What is a worker co-op? 

It’s an enterprise owned, democratically controlled by, and operated for the benefit of, its workers. There are endless variations on co-ops, which means there are many questions to consider before forming your own unique venture. Remember, you are starting a real business and if  you’ve never started a business before, you will need support. 

Read up on how to start a co-op below, get advice from co-op development organizations, and talk to co-op friendly lawyers and accountants. You will need a business plan, cooperative-specific legal incorporation documents, and capital to finance the co-op in the beginning. Additionally, you will want an organization plan detailing how you will run your co-op cooperatively.

Are worker co-ops a new thing?

Big and small worker co-ops have a long and rich history in the US and internationally. The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers established the Rochdale principles in 1844 and are considered the founders of the cooperative movement. Enslaved African Americans started practicing cooperative economics from the moment they were forcibly brought to the US. The first Rochdale-type Black cooperative was established in 1901 in Ruthville, Virginia.

Today, Mondragon Corporation in Spain is made up of over 90 cooperatives and employs over 70,000 people. In the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy, a majority of its 4.5 million residents belong to a worker co-op and co-ops support about 30 percent of the region’s GDP. As of 2021, there were 612 verified worker co-ops in the US, but the Democracy at Work Institute estimates that number is closer to 1,000 co-ops that employ about 10,000 people. 

Why start a worker co-op?

Worker co-ops can be more satisfying than working for “The Man”. Worker-owners aren’t forced into a hierarchy, and they have more say over what the business does than traditional employees. You still have to be responsible for managing a co-op, but your coworker-owners will likely be nicer and more understanding of your personal needs and quirks than middle-management at any corporation. 

You will probably make more money by cutting out the investors and managers. In typical low-paying industries, worker-owners can make several times what they were pulling in as employees. For example, in Petaluma, California, Alvarado Street Bakery worker-owners take home around $60k a year — a lot better than working for minimum wage. As a worker-owner, you are less likely to get laid off, both because co-ops prioritize steady employment over short-term profits, and because they are more sustainable than their conventional counterparts.

How to start a worker-co-op

This list is based on a paper from the U.S. Federation of Worker Co-ops.) 

1. Assemble the initial organizing group and information, then clarify needs.

• Forming the group

One of the first steps to starting a worker cooperative is finding others willing to be part of the initiating group. If you are converting a business into a co-op, you may already have your members.

• Identify and convene around 5-15 people with mutual needs and interest in creating a worker-cooperative.
• Individuals should be available for weekly or bi-weekly meetings and able to devote substantial time to completing necessary research.
• Inventory the skill sets and experiences of the group in order to assess roles and tasks.
• Choose roles and assign tasks.

• Collect necessary information, materials, and data. 

• Carry out market research to determine viability of the business proposition.
• Investigate legalities of converting or creating a co-op.
• Identify your legal structure: LLC or cooperative corporation?
• Decide where initial funding will come from:
  • Worker-owners and/or a loan from the former owner;
  • A loan from a bank (try one that has loaned to co-ops successfully); 
  • Or a grant for worker co-op start-ups.

2. Convene initiating group to assess moving forward.

• Members meet to discuss, plan, and organize next steps. 

• Review all collected materials, allowing time for discussion, then vote on moving forward (or not).
• Choose key decision-making processes and governance structures.
• Set up committees to work on preparing the business plan and raising funding.

3. Incorporate your business, create by-laws, and initiate funding.

• Outline the purpose (mission) of your business, overview of goods and services, organizational structure, and define the process by which new worker-owners will be allowed to join.
• Finalize all legal documents.
• Secure membership and funding.

4. Launch your new worker-cooperative!

• Begin operations by opening your doors and putting your business plan into action.

While this sounds like a lot of work (and it is), worker-owners I’ve talked to say that, in the long run, it’s totally worth it. There are resources listed below to help you get started, including worker co-op development organizations. 

Starting a new co-op can create jobs — not just for you, but also for people who may have never had the opportunity to own a business or earn a living wage. Worker co-ops are part of a larger movement to create an economy that is democratic, just, and takes care of everyone. And it can start with you and your co-workers.

Resources

Worker-Coop Development Organizations:

• The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives
• The National Cooperative Business Association
• Sustainable Economies Law Center 
• Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation
• International Cooperative Alliance

###

Originally written as an essay by Mira Luna in July, 2011. This guide was updated and reformatted by Jennifer Foley on July 31, 2024.

The original essay appears in Shareable’s paperback Share or Die, published by New Society and available from Amazon. Share or Die is also available for Kindle, iPad, and other e-readers. For the next article in Share or Die, Astri and Liz’s “Get on The Lattice,” click here.

The post How to start a worker co-op appeared first on Shareable.

The activists, artists, and thinkers who lived there brewed new ideas that planted seeds in me that sprouted years later. We seized the opportunity to use common spaces for political and arts events that, as regular tenants, we would have never been able to host. The house created a vessel for whatever passion we wanted to manifest.

On the downside, I found it incredibly difficult to study there. The work of being a contributing co-op member was a drain on my schoolwork time, and there was too much drama to focus on school. The co-op had structure and rules, but with little follow through—meaning chores and maintenance didn’t get done and conflict was common. We had an application process, but let everyone in regardless of their ability to cooperate, as well as people with drug issues and mental health problems that needed more support than we could offer. New members weren’t trained in consensus decision-making, creating heated and way-too-long meetings over trivial issues. I learned a lot about what not to do.

Years later, volunteering for a nonprofit that develops co-op housing, I discovered that, when done properly, resident-owned co-ops can offer an affordable and more convivial alternative to single-family housing. Co-ops save money by cutting out landlords’ profits, sharing common spaces, lowering operating costs, and receiving public subsidies for affordable housing. Studies show that co-ops provide other benefits, like greater social cohesion and support, reduced crime, increased civic engagement, sustainability, better quality and maintenance of housing, and resident stability.

Housing co-ops are defined primarily by their legal structure: Co-op members own the housing collectively through shares in an organization, rather than individually, as with a condo. Residents also govern the housing democratically, either directly or through elected representatives. Not just for students, co-ops can be home to support groups of low-income families, artists, elderly, disabled, and people with a common purpose. Over 1.5 million homes in the U.S. are part of a cooperative housing organization.

There are several different kinds of co-ops:

• Rental or leasehold co-ops are democratically run organizations of tenants that equitably share costs of renting or leasing a building owned by someone else. Rental co-ops may share part of the management responsibility and often have more power collectively than single renters leasing from a conventional landlord. Nonprofits can also buy a building and rent it out to lower income folks who might not be able to afford shares. Sharing a house can offer big savings and can help people avoid foreclosure.
• Market rate co-ops are houses, apartment buildings, or other groups of housing units that are organized under a democratically managed corporation in which residents purchase shares at a market rate. Shares cover the costs of a blanket mortgage, rainy day reserves, maintenance and other operating costs, insurance, tax, etc. Units are resold at market rate.

Limited or zero-equity affordable housing co-ops receive grants and government subsidies to make co-op shares more affordable to low-income people. They keep the housing permanently affordable through legal restrictions on the amount of gain on a future sale of the co-op share. Often these are organized groups of low-income tenants that agree to collectively buy the building they already rent through a nonprofit, usually a community land trust that holds title to the land and takes it off the speculative market. It’s a great way to make permanent gains in the fight against gentrification.

A successful limited-equity model is Columbus United Cooperative, a 21-unit apartment building in San Francisco. The San Francisco Community Land Trust (SFCLT) worked closely with the low-income, Chinese-American family tenants who were fighting eviction and demolition. With public subsidy, tenants purchased their units as part of a co-op for little more than their controlled rent in an area where home ownership is half the national average due to cost.

In Los Angeles, Comunidad Cambria went from a gang war zone and drug supermarket slum to a model of peaceful, affordable co-op housing with the help of co-op housing activist Allan Heskin and several Latina women in the complex. The community rallied to protect its new co-op against threats from gangs and drug dealers to burn the building down, remediated a toxic dump in its basement, and created a vibrant community center. Sunwise Co-op is a rental co-op, owned by Solar Community Housing Association, with a mission to provide eco-friendly, low-income housing in Davis, CA. The house uses solar water heating, photovoltaic panels, passive solar design, and composting to reduce their ecological footprint. They also grow their own veggies for shared vegetarian/vegan dinners and raise chickens and bees. Monthly shares or rental costs at affordable housing co-ops are often half or less of the market cost.

Co-op housing rentals are a relatively easy first step to implement. Co-op ownership can sometimes be a long, difficult process, but with much more substantial and long-term benefits. If you are thinking about starting your own housing cooperative, here is a basic plan for co-op ownership, much of which applies to rentals as well:

• Find a potentially willing community of people who want to live together long-term. Some community cohesion and individual social skills are very helpful. If there isn’t already a community, holding dinners or other regular bonding events can lay a good foundation.
• Find a mentor through another successful co-op, a nonprofit that helps develop housing co-ops (like a local land trust or the California Center for Co-op Development), and/or a co-op-friendly lawyer. Read the Co-op Housing Toolkit.
• Educate community members about the entire process. Do an assessment to see if your community has the motivation, finances and skills needed to follow through. (If they don’t, you may want to recruit or train people that can help, especially with accounting, legal, organizing and maintenance tasks.) Make a decision whether or not to move forward.
• Work with a nonprofit or form an independent housing corporation. Form a Board of Directors from the residents’ community with membership, finance, maintenance, and operations/management committees. Create bylaws for organizational procedure, including new member selection, orientations, decision-making, Board and committee elections, regular communication/meetings and conflict resolution processes. You can use another co-op’s bylaws as a model.
• Develop a realistic budget with reserves, then research financing options. If your community is low-income, it may be eligible for foundation grants, public subsidies from HUD or municipal affordable housing programs, and loans from Community Development Financial Institutions. Try working with banks that have already funded co-ops, it will be a much easier pitch and process.
• Select the dwelling that you want to buy, convert or construct and make sure the seller is willing to sell to a co-op.
• Secure a loan and buy the building with the community through a blanket mortgage. This is much easier to secure when working with a nonprofit that has a track record of successful co-op development.
• Complete any rehabilitation or upgrades that are needed in advance of moving in. This can be a fun way to build group cohesion in advance of all living under the same roof.
• Find ways to build community feeling through shared common space, childcare, dinners, group projects or other regular events. Develop relationships with the surrounding community through volunteering programs.

Although problems can come up as in any housing situation, the issue most likely to destroy the co-op is internal conflict. Finding the right people and teaching others willing to learn how to get along is key.

For more info on how to share housing as part of a co-op, see The Sharing Solution, a book by Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow, visit the National Association of Housing Cooperatives website and any of the linked websites above. 

This guide was originally published on March 9, 2021 and was updated on April 23, 2024.

The post How to start a housing co-op appeared first on Shareable.

For as long as there have been Africans in America, there have been examples of Black social, cultural and economic solidarity. Often formed in response to systemic exclusion and economic stagnation, examples range from mutual aid networks, to freedom farms and grocery cooperatives.   

Though centuries of erasure have shrouded the impact Black Americans have had on the history and development of modern cooperative economic movements, countless historical examples remain. 

Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard is a political economist specializing in economic development policy, Black political economy, and popular economic literacy. Her extensive research chronicles the robust (though mostly-forgotten) history of a people determined in their fight for self-sufficiency, communal resilience and economic prosperity. 

In an interview with writer Mira Luna, Dr. Gordon Nembhard talked about her research on African American cooperative economics, which she further detailed in her 2014 book. 

Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity. 

Q: Why did African-Americans first start getting involved in cooperative economic activity? Was it for political or practical reasons or both?

Dr. Gordon Nembhard: African Americans started using cooperative economics from the moment they were forcibly brought to the Americas from Africa, at first for practical reasons. They realized that their survival depended on working together and sharing resources. 

Enslaved Blacks might share a small kitchen garden to provide more variety of food than what the master would give them. Those that had the opportunity to earn money would pool those earnings to buy each other’s freedom – when there was a master who was willing to sell. Gradually, enslaved as well as freed Blacks started mutual aid societies through religious and fraternal institutions.

These pooled members’ dues and monthly fees to use to bury a member, provide a small stipend for widows and orphans, for health care access, etc. 

As more and more became free, the mutual aid societies became larger and covered more services. Eventually some evolved into mutual insurance companies. Freed African Americans in those early years and after the Civil War also pooled money and labor to buy and run a farm or jointly buy farm supplies and reduce costs. 

Q: Can you tell us about other types of cooperative economic activities have Africans been engaged in?

Dr. Gordon Nembhard: After Reconstruction, some elements of organized labor joined together for economic and political reasons to try to win political rights for small farmers, laborers and Blacks. There were a few integrated unions that operated mostly in the South. The Knights of Labor was one such group. In the 1870s and 80s, they promoted cooperative stores and warehouses, collective lending, and worker cooperatives.

They faced fierce retaliation (sometimes, even lynching) from former white plantation owners and masters. But, as one group would go underground and disburse, others started. After the Knights of Labor was the Colored Farmers’ Alliance and Cooperative Union – an all-Black initiative with connections to the Southern Farmers’ Alliance. They had similar aims to the KOL, but increased efforts—as such, they were able to establish a few cooperative “exchanges” (warehouses and credit outlets) in several southern towns. 

In the North, most of the early cooperative activity was based around mutual aid societies. The first Rochdale type Black cooperative started in 1901 in Ruthville, Virginia, Mercantile Cooperative Company. In 1915, the Pioneer Cooperative Society formed in Harlem and opened a small grocery store in 1919. The Colored Merchants Association, a marketing cooperative of independent African American grocers, was founded by the National Negro Business League in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1927. 

Q: What are some of the more unique stories of people getting creative with economic activities together? What are some of your more surprising findings?

Dr. Gordon Nembhard: In 1934, Bricks Rural Life School, run by the American Missionary Association, developed a program of adult education for African American cooperative development. Two years later, the school organized a credit union. Members then jointly bought a tractor. In 1938, the school opened a cooperative store, and in 1939 it developed a health program. 

The Freedom Quilting Bee was established in 1967 in Alberta, Alabama as a handicraft cooperative founded by women in sharecropping families. In 1968, the cooperative bought twenty-three acres of land on which to build their sewing factory. They also provided day care and after-school services for members’ children and others at the sewing factory. 

In 1992 after the uprising in South Central Los Angeles (following the police acquittals in the Rodney King case), Food from the ‘Hood, a student-led co-op at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, started a school garden and gave the produce to their low-income neighbors. They also began to sell their vegetables at a farmers’ market, and then started a multiyear project to sell salad dressing made from produce grown in their school garden.

Those are just a few examples. The most surprising finding is that there is such a long and strong history of African American economic cooperation. I found so many examples of African American cooperatives of all kinds.

Q: How has this work supported the civil rights and black power movements or vice-versa?

Dr. Gordon Nembhard: The Freedom Quilting Bee is one example of Black cooperatives directly supporting the civil rights movement and people’s involvement in it. Almost all African American leaders and major thinkers, from the most conservative to the most radical, have at some point promoted cooperative economic development as a strategy for African American well-being and liberation. 

In the 1960s and 70s, members of the Black Panther Party used collective housing and promoted cooperative housing for the community; established cooperative bakeries, and free breakfast programs for children in the community in the 1960s.

Many of the widely-known thought leaders who promoted political rights for African Americans, also more quietly and in practice promoted economic cooperation as the way to help Black communities survive racial and economic discrimination. Examples include W. E. B. Du Bois, Ella Jo Baker, John Lewis, and Ralph Paige. 

Q: There are many foundations, city agencies and nonprofits addressing poverty now in communities of color, but few integrate cooperative economics into their programs. Why is that?

Dr. Gordon Nembhard: Cooperatives remain an under-appreciated resource and economic strategy. 

For many, the cooperative model is not well known and is often denigrated which reduces people’s exposure to the model and precludes potential services and support from agencies that help small businesses. In addition, capitalization and access to capital for cooperatives can be limited. Meanwhile, cooperatives are an old model, having been used by every group throughout history. About half the world’s population are connected to cooperative enterprises for their livelihood in some way, and research suggests that cooperative businesses have lower failure rates than traditional corporations and small businesses, and may be better for the economy overall. 

Q: Based on your research, how might cooperatives support broad social change and what can people do in their own communities to support the development of a cooperative economy locally?

Dr. Gordon Nembhard: Cooperatives solve economic problems in different ways than conventional for-profit businesses. They operate on the values and principles of democratic participation, inclusion, solidarity, and sharing. These principles have positive implications for every racial and ethnic group around the world, and they’ve proven successful in urban as well as rural areas. Coops are also resilient, they develop – and survive – as a response to market failure and economic marginalization.

Increasing awareness of and information about cooperatives among the general public and government agencies is one of the most important first steps. We also need expanded, less restrictive, and more uniform co-op laws (at state and federal levels) and supportive infrastructure, particularly for startup, capitalization, and financing. This includes establishing loan funds, small business services, and workforce funding dedicated to cooperative development.

This interview was originally published in a 2014 Shareable article.

The post A brief history of Black cooperatives in the U.S. appeared first on Shareable.

And so I tracked down Brice Royer for an interview. Brice is a young, now voluntarily unemployed entrepreneur from Vancouver with stomach cancer. He not only depends on gift exchange to survive, but helps other people survive through the gift and prosthelytizes gift culture with much conviction. He recently gave a speech alongside Mayor Robertson of Vancouver on how economic inequality is bad for our health and why sharing is better. His courageous acts of generosity have sparked many others to join the gift economy movement and gained international attention.

His story resonates deeply with many people because he shows that not only can you live your values, but life might be so much happier, healthier, and more rich, even under adverse circumstances (i.e. the worst case scenario everyone worries about). These kinds of stories can create such a dramatic psychological shift that some people (three I know personally) have changed careers to work on the new economy after hearing such stories. While not everyone can be just like Brice, he can help us take a little leap of faith that gets us all closer to an economy and culture we actually want to live in.

Brice Royer gives a speech alongside the Mayor of Vancouver

Mira Luna: What does gift economy mean to you?

Brice Royer: For me, the gift economy is about family. It's about not turning love into a business. I learned that the "gift economy" is just a term used by university professors to talk about what people in small towns do naturally and how ancient human societies lived. They help their families and their neighbours because they depend on one another, and it's usually a community of around 150 people. You rarely see a strong sense of community in urban cities or gated communities because there's less trust. Not surprisingly, the bigger the city and stronger the market economy, the more people are busy, stressed and isolated.

I suddenly realized that our dependence and need of money is correlated to our isolation from our community. The more I rely on money or trade to fulfill my needs, the more disconnected I become from others. Loneliness and stress is the most underrated health factor for disease, so for me, the gift economy is an important way to reduce social stress and isolation which leads to healing. On a mid-scale, it's also a way for small businesses to reconcile and change the conversation on that inner conflict between passion and profits. On a larger scale, it's a way for politicians and social activists to reform our economic system which is at the root cause of wealth inequality leading to many social ills like climate change.

What brought to you to the gift economy?

Cancer. My doctor told me I have a stomach tumour but didn't know why. So I looked at the world's healthiest places like Ikaria Greece and Okinawa Japan with the highest concentration of centenerians to learn how they live. I was surprised that almost all have gift economies, live close to family and have a strong community. As an entrepreneur, I found this very surprising because it's the complete opposite of what we're taught in North America. We have more money and options, but we're more sick. There's something very odd about that. It wasn't until I heard of Mark Boyle, a man in the UK who lived without money who felt healthier than ever before, that I was very interested in starting this experiment to live in a gift economy.

Last year, I began an experiment to heal myself from cancer by transitioning to a gift economy. I decided not to buy anything from strangers and impersonal companies as much as possible because I feel disconnected. It bothered me that I don't know where my food comes from! All this stress, impersonal relationships and loneliness isn't good for my health. So I decided to support and rely on my family, friends and local neighbours for my basic needs. I asked a friend, Carlos, to invite his friends so we can start a gift circle, and then met a mutual friend, Heidi Henderson who offered 1000 sq feet space at Vital Health Clinic for our first meeting where I met Peter Endisch, a programmer who offered me his car as a gift, which made the national news in Canada.

Brice fundraises for a tractor for local farmer to help give food to cancer patients

Another friend introduced me to a farmer who has been giving me vegetables. He never asked for anything in return. Now he needs help to get a tractor, so I decided to pay it forward, he was in the news recently and we all raised $12k in one day for him. Later, he surprised me and got me in tears and decided to start a "Brice Royer cancer survivor" garden and will deliver food to cancer patients. It will help many of my friends who are in need. He can deliver pesticide free food to 25 people for the season for only $1000. That's $13.33 for weekly food delivery one person for the whole month, which is incredible. We are aiming to expand the free farm internationally.  I'm still recovering but I wanted to share this in the hopes that it will inspire you. If anyone would like to get in touch, feel free to follow me on Facebook where I post my latest public updates on my recovery. 

Why do you think so many people and the media are drawn to your story?

I'm not sure. There's probably all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it's because they read in the news that a stranger gave me a car, or that I paid a stranger's rent for one year. These are big gifts that took a leap of faith. Other times it's because they love the idea that a cancer patient thinks he can heal himself with acts of kindness. I guess it's not often you hear stories like this! People often say to me, "You're right on the mark…" about the economic system. I think the truth resonates that there's something wrong with our economic system and the way we treat each other. We all want to pay it forward, but don't know if it's practical. People are looking for practical alternatives just like I am. 

What are some ways you've gotten your needs met by living in the gift and how has it changed your life?

I feel closer to family and friends than ever before. I consume less and noticed I feel happier. It also changed the way I am thinking about meeting my needs, or meeting other people's needs. Instead of buying something, I simply ask myself a series of questions:

1. "Do I really need this?"
2. "Is there a sustainable alternative?"
3. "Do I have a family member or friend who provides this service or product?"

I met farmers from a mutual friend who offered me a gift of food which was the first time I know where my food comes from. As a result, I felt more connected, I sleep better, and feel generally happier than I've been in the last two years. Relationships are not all fun and games though because it taught me to emotionally resilient and go the extra mile, to be real with people, instead of isolating myself with the freedom and convenience that money provides. 

Can you give me some more specific examples of things you've exchanged?

Sure. Here are some examples of gifts I've received: a few people offered me accommodation, including a doctor from New Zealand and a nurse named Jane, as shown on this TV interview, a car, a speaking opportunity alongside the Mayor of Vancouver (and carrots), 100 organic vegetables, a haircut, one stranger gave me $5 for my rent (and more), health services (nutritionists, doctors, healers, massage therapists, free DNA tests from 23andme, and more), a website for the gift economy (This website is gifted and uncopyrighted. It's not mine, but I sometimes blog there).

Here's some gifts I've given or organized, in addition to the free farm project: I paid people's dental care and someone got $700+ for her dental amalgam removal, a depressed dad gets surprised by strangers, I offered to pay a stranger's rent for a year and I shared $10k worth of stuff.

Brice received massage and organic vegetables, which he shared with neighbors

What impact do you believe the economic system has on mental and physical health?

It's very complex, like an onion with many layers. I recently talked to someone who mentioned her friend became a prostitute and the social taboo in society about it. But then I realized I am a prostitute too. What's the difference between a prostitute and a person with a regular job? If I give you a price for my time, am I not prostituting my services too? We're all prostitutes in a way, we just offer different services. Some of us are prostituting health services, legal advice, business services, and there's even the commodification of friendship nowadays. Have you heard of life coaching? As long as I'm in the market economy, then I am a prostitute too. Of course it's not our fault, it's the system we live in. It's designed that way, unless you live in a smaller community.  There are many doctors who can explain the impact of our economic system on our physical health better than I can, like Dr. Gabor Mate. I highly recommend his interview on how capitalism makes us sick. Another good statistic is how wealth inequality is bad for the health of both the rich and the poor by Equality Pledge UK.

Do you feel more or less secure living in the gift and why? How does gifting play into your sense of community?

A lot more connected. But it fluctuates and depends on the strength, connection and proximity of my relationships with my family and friends. I generally feel more secure when I make more effort to be connected. It feels great to give to people you care about. Investing in relationships has its own set of challenges and rewards. But it's difficult to build relationships when you live in a city or in a country with wealth inequality where people are busy with day jobs. And it affects people of every social class. For example, I heard of someone who sold his company for $30 million and he was surprised at how socially isolating he feels after this sudden windfall.  I often tell people it's the wealthiest of us who need to start a gift economy, to reconnect with our family, friends and community, because the poorest communities already understand the concept since they have no choice but to depend on the kindness of others out of necessity. 

What is Gift Economy Vancouver and how can someone get involved in their own community?

Video about Gift Economy Vancouver

Well, it began in Vancouver but it's now international. It's de-centralized, so everyone starts their own group. Now it's a community where you can learn how to start gift circle groups with your friends, coworkers, or neighbours. There are small groups for entrepreneurs, families, schools, and so on. You can join the Vancouver group and start meeting people from different countries. But I encourage people to start reconnecting with their family and friends rather than to join a website. That's often your closest gift economy. What is something you can offer that your family, neighbours or community would normally buy from you, or from a stranger? Maybe it's a camera you can share that you haven't used for a long time, or a professional service that you can offer. Once you start offering your gifts to people you trust and depend on, you're on your way to brighten someone's day and start a gift economy. If you need help, feel free to send us an email at gifteconomyvancouver@gmail.com. If you'd like to connect with me, I'm on Facebook. 

Do you have any other resources you'd like to share?

You can take the Gift Economy Challenge and here are our most popular articles: 

• The Surprising Link Between Extreme Longevity and High Unemployment Rate
• Gift Economy for Business Owners: the $40 Billion Enterprise?
• How to Start a Gift Circle

The post Young Entrepreneur Promotes Gifting to Heal His Cancer and Society appeared first on Shareable.

Omni Oakland Commons, formed by a collective of collectives, is an inclusive, community-run center with open access to shared resources and a venue for creative projects and activities. The Omni aims to be a replicable model for resilient community-building in our cities. The vision is a gathering space that fosters an ethic of radical collaboration across disciplines and between individual collectives. They just launched an ambitious crowdfunding campaign to raise the funds to open their doors to the public.

The Omni Commons is active resistance from the grassroots. The forces of gentrification, slashed budgets for social services, and corporate takeover are threatening Oakland's diverse landscape of independent art, learning, culture, and activism. In creative response, a team of volunteers is developing a public commons in an historic 22,000 square foot building, which was originally a union hall and then a rock club before its current incarnation. Their large ballroom, stage, dance studio and small rooms are available for rent on a sliding-scale basis to values aligned groups that are not yet official members.

Virtual tour of the Omni Commons

Why do you think shared space is so crucial, especially in Oakland?

Too often, creative problem-solving initiatives that aim beyond profit and private interests lack the common space and resources to start and sustain themselves. Shared space or “common” space is becoming increasingly rare as land has transformed from a means for basic human food and shelter to a primary means of investment and revenue generation. When public space is taken away or made inaccessible to most, the public voice of the majority is also diminished. A physical commons for public gathering fosters face-to-face interaction with people whom you might not otherwise meet, sparking creative ideas and solutions to community problems in a way that cannot be supplanted by the next killer app on the internets. In the commons, we are more free. Shared space is for everyone and should be preserved for current and future generations.

How do the organizations and members collaborate in addition to sharing space?

Our various working groups are open to all, and it’s in these groups that a great deal of work and organizing happens between and beyond the different collectives. From organizing the critical mass needed to haul out over 13 tons of debris and old law books left in the basement, to scheduling our common spaces, staffing the welcome desk, and building communications tools and documentation, the amount of work we can accomplish is only possible through collaboratively and harmoniously “playing house” together. And we do so in tandem with the joys of shared meals, song and dance – celebrating our commons!

La Commune Cafe and Bookstore at Omni Commons

What's the wild vision for Omni Commons? Is it a community space? Something else?

Some of our goals are ‘wild’ but most are just beautifully human. Purely profit-driven entities, such as mass media and monolithic corporations, play a powerful and usually negative role in shaping and distorting our personal beliefs and interpersonal behaviour. Simply by being able to gather in-person and connect with others regularly in a self-organized manner, we begin to demystify our own notions of who we are as socially-situated individuals. We begin to overcome the legacy of separation we have inherited with the commodification of our environment, labor, and bodies. Counterbalancing our unbalanced society in the direction of something collectively owned and shared for the greater public good should not be considered extraordinary, but in this day and age, it often is.

Our grand vision is enacted daily as we work collectively to equitably share resources, space, food, knowledge, and healing. We stand in solidarity with the needs and perspectives of marginalized and oppressed people everywhere, and work alongside those solving real problems in the pursuit of building a better world.

What's your business plan or how do you make ends meet?

There are three ways we cover costs to grow and sustain our efforts: member collectives make a monthly, sliding-scale contribution toward shared expenses; non-member groups pay a sliding-scale fee to host events in our common spaces (such as the ballroom or dance studio); and we accept both donations – like our “Help Open Our Doors” crowdfunding campaign – as well as long-term, no-interest loans. We have no investors – until now the effort has been overwhelmingly small loans and donations from our community – and we have already paid back over $25,000 in interest-free loans!

RIght now, it’s a shoestring operation, since most of the groups involved are volunteer-run and funded from donations themselves. As such, we choose to share what we have and invite others to join us in pooling resources for the greater use of those who need them most. 

We dream of eventually raising the funds to buy the building and assign it to a community land trust, ensuring its historical continuation as a space for communities to converge, collaborate, create and recreate together. Once we are open to the public, we will be able to cover our monthly expenses through a limited number of full-price rentals of our largest spaces.

How did you all decide to work together?

For many of the core organizers, the notion of sharing this new space was quite natural. The Bay Area Public School and Sudo Room were already sharing a common space in downtown Oakland, which provided meeting and event space for groups such as the Bay Area Community Exchange Timebank, the Oakland Privacy Working Group, Occupy Oakland, the Community Democracy Project, and many more. Counter Culture Labs was already hosting their open meetings and classes in Sudo Room, and many in the community were regularly volunteering with Food Not Bombs. Several members of the Public School are poets and independent publishers, inspiring a natural partnership with Timeless, Infinite Light and the formation of the Material Print Machine. Many other individuals, groups and projects have gravitated to the space with complementary visions and projects, and the community continues to grow organically.

Sudo Room Makerspace at Omni Commons

What challenges have you had so far and how did you work through them?

Inviting and including member groups that act as active stewards of our commons, beyond simply using it in exchange for money, is an endless learning opportunity and challenge, and we embrace the flux of changing and evolving membership. A few major aspects stand out:

Communication and infrastructure: Dialogue is always a challenge in an all-volunteer collective, and time and experience in tackling shared challenges together continues to generate communal trust. Genuine ability to give one another the benefit of the doubt makes a huge difference in our group as we find ourselves in uncharted territories, from event scheduling systems to city permit to-do’s.

Workload: Omni is in many ways a do-ocracy, where people do what they want to while being excellent to each other when doing so. When work becomes complex and high-stakes for a long time – for example, planning and preparing to open to the public with all permits in place – we work extra hard to coordinate and cooperate with one another. Sometimes, individuals overburden themselves and forget to ask for and accept peer support. The good news is, because we do have so many amazing people actively making Omni awesome, newcomers often find themselves inspired to bring their new perspectives and energy making it all happen.

Funding: Omni is committed to being a space that is accessible and inclusive for all of Oakland. When we initially organized to sign our lease, we were able to pool enough funds from our community to get the keys and renovate sufficiently to host some events. However, our beautiful building is 80 years old! Complying with modern building codes for fire, health safety, and accessibility that will allow us to open to the public will require a lot of money. Raising enough money and coordinating enough volunteer labor to open soon enough is a major challenge. If we can raise $80,000 by early January, we can speed through building improvements necessary to open our doors and grow a commons for all of Oakland.

Theatre and Ballroom at Omni Commons

Are there any particular models you were inspired by?

Coming together around campfires to share food, song, and dance has always been a part of being human. We love and appreciate libraries and religious centers as some of the longest-standing forms of institutional commons, because many provide incredible access to knowledge, food, shelter, and simple human connection. We’re inspired by comrades around the world self-organizing to reclaim the commons and heal the planet.

Who is allowed join as a member and how do they get started?

We’re committed to creating a commons that addresses the needs of Oakland, and encourage aligned groups and individuals to join us in that effort. With that said, the Omni Commons is not defined by its membership, but rather the spirit that animates it – one of welcoming, cooperative and do-ocratic participation. Introduce yourself at our monthly ‘Omni Gathers’ every second Sunday or join a weekly general meeting to learn more about getting involved!

Our shared values include the radical commoning of space and resources, liberation of knowledge, transformative justice, and solidarity with struggles against capitalism, racism, misogyny, and other forms of violence. If you’re working toward similar goals, we encourage your involvement! Our proposal process involves answering a few simple questions on our wiki and hashing out the details with the community in a spirit of mutual aid and good faith.

Individuals are always welcome to use the space, attend events, and participate in building our commons. From free yoga classes and writers’ groups to shared tools and meals, we endeavor to create a space for anyone and everyone to share.

Are you hoping to one day buy the building? Do you have a plan for making that happen? What would be the ownership structure?

We fully intend to buy the building and convert it to a community land trust that grows with Oakland. Our lease is three years long with two three-year extensions, but during the first three years we have the option to buy for $1,950,000. We’re weighing options with community land trusts to ensure ownership and stewardship of the property is done right. For now, we need to build our capacity to sustain our effort and fundraise. In order to generate enough income to meet our expenses, we need to open our doors!

The outside of the Omni Commons Building

What tools do you use for communication and what kind of decision-making process do you use for engaging your wide range of participating organizations?

We’re always hacking on our communications infrastructure, which is composed of in-person meetings, digital tools, and is basically embedded in every interaction.

Each week, our open delegates meeting is facilitated by two people – ideally one who hasn’t facilitated before – and others help out by keeping time, taking stack (keeping track of who indicated they would like to speak), taking notes and checking the vibe. Minutes are recorded on shared document editing software (https://pad.riseup.net) so that anyone with a laptop participating in the meeting can help take notes, and others who can’t make it can participate remotely. The notepad contains proposals from the various collectives and working groups over the previous week, which are discussed and passed, amended or blocked through consensus of the delegate representatives of each member group.

Our meeting notes and many other aspects of the project are located on our wiki. We’re dedicated to transparency and documenting everything we do for ourselves and others to learn from our successes and failures. While in-person meetings and work parties are essential to our daily functioning, we also have over a dozen mailing lists for anyone interested in particular projects and working groups to communicate and stay updated on progress.

Who's part of Omni Commons currently?

The Omni Commons community is already composed of an ever-growing ensemble of collectives and projects:

=========

Share their campaign and press release to open their doors to all of Oakland

Find more info at www.omnicommons.org

The post Omni Commons Opens Collaborative Space for Collectives in Oakland appeared first on Shareable.

Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) is a grassroots organization that has taken the lead in organizing the community around the Mike Brown case, systemic racism and building a solidarity economy in St. Louis through a new project called Solidarity Economy St. Louis. We caught up with MORE Organizer, Julia Ho, to get MORE’s unique take on how sharing projects can support social justice organizing and why we shouldn’t ignore social justice in the struggle to create a new economy.

Why did MORE shift into solidarity economy organizing from more traditional political organizing?

In 2011, the Occupy movement sparked a pattern of people thinking about the economy in a different way, so we shifted our organizing strategy. We asked ourselves, “How can we do decentralized, anti-capitalist work and support what’s already happening?” Around this time last year, we decided it would be most effective to create a campaign working from two angles 1) connecting and sharing best practices for solidarity economy projects and 2) building political and economic power through organizing. We also knew that racial divisions restricted access to resources in the city and felt that a robust solidarity economy network could play a role in addressing those problems.  

In St. Louis, a major symptom of racial oppression is the criminalization of poverty, which leads to further economic insecurity and segregation. For example, cities depend heavily on traffic fine revenue to sustain themselves, which creates an unfair burden on the working poor and those affected by racial profiling because unpaid fines often lead to bench warrants and jail time. Currently, we are working on an initiative to get traffic fines paid through community service projects that are managed through our local timebank, the Cowry Collective, while also putting pressure on the municipal courts to stop issuing these warrants in the first place.

Launch event for Solidarity Economy St. Louis

Why did this work lead you to start a new project – Solidarity Economy (SE) St. Louis?

We wanted to build a local network of people who are doing similar projects and could also pull together to fight economic and racial injustice. Our idea was that MORE would help to convene this table, but that the network would consist of groups and organizations that extend beyond our membership.

SE St. Louis currently does campaign organizing, education, and strategy meetings with people affected by bench warrants. We work with the Cowry Collective Timebank, the Organization for Black Struggle, Sistahs Talkin’ Back, the Coalition to Abolish the Prison Industrial Complex, Grace Hill’s MORE Dollar Network, Blank Space, sustainable deconstruction and recycling organizations, free stores, art collectives, immigrant rights organizations like Latinos en Axion, the St. Louis Ecovillage Network, and are looking to connect with several urban gardens and neighborhood tool libraries.

Can you explain your plan to address the injustice of bench warrants for minor infractions through the use of timebanking or other alternative economic practices?

Through our work around bench warrants, we’re hoping to shift the conversation around alternative economics to call attention to systems that oppress people and exclude them from the current economy, such as the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). It’s hard for people to participate in the alternative economy if they have to fight daily to survive, to not get put in jail or lose their housing. Recently, a group of local lawyers sent a letter to Mayor Knowles, the mayor of Ferguson, to clear all fines for nonviolent offenses (there are about 3 warrants of this kind per household). The reasoning behind this amnesty initiative is documented in a white paper by the ArchCity Defenders.

As a result of the hard work of these lawyers, combined with pressure from our campaign and national media attention in the aftermath Mike Brown’s murder, Ferguson actually amended its city charter to include several reforms to the municipal court system. Most recently, St. Louis City announced on October 1st that 220,000 warrants for nonviolent offenses will be cleared. These changes were big victories for our campaign, but these are just first steps. Clearly, there is still an enormous amount of work to be done to ensure that people are not being exploited by the courts or the police. In addition to the other work that MORE has been doing in Ferguson, one of our next steps is to start a Timebanking program that will expand throughout St. Louis which will allow people to work off their fines by exchanging services in their community.

Cowry Collective Timebank Meetup

What's your long-term vision for economic transformation in St. Louis and how do shared resources, the commons and cooperatives fit in?

Ultimately, our vision is to see people having true democratic power over their resources and the decisions that affect their lives. In St. Louis, corporate power rules. Peabody, the largest privately owned coal corporation in the world, is headquartered here. Monsanto is headquartered here. Boeing has a major base of operations here. These corporate powers, along with many others, heavily influence public policy and funnel money into nearly every cultural institution. As a result, people tend to turn a blind eye to the fact that these corporations are robbing millions of dollars in tax breaks per year from public schools and other city services.

Last year, we were working on a ballot initiative campaign called Take Back St. Louis that over 8 months received 36k signatures. Take Back St. Louis was essentially designed to divert tax breaks ($61,000,000 to Peabody alone) to green jobs, community gardens and renewable energy projects. It got on the ballot, but Peabody successfully filed an injunction and even inserted an amendment at the state level that prohibited St. Louisans from passing any initiatives that limit tax breaks to coal corporations. We are in the midst of an appeal process now, but the Take Back St. Louis campaign is a perfect example of how our democracy is currently being subverted.

Another major issue in the city is massive plots of vacant homes and land, which are a direct result of decades of white flight. St. Louis has over 10k vacant homes and many more private vacant lots. Developers see it as an opportunity, the city sees it as a blight, but what about the people that live there? How do we develop St. Louis in a way that’s constructive of a new economic paradigm? People are already doing it, but it’s not being recognized or supported in the ways that it should be. We want people who live in these communities, who are primarily low income people and people of color, to be dictating where the city’s resources are spent.

Map of Shared Resources in St. Louis

St. Louis has been the subject of a lot of media attention around racism lately with the murder of Michael Brown. How does your work address systemic racism?

This moment is significant because it is a chance to push forward a national movement against systemic racism. Mike Brown is not the first Black man to be killed by the police, and sadly he will not be the last–every 28 hours, a Black man or woman is extra-judicially killed. Bench warrants are just one small symptom of the widespread problem of the criminalization of Black and Brown communities. So we are doing what we can to uplift organizations that are already deeply rooted in the community, such as the Organization for Black Struggle and the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, and also support newly politicized and radicalized young leaders off of the streets by training them in their organizing skills.

Do you have any particular models of cities or projects you look to for inspiration?

We originally took a lot of inspiration from Solidarity NYC, their mission and vision. We’re also excited to connect with organizers in Detroit with the Our Power campaign, as well as folks with Cooperation Jackson who are doing incredible work to transform their local economy.

How can people get involved?

• We just organized an event about Mike Brown and the bench warrant campaign and have a upcoming big event called Ferguson October from October 10-13th.
• You can get further updates on campaigns and events from the Solidarity Economy St. Louis or MORE Facebook pages or follow #UnWarranted.
• Donate to the legal support fund for justice for Mike Brown
• Donate to the Ferguson October Weekend of Resistance

Header photo courtesy of Ferguson October

The post Solidarity Economy Organizing in the Wake of Mike Brown appeared first on Shareable.

The model provides frequent, effective, simple acupuncture treatments to patients at a sliding-scale cost that most can afford. Patients share one tranquil treatment room to reduce business overhead costs. Most of the treatment is limited to the extremities – arms, legs and head – as the patients kick back and relax in comfy recliners to save additional space. And practitioners may see several times the normal volume of clients in a day because the treatments are so affordable. Rooted in the values of health, social justice, and affordable access to healthcare for all, community acupuncture is more than a business, it's really an activist project.

In setting up the first community acupuncture (CA) clinic, the founders asked some simple questions: What were the barriers to people getting acupuncture?  What is really necessary for acupuncture treatments?  How can acupuncturists make a sustainable income providing treatments to more people? The result is the community acupuncture model, which includes some fundamental re-imaginings of what acupuncture is and can be, and many helpful systems that help clinics run smoothly.

In 2006, Lisa and Skip began offering workshops for other acupuncturists to share the CA model, the philosophies behind it, and their systems and experience. There are now hundreds of CA clinics around the world treating many thousands of patients and employing hundreds of acupuncturists. These clinics are part of a larger network, called the People's Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA) Coop.

The only problem with this model is that many graduates of existing acupuncture schools are leaving school with $100,000 – $200,000 in debt, which most people never are able to repay. Pretty soon, the only people able to attend acupuncture schools will be students that have trust funds or wealthy parents. And those graduates may not be the most likely candidates to staff POCA's clinics. Additionally, Rohleder says, "Existing acupuncture schools don't teach the skills that POCA needs for its clinic workforce: awareness of social justice, how oppression affects patients, rapport skills for a diverse population, efficiency in a high volume clinic, and a variety of acupuncture treatment strategies."

So POCA started an affordable acupuncture school just to train community acupuncturists. The current tuition is just $5800 per year and has a schedule that many people with jobs could manage. According to POCA co-founder Lisa Rohleder, "We didn't really want to make a school, but we felt like we had to – the future of the coop depends on it. Now we're excited and happy, because we're reframing acupuncture education in a social justice context." The curriculum includes unique classes like "Punk Skills: Inside the treatment room."

New students in first cohort participate in "Social Justice Rock, Paper, Scissors"

POCA opened the POCA Technical Institute (POCA Tech) this Fall. POCA. Its three year curriculum culminates in a Master’s Certificate in Acupuncture. Classes run in four-day weekend modules ten months out of the year, with a third year clinical component designed to be manageable for working students.

Far from being bare bones, POCA Tech teaches several different traditions of acupuncture. After completing their Master’s, POCA Tech’s goal is for graduates to become licensed to work in or open POCA clinics with the organization’s support. POCA Tech is licensed by HECC in Oregon and is pursuing accreditation with ACAOM.

“We are very excited to open the doors of POCA Tech this Fall. After so much hard work, we believe our goal of training the next generation of community acupuncturists is about to come to life,” says Rohleder. “Building and supporting this new wave of practitioners is vital to the growth of the community acupuncture movement. We treat a diverse range of patients and we look forward to training a new and diverse range of practitioners to serve our communities.”

You can support affordable education for this next generation of acupuncturists by becoming a sustainer of POCA Tech.
 

The post Coop Trains Next Generation of Community Acupuncturists Debt Free appeared first on Shareable.

The following ASECO Board members responded to our interview: Sarah McGowan Dear (left), Nancy Berlin (2nd from left), and Janine Christiano (4th from left pictured above), and Autumn Rooney.

How did you personally get involved in new economy work in LA?

Janine: Accidentally, in fall of 2008, I found myself in a new neighborhood and feeling very isolated. I was working at a library and one of our patrons invited me to a potluck for a “time bank” I hadn’t heard of it so I researched it, and the core concepts behind it resonated really deeply with me. I grew up in a multi-generational family of immigrants with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents always around to lend hand and offer support and comfort. The time bank created that same sense of security for me. Also, in the fall of 2008 with the crash of the economy and the really predatory practices of corporate America exposed, I just felt a call to action, I needed to take steps to create the world and the neighborhood I wanted to live in. Starting the time bank was a small way I could change things.

Nancy: One day it occurred to me that I didn’t know many people in my own neighborhood, and I wanted to find a way to do that. I felt like if we were ever going to make real change, it was going to have to happen from the ground up. I found the time bank on the internet and just showed up at a potluck. I was a little timid, but was immediately won over by how friendly and inviting everybody was.

Sarah: I think facing a crumbling economy at the time that I was graduating with my BA planted the seeds. Then CA governor Gray Davis gave the commencement speech and basically said that never had a graduating class faced such dire economic forecasts. He went on to say that basically this meant that our education would be critical in order to “get the good job” but I consistently found this wasn’t true. My employment “opportunities” consistently came from me going out and figuring out what I wanted to do and making a job or convincing someone to create a job for me. Today’s economy doesn’t make any of the promises that were offered to previous generations. As I learned to accept this, I thankfully learned also learned that a key to happiness was definitely going to come from learning to live with less and find a sense of security that did not come from the mainstream economy. When I found the Echo Park Time Bank, it just all coalesced. I had an alternative economy that more than compensated for the failings on the mainstream economy. Never was my bank balance so dismal, but my sense of wellbeing so great. It was a weird, inverted relationship to have with money, but one that has allowed me to live better since discovering it.

Autumn: I learned about time banking in 2008 through a friend who had taken a permaculture class. I loved the idea and decided to start a time bank. At the time there was only one other time bank in the whole state, up in Oakland and not a lot of info or resources about it on the web. Time Banks USA was extremely helpful. We tried it as an experiment and now there are 25 time banks in the state of California and over 300 nationwide. The time bank is the foundation from which other projects have sprung. Now I can’t imagine life without it.

Food Forestry Workshop by Echo Park Timebank

Why is timebanking important to the development of a solidarity economy movement locally and internationally? What other projects or work do you see as crucial?

Janine: Time banking lets people get resources when money is scarce and allows people to survive and provide for themselves. It creates more opportunities for economic justice by leveling the playing field – with everyone’s time valued as equal, it really comes down to getting back whatever it is that you give…give a little and you get a little in return – give a lot and you could find yourself supported by a very active, caring community that you’ve helped develop.

Sarah: It connects people who otherwise might never come together and it gives people of different backgrounds, skill sets and interests a way to share their knowledges, experience and time.

In general, we think this kind of work is important for every community to do for themselves – true transformation is going to come from individual community members stepping forward to help organize similar movements. The more we can inspire others to think outside the box and implement these kinds of strategies, the more we rely each other instead of socioeconomic factors that are so often beyond our control. The more we challenge and disrupt those systems that keep us disconnected and disempowered, the more we begin to reshape what community can look like in our own hands.

Launch of the Revolving Loan Fund for small businesses in LA

How has the Arroyo Seco Network of Timebanks grown? What other programs have spun off from it?

The ASNTB grew organically throughout LA county after the merger between the Echo Park and Arroyo Time Banks. Some of the projects that have grown from the ASNTB through member-led initiatives. We have also established specific programs targeted at serving the ASNTB community through ASECO:

• Community Revolving Loan Fund
• Local Economy Incubator
• CA Fed of Time Banks
• Share LA

Sarah: From a “why does this work so well” standpoint – time banking has spread because we are social animals and we do much better when we are connected. Much of the social distress so many of us feel is the result of being alienated, isolated, marginalized, bullied, etc. And that’s from not having a place inside the circle with everyone else – whether that’s on a most basic need level or on a social level. What time banking does so well is give everyone a place inside that community circle. The only thing you have to do is agree to use a new paradigm or model of valuation. And if you can do that, the possibilities are endless. We’re already doing that by buying into the mainstream economy, so why not something that is more egalitarian and transformative?

As we started creating more complex programs, like the Community Revolving Loan Fund, for example, we started to really begin to see how many opportunities there are for average people like you and me to grab ahold of existing resources, whether through philanthropic support, crowdfunding or partnerships, and make them available to our communities. Why wait for someone else to give you tomorrow what you can create today? Everything we do kind of comes from this ethos and you’d be surprised how infectious that is when you see other people in your community all of a sudden becoming active or radicalized or simply making activism a part of everyday life. One person’s example becomes galvanizing.

You applied for the LA 2050 GOOD Challenge. What is your vision for Share LA, what does your complete sharing city look like?

All: Time banking implemented throughout the city, with active community leaders. Worker-ownership embraced through high-level partnerships and political will as a powerful vehicle for community development in economically depressed neighborhoods (e.g. the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, OH)

Sarah: We think a community’s strength and therefore wealth should come from its level of connection and commitment to taking care of one another. Most people derive over 90% of their sense of security from the mainstream economy. This access to federal currency, or lack of it, therefore defines how people see themselves in relation to others and how much value they therefore have in society. The great thing about the Sharing Economy is that it tells everyone they are of value and have something of value to share with their community. This vision asks everyone in the city – all stakeholders and powerbrokers, average citizens and seasoned community activists alike – to believe in something new. It’s really hard to change beliefs, yet the easiest way to do that is through proximity. The closer we are to something or have personal experience with it, the more we tend to like it. And sharing, like connecting with others, makes you feel good. The more you do it the better you feel and the more you want to keep doing it. I see this blueprint as a practical roadmap for how communities can replace apathy and scarcity with engagement, opportunity and resource.

Janine: In my vision of LA as a truly sharing city, it’s a place where no matter what your background and circumstances, there are ways for your needs to be provided, that includes the most basic need for human interaction and connection.

Autumn: Los Angeles is a beautiful city with lots of challenges. I would like L.A. to become a model for what a humane ecosystem can be. That means safe housing for everyone, clean air, affordable public transit, a healthy river, more public space and politicians who prioritize the happiness of it’s citizens. Hopefully we can achieve this before 2050.

Video made by Shareable's Lares Feliciano for Share LA

Where do you draw inspiration from? Other cities/models?

Sarah: When a community really comes together to problem solve, it’s amazing what bubbles to the surface, both in terms of solutions but more importantly the resources that are brought to the table. Time banking has shown me that community building solutions can get started on a very personal level but grow much larger in a relatively short period of time and in a very organic, responsive way. Seeing how this incredibly low cost model can actually be a hugely effective service delivery mechanism for community resiliency, it makes sense to offer it in every neighborhood as part of a city-wide strategy to promote more social connection.

The Mondragon cooperatives in Spain – though they’ve struggled lately with bankruptcies and scalability issues, they show that embracing egalitarian ownership isn’t just a utopian or passé fad from the 70s – cooperative business, like many sharing economy strategies, incentivizes participation, gives people a desire to work hard together towards a common end and from which they all benefit. I think cooperative development – or giving employees a place at the decision-making and ownership table is more the American Dream than the corporate model that takes so much from us and gives so little in return.

The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, OH – this model project shows what can happen when high-level partnerships are formed between nonprofit, private and civic sectors. Worker ownership has incredible potential to transform communities. We wonder what LA could look like if every economically oppressed neighborhood in LA had a worker-owned business.

Nancy: I started to look for answers to how else we can organize our economy. People just kept saying there were no other models. I scraped together my savings and went to Mondragon, Spain to see their worker cooperative model myself. They are involved in every aspect of community life – not just work. They support the local schools and soccer leagues, they have their own health insurance program and university. They even have their own bank! I came home and kept saying to everyone, “Let’s start our own bank!” The first person who didn’t think I was kidding or crazy was Autumn. And now we have our own Community Loan Fund, our very own experiment in community banking!

Janine: I draw inspiration from the work that has come out of The Schumacher Center in Great Barrington, what they have been able to do in their small community with simple but revolutionary concepts like the CSA and land trusts, and the type of work and projects they have influenced around the world is amazing. I’m also completely inspired by the work of permaculturists for the same reason. Paul Glover’s LA: A History of the Future is such an inspired, idealistic and prophetic vision, it’s amazing that it was written 30 years ago. I’m always inspired by the work of other time bankers across the country, so it’s great to be part of the SCN. Internationally, I think Seoul, South Korea is really exciting for the sharing economy and I’m always inspired by the social services, specifically those for the family, offered by Norway and other Scandanavian countries and Mondragon, Spain for their development of cooperatives. Also, I’d be no where without the work, friendship, and guidance of Timebanks USA founder Edgar Cahn. And literally everyday I’m inspired by what one of our members or time bank neighborhood leader proposes, they have limitless creativity and generosity of spirit, it’s pretty cool that my neighbors and collaborators are biggest heros.

Autumn: I’m inspired by the our board and our members and the constant stream of creativity that grows out of it. Lois Arkin of the L.A. Eco Village has been a mentor and inspiration to me. She has done so much for Los Angeles and has always been ahead of her time. Also Marshall Rosenberg's non-violent communication.

Specifically in LA, why is this work needed? What are the most important issues facing LA?

Sarah: For years, Autumn and I would go on weekly walks, fantasizing about starting the Happiness Party – making a political party that at its core focused on quality of life and happiness indicators as real progress for the city. We could see so many possibilities for sharing economy solutions in our communities and, at the time, it seemed like bringing it to the political stage would elevate them. But politics alone won’t solve our problems and if anything, we’ve found with time banking that so much more is possible, more quickly when implemented on a neighborhood scale than a city scale. So if enough neighborhoods come on board, the city network is created and can continue pulling neighboring communities in. Social capital is the only capital that can make this kind of shift, and quickly.

Janine: Here in LA the cost of living is so high, there are so many vulnerable populations (immigrants, vets, underemployed) and the income gap is widening all the time. LA’s is one of the worst cities in regards to income inequality. With it so hard to make ends meet, most people don’t have the time, energy, or idealism required to reach out to others and form deep meaningful bonds, so isolation grows and the city becomes an unfriendly place where to succeed in creating a decent livelihood, providing for yourself and your family and creating a support network of trusted individuals becomes a luxury item. It’s absolutely unacceptable. With that perspective, the most pressing issues are of course just providing easier access to the basics (food, housing, transportation, opportunities to create livelihoods, comfort/friendship) for everyone, and the way I see it, the most efficient way for that to happen is to start with the network of people willing to support and share with each other and then to build up from there.

In the face of climate change and drought, how can your plan for LA increase resiliency?

Nancy: The recent earthquake in Napa got me thinking again about how important community connections are to being more resilient. With climate change we are likely to have more extreme weather conditions, from drought to fires to flooding, and of course, as Californians we always need to be prepared for earthquakes. The cascading impacts of climate change are a reminder of our interconnectedness. It starts with getting to know who is in your community, and then moves to building authentic, trusting relationships. When money is involved, a relationship is more opportunistic and transactional. Instead, we are building on trust and reciprocity. We are learning that we all have skills to offer one another and we are learning to accept that it’s okay to ask for help, that we are all interconnected, and it’s better that way. We are starting to get to know who in our communities have different skills, and we are discovering how much we know.

Janine: When you have a network of individuals, organizations, and city departments all supporting a structure that allows for the efficient distribution of resources, sharing, everything changes, and the community instantly becomes more resilient because the need for resources outside the community shrinks. Burning of fossil fuels decreases because the need for goods diminishes because of swaps and free markets. The need to ship food decreases because of neighborhood fruit harvesting, swaps, and matching people who want to garden with people not using their home’s yards. Plus more people have access to bike shares and carshares and low-cost metro passes.

                                            Artist Bailout event by Echo Park Timebank

How are you involving low income communities of color? What does sharing or new economy look like in those communities?

Janine: ASNTB has an outreach committee dedicated to making sure everyone has a place at the table, their work is all about connecting with under represented groups including people of color and people dealing with extreme poverty throughout all the neighborhoods we work in. As an organization we also partner with groups already working with these populations and try to help them incorporate time banking and other sharing economy tools in to their operations in order to help them further their mission and help the people they serve. Honestly, sharing and the “new” economy probably looks a lot like how they get by already, what we want to do is bring it out of the shadows and widen the support networks for them.

What’s most challenging about implementing this plan in LA and how do plan to address these challenges?

Sarah: Most challenging is engaging communities and supporting emerging leaders. Our current infrastructure does not allow for city-wide growth, so in order to truly effect this plan, high-level partnership will really be a critical component to supporting local communities as we begin to organize.

Janine: The most challenging does seem like working with City Hall, the “sharing economy” is so new to them so explaining it and integrating it with city services (while convincing them it will amplify their work and not compete with it) will be a challenge, but could be such an amazing opportunity! I honestly think, it already resonates with the average citizen, on a gut level.

If LA becomes the Sharing Capital of the US, how do you plan to share your model or support other cities also wanting to create entire sharing cities?

Sarah: We plan to make a digital version of the blueprint designed to help any interested city replicate our process or plan. Available open source and online, this digital blueprint will be educational, but also a viable action plan ready for replication on various levels. Whether strictly on a grassroots, neighborhood scale or on a larger civic level with support from philanthropy, business and nonprofit partnerships, there will be solutions to help guide any interested community leader towards a more connected, resilient community. We would also seek additional funding to help provide the infrastructure needed to give technical support to emerging leaders.

Janine: Also, continuing to work with the SCN through discussions and online forums.

What advice would you give other organizers wanting to begin this work?

Sarah: Just start. Don’t over think it or feel like you need a bunch of money to make something amazing happen. If all you do is start having potlucks in your neighborhood to get to know one another, do it. And instead of making small talk, ask everyone to go around the circle and tell A) what skill they have to offer the neighborhood, B) what help they could use from their neighbors, and C) one thing they would like to see changed in their community. This is basic community organizing at its best…everyone brings something to share, gets fed, makes a new friend and learns how to become more engaged in community. And if you want solutions beyond that, get connected with this movement. In the sharing economy, you’ll find more open doors than brush-offs.

Janine: Also, it’s probably going to be a long journey so bring friends. Partner with like minded folks and organizations whenever you can.

Autumn: Don’t try to do it alone. Let go and have fun.

To read the full plan for Share LA and vote for them, visit the LA 2050 GOOD Challenge.

The post Sharing Activists Reveal Plan to Turn Los Angeles into Sharing Mecca appeared first on Shareable.

“We need as many community healing celebrations as possible. When you are dealing with generational pain, we are not at a place where it can be too much. All the healers need to stand up.” -Elisha Hall

Elisha Hall is a local activist in Chicago, who was working on an Masters of Arts degree in Healing and Spirituality, focused on traditional healing. Even though many healing traditions originate from his ethnic group and other communities of color, none of the local healers looked liked him. And so two years ago, Healers of Color was born out the efforts of Elisha, Stacy Erenberg, Shannon Harris and several other local organizers.

Healing Circle

Healers of Color, at its core, is a monthly meeting group, potluck, skillshare and healing service exchange. Their mission is to nurture other healers of color, get the care they need themselves, cultivate new young healers of color and heal the community. A common issue not being addressed was that the healers really needed support themselves – they weren't getting recognized or financially supported by their work and needed emotional support from peers. In order to build their core group and take care of the healers so they could take care of others, they went a whole year before providing any services to the community as a group.

Practitioner providing healing services at Community Healing Celebration

Out of these monthly meetings, the group decided to hosted a healing retreat last year to figure out their next steps together. They worked the whole summer to plan for the retreat on 40 acres in Pennbrook. Offered on sliding scale, the retreat provided skillshares around different healing modalities, drumming, dancing, energy work, sound healing, healing pyramid and discussions for newcomers on the value of healing in the movement self-care – activities that went well into the night and morning hours. From the retreat, came the conception of a Community Healing Celebration, an Elder's Foot Care Clinic at an Indiana senior home, and the Healing Bonanza (the predecessor to the Community Healing Celebration).

Pyramid healing session

For the Community Healing Celebration, they got a lot of things from the community and they budgeted $850 for refreshments, tent, event insurance, donate tables, chairs – partially funded by the funds brought in from the retreat and from a crowdfunding campaign. Their regular healer gatherings helped build their volunteers base. The event was organized by the “tribe” meeting every week for months leading up to the event. One person did service sign-ups, one scheduling, a children's corner, many helped with set-up, and of course the were many healers.

Face painting at the kids corner

“This event gives us healers a chance to share our gifts with others and allows us to get some healing that is needed for our communities. Here in Chicago we are flooded with the media speaking about crime and the city's violence. We are trying to promote positivity and bring good energy in our lives and community by doing this event.” -Organizer Lotus Love Snemah Tchass

Over 100 people showed up to this free event, which included all kinds of workshops (Kemetic Yoga, Zumba, Qi Gong, African Drumming & Dancing, Group Meditation, Group Reiki & Audio Pharmacology, African Martial Arts, Sexual Health Panel), healing services (blood pressure screenings, massage therapy, holistic health care, sound therapy, psychic readings, doula & midwives corner, ear seeding, herbalism, natural body products), a swap station and kids corner.

African dance at Community Healing Celebration

Participants praised the experience:

"Today was beautiful to experience. Thanks everyone in attendance. My vibrational energy is high!" -Jeneba Koroma

Thank you all for hosting such a wonderful event. Fun and healing for the entire family!" -Dominique Covington

"This was a wonderful, beautiful, life-enhancing experience" -Anonymous Attendee

Crystal healing

Since the inception, Healers of Color wanted to “raise their vibrations high enough to change their community.” The first step was to just raise their own vibrations. “Some people wanted to start a nonprofit, get funding, have an office and jump into the nonprofit industrial complex, but that wasn't the vibration we were aiming for,” explains Elisha. Shannon Harris was integral in starting Monday meditations syched with the cycles of the moon. The intention was to send healing energy into Chicago.

Meditation circle

I asked about how the project relates to activism in Chicago and if the healers tend to be activists. Elisha replied, “Healing IS activism to most of the healers. Often we don't understand the value of something vibrating at a different level in a community. We don't necessarily see the immediate effects, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make a difference. We are very mindful about getting out on the block and doing healing work.”

Healing foods at Community Healing Celebration

When Elisha first got out of college in 2007, he jumped head first into youth organizing with the Southwest Organizing Project. He questioned the focus on developing leaders, but not holistic beings. “We want you to come to the march, but we don't care about you when you go home. What's the value of the organizing if we can't deal with the whole person?”

Reiki on child at Community Healing Celebration

Other programs coming out the Healers of Color are the Rooted Initiative, Elder Foot Care Clinics, Monthly Healing Shares and the Healing Arts Tour. The Rooted Initiative helps root people with holistic knowledge & services as they transition into healthier lifestyles. The Healing Arts Tour is envisioned as many community healing celebrations supported by each neighborhood, with community members learning about various healing arts and having a transformative healing experience.

The next step is to engage with community members after the events for long-term care, support and love. They will need donors and donations of space to help cover the costs. To support the healers in this work, they plan subsidize the the sliding scale services with outside funds and to share admin work so each healer has more time to focus on providing healing.

Zumba class at Community Healing Celebration

I'll end with some wise words from the Dalai Lama – “The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.” Love to all the healers out there and the healer in all of us!

To get involved with this project, please contact Elisha Hall or visit their website to learn more and support/donate.

Top photo: organizer Elisha Hall participates in Qi Gong at Community Healing Celebration

All photo credits: Kayla Long

The post Healers of Color Raises Chicago’s Vibration with Community Healing appeared first on Shareable.

I was living in the central business district (CBD) at the time and had access to one of the most devastated areas….I wanted to leave. But the longer my family and I were there the more we felt like we had to stay and help build something new, different and brave.

Initially it was about creating or reinforcing a conversation about what should be driving this process of rebuilding, but it became apparent that there were a lot of economic drivers behind the plans and actions. It quickly reinforced the idea in my mind that a new conversation needed to be taking place…one with human well being at the forefront of every decision made.

A Brave New City crowdfunding video

What challenges does Christchurch face in general and after the quake?

It is now over 3 years since the most destructive of the earthquakes, but the city is still in limbo. The infrastructure – roads, sewage, and storm water pipes – are still being replaced/repaired.There has been a central government takeover of the rebuilding of the city and there is a lack of space for input for the citizens of our city. I felt like A Brave New City could help fill that void, but in a way that helped create and strengthen community and look for ways that those communities could more easily fend for themselves.

 

The level of engagement of the citizens has dropped off significantly in the last 12-18 months, as frustration builds. Progress is seen to be slow and the new map of the city is one that has not achieved a great deal of agreement with a lot of parties – both private business and the general public. People are tired. People are angry. People are lost and disconnected from the city that they knew. That void needs to be replaced with a positive view of what the future could become if we built it ourselves.

 

Project founder Michael Reynolds engages the public at market

Why do you think engagement and listening is so important? who do you hope to hear more from? Engagement and listening are vital for the future of our city. Everybody needs the opportunity to voice what they want their city to value as it grows from the rubble into the living, breathing city organism that it should become.

 

If we want people to stay and be part of creating a city built around the idea of human and environmental well being, then they need to be part of the process of creation.

 

Ideally, I would love to hear from every single person that lives in our city, but I am realistic. I realize that there are people that are largely unaffected by what has happened in our city and there are some who have profited…they may not care for what I am trying to achieve. But there are a lot of people that will contribute and it is just a matter of finding as many ways to connect to as many people as possible to create those opportunities.

 

Public comments on the future of Christchurch

What do you plan to do with the ideas people give you?

The Master Plan. I have in my mind a process that involves collating the data and picking out the most reoccurring ideas/themes and then creating ways for people to experience what it is that they have shared.

 

This will allow me another to chance to engage people and to refine the visions of those ideas. Most importantly it may create a level of agreement and allow the formation of action groups.

 

These refined visions will then be used to create a series of community initiated projects…civic improvement by the public. These will ideally be funded by the community, maintained by the community and grow within the community.

 

They have the potential to create long term social change.

 

A Brave New City postcard engagement project

What kind of response have you had so far?

A lot of people are sharing ideas about transport, food, sustainability, and public spaces.There is very strong support for cycling infrastructure to be built in the city. There is a level of commitment from our city government, but the scale and time frames are concerning people. I am seeing a very strong desire for a stronger local produce system in our city. This is something that I am already getting involved in, with an eye to how I can apply the knowledge gained to support a resilient food system in our city and reinforce ways in which this can be done without economic gain being at the heart of what we are trying to achieve. People also want space. Spaces for people to commune, perform, discuss, relate. We need to create these spaces. These spaces facilitate life.

 

How can people support A Brave New City?

I have been running this project with the aid of my wonderful family and support from friends. The project is now expanding. I am looking to deploy some interactive billboards in the city that pose questions and invite written response. I am also currently designing 1, maybe 2, projects for the Festival of Transitional Architecture. One event that I am also in the process of organising for later this year is an event around sharing activity that is happening in the city and how we can support and grow this activity into new areas of the city, as well as looking for new ideas to seed in the city.

 

I am currently running a crowdfunding campaign on Pledgeme – an amazing NZ crowdfunding platform. I am nearly at my target already, but this was set at my minimum to continue with this project. The more support I can gain, the more I can achieve in engaging the citizens of our city. Any and all pledges will be appreciated wholeheartedly.
 

You can support our crowdfunding campaign here.

 

You can also check out our simple website and find us on Facebook.

Please support and share!

The post A Brave New City Emerges from Rubble of the Christchurch Earthquake appeared first on Shareable.