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We’re profiling NEC members, staff, board and grantees as part of our grassroots fundraising campaign, #MakingWaves. Help us continue to network and amplify the work of organizations across the country changing the current to a just economy by making a contribution today!  

NEC member organizations, The Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC) and Higher Purpose Co. are working together to build black cooperative economic power in the Mississippi Delta. Higher Purpose Co. is a nonprofit social impact agency based in Clarksdale, Mississippi that utilizes the power of ownership to help communities thrive. They strive to disrupt the racial wealth gap by implementing economic justice initiatives to improve community wealth in underserved areas in the region. Specifically, they build community wealth by focusing on business development, strategic real estate investing, and social enterprise initiatives.

Unfortunately, Higher Purpose CEO, Tim Lampkin, doesn’t know Jay-Z or Oprah (yet) so, like most of us, he’s on his fundraising grind. So, when he heard about F4DC, a spend-down foundation supporting community-based initiatives that foster authentic democracy and make communities better places to live with a focus on the South, he didn’t hesitate to reach out and connect with NEC board member and new economy OG, Ed Whitfield.

Since the two organizations have connected, they’ve collaborated in a number of ways. Tim attended CoopEcon, an education and training institute geared toward helping current and future cooperators building and strengthening new community-based enterprises in their communities hosted by the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in Epes, Alabama. The next time the two connected was at CommonBound 2018 where they planned a time for Ed and Brendan Martin (Director of NEC member organization, The Working World) to visit the Delta communities that Higher Purpose serves and talk cooperative development (and check out some local blues). Since that visit, Tim has joined The Working World’s Peer Network and Financial Cooperative, which bring together place-based organizations from around the country to build a national infrastructure of cooperative lending and non-extractive finance.

Basically, Higher Purpose and F4DC are #MakingWaves in the South in a major way!

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