New from The Democracy Collaborative
|
|
|
This new guidebook provides resources for community development practitioners to employ broad-based ownership strategies. As the first in the Inclusive Economies series, funded by Citi Community Development, it discusses employee stock ownership plan companies, worker-owned cooperatives, community development financial institutions, social enterprise, municipal ownership, and emerging hybrids. Each section includes best practices and discusses opportunities to link these strategies to inclusive community economic development.
|
|
|
This month, we interview Aaron Tanaka, co-founder of the Center for Economic Democracy and senior advisor to the Boston Impact Initiative (BII). With a background in community organizing and economic development, Aaron also served as the founding executive director of the Boston Workers Alliance, where he helped build a nationally recognized non-profit that combines grassroots policy advocacy with cooperative business development in Boston’s low-income communities of color. Aaron also worked as the lead organizer in Boston’s groundbreaking, youth-led participatory budgeting process.
|
|
|
Impact to Last: Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Enterprise
The Evergreen Cooperatives, a network of worker-owned cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio that employ around 110 people, was recently profiled in Impact to Last: Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Enterprise, a series of case-studies published by REDF. The report describes a multi-stakeholder, place-based strategy developed to create jobs and wealth building opportunities in some of Cleveland’s most severely disinvested neighborhoods. It also offers lessons learned, ranging from developing management structures to aligning democratically-owned business with efficient business operations.
Read the case study now
|
|
Making the Case for Linking Community Development and Health
Despite growing recognition that social and economic conditions are the primary drivers of health, the fields of community development and public health remain siloed. This new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Build Healthy Places Network outlines specific opportunities to integrate the two fields and overcome barriers to collaboration. It also includes recommendations on how to measure the impact of cross-sector collaborations and refine programs accordingly.
Read the full report
|
|
|
A Report by the Post Carbon Institute
In this paper David Lerch, Publications Director of the Post Carbon Institute and founding chair of the Sustainable Communities Division of the American Planning Association, offers a new framework for community resiliency. The “ability of a community to maintain and evolve its identity in the face of both short-term and long-term changes while cultivating environmental, social, and economic sustainability,” Lerch asserts, has six foundations—people, systems thinking, adaptability, transformability, sustainability, and courage. He draws on both ecological resilience science and local experience to demonstrate how communities can develop processes which allow them to make sense of complex challenges, build regenerative capacity, sense emerging risks, respond to new challenges, and adapt.
Read the full report
|
|
Best Local Government Practices that Advance Racial Equity in Government Contracting and Procurement
This new issue brief from the Local and Regional Government Alliance on Race & Equity (GARE) discusses the importance of equitable contracting within government procurement policy, strategy, and regulation. It describes structural barriers in business development and offers strategies to address inequities, such as sub-contracting, bid discounts, loan programs, and mentoring programs. The report draws from the experiences of GARE members who are fostering cultural change, building capacity, developing comprehensive approaches, and expanding inclusive procurement systems.
Read the issue brief
|
|
|
Launched in 2015 by the non-profit organization B Lab and the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Best for NYC helps businesses measure and improve their impact on workers and the surrounding community. It provides best practice toolkits in addition to a free assessment tool that allows users to compare how their company ranks in comparison to other New York based businesses. Taking just 20 minutes to complete, users are then able to create an action plan to improve their performance. Learn more at http://bestfor.nyc/
|
|
|
Founded in 1998, the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) now has over 1,100 members and is the largest network of social entrepreneurs and social enterprise practitioners in the United States. In addition to convening an annual summit focused on integrating social missions into for-profit activities, the SEA maintains a “Knowledge Center” with over 20,000 publications related to social enterprise. The site also hosts a Jobs & Events board and an online marketplace. Learn more at https://socialenterprise.us/
|
|
|
|
|
|
