| |
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to our latest www.Community-Wealth.org e-newsletter. This quarter we
bring you the following new developments:
- For the past year, we've reported on our work with The Cleveland
Foundation and our anchor institution partners in the Greater University
Circle Initiative, a path-breaking program to create green collar jobs
and ownership opportunities for residents of some of Cleveland's most
underserved neighborhoods. We are pleased to report that this month the
doors will open on the first cooperatively owned business that has been
created through the Initiative – the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry. The greenest
industrial-scale commercial laundry in Northeast Ohio, ECL will clean
over 10 million pounds of health care bed linen a year, and will employ
50 worker-owners when fully operational. Several other new businesses
are in the pipeline. To learn more about the Evergreen strategy, see our
article in this summer's Yes! Magazine and listen to a recent public radio story highlighting
Cleveland's innovative job creation strategy.
- The Democracy Collaborative recently participated in one of ten task
forces that have advised HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan regarding critical
issues facing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The
work resulting from these efforts, Anchor Institutions as Partners in Building Successful
Communities and Local Economies, examines the role the federal
government might play to leverage anchor institutions for community
benefit. In March, our colleague Ira Harkavy of the Netter Center for
Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania outlined the
task force's recommendations to the Secretary. In June, the
Congressional Urban Caucus held a briefing on the report.
- This month, we feature the eleventh interview in our continuing
series of conversations with community wealth-building leaders. This
edition: Dan Kildee, Treasurer of
Genesee County and Founder and CEO of the Land Bank of Genesee County,
based in Flint, Michigan. Land banks in Flint, Cleveland, and elsewhere
are playing a vital role in addressing the national foreclosure
crisis.
- We also profile our sixteenth community wealth city: Los Angeles, California.
As always, we have added dozens of new links, articles, reports, and
other materials to the site. Look for this symbol *NEW* to find the most recent additions.
And don't forget to view our regularly updated C-W Blog.
  Ted Howard
Executive Director, The Democracy
Collaborative
 Turning the Economic Crisis into
an Opportunity
The Summer 2009 issue of Yes! magazine focuses on
alternative strategies and models for organizing work and business in the
United States — from small community banks and local currencies to worker
owned companies in the South Bronx and Cleveland. Writes Executive Editor
Sarah Van Gelder, "As the financial system continues to crumble, a new
economy is taking form.
"Our friends at Yes! are offering special discounted subscriptions
to readers of Community-Wealth.org. To take advantage of this great deal,
click here.
Book Profiles
Localist Movements in Global Economy
Even as economies move
increasingly towards globalization, there has been a relatively unnoticed
but equally strong movement towards local economies. Largely unstudied,
these "localist movements" are the focus of David Hess' new book, Localist
Movements in a Global Economy. Hess examines localism in the United States
and its potential for promoting social justice and environmental
sustainability. After a broad discussion of specific types of localism,
such as "buy local" campaigns and urban agriculture, Hess concludes that
although localism is not the answer to globalization, it is an important
factor in building a more democratic, just, and sustainable politics.
See:
www.mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11802
 Social Enterprise
Practitioners Develop Guide for Double-Bottom
Line Ventures
The
newest book in the Social Venture Network series, Mission, Inc.: The
Practitioner's Guide to Social Enterprise is a how-to-guide to starting
and running a successful social enterprise. Authored by social enterprise
leaders Kevin Lynch and Julius Walls Jr., this guide surveys more than
twenty social enterprise leaders and addresses many operational obstacles
they face, including the difficulty of balancing an organization's social
mission and efficiency. See:
www.bkconnection.com/ProdDetails.asp?ID=9781576754795
Report Calls on Obama Administration To Put the "UD" Back
in HUD
 Comprised of reports by ten
tasks forces led by Paul C. Brophy and Rachel D. Godsil, Retooling HUD for
a Catalytic Federal Government: A Report to Secretary Shaun Donovan offers
a blueprint for how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) can address critical issues, repositioning itself in the 21st
century and ultimately advancing the agency's mission and the public good.
Primary among these tasks is putting the "UD" back in HUD, which requires
a shift away from an exclusive emphasis on affordable housing to an
approach that balances housing work with programs that can address broader
issues of metropolitan revitalization and redevelopment. Among the topics
examined are anchor institution-based strategies for economic development,
vacant property reclamation, greening the nation's housing stock and ways
to promote regional collaboration.
report-brophy-godsil.pdf (5MB)
 CDFI Develops Unique
Model for Maine's Native American Community
Founded in 2001, Four
Directions is Maine's first and only Native American community development
financial institution (CDFI). This article explains how Four Directions,
committed to the principles of tribal self-determination and cooperation,
is uniquely positioned to understand the nuances – legal and cultural — of
the community it serves while filling the need created by the absence of
conventional lenders.
article-moore.pdf (220KB)
Should the United States Create Its Own Sovereign Wealth
Fund?
In this article, Dalton Conley, Chair of Sociology at New
York University—and the only sociologist ever to receive the National
Science Foundation's Alan Waterman award (awarded annually to the nation's
top scientist under the age of 35) — argues that the United States should
follow the lead of China, Norway, and Singapore, and create its own
sovereign wealth fund. Joining the global arena of sovereign wealth funds
- whose total combined assets are around $2.4 trillion - would not only
better leverage U.S. federal assets, but would also help boost the
national savings rate and provide an important funding base for socially
responsible investment.
article-conley.pdf (100KB)
 Neighborhood Stabilization
Program Expands Potential for Land Banking
With the creation of the
Neighborhood Stabilization Program in the Housing and Economic Recovery
Act of 2008, Congress addressed for the first time the problem of vacant
property in U.S. communities. In this article, Emory University Law
Professor Frank Alexander explains land-banking basics and its community
benefits. By bringing a rational approach to public land management, land
banks help stabilize local neighborhoods and enable community plans to
guide its use, instead of allowing vacant land to become a speculative
commodity on national and international markets.
article-alexander.pdf (175KB)
CDFI Leader Urges Arts Investment in the Wake of the Financial
Crisis
Speaking before the Association of Performing Arts
Presenters, Jeremy Nowak, President of The Reinvestment Fund, a community
development loan fund based in Philadelphia, discussed the "debt bubble"
that caused the financial crisis, and how this crisis impacts the creative
sector of the economy and civil society. In order to successfully prevail
through this economic crisis, the creative sector needs greater
collaboration, a more defined core mission, and to reaffirm its economic
importance. Most important to Nowak, the creative arts must help to
provide a counter-balance to the kind of consensus logic that nearly
brought down our economic system.
article-nowak09.pdf (80KB)
 National Survey Examines
Neighborhood Stabilization Program Efforts
The Neighborhood
Stabilization Program (NSP) in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of
2008 allocated $3.92 billion to 306 state and local governments for the
purchase and redevelopment of foreclosed homes, blighted structures, and
vacant land, but allocations were contingent on each locale producing the
required action plan. Due to time constraints, few states or local
governments collaborated or discussed strategies, resulting in plans that
varied significantly in their vision and detail. This Enterprise report
analyzes 87 of these NSP action plans, identifying potential best
practices and providing a qualitative analysis of fund distribution and
allocation.
report-sheldon-et-al.pdf (1.7MB)
Growing Co-op Sector Now Exceeds $3 Trillion in
Assets
Surveying more than 16,000 cooperatives nationally, this
report from the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives provides
an in-depth look at the scope of U.S. cooperatives' economic activity and
their impact on the lives and businesses of American citizens. Overall,
the authors found that nearly 30,000 cooperatives operate at 73,000 places
of business throughout the United States, owning more than $3 trillion in
assets, while generating $650 billion in revenue and $75 billion in wages
and benefits. Americans maintain 350 million memberships in cooperatives
(340 million in consumer cooperatives) and generate nearly $80 billion in
total impact from patronage refunds and dividends.
report-deller-et-al.pdf (800MB)
 Youngstown, Ohio Develops New
Vision for Reclaiming Vacant Land
Stressing the importance of
vacant property reclamation as a first step in stabilizing and restoring
neighborhoods, this National Vacant Properties Campaign (NVPC) policy
assessment was prepared for the Youngstown-Mahoning County Vacant
Properties Initiative. Evaluating existing vacant property programs and
policies in Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, this report offers
specific recommendations, including instituting a regional real property
information system and establishing a joint city-county land bank, to help
address the negative impact of vacant property in the city and region.
report-kildee-et-al.pdf (1.4MB)
C-W.ORG INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY
BUILDERS: |
 Dan Kildee has been
Treasurer of Genesee County of Michigan since 1997. He is the Founder and
CEO of the Genesee Land Bank - Michigan's first land bank - and is
President of the Genesee Institute, a research and training institute
focusing on smart growth, urban land reform, and land banking. In this
C-W.org Interview, Kildees discusses the state of the economy in his
hometown of Flint, the state of land banking in the United States, land
banking policy objectives, and current challenges faced by reclamation
activists operating in the context of the nation's record wave of
foreclosures.
interview-kildee.pdf (200KB)
 The sixteenth in our continuing series
of profiles of Community Wealth Cities: Los Angeles, California. Los
Angeles is home to some of the nation's leading community development
corporations; it is also known for innovation in other areas, including
university-community partnerships and transit-oriented development.
Organized labor has played a major role in the community wealth building
efforts in Los Angeles, leading the development of community benefit
agreements - contracts between a developer and a coalition of community
groups and unions that generates mutual cooperation instead of
conflict.
Summit Aims to Extend Social Enterprise in New Directions
More than 350 people from
across the United States and beyond came to the tenth Summit of the Social
Enterprise Alliance, held April 15-17 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The
conference served as the launching pad for a broad-ranging discussion on
many themes, including the current economic crisis, potential policy
openings for social enterprise, and expanding the definition of social
enterprise to include a broader range of socially oriented ventures.
article-dubb-sea.pdf (110KB)
Conference Promotes Innovation in Community Development
Strategy
The Federal
Reserve Bank of St. Louis's second biennial conference on "Exploring
Innovation," held April 22-24 in St. Louis, Missouri brought together over
100 community development practitioners, researchers, bankers, and
government officials to examine ways to develop new community development
strategies. At the conference, a number of the plenary session highlighted
innovations in community development policy and practice.
article-dubb-innovation.pdf (110KB)
Co-op Annual Meetings Address Economic and Environmental
Challenges
Two leading national co-op
organizations held their annual meetings in Washington, D.C. this past
May. The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) held its
conference on May 5-6. The NCB (chartered as the National Consumer
Cooperative Bank) event immediately followed the end of the NCBA
conference on the afternoon and evening of May 6th. Both organizations
examined ways to expand the co-op movement to address the problems posed
by the nation's economic difficulties.
article-dubb-ncba-ncb.pdf (115KB)
Reclamation Activists Discuss Potential Remedies to Foreclosure
Wave
Two years ago, the first
Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference focused largely on the issue of
long-term abandonment. Now, the foreclosure crisis has added new urgency
to reclamation work. A group of roughly 550 people from across the country
came to discuss these issues the second national Reclaiming Vacant
Properties conference held June 1st through 3rd in Louisville, Kentucky.
article-dubb-nvpc.pdf (115KB)
CommunityCollab
 Supported by the
MacArthur Foundation and LISC, CommunityCollab is a new web-based resource
designed to help community revitalization practitioners develop new
professional relationships, share knowledge, and learn from each other.
Although still in the development phase, to date CommunityCollab has
compiled a directory of more than 583 members - 394 organizations across
108 U.S. cities - who are working to improve their home communities.
www.communitycollab.org
Community Innovators Lab at MIT
 With a focus on
democratic engagement, shared wealth generation, and urban sustainability,
the Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) is a center for research and practice
within the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) that promotes collaboration and partnership
between MIT and community organizations. Among CoLab's initiatives are
Green Hub, which seeks to leverage the emerging "green" economy for
poverty reduction and social inclusion; GainShare, a market approach to
help communities leverage their own untapped assets, create sustainable
businesses, and generate shared wealth; and its New Orleans program, which
employs a strong participatory neighborhood planning process working with
local CDCs to develop a community land trust and other housing
strategies.
www.colab.mit.edu
PolicyForResults.org
 Funded by the
Annie E. Casey Foundation, PolicyForResults.org focuses on issues relating
to child and family wellbeing. In order to accomplish the site's goal of
providing a comprehensive resource for policymakers, only indicators and
strategies that meet stringent criteria are added, including limiting
indicators to those for which 50-state data is available. Currently being
launched in three phases and then added to continuously, the site's first
phase will focus on policy issues in four key areas relating to the
well-being of children and families: Strategies for Tight Budget Times;
Creating Economic Opportunity for Families and Reducing Poverty; Improving
Early School Success and Grade Level Reading.
www.policyforresults.org
Homeboy Industries
 Founded by Father
Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, in 1992 in response to the civil unrest in
Los Angeles, as a means of providing employment training for former gang
members, Homeboy Industries has since grown to include a bakery,
silkscreen, maintenance, and landscaping businesses. All told the
enterprises generate nearly $1 million a year in revenue while providing
employment to over 60 at-risk youth and providing job placements for
hundreds a year more.
www.homeboy-industries.org
We wish to thank the Kendeda Fund for
their support.
© Copyright 2009 The Democracy
Collaborative. All rights reserved. Web design by
ComBridges. |
|
