and floods, a decline of global food stocks, and a loss of ecosystems and biodiversity — all of which would disproportionately affect the world’s poorest regions and undermine development efforts. The authors contend, however, that a warmer world can be avoided and advocate for mitigation, adaptation, inclusive green growth, and climate-smart development policies.
In a recent paper for the National Center for Employee Ownership, Corey Rosen finds that people who work for employee-owned companies are much less likely to be laid off than those who do not. Analyzing data from the 2010 General Social Survey, Rosen shows that 12.1 percent of all working adults in the private sector reported being laid off in the last year compared to just 2.6 percent of those respondents who says they own stock in their company through some kind of employee ownership plan. Rosen estimates that during that year the implied federal savings from the lower layoff rates of employee owners is $23.3 billion and that the implied savings for ESOPs and stock bonus plans alone is $13.7 billion.
Despite signs of a U.S. economic recovery, CFED’s 2013 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard shows that many Americans are still struggling just to get by. This year’s result finds that nearly half (43.9 percent) of households—or more than 132 million people—are “liquid asset poor.” As a result, they do not have enough assets to provide themselves with a basic personal safety net to protect against an unforeseen crisis, such as unemployment or a medical emergency, or plan for future needs, such as a child’s college education or homeownership. To address this problem, this report highlights measures states have taken to build financial security and increase opportunities in the areas of financial assets and income, businesses and jobs, housing and homeownership, health care, and education.
A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Sustainable Communities examines how communities across the country are integrating smart growth, environmental justice, and equitable development approaches to design and build healthy, sustainable, and inclusive neighborhoods. Author Megan McConville offers a range of examples from low-income, minority, tribal, and overburdened communities that illustrate ways community groups can shape development to better respond to their needs and their values.
Tim Sullivan, Maz Ali, Carlos Perez de Alejo, Brian Miller and Nicole Marin Baena
To mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, United for a Fair Economy outlines how a national history of racially discriminatory policies and practices created the racial wealth divide that exists today. Worse, present policy perpetuates these patterns. This report offers recommendations for housing, ownership, and wealth creation policies that aim to reduce this divide by designing asset building policies that reach those most in need and not just home-buyers and encouraging alternative ownership models that build community, and not just individual, wealth.Included are several case studies that highlight action at the local, state, and regional levels to address racial inequality.
David Zuckerman, with contributions from Holly Jo Sparks, Steve Dubb, and Ted Howard
The Democracy Collaborative’s latest report, Hospitals Building Healthier Communities, provides an in-depth look at six hospitals in five cities that are rethinking their economic and community engagement strategies. These hospitals have recognized that health is more than just treating the patients that come through their doors and are beginning to adopt an “anchor institution mission” that can help build not only more prosperous, but also healthier communities.
The documentary Shift Change, produced by Melissa Young with Mark Dworkin and Moving Images, highlights the Mondragón cooperatives in Spain’s Basque Country, as well as a number of U.S. cooperatives. A recent review points out how the film also shows that operating a successful worker-owned co-op is not always simple. Shift Change, this review notes, presents worker-owned co-op as an attractive, alternative business model — especially in countries hit hard by the global economic crisis— while honestly portraying the challenges of sustaining a successful enterprise.
In an article for the October issue of Shelterforce, James Carr of the Opportunity Agenda cautions that the way the mortgage finance system is rebuilt after our current housing collapse will have a profound effect on the housing market for years to come. Carr argues that a vibrant and healthy housing market is one that offers affordable and equitable homeownership opportunities to all American families as well as quality rental options. While other proposals for a secondary mortgage market would create eligibility hurdles or a dual credit market, Carr calls for a single institution that can pilot innovative products and services and push the envelope on comprehensive community investment as the only means of solving our current housing woes while making the American dream more equitable.
To protect the un-and-under-banked from excessive fees and high-cost predatory lenders, Karen Harris argues that we reinstate the US Postal Savings System.In an article for The Shriver Brief, Harris shows that the now-defunct system once provided safe banking services for immigrants and working people that private banks did not.Citing examples of successful postal banking services in other countries, Harris shows how reinstating such a system in this country could help underserved populations by providing affordable banking services, while giving the Post Office a needed boost in jobs and income.
The International Cooperative Alliance's newly released paper, Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade lays out their “2020 Challenge,” which aims to position the cooperative form of business as the world’s leading model in economic, social, and environmental sustainabilityby the end of the decade.
The Debt Resistors Operations Manual, put together by an anonymous collective of activists from Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street contains practical information, resources and tips for individuals dealing with indebtedness in the United States. Covering all aspects of the debt system — from personal debt to municipal debt — the manual shows how households, cities and countries are controlled by a system of debt.
The fourth in a series from the Center for Responsible Lending, this report examines the economic impact on homeowners living in neighborhoods suffering from foreclosures.Relying on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and Lender Processing Services (LPS) data, the authors find that $1.95 trillion in property value has been lost by residents living in close proximity to foreclosures, over half of that loss is experienced by communities of color, and that families affected by nearby foreclosures have lost, or will lose, more than $21,000 in household wealth by virtue of their proximity. In addition to the immediate financial consequences for families that lose their homes, such as a loss of equity and financial cushion, communities with high rates of foreclosures also suffer long-term consequences, such as a loss of tax revenue and a proliferation of blight.
In a policy memo from the Progressive Policy Institute, Ira Harkavy and Rita Axelroth Hodges of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania call on government to increase its support fo partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education. Given the immense resources available to colleges and universities, these anchor institutions have the potential to ground civic partnerships working to revitalize local communities. To do so, they must change their organizational structures and make civic engagement a core principle across all levels of the institution. The federal government, by targeting existing resources, directing financial incentives and mobilizing the bully pulpit, can help catalyze this shift.
Enterprise Community Partners released this update to its National Mortgage Settlement report which shows that less than half of the $25 billion from the National Mortgage Settlement is being allocated for housing related uses.Researchers Andrew Jakabovics and William McHale found that while the majority of states are directing most, if not all, of their funds toward housing activities, the largest recipients are not. Instead, these states have directed their share to state general funds or left the final use undetermined. Among the states that did allocate their share of funds to housing related uses, most set aside funds for homeowner legal assistance and housing counseling programs. However, they also found that for these states, the actual process of disbursing the funds is more complicated, and lengthier, than might be assumed.
This manual by Minsun Ji of El Centro Humanitario and Tony Robinson of the University of Colorado, Denver, intended for workers (especially immigrant workers) and their advocates, provides detailed information about how to create, finance, manage, and grow worker cooperatives.
Farzana Serang, J. Phillip Thompson and Ted Howard
This report from The Democracy Collaborative and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT focuses on the path-breaking Vision 2010 Program implemented in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio by University Hospitals System. Over a five year period, the initiative targeted more than $1 billion of procurement locally to create jobs, empower minority- and female-owned businesses, and create a “new normal” for responsible, community-focused business practices in the region.
Published by the Center for Community Change, this guide for community organizers provides a broad view of the benefits of worker-owned cooperatives and shows how they align with the goals of grassroots organizing groups. Author Nina Daskur demonstrates how cooperatives uphold the principles of solidarity and democracy that are the foundation of community organizing, and are especially relevant in the current economic and political climate. Intended to lay out both the advantages and challenges of a co-operative business model, the paper profiles worker-owned cooperatives in four different service occupations that are typically characterized by low wages –home health care, child care, food service, and housecleaning –and identifies useable mechanisms that organizers could undertake to help advance alternative ownership in communities.
Good Jobs First and The Iowa Policy Project use statistical analysis to show how policies advocated by the American Legislatives Exchange Council (ALEC) have not only failed to produce positive economic results but have actually resulted in worse outcomes for states. Written by Dr. Peter Fischer, the report finds that ALEC’s proscribed policies to reduce or abolish progressive taxes, weaken unions, invest less in education and public services, and shrink the social safety net to promote job creation and growth have led to economic inequality, wage suppression, income stagnation, and a sharp deduction in state and local revenue needed to maintain public infrastructure and systems.
Greening the Bottom Line, a report from the Sustainable Endowments Institute, highlights the role of green revolving funds —an energy-efficient financing mechanism that colleges, universities, and nonprofits have increasingly adopted as a means to fund sustainability initiatives in their buildings and operations. Authors Emily Flynn and Mark Orlowski show that the cost savings of these funds boost the bottom line for institutions while also replenishing the fund for investment in the next round of green retrofits, thus establishing a sustainable funding cycle.
PolicyLink examines how cities across the United States are adopting urban agriculture as a means to address equity issues in our food system and communities. This report details the benefits of urban agriculture, looks at innovative strategies to overcome common challenges, and offers policy recommendations to ensure equity in the growing movement. It lays out how urban agriculture can improve access to healthier food through innovative distribution, processing, and marketing efforts; improve economic health by creating jobs, attracting new business, and creating savings for families; and improve community health by using vacant or underused urban spaces to create safe, clean outdoor spaces for people to gather.
Robert Hickey, Jeffrey Lubell, Peter Haas and Stephanie Morse
The Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s new report by Robert Hickey and Jeffrey Lubell measures how combined housing and transportation costs burden moderate-income households.Looking at the 25 largest metro areas in the United States and using newly available data, the report finds that the problem has not only gotten worse in the last decade but also that moderate-income households are disproportionately saddled by these heavier costs. Notably, transportation costs vary greatly and influence the overall affordability of metro areas significantly. Moderate-income homeowners also carry heavier cost burden than renters. The report offers policy implications of these trends and highlight promising approaches available to local and state governments that help make the combined costs of place more manageable for moderate-income.
In this report, Reconnecting America focuses on creating complete communities – places where people can live, work, move, and thrive in a healthier, more equitable, and more economically competitive way — and identifies opportunity areas — the places within our cities and regions where we can get a jump-start on this vision.Rating all 366 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas based on indicators in four categories: Living, Working, Moving and Thriving, the authors offer examples of successful policies and strategies for “completing” communities — from zoning changes and suburban retrofits to community benefits agreements.
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy’s (COWS) latest report is the third in a series that looks at what works (and what does not) in the green economy. Author Sarah White argues for a more coherent, cross-sectoral and broad-based approach to developing human capital and greening community economic development that is driven by equity, democratic participation, and sustainability. After reviewing the current gloomy realities of green politics, the report offers a number of possible interventions — highlighting best practices and lessons learned — that bring together workers, employers, industry and training systems in and out of typical clean energy sectors.
The Cleveland Foundation received the HUD Secretary's Award for Community Foundations for their work to catalyze the Evergreen Cooperatives. One of the inaugural ten recipients of this new award that recognizes community foundations for their leadership in housing and community development.
Referencing a variety of studies, this Institute for Local Self-Reliance article argues that residents in areas with a high concentration of small, locally owned business are healthier and more politically engaged than those living in communities dominated by a few big firms. Local ownership increases social capital through community improvement especially in infrastructure, self-sustainability, and social ties. The article calls for grassroots efforts to overhaul giant retailers like Wal-Mart and Target and improve distressed neighborhoods through local ownership.
Released by Next American City, this article highlights the successes and challenges of two CDCs, Midtown Detroit, Inc. and University Circle, Inc. (UCI) of Cleveland. Faced with an unstable community, Midtown, Inc., with a revenue exceeding seven million dollars, partners with local funders, foundations, and city departments to manage over 40 projects, including new construction and rehabilitation of dilapidated infrastructure.UCI (a Cleveland Foundation partner) distributes their three million dollars towards a variety of projects, including a private police force that employs 25 officers and the operation of new bus lines.
Julie Battilana, Matthew Lee, John Walker and Cheryl Dorsey
Stanford Social Innovation Review
This Stanford Social Innovation Review article explores businesses that more fully incorporate a for-profit component to fund a social mission than traditional nonprofit social enterprises. A primary challenge to the hybrid model is the constant tension between mission and market, where the search for more profitable markets may ultimately crowd out the very people the organization is attempting to serve. However, other challenges – and opportunities – exist. This hybrid model has gained increasing notice in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. To date, sector growth has been modest. Nonetheless, Echoing Green, a nonprofit that supports early stage social business development, reports 50 percent of their 3,500 applicants now rely on this hybrid model, up from just 37 percent in 2006.
Published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Low Income Investment Fund, Investing in What Works for America’s Communities is a collection of essays highlighting promising anti-poverty strategies in communities across our nation.
Authored by Rita Axelroth Hodges and Steve Dubb as part of Michigan State University Press' series on Transformations in Higher Education, the book features ten in-depth cases and examines how universities, by pursuing an anchor institution mission to improve surrounding communities in cooperation with community partners, can positively impact the welfare of low-income residents.
The Center for Economic Development (CFED) argues that the federal Head Start program, which offers early education services to nearly one million children and their low-income families, is a logical venue for connecting low-income families and participating teachers with a range of services that foster short term financial security and long-term economic prospects.The Head Start Program works directly with 1,600 local agencies that provide education and social services, such as first-time homebuyer assistance programs and access to individual development accounts, to economically disadvantaged individuals and families.Although 80 percent of Head Start’s funding comes from federal grants, in 2010, 16 states provided an additional $147 million in supplemental funding to allow an additional 17,000 more Head Start-eligible children and families to participate.
The Urban Strategies Council June 2012 report seeks to answer the question, “what happened to the homes that have gone through foreclosure in Oakland?” Field surveys of the properties owned by Oakland’s two largest foreclosure investors found that 93 percent of properties acquired by investors were located in low-income neighborhoods, that only ten of the top 30 foreclosure investors in Oakland are actually based in Oakland, and that 81 percent of the 10,508 completed foreclosures (since 2007) ended up being owned by banks or other financial institutions. Consequently, this spike in non-local ownership and non-owner occupied housing present concerns for asset building in low-income neighborhoods. The report recommends that banks and Government Sponsored Enterprises improve their first-look programs to give owner-occupant buyers and nonprofits priority to obtain foreclosure holdings.
Released in July 2012 by the Applied Research Center, this report highlights the struggle for good food and good jobs as a key facet of the movement for racial and economic justice. More than 110 million people in the U.S. suffer from “dangerously” unhealthy diets – nearly two-thirds of who are African American and Latino. Additionally, 40 million Americans lack food security as a result of poverty, with African American and Latinos representing more than half. To improve access to productive jobs and healthy food, the author advocates that community-labor alliances must support two main sectors: small and medium sized food manufactures that produce ethnic cuisines without violating labor laws and state and local governments that purchase locally produced food.
The National Employment Law Project (NELP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to tracking the current economic recovery in terms of unemployment, wages, occupational, and industry growth patterns, released a new report in August of 2012, Low-Wage Recovery and Growing Inequality. The report finds that employment losses from 2008 to 2010 were concentrated in mid-wage occupations. However, the new jobs from 2010 to 2012 have been concentrated to lower wage occupations, which grew almost three times as fast as mid-wage and higher wage occupations. The report shows that the United States not only has a job deficit, but a “good jobs” deficit.
This report, sponsored by Co-operative Education Trust Scotland, introduces employee ownership and uses case studies to demonstrate how co-operatives have not only survived and performed better than investor-owned businesses in the most recent economic crisis but through the last 200 years of social and economic turbulence.One example, the Co-operative Bank, created in 1872, is Britain’s largest consumer cooperative with over 350 branches, more than six million customers, and operating revenue of £108.6 million in the first half of 2011. The bank continues to increase its profitability, and credits its success to its customer-led ethical policy, which has resulted in the withholding of more than one billion pounds in funding to businesses that violate the policy.
PolicyLink, partnering with the University of California’s School of Public Health, released this paper, which promotes participatory research as a critical component for community-driven effort to improve health and foster policy-level change.Drawing on eight best practices from around the country and from six case studies from California, the paper demonstrates how community-based participatory research (CBPR) works to improve community well being. One promising CBPR practice is asset identification, where communities identify and validate their own strengths and capabilities to better address community problems or concerns.
The National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement
In this report, the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement challenges America’s universities to embrace their responsibility to rebuild and renew civic learning and democratic engagement.A national student assessment found that students’ perception of whether their university promoted awareness of important social, political, and economic issues declined from an already low 45 percent of first year students to just 38 percent of fourth year students.The Task Force calls for colleges across America to expand education services to hone students’ civic knowledge, skills, values, and actions that will prepare them for lives and careers as public servants.If universities embrace reciprocal partnerships with communities, socially responsible businesses, and governmental agencies, their research, teaching, and learning can benefit students and the community, while replenishing civic capital.
