learning resources
Need help making the case for place-based impact investing? For investing for justice? For strengthening the solidarity economy? These links may provide the stories and data you need.
economic justice
Color of Entrepreneurship: Why the Racial Gap between Firms Costs the U.S. Billions Report by Center for Global Policy Solutions details findings of a study of business owners of color from 2007 and 2012 and presents recommendations for increasing successful entrepreneurship by people of color.
What does investing to close the racial wealth divide really require from us? Jessica Norwood and Konda Mason of the Runway Project interview Deborah Frieze and Mark Watson of the Boston Impact Initiative on the mainstage at SOCAP 18 to explore the opportunities and challenges of Investing for Justice.
Maggie Anderson, author of Our Black Year and creator of Our Empowerment Experiment, talks at TEDxGrandRapids about beginning to address economic inequalities that deprive black neighborhoods by proactively supporting black businesses.
In Solidarity Philanthropy: Reparations, Democracy and Power, Aaron Tanaka explores the question, “What does it take to transition American capitalism from a system for the 1% to an economy for all?” This article discusses philanthropy’s role in building true alternatives to our dominant economic regime. (Medium, 2018)
In Impact Investing Can Fight Racism and Wealth Gaps–if Conducted in New Ways, Rodney Foxworth writes, “If we’re truly motivated to deconstruct the enormous wealth inequalities that have ravaged and extracted wealth from rural, indigenous, and majority communities of color, we must rid ourselves of the power dynamics, biases, and culture that got us here in the first place.” (Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2018)
The Asset Value of Whiteness from the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University on racial wealth gap and its causes, and making the case for addressing structural and institutional racism.
The Road to Zero Wealth, by Prosperity Now and the Institute for Policy Studies, examines Federal Reserve data over a 30-year period (1983-2013) to understand the growing racial wealth divide facing Black and Latino households at the median, and explores the ways that accelerating declines in wealth for these communities are impacting the American middle class.
In Wealth Inequality and The Fallacies of Impact Investing, Rodney Foxworth writes that if we’re truly motivated to deconstruct the wealth inequalities that have ravaged and extracted wealth from rural, indigenous, and majority people of color communities, then we must rid ourselves of the power dynamics, biases, and culture that got us here in the first place. (Medium, 2018)
In Why I Want Community Organizers to Tell Me Where to Invest, Deborah Frieze writes that if we wish to transform our economic system from one that extracts values from communities of color to one that operates in solidarity, it’s not good enough to redirect the flow of capital. We also have to redirect the flow of power. (Next City, 2018)
next economy
Aaron Tanaka, Boston Impact Initiative Board member and founder of the Center for Economic Democracy, speaks on Radio Woodstock (at 23.46) about building a new economy that leads to a new democracy.
Capitalism is Not the Only Choice, by Penn Loh in YES! Magazine. When everything that we label “economic” is assumed to be capitalist—transactional and market-driven—then it is no wonder that we run short on imagination. What if, instead, economy is all the ways that we meet our material needs and care for each other? Beneath the official capitalist economy are all sorts of thriving non-capitalist economies, where there may not be a profit motive or market exchange.
The Emerging Just and Sustainable Food Economy in Boston, by Penn Loh and Glynn Lloyd. Two of Boston’s leading thinkers in creating systemic change in our city around food justice and racial equity review innovations in building community wealth and health through re-localizing the food system.
Even David Brooks has joined our Localist Revolution. In his July 2018 opinion piece in The New York Times, he cites the work of BII founder Deborah Frieze in identifying how we create the conditions for local power to emerge that is “personalistic, relational, affectionate, irregular and based on a shared history of reciprocity and trust.”
Moving Your Money by Laura Flanders of GRITtv explores why it’s so hard to invest money locally. Grassroots activists trying to build economic alternatives in the US encourage investing in the businesses in your neighborhood, instead of in far-off corporations. Flanders talks with local finance expert Michael Shuman and profiles BII portfolio member CERO Co-op, a grassroots group that’s funding its start-up without deep pockets or Wall St cash.
The Next Economy Now podcast interviews Boston Impact Initiative founding partner Deborah Frieze about how to create healthy, resilient and inclusive communities by redistributing wealth from where it’s been accumulated to where it’s been extracted from.
Not Business As Usual is a provocative look at capitalism and its unintended price of success. The film tracks the changing landscape of business with the rising tide of conscious capitalism through the stories of local entrepreneurs who have found innovative ways to bring humanity back into business.
Off-the-Grid Investing: Perspectives and Voices of a Transforming Financial System, by Don Shaffer, RSF Social Finance, published in the Fall 2013 issue of Green Money Journal. This article explores a unique approach to finance that transforms the relationship between investors and borrowers.
What happens when social movements work together to reclaim economic power? This report, commissioned by the Solidarity Economy Initiative, highlights groundbreaking grassroots efforts to restore economic power to communities of color: Solidarity Rising in Massachusetts: How Solidarity Economy Movement is Emerging in Lower Income Communities of Color
The Next System Project: New Political-Economic Possibilities for the 21st Century sets forth the multi-year initiative of the Next Systems Project to create political-economic models capable of delivering on needed social, economic, and ecological outcomes.
Turning the Global Economy into Connected Communities in The Guardian profiles BALLE founder and the vision of localizing economies in response to broken relationships resulting from economic globalization and corporate gigantism.
Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale, by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze, published by the Berkana Institute. This article presents an “emergence” theory of change that reflects BII’s efforts to seed a new more equitable and sustainable economy.
What is a Direct Public Offering aka Investment Crowdfunding? by Jenny Kassan, Cutting Edge Capital. This article provides a primer on DPO’s and the possibilities in democratic financing.
transforming finance
The Impact Terms Project was created to encourage the growth of impact investing around the world by helping people learn from and build on the experience of pioneers in the field. Their ambition is to make ITP a library of real-world knowledge and expertise on structuring impact investments and enterprises.
In The Wall Street Journal’s The Payoff of Investing Locally, Boston Impact Initiative’s founding partner Deborah Frieze and other investors talk about why it matters to invest in their local communities.
Strategies for Financing the Inclusive Economy by The Democracy Collaborative is a report that shares financing strategies and case studies of efforts to create broad-based ownership models for job generation and building community wealth in the areas of employee stock ownership plans, social enterprise, hybrid enterprises, and municipal enterprises.
other tools & guides
Capital Compass Tool from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund helps entrepreneurs figure out what kind of capital they need.
Tackling the Law, Together: A Legal Guide to Worker Cooperatives Generally and in Massachusetts is a report produced by the Community Enterprise Project of the Harvard Transaction Law Clinic, Boston Center for Community Ownership, Greater Boston Legal Services and Sustainable Economies Law Center that covers legal aspects of worker cooperatives, cooperative conversions, and financing.
