News & Resources

Mutual Aid in the South, Social Housing Wins, Co-op Month

Oct 10, 2024 | New Economy Roundup

This week we’re talking about just recovery after Milton and Helene, global reparations in the face of climate catastrophe, a “people’s arms embargo” on Israel, the growth of grassroots social housing, a new driver’s cooperative, guaranteed income for artists, celebrating Co-op Month, and more. Make sure to scroll all the way to the end – we have a packed events section this week!

PS: Join us on Thursday, October 24 for our Solidarity Economies 101 workshop. Together, we will learn about solidarity economy values, practices, & community-based strategies that provide real alternatives to racial capitalism. Habrá interpretación al español disponible.

Volunteers with Colaborativa La Milpa in Emma, North Carolina working to provide food, diapers, water, and medications to support their community’s recovery from Hurricane Helene. 

Just Recovery after Helene & Milton: The past two weeks have been thick with grief as the full force of the climate crisis comes home. Even as communities across Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Western North Carolina face massive destruction and organized abandonment after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, they are pulling together to take care of one another and looking across borders at how our struggles are interconnected. Here are some ways to support recovery and mutual aid efforts:

Hurricane Milton

Hurricane Helene 

Social Housing on the Rise: From tenants unions to mobile home co-ops and community land trusts, grassroots campaigns for social housing are winning real improvements in material conditions for working-class communities across the country. Building on this grassroots momentum, policymakers have introduced local and federal legislation to expand the reach and benefits of social housing. If passed, the Homes Act would create up to 1.25 million units of social housing as well as “a bank and developer for resident-owned coops, community land trusts, public housing and other market alternatives.” Check out the Building our Future report for in-depth case studies and grounding in the vision of housing as Commons. 

Driver’s Co-op Launch: Congratulations to the Driver’s Co-op Colorado, which opened for business in September! The worker-owned platform currently has 250 drivers and offers an alternative to the deeply exploitative models of Uber and Lyft. The co-op promises that 80% of each fare goes straight to drivers, while eliminating price gouging for customers, and committing to provide services for the elderly, people with disabilities, refugees, and formerly incarcerated people. Learn more and support the co-op. 

Guaranteed Income for Artists: Results are coming in from pilot programs for guaranteed income for artists and they’re proving to be “life changing.” When 2,400 artists in NYC were provided with $1000 per month, they reported significantly improved mental health and economic stability. In Minnesota, a pilot program run by NEC member Springboard for the Arts was so successful that it’s been expanded to offer 100 local artists guaranteed income for the next 5 years. Check out the Guaranteed Income Dashboard to see how these pilot programs are helping all kinds of workers find stability in the face of increasing economic precarity. 

Stop Arming Israel: This past weekend, people around the world took to the streets to mourn and protest a year of continuous bombardment and genocide in Gaza. Seventy-six years after the Nakba, Israel is now escalating attacks in Lebanon and Syria and threatening regional war. Join the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights to mobilize for a People’s Arms Embargo to stop the endless flow of weapons and US tax dollars enabling this violence, and keep supporting life-saving mutual aid efforts in Gaza and Lebanon. 

Global Climate Reparations: The climate crisis is here and it’s global! So far this year, over 5 million people in West and Central Africa and millions across Nepal, Brazil, and Southeast Asia have been impacted by extreme flooding. Climate activists across the Global South are clear that it’s time for the North to pay up reparations for the centuries of extraction and exploitation that have caused the crisis. Though a fund for global climate reparations was launched last year, it’s failed to get far beyond the original $650 million in pledges — far short of the $5 trillion in reparations activists are calling for. As the COP29 climate negotiations approach, watch out for opportunities to agitate and push for climate reparations. 

African Cooperatives Center: In late September, the African Union officially launched the African Cooperatives Centre (ACC). The Centre aims to boost cooperation across borders and serve as a hub for knowledge exchange, capacity building, training and advocacy for cooperatives and other Social Solidarity Economy initiatives across the continent. Check out the recording from the launch event to learn how the ACC envisions the solidarity economy.

 

 

Ahead of Indigenous People’s Day on Monday, check out this amazing compilation of Land Back organizing and wins over the past few years.

PODCASTS & VIDEO 

PUBLICATIONS 

 

Follow NEC on Instagram — @neweconomycoaltion — where we’re celebrating Co-op Month by looking back and sharing some of the inspiration and energy from the national Worker Co-op Conference and Through the Portal conference held in Chicago last month!

7th Street Corridor Manager, East Bay Permanent Realty
Associate Director, Equity Trust
Base Building Director, Rogue Climate
Communications and Education Associate, Center for Economic Democracy
Cooperative Community Organizer, Center for Community Wealth Building
Deputy Director, 350.org New Hampshire
Director of Policy & Research, Center for Economic Democracy
Managing Director of Donor Engagement, Grassroots International
Real Estate & Finance Analyst, East Bay Permanent Realty
Strategic Planning Consultant, RiseBoro
Various Positions, Highlander Center
Various Positions, Project Drawdown

If you’re hiring, consider submitting to The Roundup.
For more opportunities, check out this job board from NEC member Post Growth Institute and this one from the U.S. Federation of Worker Coops!

Financial Foundations

The financial foundations series from A Bookkeeping Cooperative covers basic financial terms and the four core financial reports (budget, cash flow, profit & loss, balance sheet) as tools to support your group’s goals. (4 weekly sessions in Oct and Nov – Virtual)

Real Solutions to the Systemic Crisis

Communities across America are already using solidarity economy approaches to create real change. Interventions such as public banking, worker ownership, public production of essentials, and community land stewardship point the way to the systemic change we so desperately need. Join us for a presentation and discussion of the systemic crisis facing the United States and the solutions offered by solidarity economy approaches and institutions. Featuring speakers from The Democracy Collaborative, Resist & Build, US Solidarity Economy Network, People’s Network for Land and Liberation, Co-op Dayton, and California Public Banking Alliance. (Oct 15 — Virtual)

Peace Economy Writing Workshop
The workshop will focus on the peace economy: works that speak to a culture of empathy, solidarity and connectedness, and resist a culture of violence and war. In our first meet-up, we’ll decide on the structure of our meetings, and get started. Please feel free to bring work to share via a Google Doc link. All skill levels are welcome. (Oct 15 – Virtual)

Remaking the Economy: Co-op Ownership of Mobile Home Communities

Learn how nonprofits and activists are promoting co-op ownership of mobile home communities to address affordable housing challenges. Join the webinar to explore resident-owned community models and strategies for economic justice. (October 16 – Virtual) 

Why Can’t the People Govern? Understanding the Fundamental Flaws of Our Democracy
Join us for a webinar, led by Max Berger, co-founder of the Democracy Revival Center and co-founder of Momentum, to understand just how our political system is rigged. We’ll explore the US political system–from the electoral college to court systems– to better understand how we can win our demands and transform society. (Oct 16 – Virtual)

Power Dynamics in Community

Jahia LaSangoma will discuss real-life examples of power dynamics in intentional communities around gender, sexual orientation, class, race, and nationality/language of origin, and hold space for attendees to track their experiences of witnessing ‘power at play.’ The webinar will also include theoretical and historical examples of power dynamics, both within and outside of community. (Oct 17 – Online)

Teach-in on Daniel Jadue
Daniel Jadue is a former activist mayor of Recoleta, the immigrant district of Santiago, Chile. During his term, he implemented many radical municipalist reforms including setting up a people’s university, libraries, and pharmacies that sold medication at cost. The goals of this teach-in are to bring attention to the radical municipalist initiatives Jadue implemented in Recoleta during his term, to spotlight his unjust detention and incarceration, and to rally the global municipalist movement behind his case for freedom. (October 19 – Virtual)

Beyond the Ballot: The Left in a Time of Polycrisis
We confront multiple simultaneous threats, from rising militarism, to profound ecological disruptions, to the growing threat of fascism, and beyond. What are the possibilities for building hope and effective political strategies amid the intersecting economic, political, and ecological crises we face? How do we understand the limits of the ballot box to achieve the changes we need and deserve? (Oct 19 – New York) 

Making Cannabis Cooperative: Community ownership and racial justice in the cannabis industry
The legal cannabis industry is new and fertile ground for cooperative organizing, with huge opportunities and challenges. At this event, founders and worker-members from across the country will discuss their cooperative-building projects to create community-based and economically-just cannabis markets at local and statewide levels. Come learn about our vision, how we’re coordinating across states to achieve it, and how you can support. (Oct 20 – Virtual) 

Speculative Budgeting: Resource Management in Times of Uncertainty

How do we fund our movements without knowing the resources needed to achieve our wildest & most deserving dreams? Can budgets be maps of liberatory possibility, even in times of uncertainty? Join A Bookkeeping Cooperative and AORTA in a creative experiment in bringing seemingly disparate organizing practices together: the creative elements of envisioning change (speculative fiction) and the skill of mapping resource allocation (budgeting). (Oct 21 – Virtual)

Defending Black Land in Honduras

Learn about the cooperative traditions and fight for land and survival happening in Black communities in Honduras among the Garifuna. This event is part of a series of public conversations hosted by Collective Diaspora profiling the Black solidarity economy in practice throughout the African diaspora. (Oct 23 – Virtual)

Urban Environmental Marronage: Connecting Black Ecologies
Marronage refers to the practices of enslaved Africans who escaped to form free communities in inaccessible terrains. By connecting Black ecologies from Lagos and the Niger Delta to New Orleans and South Carolina, this presentation examines how communities adapt to environmental challenges, preserve cultural heritage, and develop alternative socio-ecological systems as forms of political and ecological empowerment. (Oct 23 – Virtual)

Solidarity Economies 101

Join NEC for an Solidarity Economies 101 workshop where you will learn not only what “the economy” is, but how different it can look when it centers our material needs, instead of endless profit and growth, and extractivism. Together, we will learn about solidarity economy values, practices, & community-based strategies that provide real alternatives to racial capitalism. Habrá interpretación al español disponible. (Oct 24 – Virtual) 

BlackOut 2024
The Alabama State Association of Cooperatives, a member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (FSC/LAF), in partnership with Black Food, Black Futures and Land and Liberation, LLC will be opening up FSC/LAF’s 1,100 acres of Black-cooperative-owned land, the Rural Training and Research Center (RTRC) in rural Alabama for BlackOut, a nature-based networking event for Black conservation professionals. (Oct 24-27 – Alabama)

Co-Ops & The Next Economy
Join folks from across Connecticut’s local and regional co-op movement to connect, learn, and strategize around building businesses and an economy that prioritizes people and the planet over profit. (Oct 26 – Hartford, CT)

Worker Owner Rights & Responsibilities Training
Madison Workers Cooperative (MadWorC) is holding a training on Worker-Owner Rights & Responsibilities, open to all (held online). We encourage both new and experienced worker-owners to join to learn more about what it means to be a worker-owner and how we communicate about that. We also encourage multiple people (or even all worker-owners) from the same co-op to attend. (Oct 23 – Virtual)

#BlackTrust: Black Utopias, Then & Now
Presented on the occasion of the launch of Aaron Robertson’s The Black Utopians, this event explores the histories and ongoing legacies of Black utopian movements in America. Robertson will be in conversation with Stacey Sutton, whose latest body of work, Real Black Utopias, examines the infrastructure and ideology of Black-led cooperatives and solidarity economy ecosystems across cities, from Chicago to Boston. As Robertson’s work meditates on how African Americans have envisioned utopia and transformed their lives, this conversation engages with their reflections on liberation, community-building, and radical social projects. (Nov 13 – Boston)

NASCO Institute 2024: Mobilizing the Co-op Ecosystem
Since 1977, NASCO’s Cooperative Education & Training Institute has been widely recognized as one of the most important training and networking opportunities available to co-op members, directors, staff, and managers. This year’s theme is Mobilizing the Co-op Ecosystem. At the Institute, co-opers will be exploring how cooperatives are an organizing tool and an effective alternative housing model. (Nov 15-17 – Ann Arbor, MI)

Discover the Benefits of Worker Co-ops
In this webinar, we’ll learn what it means to be a values focused business and practice the cooperative principles. We’ll talk about the basics of starting a worker owned business and look at some examples of start up planning. We’ll also discuss the benefits and challenges worker co-ops face from launching to doing business. (Nov 20 – Virtual) 

Facing Race 2024
Facing Race is the nation’s largest multiracial, intergenerational racial justice conference. This biennially, one-of-a-kind space serves as a vital intersection where community organizers, activists, and movement makers converge to build power and strategies to advance racial justice. The conference provides attendees unprecedented access to resources, information, and collaborative opportunities geared towards advancing racial equity for all. (Nov 20 – St. Louis, MO)

Making Money Make Change
MMMC is an intimate space that uses workshops, storytelling, and skill-building to create a space for young people with class privilege and wealth to explore questions of identity and responsibility in a supportive environment. MMMC programming is dynamic and specific to young people with wealth who are interested in social justice. Whether you have been grappling with what it means to have class privilege for some time and value social change, or you are new to thinking about these topics, we invite you to attend and explore these topics in community. (Nov 24 – Nashville, TN)

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