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This week we’re talking about the native women reclaiming land, the London bank buying (and forgiving) debt, and the atlas of utopias.
Plus: We're hiring a development associate and registration for our biennial conference, CommonBound, is now open! Check out CommonBound.org for location, details, and get your tickets here!
Stories From the Field
Plot by Plot: Northern California’s land rush left the Ohlone, the Bay Area’s first people, landless. That’s why two native women started the Sogorea Te Land Trust, securing the first Ohlone-owned land in the area in over a century. Read more about Sogorea Te’s work here.
Coop Richmond: Richmond residents, organizers, and activists have come together to create an incubation hub for community revitalization and resilience. Here’s how Cooperation Richmond is trying to build a cooperative economy and taking lessons from Mondragon; a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives in Spain.
#NowWeOwn Our Homes: Another mobile home housing co-op in New England—50 Vermonters recently became the cooperative owners of Weston’s Mobile Home Park. Read more.
Solidarity Economies Abroad
Debt Buy: A project in north-east London has set up shop as a bank that prints its own money, sells it for real tender, and uses the proceeds to buy back debt it then forgives. Hoe Street Central Bank aims to raise enough money to buy out £1m of debt in one of the most impoverished zip codes in England—because they’re a bank, it will only take £20,000. Read how.
Canada’s Standing Rock: In Burnaby, British Columbia, indigenous opponents of the the 715 mile expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline were met with a court ordered injunction and mass arrests as they staged sit-ins and chain themselves to equipment. While First Nations—including the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, and Musqueam—the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, and the Province of British Columbia are against the pipeline, the battle is still being fought on the ground and in courts.
Civil Strike: After French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to make cut to the countries public sector, tens of thousands of civil servants and railway staff united in a strike causing transportation shutdowns across the country.
Resource: Atlas of Utopias
The Atlas of Utopias from Transformative Cities is a global gallery of inspiring community-led transformation in water, energy and housing—from community power in Minneapolis to the fight for democratic water rights in Ghana. It features 32 communities from 19 countries working on radical solutions to our world’s systemic economic, social and ecological crises – including examples in the United States – in Jackson, MI, Minneapolis, MN and Richmond, CA. Check it out!
CommonBound: Owning Our Power
We’re gearing up for CommonBound 2018—our biennial conference with NEC’s 200+ member organizations and broad network of allies who are building some of the most visionary alternatives to our current system today, pushing for policies and institutions that change the economy’s rules, and building the popular pressure to make them happen.
Last week we announced our full list of 10 workshop tracks. Workshops will range from hands-on trainings, to panels of leading community innovators, academics and researchers, to case studies from movement frontlines, and we need your help!
We’re looking for presenters of all backgrounds and educational levels to share their stories, skills and big ideas for building an economy that puts people and planet first. Submit your workshop proposals today. Deadline is April 13th!
Movement News
- In Strong Push for Gun Control, Young Black Organizers Join March for Our Lives
- A New Role For Hospitals: Boosting the Local Economy
- Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong
- What Standing Rock Taught the World
- Philly DA Larry Krasner Promised a Criminal Justice Revolution. He’s Exceeding Expectations.
- Co-ops in an Age of Inequality
- Time Banking Helps Build Individuals, Organizations And Communities
- It’s Time For Mark Zuckerberg To Give Up Control Of Facebook
- No CEO Should Earn 1,000 Times More Than a Regular Employee
- Support Harbor View Farms in Rural Washington, Members of the Poor People’s Campaign
- Grist 50: Meet 50 People Changing The World
Job Board
Development Associate, New Economy Coalition (Remote or Cambridge, MA)
Finance Fellowship, Buen Vivir Fund (Oakland, CA)
Racial Justice Fellow, CoFed
Multiple Positions, Urban Justice Center (New York City)
Developer, Position Development (Brooklyn, NY)
Multiple Positions, Beneficial State Foundation (Los Angeles, Oakland, Fresno, CA)
Equity Summit 2018: Our Power. Our Future. Our Nation.
Join PolicyLink as they explore the complexity and urgency of building a multiracial coalition at this pivotal moment for our nation. Solidarity with the emerging people of color majority is essential to redress past harms, embrace inclusion, build an equitable economy, and model true democracy. The Summit, will focus on practice and policy, politics and power—the ingredients needed for transformative change. (Chicago, IL, April 11-13)
Radicals Running the City: Lessons from Barcelona
In the 2015 local elections in Barcelona, activists from grassroots movements won power and are now inside City Hall under the leadership of radical Mayor Ada Colau. Check out this screening of a short film and roundtable discussion with 3 leaders from Barcelona working on the frontlines of these experiments in urban governance that have inspired similar electoral insurgencies across the globe. (New York, March 31)
CommonBound
On June 22-24, 2018, over 700 people across the new economy movement will come together in St. Louis, MO for CommonBound 2018 to connect with one another, share our resources, and demonstrate our power in creating systems that truly meet the needs of our communities. In past years, CommonBound has answered the questions of what is a new economy, why do we need one, and who is it building it. Next June, CommonBound will connect these threads and focus on another question: How do we build a new economy? Registration is now open! Scholarships available. (St. Louis, MO, June 22 – 24)
View all NEC member events on our website »
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