We engage with communities and institutions to connect them with innovative strategies, models and training to build community wealth in their neighborhoods.
We build knowledge and leadership for the community wealth building field with cutting-edge research and analysis.
We promote & communicate our vision and engage in collaborative partnerships to co-create the community wealth building field.
We work to raise awareness of the need for systemic change, designing models that better realize fundamental values of equality, democracy, and sustainability.
It is easy to be distracted by what passes for economic news these days, focused as it is on short-term fluctuations and assurances of recovery and revitalization. The simple truth, however, is that year by year, decade by decade, life in the United States is steadily growing ever more unequal.
As cities wrestle with the growing challenge of wealth inequality, more and more leaders are looking to broad-based ownership models as tools to create jobs and build community wealth. These models are highly effective, with a positive impact for low- and moderate-income individuals and communities. This report looks at six such models—ESOPs, Worker Cooperatives, CDFIs, Social Enterprises, Municipal Ownership, and Emerging Hybrids—with examples of best practices, and explores how these models can be used in community economic development.
On June 13 and 14, 2016 in Washington, DC, many of the nation’s leading experts in employee ownership, sustainable business and finance, community and economic development, and philanthropy came together in a Learning + Design session. Co-hosts for the meeting were Marjorie Kelly and Jessica Bonanno of The Democracy Collaborative and Camille Kerr of Democracy at Work Institute. The purpose of the session was to discuss how to achieve unprecedented scale of employee ownership by focusing on achieving an audacious goal: 50 million U.S. employee-owners by 2050. This report summarizes and expands upon the June meeting:
Our new Learning/Action Lab program helps amplify local capacity to deploy new strategies for building wealth in low-income communities, connecting grassroots leaders with the models and best practices they need for transformative economic development. Our first cohort of Lab participants is bringing together five Native organizations for ongoing training and consultation as they develop new community-owned enterprises.
Our executive director outlines how community wealth building can help empower marginalized communities. Read more about PolicyLink's Angela Glover Blackwell interviews Ted Howard...
Our co-founder Gar Alperovitz sketches out the major institutions of a systemic alternative based in plural forms of democratic ownership, oriented around community at various scales—what he has called “The Pluralist Commonwealth.” Visit thenextsystem.org for more resources and information.
Read more about The Pluralist Commonwealth...
This new working paper from The Next System Project—prepared as an invited contribution to the "After Fossil Fuels: The New Economy" conference in Oberlin, Ohio from October 6-8, 2016—explores the intersections of systemic economic and ecological crisis, and propose that only a break with the mechanisms of corporate capitalism is capable of guaranteeing a sustainable future.
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.
How can cities redeploy their economic development resources to focus on building a more inclusive economy grounded in broad, local ownership? How can policymakers get strategies like worker cooperative development the support and resources needed to reach truly meaningful scale? How can collaborations between communities, local government, and key institutional stakeholders build pathways to economic equity for the people left behind by the traditional trickle-down economic playbook? Read more about Municipal leaders share visions for cities that build community wealth...
Our Community-Wealth.org site is an essential resource for practitioners and policy makers working to build community wealth. For almost a decade, our site has served as a central clearinghouse for key research and reports from the field, cutting across traditional community development silos and offering a comprehensive guide to local wealth building strategies.
With income inequality in the United States at record high levels, employee ownership is increasingly being lauded as a potential solution to spreading wealth more broadly. Most recently, research from the National Center for Employee Ownership released in May shows that employee owners have a household net worth that is 92 percent higher than non-employee owners. They also make 33 percent higher wages, and are far less likely to be laid off...read more
While advocates for the federal infrastructure for inclusive community development have been justifiably alarmed at the White House's draconian budget proposal, which outlines severe cuts to or wholesale elimination of programs with demonstrated beneficial impact for the our country's most economically marginalized communities, the real decisions about which programs will be funded and at what levels will be made in the Appropriations committees in the House and Senate. Read more about Mapping the appropriations process that will decide the fate of federal support for inclusive community development...
Donald Trump will not be president forever, but in his time in office he can do substantial damage in many areas of American life. As one donor told us, "We risk having 40 years of progress in community development unraveled in the next 18 months."
Principally, that’s because the new administration, along with Republican congressional leaders, is targeting federal spending on social programs and community development — a major bulwark against the consequences of generational poverty and ever-growing wealth inequality. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at risk.
Philanthropy, which awards about $60 billion in grants annually, cannot possibly meet this shortfall. But it can help ensure that when the political winds change, as they inevitably will, the pieces are in place for a progressive agenda. One key way to do this is to support innovative local and regional programs that can be expanded nationally when the opening occurs.
Ted Howard, co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative in the USA, gives a speech at Labour's New Economics Conference in Newcastle...watch the video Read more about Ted Howard Speech at Labour New Economics Conference...
After much speculation, President Trump’s Budget Blueprint for fiscal year 2018, which begins this coming October 1st, has now officially been released. The plan proposes cuts of $54 billion from domestic discretionary funding to enable a corresponding increase in military spending. Read more about Cataloguing the potential damage to inclusive community development in the Trump budget...
In December 2016, leaders from 40 health systems gathered in Washington, DC to explore the potential to more fully harness their economic power to inclusively and sustainably benefit the long-term well-being of American communities. Together, they discussed best practices and strategies to advance the Anchor Mission of healthcare.
At the conclusion of the convening, the Healthcare Anchor Network was formed to support health systems collaborating nationally to accelerate learning and local implementation of economic inclusion strategies.
This report summarizes the events of that convening and next steps, inviting your hospital or health system to join the Network and help advance the Anchor Mission of healthcare in your institution, in your community, and nationally.
I started helping mission-driven entrepreneurs raise capital almost ten years ago. My clients have collectively raised almost $20 million, with amounts ranging from $150,000 to $4 million.
About two years ago, I was compiling a list of the clients that I had helped to raise money. At that time, I could honestly say that every client that I had worked through the whole process with (i.e. if I excluded those that changed their minds and didn’t complete the process) had met their fundraising goals. Some took longer than others, but all of them had eventually reached their goals. Read more about I Can’t Keep Silent about this Anymore: Women and Capital Raising...
We asked Justine Porter to share how a volunteer-driven effort convened a powerful community wealth building summit in Poughkeepsie, New York.
