The former CEO of a leading UK economic think tank will be central in helping build capacity to offer powerful new technical assistance to cities and local authorities pursuing community wealth building strategies.

The Next System Project is an initiative of the Democracy Collaborative, which has long been showcasing the best research and strategic thinking about “visions, models and pathways that point to a ‘next system’ radically different in fundamental ways from the failed systems of the past and present

This moment presents us with a number of opportunities to reset our democratic conversation, reconstruct our politics, rebuild our communities, and reprioritise and re-value the public sphere…The goal is simple but transformative: a deep and purposeful reorganisation of our economy so that it is

Blue Tent’s Eoin Higgins features the work and mission of The Democracy Collaborative in his piece “The Democracy Collaborative Is On a 30-Year-Plan for Changing the Economy”. “There’s a lot of worker ownership and community development in different parts of the state,” said Alperovitz. “Our goal is

“A diverse coalition of more than 600 labor, environmental, racial justice, and faith-based organizations delivered a letter Wednesday urging President-elect Joe Biden and his administration to enact a nationwide moratorium on utility disconnections on day one in the White House, stressing that

WFPL reports that nonprofit REBOUND, Inc., has taken the first steps create a Community Land Trust in Louisville, KT. The nonprofit could be awarded up to $2.1 million in federal Community Development Block Grants, which would be used to build, rehabilitate or acquire 10+ homes in neighborhoods that

We cannot return to business as usual and we must resist at all costs a doubling down on neoliberalism that has pushed us beyond ecological limits and led us down a path of wealth extraction, inequality, poverty and precariousness. The on-the-ground solutions and experiments around bold alternatives

A plan for local economy preservation funds that would “save local businesses at scale” that would otherwise be casualties of the economic damage done by the CIVID-19 epidemic was delivered on November 19, 2020 to the Biden-Harris transition team by The Democracy Collaborative and the Council of

The Healthcare Anchor Network (HAN) convened the “Anchoring Resilience: Aligning Supply Chains and Impact Purchasing for Community Health” summit to spark collaboration in the healthcare sector around onshoring and localizing production of PPE and other supplies, with an emphasis on equity, sustainability, and supply chain resilience.

Democracy Collaborative vice president Joe Guinan, who is also a contributing editor at Renewal, talks to Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite about the outcome of the US election, the unfolding crises of COVID-19, the openings for a transformative political economy and the strategies he would like to see

The United Kingdom town of Preston and the development cooperative Stir to Action have launched a groundbreaking community wealth building initiative to increase Black, Asian, and minority ethnic representation in the cooperative sector.

Prioritizing local and minority-owned suppliers can help create jobs in the community. Well‑paying jobs bring health insurance which encourages more preventative care. The Democracy Collaborative has developed a toolkit for exploring other case studies on employment initiatives and how different

[Community wealth building] must realise its potential to develop institutions and build a new ecosystem rooted in participation and ownership by the community that will ensure a power base for long-term sustainability. To do so the movement needs to be properly resourced and supported, both in

[Cleveland] boasted very large quasi-public institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals – known as anchor institutions because they are rooted in place and aren’t likely to up and leave. Together these three institutions had a combined spending

“Obviously, there is somewhat of a tension between one group seeking for housing to be affordable, which means low prices, and another group seeking continuing investment return, which requires not just high prices but continually increasing prices,” says Peter Gowan, policy associate at the policy

In an article in Red Pepper, Joe Guinan of The Democracy Collaborative argues that “following major defeats, the left on both sides of the Atlantic must urgently get stuck into community organising, movement building and political education.” It’s time to get concrete and specific about political

“It is unconscionable that Congress has failed to provide relief to the people of the United States for months, while continuing to roll out corporate bailouts programs. Our essential workers deserve access to PPE, we need our Postal Service now more than ever to help us deliver a fair election, and

Mercy Health highlighted their commitment to the Healthcare Anchor Network and anchor mission work in an opinion piece in The Cincinnati Enquirer. “In November 2019, Bon Secours Mercy Health (BSMH) was one of several leading health systems across the country announcing its commitment to the

The Community Wealth Summit was a week of virtual learning and place-based organizing to rebuild local economies around shared ownership and racial justice that started on July 6, 2020. In the opening session, Ted Howard, the president of The Democracy Collaborative; Dayna Cunningham, executive

Steve Roach, interim president for HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital, highlights the Healthcare Anchor Network’s role helping the hospital pursue its Anchor Mission work of investing in the local community. “Our commitment to community health is exemplified by our work with Anchor Mission initiative

An important shift brought about by the community wealth building movement is towards regionalizing and localizing financial flows and keeping money in communities through initiatives such as local currencies and community banks. This is now rapidly catching on in the UK.

In June 2018 The Laura Flanders Show released a special report, “Building the Democratic Economy, from Preston to Cleveland ,” co-produced with The Democracy Collaborative. The documentary features the exciting trajectory of a new model of inclusive, democratic local economic development in what had

The “Preston Model” is helping inspire a new conversation about the role of local government in catalyzing locally-driven economic revitalization and transforming patterns of ownership towards democratic alternatives.

COVID-19 has created economic hardships that have created severe business challenges for local small businesses, but broad based participant ownership structures could be the solution to supporting these local businesses. Schneider writes, “[B]ack in 2018, President Trump (whether knowingly or not)

Part of ensuring the recovery from the COVID-19 economic slowdown works for everyone, not just the richest, could take the form of a state holding company with a mandate to support struggling businesses directly and to prevent the emergence of an “Amazon recovery.”

The Democracy Collaborative prepared a report, created for the Healthcare Anchor Network, that looked at how racial and ethnic disparities in the economy are showing up in the COVID-19 pandemic and in the public policy response to the pandemic. The report also covers how the economic effects of the pandemic will likely impact racial and ethnic inequality.

The council recently launched its Community Wealth Building (CWB) strategy which sets out how the council and other ‘anchor’ organisations – including NHS Ayrshire & Arran, Ayrshire College and wider partners – will work in partnership with communities and businesses to build a strong economy which

Local economies are being decimated in the COVID-19 pandemic. By this point, every community has stories about a business that has closed and won’t re-open and friends and family members who have been laid off. As the economic shutdown continues, large numbers of local businesses face bankruptcy and

Community wealth building and democratic, pluralistic ownership of the economy are crucial to any fair reconstruction programme after the Covid-19 crisis, says a report. UK thinktank the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) worked with US organisation the Democracy Collaborative (TDC) on the

COVID-19 is bringing a new level of attention to the deadly effect of health inequities in our country, particularly the disparate impact on people of color, immigrants, low-wage service workers and those without access to health care. We need to deepen a national conversation and accelerate action

Earlier this year Hartlepool Borough Council put forward initial work exploring what a local community wealth-building strategy would look like for the town. The approach, which was developed initially by the Democracy Collaborative in the USA, aims to ensure the economic system builds wealth and

The COVID-19 pandemic could become a moment of crystallization, with communities and governments working together to build a genuinely inclusive economy. But to do so, we need ambitious interventions, both at the national level and at the level of a new common sense, built upward from community.

The post COVID-19 world must usher in a new era of community wealth building, according to a think tank. The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has today (20 April) published two papers, which outline a number of measures to help build a new democratic economy, once the pandemic subsides

At a time when businesses pivot from making booze to hand sanitizer, and from sewing t-shirts to facemasks, we look at the cities that have already successfully re-localized industry. Amid the grim reality of COVID-19, one of the rare feel-good storylines has been a local business that changes its

COVID-19 is a combined health and economic crisis poised to further devastate rural communities already suffering severe economic stress. Already, rural health care systems are strained by the outbreak, and workers across the country are facing increasing precarity as the crisis unfolds. The

Stephanie Gutierrez discusses the community wealth building collaboration between the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation and The Democracy Collaborative. For the Lakota people of the Plains, ‘wealth’ has always meant to live by our virtues in order to have a happy, well-balanced life

Introduction: The Kigoma-Preston Collaboration Deepening inequality and “jobless growth” are global trends, raising concerns about a dominant economic system that concentrates wealth in relatively few hands. One response is to advocate tax-and-spend redistribution, a retrospective attempt to correct

The Democracy Collaborative today introduced Hospitals Aligned for Healthy Communities, a toolkit series to help health systems use their hiring, purchasing and investing power to improve the health and well-being of underserved communities and communities of color. Inclusive, Local Hiring: Building the Pipeline to a Healthy Community is the first installment in the series, developed with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Laura Newberry reports from Springfield, MA to highlight a case study shown in Democracy Collaborative’s report, Educate and Empower: Tools for Building Community Wealth: The city’s burgeoning network of worker-owned cooperatives, Wellspring Collaborative, is getting some street cred for its work

This report, prepared by The Democracy Collaborative and submitted to Cooperation Jackson, highlights opportunities to build a cooperative economy in Jackson, Mississippi linked to anchor institution procurement.

This report draws upon practical experience accumulated over the years in many areas and proposes a strategic approach to integrate, expand, and coordinate a powerful array of activities focused on promoting community wealth building in the nation’s distressed communities. Or, to put it more simply