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This week we’re talking about the national climate emergency declared by the UK, how streetlight development in Michigan is building the future of energy democracy, and how one city plans to use cooperatives to solve the baby boomer retirement crisis.

Tuition or Dinner: The NY Times published an article that declared a survey reporting that nearly half of college students are going hungry. For just one example of the challenges facing cooperative food systems on campuses nationwide, read this opinion piece from the University of Maryland

Investing In Our Future: Tools for Homeownership & Retirement (A Financial Literacy Workshop for Womxn of Color)
Over and over again we hear about the disparity in pay for womxn of color. The rates are alarming and we understand that as womxn of color the path to financial stability is stacked against us and we have historically been exploited for our labor and excluded from fully participating in the job market with fair wages and benefits. This translates into low rates in homeownership and women having to retire at a later age to make ends meet. This workshop, hoted by Sister Diaspora for Liberation aims to give you tools that you can use daily in achieving healthy financial habits and tools that can assist in preparing for retirement and homeownership. (May 11 – New York, NY)

Getting to Zero Emissions: In These Times Climate Issue Launch
Last Roundup we featured the In These Times issue that features numerous NEC Members wisdom. Join In These Times for the release party of the magazine's special issue on climate change. A panel of climate experts and organizers will discuss what an equitable and democratic Green New Deal could look like, in New York City and beyond. (May 13 – New York, NY)

We Know Who Caused Climate Change.
Institute for Policy Studies will be livestreaming an international panel to discuss who is really responsible for climate change, and what can be done to hold them accountable. Key climate culprits include fossil fuel companies, the big banks financing fossil fuel infrastructure, and governments protecting & promoting the global domination of fossil fuels. But affected communities are fighting back to win compensation for the harm they have suffered, compelling the climate culprits to pay for climate adaptation and mitigation in their communities. (May 13 – Webinar)

The Power House Project: rural organizing, energy efficiency, and power-building in Kentucky
Lower energy bills. Healthier homes. Clean energy. Energy democracy. We know that successful, equity-driven climate advocacy can help us achieve so much for our communities, but often we don’t know how to do it or where to look for good examples in the field. Join us to hear from Kentucky for the Commonwealth’s (KFTC) innovative organizing program, which leverages energy efficiency workshops to build a movement of rural electric co-op member-owners, make energy efficiency accessible and feasible for low-income folks, and shift the narrative about energy efficiency and solar energy in eastern Kentucky communities. (May 14 – Online Webinar)

Citizen Artist Salon: Creative Strategies for Commemorative Justice
This Citizen Artist Salon, hosted by NEC member organization, the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, in partnership with 400 Years of Inequality: A People’s Observance for a Just Future, will explore how anyone can activate place-based creative strategies for truth-telling and collective healing. (May 16 – Webinar)

The Future of Freedom and Criminalization in a High-Tech World: A MediaJustice Conversation
Join executive director and co-founder of MediaJustice, Malkia Cyril, and special guests for an in-depth conversation on how technology is being used to deny basic rights to communities of color, youth, and immigrants. Panelists include Nusrat Choudhury, deputy director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program; Marisa Franco, co-founder and director of Mijente; and janaya “future” khan, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada and campaign director at Color of Change. (May 16 – Online)

The Western Worker Cooperative Convening
The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives hosts biennial, regional events that foster skill-building and organizing among worker co-ops in the Western United States. The 2019 Olympia WWCC is presented in partnership with the Northwest Cooperative Development Center. (May 18 – Olympia, WA)

2019 Spring RootSkills
The RootSkills series is about building networks and strengthening movements by making powerful, intersectional connections between a broad spectrum of participants all working towards a common goal. An open call for workshop sessions has resulted in offerings that are about helping grassroots organizers develop their own solutions to complex environmental and social justice issues that affect where they live. Workshop sessions are both process- and issue-based. This event will focus on racial and economic disparities to consider in/equity in rural, New England communities. (May 18 – Brattleboro, VT)

Grounding Reparations: Community Land Ownership & Racial Equity
The control of land determines who is displaced and who reaps wealth. Communities of color, in particular Black and Indigenous communities, have suffered a long history of displacement from land and housing leading to instability and contributing to the racial wealth gap. Can grassroots efforts to create community land trusts offer an alternative framework for just land use and permanently affordable housing as a human right? And can this model offer a strategy of reparations for historical injustices stemming from the ongoing effects of slavery and the racialized systems it generated? Please join this conversation on how we can move from profit and evictions to inclusive democracy, repair and liberation. (May 21 – Online Webinar)

Boston New Economy Happy Hour
If you're a new economy practitioner in the Boston area and want to talk shop over a pint at local worker cooperative Democracy Brewing, come join New Economy Coalition staff for an informal meet up! This event is open to anyone who is currently working within or interested in learning more about the new economy movement in Boston and beyond! (May 22 – Boston, MA)

TRANSFORM 2019: Climate, Communities, Capital
The TRANSFORM gathering is the centerpiece of an always-on convening that includes labs, working groups, and editorial content. Transforming climate, communities, and capital to create a safer, regenerative, more just world is the context for a deep focus on HOW to accelerate these changes. (May 22 – 24 – San Francisco, CA)

10-Year Anniversary Party for the Participatory Budgeting Project
For the past ten years, PBP has been the lead organization growing participatory budgeting across North America. They've launched and supported PB processes in over 30 cities, empowering 400,000 people to decide how to spend $300 million, funding more than 1,630 community-generated projects. To celebrate, they’re hosting a 10th Anniversary Benefit at Prime Produce in New York City. Come toast to the past 10 years, and many more ahead – reflect and share what we hope to accomplish moving forward. (May 23 – New York, NY)

Claiming Your Results: Making Evaluation a Core Organizational Practice
It's time to refresh our thinking about learning and evaluation and commit to weaving them into organizational practice. We owe it to our constituents and to ourselves.  We can't be truly effective without learning and evaluation If this resonates for you,Nonprofit Quarterly invites you to join their four-part Advancing Practice series. The course includes practical tools, real-world examples, frank talk about how and why organizations get stuck, team-based homework assignments, and live coaching between sessions to help you problem solve and keep moving. (May 23-June 27 – Online)

5th Annual Conference of the Cooperative Professionals Guild
The Cooperative Professionals Guild is a home for attorneys and accountants who specialize in cooperative business models. The Guild provides a forum in which its members advance their professional development and jointly promote a cooperative economic future for the United States. (May 30 – June 1 – Chicago, IL)

The New Trusts: Democratic Ownership Beyond the ESOP
The employee stock-ownership plan, or ESOP, is one of the most powerful legal innovations in recent US history. Since its introduction in the mid-1970s, millions of employees have benefited from being co-owners of the companies where they work. But ESOP formation has slowed in recent years, and it has come with shortcomings. In this interactive webinar, we'll hear from some of the leaders of this emerging conversation about the promise and pitfalls of new strategies for democratic ownership. (June 6 – Online Webinar)

Somerville Community Land Trust Kick Off
Somerville, MA is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. Many people who have lived in Somerville for a long time, or who would like to, can’t afford to. Real estate speculation and development has left many of our neighbors behind. Together, we can do something about it.
Please join us to learn how you can help create community led housing through the creation of the Somerville Community Land Trust. (June 12 – Somerville, MA)

Dismantling White Supremacy Unconference
The objective of this event is to provide a space for people of color and white allies–including activists, policy-makers, business leaders, employees, community organizers, or other residents or community members –to have an explicit conversation about dismantling systemic white supremacy (and the many discussions that come up around white supremacy) in a community-led forum. An Unconference empowers the attendees to drive the conversation. There will be no keynote speakers or pre-set “content tracks.” The people who show up for the Unconference are the ones who decide what topics and sessions they want to organize. (June 14-15 – Oakland, CA)

2019 Summer Institute: Economics for Emancipation
Designed to address the movement’s knowledge gaps and counter conservative economic myths, the Center for Popular Economics' Summer Institute in partnership with the Center for Economic Democracy, provides an intensive training in the economics needed to advance a different vision. CPE and CED are committed to popular education, relating political and economic concepts to people’s concrete lives and using games, theater, music, and film to make this information accessible and fun. (June 25 – 29 – Boston, MA)

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