Outside the U.S.

This new guide, published by the UK’s Co-Operative Party, outlines the steps needed to develop a community wealth building ecosystem. Aimed at local officials and public-sector institutions, the guide provides information on these steps, from developing leadership to shifting procurement, a background on community wealth building, a case study of this approach in Preston, England, and recommendations for actions localities can take. 

This paper draws on a range of relevant literature as well as the authors’ previous practical experience to provide a preliminary overview of underlying concepts. Further it begins to cast a critical eye on the roles and responsibilities within measurement, making more explicit the subjective interpretation of social and environmental return (SER) by investors, and the clash of suppositions taken from other older measurement traditions. In doing so, the paper investigates some of the tensions around breadth of coverage, participation and objectivity, rigour and flexibility, attribution of impact, and the very concept of ‘a return’ itself which currently surround practical measurement. 

In this context, the paper shows how measurement does not yet appear to have found a pragmatic, participative, systematic way forward, and concludes by identifying key research areas that need to be addressed to advance knowledge in this field. Further empirical data collection and analysis will be undertaken in a subsequent series of papers to be published. 

Krystian Seibert writes in Probono Australia in "Community-Led Economic Regeneration – What Can We Learn From Cleveland, Ohio?" Probono Australia highlights the needs and lessons from the Evergreen Coops...

The surprising US presidential election result has been met with an avalanche of analysis over what led to Donald Trump’s shock victory. One reason, which has popped up over and over again, is that segments of the “working class” in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania felt “left behind” by the economic system and that Trump’s victory was partly a backlash against economic inequality and dislocation in the US.

States such as Ohio and Pennsylvania were once centres of industry, but in many parts of these states, factories have shut down and thousands of jobs have gone with them, some overseas.

Globalisation has led to economic growth in the United States – but this growth and its associated employment has been uneven and often concentrated in places that can seize the opportunities of the “new economy”. We hear a lot about the rise of Silicon Valley, but while it has been booming, many parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania have been going bust.

Read more in Probono Australia