Dear Colleague,

In light of recent developments such as the newly released White House budget, we have redesigned our Rolling Back Inclusion tracker to capture attempts to dismantle the Federal infrastructure that supports community and economic development. Our hope is to bring light to the programs and agencies that might not receive regular coverage, but are critical supports for poverty reduction, job creation, affordable housing and providing much needed capital to disinvested communities. In furtherance of this, Executive Vice President and Senior Fellow Marjorie Kelly has written about how proposed corporate tax cuts threaten incentives that promote employee ownership and community development in Rooflines; Research Assistant Kaylee Thornley has catalogued specific proposed agency cuts that would threaten community and economic development; and Research Director Thomas Hanna discussed the effects of cuts on regional efforts to combat poverty with a reporter from Yes! Magazine.

Even as we work to defend important Federal programs, we must also look to the future and begin to build a stronger foundation for equity, inclusion, and democratic ownership. In a new Chronicle of Philanthropy op-ed, Democracy Collaborative co-founder and co-chair of the Next System Project Gar Alperovitz and I outline how funders can invest in the new “laboratories of democracy” to support innovative and scalable, local and regional wealth building models. The Next System Project also released a forward looking policy brief, written by Ellen Brown, Democracy Collaborative fellow and founder and president emeritus of the Public Banking Institute, which details how an alternative approach to funding and financing infrastructure could generate prosperity for many rather than the few. Read more below. Thomas Hanna discusses  this plan and America’s desperate need for infrastructure investment in In These Times. 

Another powerful path forward can be seen in the growing number of anchor institutions committed to addressing inequity and reinvesting in communities. YES! Magazine has published an article that discusses efforts by two of the health systems featured in our Hospitals Aligned for Healthy Communities toolkit series, including Johns Hopkins, which recently released a report on the first year of their HopkinsLocal initiative. I am also pleased to share a report from the West Side Total Health Collaborative, a new initiative looking to channel anchor institution resources towards community health improvement on the west side of Chicago. Many of these examples are drawing inspiration from Cleveland’s Greater University Circle Initiative and Evergreen Cooperatives, which continue to develop and prosper. Recent local news coverage details how Green City Growers is providing living-wage jobs and a path to ownership for Cleveland residents. Read more about The Democracy Collaborative’s work scaling employee ownership below.

Many of the issues facing our communities are not new, nor are they unique to the U.S. Thomas Hanna and Executive Director of the Next System Project Joe Guinan discuss this larger global context and the systemic nature of our current political crises in an article in Renewal. During my recent trip to the UK, I met with local government officials working to address similar histories of community disinvestment and I was able to share with them many of our experiences and lessons learned. Read a synthesis of my trip on the Co-operative Party’s website. This article in The Guardian and accompanying video provide a useful overview of some of the developments on the ground in the UK, and how they've adapted the Cleveland model. 

With the upcoming People’s Climate March, it is exciting to see the growing intersections between broad-based ownership and climate justice. The Democracy Collaborative has now released re-designed print copies of our “energy democracy” card deck, and I am also pleased to share that Next System Project Research Associate Carla Santos has been awarded a Climate Strategies Accelerator fellowship and will join a select cohort of climate change thought leaders who are building out ideas to reduce our planet’s dependence on oil. Finally, I would like to welcome two new Research Fellows: Alexander Heaton will be researching public banking and Devin Case-Ruchala will research the past, present, and future of the Community Reinvestment Act.

Sincerely,
Ted Howard
President & Co-Founder
The Democracy Collaborative