cooperative

Avi Lewis: A Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Avi Lewis is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. His 25-year journalism career has spanned local news reporting to hosting and producing a variety of current affairs shows for television networks worldwide, to directing theatrically released documentaries, The Take and This Changes Everything, that premiered in festivals like TIFF and the Venice Biennale. In 2017, he co-founded and is now Strategic Director of The Leap – an organization launched to upend our collective response to the crises of climate, inequality and racism. He produced, and co-wrote with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Emmy nominated short film, A Message from the Future and is producer and co-writer with Opal Tometi of the new short film, A Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair.

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Interview Highlights:

  • Avi shares the backstory on his film The Take, which highlights the surge of worker-owned cooperatives in Argentina and how he wound up co-founding The Working World with Brendan Martin (catch the interview with Brendan Martin on the Next Economy Now podcast here)

  • How Avi’s experience with The Leap Manifesto transformed him into an activist and inspired him to found The Leap

  • Avi humbly admits that he was slow to see that the climate crisis is not the overarching crisis but that it’s merely an expression of the multiple deeper social justice issues that give rise to it

  • Driving a vision of hope through a compelling collective vision that integrates justice movements globally through Avi’s and Opal Tometi’s new short film, A Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Doria Robinson & Princess Robinson: BIPOC Community Wealth Building at Cooperation Richmond

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Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Growing up with a mother who was an illegal resident from Samoa, a single parent of 4 children with no educational background, Princess Robinson was raised in a low income community in Richmond CA with little resources and an unstable home.

Now herself a mother, wife, Richmond resident, and community advocate, Princess Robinson has worked with Urban Tilth, as an environmental steward, restoring creek ecosystems and providing fresh locally grown produce in food deserts throughout Richmond.

After years of community service, neighborhood meetings, community boards, and serving in many initiatives working toward a Just Transition economy throughout her community (such as beautification projects, alternative housing solutions, and implementing sustainable practices through climate justice systems), as a returning college student, Princess graduated 2019 with 3 AA degrees in business, sociology, and liberal arts.

Currently, she serves as a Project Manager for Cooperation Richmond where she supports her community members develop and launch worker-owned cooperative businesses in their community.

Doria Robinson is a 3rd generation resident of Richmond, California and the Executive Director of Urban Tilth. She is also a cofounder of Cooperation Richmond, a Richmond-based, resident-led worker-owned cooperative developer and small loan fund that builds community controlled wealth through worker-owned and community-owned cooperative businesses and enterprises by and for low-income communities and communities of color in Richmond whose wealth has been extracted.

Doria is also a dedicated Food Sovereignty, Climate Justice and Just Transition Activist, as well as the co-convener of US Food Sovereignty Alliance Western Region and an active member of the Climate Justice Alliance and Richmond Our Power Coalition. Doria currently lives in the neighborhood where she grew up in Richmond with her wonderful 18-year-old twins.

Interview Highlights:

  • The genesis of Cooperation Richmond, from Urban Tilth to leveraging values-aligned enterprise through cooperative development that supports and really meets people where they’re at

  • Some background on the Seed Commons, spawned by The Working World, and it’s relationship with Cooperation Richmond

  • An overview of the racialized and economic history of Richmond California – from the impact of wartime industries to Chevron and the significance of these community efforts in that context

  • A call for listeners to create local loan funds or investment clubs that advance Cooperation Richmond’s model in your local community

Resources:

Urban Tilth

The Working World

Rich City Rides

Star Wyngz

Princess Robinson’s work w/ Wildcat Creek

Richmond Progressive Alliance

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Claudia Arroyo: Advancing Latina Economic Empowerment for the Benefit of All

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Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Claudia joined Prospera in August 2014 as a consultant, providing outreach, recruitment, and training services, and in January 2015 she joined the staff as the Training and Capacity Building Director. She has been a key member of the Program Team, designing all of Prospera’s new programs.

Claudia brings her passion for social justice and equality to her role. She has been an active leader in immigrant rights, gender and violence prevention, gay and queer rights, and health promotion for underserved communities for more than 15 years.

Using Popular Education, video editing, and culture, she has served the community by creating plays to denounce and prevent social and health problems. In 2010 she founded the Latino Coalition against domestic and gender violence, La Red Latina that brought together more than 35 organizations that serve, protect and empower Latina women in the Bay Area.

Claudia is also an entrepreneur and is the founder of a new cooperative business in the Laurel District of Oakland. As an immigrant woman, Claudia has experienced the challenges that are implied in coming to a new country. With a BA in Communications from el Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, one of the most prestigious universities in Latin America, she worked for almost 10 years in the food industry as a waitress.

She recognizes that the immigrant community has a lot of challenges to face but at the same time, she also highlights its strength, power, wisdom, spirit and honesty! Hence, becoming a community worker has not been a choice but a need to demand equality and dignity in oppressed communities.

Interview Highlights:

  • How Claudia first got interested in the work she is doing today

  • How Prospera was started, and how it helps Latina entrepreneurs

  • Why cooperatives are central to economic empowerment

  • Challenges and opportunities for the Latinx community during COVID-19

  • How listeners can support Prospera and the  Latina Entrepreneur Resiliency Fund

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Esteban Kelly: Transformative Justice, Economic Democracy, & Collective Liberation

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Esteban Kelly is a visionary leader and compassionate strategist who inspires organizers by drawing on science fiction, social theory, and collective liberation. Uniting close friends and long-time co-organizers, Esteban was inspired to co-create AORTA culling together his creative energy and organizational skills for expanding food sovereignty, solidarity economy & cooperative business, gender justice & queer liberation, and movements for racial justice.

Esteban’s work is vast. In addition to working for AORTA, he is the Co-Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Co-ops (USFWC), and a co-founder and current board President of the cross-sector Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA).

Internationally, Esteban has advocated for workplace democracy through the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) and CICOPA (the international worker co-op federation), and for land reform and other social movements from Canada to Brazil.

After many years as a PhD student of Marxist Geographers at the CUNY Graduate Center, Esteban has left academia with a Masters in Anthropology. Most recently, Esteban worked as Development Director and then Staff Director for the New Economy Coalition. From 2009-2011, Esteban served as Vice President of the USFWC, and a board member of the Democracy At Work Institute (DAWI) and the US Solidarity Economy Network. He is also a previous Director of Education & Training and Board President of NASCO (North American Students for Cooperation) where he was inducted into their Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2011. He currently serves on the boards of the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) and the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA–CLUSA), and is an advisor to the network of artist-activist trainers, Beautiful Trouble.

Firmly rooted in West Philly, Esteban’s skills and analysis of transformative justice stem from his decade-plus of organizing with the Philly Stands Up collective. Similarly, Esteban worked through a major food co-op transition as a worker–owner at Mariposa Food Co-op, where he co-founded its Food Justice & Anti-Racism working group (FJAR) and labored to institutionalize the Mariposa Staff Collective. In light of these efforts, Esteban became a Mayoral appointee to the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council (FPAC), and works to advance education, systemic thinking, and anti-oppression organizing into all of his food advocacy work. 

You can contact Esteban at: esteban(at)aorta(dot)coop and follow him on Twitter: @estebantitos

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Some highlights from Shawn Berry’s conversation with Esteban Kelly include:

  • Esteban’s nonlinear and emergent visionary approach to movement leadership as well as his own career trajectory

  • Unpacking terms like Economic Democracy, Transformative Justice, & Collective Liberation

  • Exploring some of the historic cultural erasure of the cooperative economic heritage of communities of color

  • Differentiating capitalism from economics and business & increasing awareness of the is in the collective consciousness

  • How Esteban maintains hope and inspiration by focusing in on the generative work of constructing a better economy while being in allyship with resistance movements

Resources:

Frantz Fanon

Transformative Justice

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Shawn Berry, Partner at LIFT Economy, works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

Diana Leafe Christian: Finding Community & Creating a Life Together

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Diana's mission is to help intentional communities get started successfully, function effectively, and achieve their goals. She has learned what works well from founders and long-time members of more than 170 communities worldwide — ecovillages, cohousing neighborhoods, housing co-ops, shared group households, income-sharing communes, and more. She is author of Creating a Life Together, (2006), (now translated into six languages) and Finding Community (2007) See this 1-minute video highly recommending her work.

Diana teaches  workshops, offers consultations, and presents keynote addresses and breakout workshops for conferences internationally. In 2017 she received the Fellowship for Intentional Community's Kozeny Communitarian Award, a lifetime acheivement award for her contributions to the US communities movement.

She teaches workshops on Starting a Successful Ecovillage or Intentional Community, and on Sociocracy (also called Dynamic Governance), to intentional communities and member-led groups. She is an Associate Member of The Sociocracy Consulting Group (TSCG) and was formerly a Sociocracy trainer for the board of GEN International.  Her third book will be about how groups can use Sociocracy for better meetings, to get more done, and to feel more connected. She also teaches the N St. Consensus Method for groups that would like to use consensus.

Diana is a certified as a trainer for Gaia Education's Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) course, and a Board Member of GEN-US (Global Ecovillage Network-US) and GENNA (GEN-North America). She wrote chapters for the Gaia Education/EDE books Beyond You and Me and Gaian Economics, and the GEN book Ecovillage: 1001 Ways to Heal the Planet. She has written articles for Communities magazine, GEN Newsletter, the Communities Directory, GEN Newsletter, Permaculture Activist, and Permaculture magazines. She was editor of Communities magazine (1994-2007) and publisher of Ecovillages newsletter (2010-2012). She is a member of Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina.

Email Diana at diana~at~ic.org

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Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Diana Leafe Christian include:

  • An overview of the various common forms of intentional communities

  • An introduction to Sociocracy and other governance & decision-making systems

  • How to integrate critically important feedback loops for group processes

  • Diana’s 8 crucial structures that groups, whether intentional communities or businesses, should put in place immediately to prevent structural conflict

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Regan Pritzker: Teaching, Learning, & Tipping the Scale Toward A Just Transition

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Regan Pritzker is an elementary school teacher and mother of three, whose long sought-after quest for work and family balance led her to the unlikely profession of being a long-term substitute teacher at a San Francisco independent school. Mostly filling in for teachers on maternity leave, she is referred to affectionately as their resident “teaching doula." When not teaching, she is active as a school volunteer. She holds a master’s degree in Developmental Education, a Spanish bilingual teaching credential from University of California at Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in Art History from Stanford University. She sits on the boards of the Libra Foundation, a family foundation dedicated to enhancing the human rights movement locally and globally, and co-chairs the Bay Area Advisory Board of New Leaders, working to improve public education through transforming leadership.

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Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Regan include:

  • Regan’s journey in aligning her family’s impact investing portfolio with their family values and Libra Foundation’s stated mission

  • Challenging the assumptions & structures of our financial system and traditional investing that have created the problems we’re working to solve

  • Value systems that prioritize giving that’s motivated, not for personal recognition, but selflessly and discretely elevating the benefit of others

  • The Working World’s work building a financial cooperative toward regenerating localized self-determination & community-controlled ownership & power through transformative investment

  • Morgan Simon’s leadership in impact investing through Transform Finance, Candide Group, and her new book: Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change

  • Centering women & people of color as a locus for transformative systems change through authentic relationship building & learning from Movement Generation’s work toward a just transition

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Leah Hunt-Hendrix: Building the Next Economy in Solidarity with Resistance Movements

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Leah Hunt-Hendrix has her doctorate from Princeton University in Religion, Ethics and Politics. Born and raised in New York City, she has spent the past decade at the intersection of theory and practice, combining a study of moral philosophy and democratic theory with research around the world in grassroots organizing and social movements. She has lived and worked in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, where she focused her research on the effects of international aid and development, and the history of popular protest. She is the co-founder of Solidaire, an organization that provides support for social movements.

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Some highlights from Kevin’s interview with Leah include:

  • How economic justice intersects with racial justice, how economic democracy & political democracy intersect, and how Solidaire brings philanthropic support to these spaces with a vision for inclusive populist movements that tie these threads together

  • Leah summarizes Movement Generation’s 3-stage process for advancing & solidifying systemic/structural change

  • Leah shares examples of her work advancing the cooperative economy & climate justice

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is a co-founder and  partner with LIFT Economy, the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Brendan Martin: Non-extractive Finance with Tailor-made Business Support

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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**Special Announcement:

Next Economy MBA

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month project-based learning course for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from a regenerative, Next Economy perspective.

Brendan Martin is founder and director of The Working World, a cooperative financial institution and business incubator based in Argentina, Nicaragua, and the United States. Brendan originally moved to Argentina in 2004 to work with a group of Argentines in support of the “recovered factory” phenomenon, and out of this was born TWW and its non-extractive financing. Despite dire predictions of investing in the recovered factory movement, TWW achieved a 98% return rate across over 715 loans, and all with repayments only from profit sharing and without guarantees. This experience demonstrated both that grassroots cooperative movements can be economically viable and that finance can be non-extractive and subservient to people. After this success, Brendan helped open a second branch in Nicaragua in 2009, and another in the United States in 2012. The same grassroots cooperative efforts and have proven effective in the context of the US, where TWW has already funded 20+ cooperatives, including New Era Windows, which emerged from the infamous Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. Brendan is a 2009 Ashoka fellow, a two time Ashoka Globalizer, a 2016 BALLE Local Economy Fellow, a nominated Prime Mover, and a frequent speaker on the solidarity and cooperative economy.

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Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Brendan include:

  • The birth of The Working World and it’s deep roots in Brendan’s family experiences

  • Driven by community instead of profit extraction, The Working World’s lending practices revolve around serving investees first

  • Staying true to their model for the long haul, The Working World has achieved a 98% repayment rate, the funds for which are derived exclusively from the financial success of the companies

  • Brendan’s plans to expand The Working World’s impact and the broader impact network’s cooperative structure for a financial commons

 

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You can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Help these ideas reach more ears by clicking HERE to rate Next Economy Now on iTunes & by sharing on social media.

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

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Jonathan Rosenthal: Transforming Stories of Oppression Into #NowWeOwn

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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**Special Announcement:

Next Economy MBA

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month project-based learning course for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from a regenerative, Next Economy perspective.

Jonathan Rosenthal is the Executive Director of the New Economy Coalition. He has spent over 30 years working to transform the power of business from a destructive force of accumulation into a healing force honoring the interconnectedness of all people and our earth. He co-founded Equal Exchange, Oké USA and Belmont-Watertown Local First. He has consulted with people and organizations all across the trade justice movement. He is the author of numerous articles and is a frequent speaker at colleges and events, is a board member of the Coffee Trust and an emeritus board member of Root Capital. Jonathan is a lifelong vegetarian foodie and a huge fan of his local Watertown, MA library. He lives with his amazing business and life partner, Ora Grodsky (an organizational development consultant with Just Works Consulting), and has two inspiring daughters.

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Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Jonathan include:

  • How Jonathan journeyed from the consumer co-op movement to equal exchange with the intention to challenge systemic oppression and support liberation movements before landing at New Economy Coalition

  • As a network of over 200 organizations/networks/movements operating primarily in the U.S. with the goal of building grassroots power spanning sectors/geographies, Jonathan shares the buffet of all the great projects in which New Economy Coalition is engaged through their convenings, communication, & movement resourcing

  • Jonathan shares his perspective on the current state of systemic racism and the Trump era and how to engage in healing and building work within that context

  • And He shares what he sees as the biggest obstacles to actualizing the new economy whilst offering up the hopeful stories pouring forth from the New Economy Coalition’s #NowWeOwn Campaign

  • A comparison of the benefit and drawbacks of private ownership of businesses versus collective ownership (ie: worker-ownership)

  • Jonathan’s leadership advice around becoming a lifelong learner

 

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You can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Help these ideas reach more ears by clicking HERE to rate Next Economy Now on iTunes & by sharing on social media.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Neal Gorenflo: Shareable Turns the Page with "Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons"

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Neal Gorenflo is the Executive Director and co­founder of Shareable, a nonprofit solutions news outlet that covers the latest social innovations in resource sharing, new economy, and cities. He is a speaker, consultant, and writer on sharing cities, the sharing economy, and the future of work. He is the co­editor of the new book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.” As a leader in the sharing movement, he advises mayors, communities, and organizations around the world how to meet their goals through sharing. Not surprisingly, Neal is an avid sharer whose year of living shareably life experiment was covered by FastCompany, Sunset Magazine, and 7x7. As a social entrepreneur, Neal's timely call to action is simple: share.

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Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Neal include:

  • How Neal discovered the 10x effect of a social network based on purpose called the Abundance League in San Francisco between 2005 and 2010

  • The bastardization of the perception of the “sharing economy” and the signs of hope that can redeem what the sharing economy really means (ie: platform cooperatives)

  • The need for enterprise ecosystems to actualize sharing cities to create more virtuous cycles

  • We don’t have to wait for solutions to come to us; we have them now; and can act on them today (*This names explicitly is what this Next Economy Now podcast is all about!)

 

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You can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Help these ideas reach more ears by clicking HERE to rate Next Economy Now on iTunes & by sharing on social media.

 

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

Ed Whitfield: Racial Justice Meets Non-Extractive Financing

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Ed Whitfield is Co-­founder and Co­-managing director of the Fund for Democratic Communities. He is a long time social justice, anti ­ war and community activist. After graduating as a Presidential Scholar from Little Rock Central High School in the late 60s, he went on to Cornell University where he became the leader of the Black student organization during the period of struggle for Black Studies.

Ed is deeply involved in theorizing and promoting the development of cooperative enterprises in marginalized communities in the south. He helped to create the Southern Reparations Loan Fund to finance sustainable, democratically owned and democratically controlled businesses in communities that do not attract capital due to racist and extractive banking and investment practices.

Ed is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Southern Reparations Loan Fund, on the Advisory Board of the Florida Dream Defenders and serves on the boards of the New Economy Coalition (NEC) and The Working World (TWW). In his free time he build and plays flutes and bass guitars and plays guitar and sings the blues.

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Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Ed include:

  • Ed's circuitous 50 year path as an activist from witnessing lynch mobs in the streets where he grew up to impact investing

  • Examining the idea of “productive justice” – who owns the capacity to produce and how can we create more opportunities for people to be fully productive

  • How most of the social justice issues have economic issues at their root

  • How philanthropy is an afterthought of extraction

  • The notion of “commons thinking” and creating a “financial commons” and how the Southern Reparations Loans Fund attempts to build momentum toward this end

  • How the Renaissance Community Cooperative arose from the cracks and what the Southern Reparations Loan Fund & The Working World are offering non-extractive lending and other support in the face of systemic and structural racism

 

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You can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

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Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.  LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

George Siemon: How Organic Valley Became a $1B, Mission-Driven Coop

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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One of the nation's foremost organic agriculture advocates for nearly two decades, George Siemon is best known for his leadership in organizing farmers and building market support for organic agriculture. In 1988, Siemon joined a group of family farmers in Wisconsin to found the Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools (CROPP). More commonly known by its brands Organic Valley and Organic Prairie, CROPP has grown to become the largest organic farming cooperative in North America.

Organic Valley producers promote sustainability by farming without antibiotics, synthetic hormones, or pesticides. Their livestock herds feed on pasture, preserving landscapes and biodiversity for future generations.

Under Siemon’s leadership, Organic Valley has been recognized widely for its business and farming innovations for over 20 years. A native of Florida, Siemon received his bachelor's degree in animal science from Colorado State University. Siemon and his family have owned and operated an organic farm since 1977

In our interview, we discuss things like:

  • How George got started in the “Back to the Land” movement in the 1970’s, and how he was one of the only people doing all-organic in the mid-1980s

  • Why Organic Valley is a producer cooperative, and how being a co-op benefits its farmer members

  • How George and the Organic Valley team have approached raising capital

  • The top 2-3 challenges that keep George up and night, and

  • How birdwatching can lead to being a successful CEO

 

Resources:

Book: Black Elk Speaks

Wendell Berry

Mighty Organic

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Deborah Frieze: How to Create Healthy, Resilient, and Inclusive Communities

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Deborah Frieze is co-founder and managing partner of the Boston Impact Initiative, an impact investing fund that partners with businesses and organizations throughout Eastern Massachusetts to create systemic shifts in opportunities for urban communities.

Deborah is co-author with Margaret Wheatley of “Walk Out Walk On: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring to Live the Future Now,” an award-winning book profiling pioneering leaders who have walked out of organizations and systems that were failing to contribute to the common good—and walked on to build resilient communities.

Deborah is also founder of the Old Oak Dojo, an urban learning center in Jamaica Plain, MA, where neighbors gather to rediscover how to create healthy and resilient communities

We discuss two of the main areas that she spends her time: the Boston Impact Initiative and the Old Oak Dojo.

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Some of the highlights from our conversation include:

  • Her description of the Boston Ujima Project and democratizing capital in underserved communities

  • Whether the Next Economy needs to be defined, in detail, in order for us to reach our collective goals

  • Why she believes worker ownership is right for some businesses, but not others

  • How the author Margaret Wheatley and the Belgian Economist Bernard Lietaer affected her thinking on a whole-systems approach to redefining the economy

  • Her advice to those who are seeking to learn more about the future of business

 

Resources:

Aaron Tanaka

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Marjorie Kelly: Democratizing the Economy from the Ground Up

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Marjorie Kelly is Senior Fellow and Executive Vice President at The Democracy Collaborative. The Democracy Collaborative is a non-profit organization that works towards a new economic system where shared ownership and control creates more equitable and inclusive outcomes, fosters ecological sustainability, and promotes flourishing democratic and community life.  Marjorie is author of the book, Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, released June 2012 by Berrett-Koehler. In it, she explores many experiments with new forms of ownership, which she calls generative: aimed at creating the conditions for life for many generations to come.

Marjorie Kelly is Senior Fellow and Executive Vice President at The Democracy Collaborative. The Democracy Collaborative is a non-profit organization that works towards a new economic system where shared ownership and control creates more equitable …

In this interview we discuss:

  • The election of Trump and its correlation with the economic challenges faced in Appalachia and rust belt states

  • 5 design elements of a company: membership, governance, purpose, finance, networks

  • The Democracy Collaborative’s work supporting Native American businesses and what listeners can do to support rural economic development

  • Strengthening the backbone of communities by engaging anchor institutions (like universities and hospitals)

  • Getting bipartisan support from politicians to support resilient local economies & employee ownership

  • How the democratization of aristocratic government happened without the democratization of our economics, and how we can bring this about

In addition to listening above, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Omar Freilla: Worker Cooperative Development as a Comprehensive Solution for Our Time

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Shawn Berry, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Omar Freilla. Omar is the founder and coordinator for Green Worker Cooperatives in the South Bronx, where they run the Coop Academy to empower a new generation of small local businesses that are cooperatively owned and operated.  Shawn first met Omar in 2004 after the founding of the USFWC when he came to visit Shawn at his woodworking co-op in SF.  It’s been a pleasure for Shawn to see Omar’s work grow and develop over the years.

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In this interview we discuss:

  • Why coops are such powerful and deep solutions, socially, environmentally and economically.

  • Omar’s experience visiting the Mondragon Coops in Spain

  • Common misconceptions about coops

  • How the current political and economic climate make this work more important than ever

  • New York City’s groundbreaking funding & coalition for coop development

  • Successes and best practices from the Coop Academy

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

 

Jessica Bonanno + Adam Trott: Cooperative models for community based economic development

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Shawn Berry, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Jessica Bonanno from the Democracy Collaborative and Adam Trott from the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives. The Democracy Collaborative has been doing important work around community wealth building, one of their most notable projects being the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, OH.  The Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC) is a cooperative  of 8 worker-coops in Western Massachusetts created to serve their members and promote the development of the cooperative economy.

 

In this interview we discuss:

  • Their personal stories bringing them into this work

  • Trends in cooperative development

  • Ownership as a pathway to community development

  • VAWC’s inter-coop development fund

  • Evergreen Coops network of companies

  

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

Jeffrey Hollender - Taking a Systems Approach to Designing the Next Economy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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“It’s not enough to build your own company, you have to participate in building the whole ecosystem... ” - Jeffrey Hollender

 

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Kevin Bayuk, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Jeffrey Hollender, Founder of Seventh Generation, the American Sustainable Business Council and Sustain Natural among other enterprises and organizations.

Jeffrey is a thought leader on corporate responsibility, sustainability and social equity.  His decades of experience have covered decentralized models of education, ethical community banking, starting and growing sustainable, and now net positive, enterprises and using the power of coalition building as a lever for creating change in policy and governance.  

 

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In the interview we discuss how important it is to take a systems view when engaging in changing the economy.  In fact, systems thinking emerged as the consistent theme in our discussion and Jeffrey encourages listeners to check out this lecture by Peter Senge to develop a basic literacy of systems thinking.

We also delve into a diverse array of topics including the following:

  • Which type of scale (many small businesses or few very large businesses) is better to change the economy

  • The role of worker ownership in addressing wealth inequality

  • The role and power of everyday consumer choices

  • “Net positive” business compared to business just “less bad”

  • The dysfunction of the “business as usual” capital and the return mandates on that capital to serve the innovation of small emergent next economy enterprises

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Kevin Bayuk works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is a co-founder and  partner with LIFT Economy, the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Alison Lingane: Worker-Ownership, the Coop Incubator, and Addressing the Silver Tsunami

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

“Good decisions are built into worker cooperatives from the inside out.” - Alison Lingane

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Ryan Honeyman, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Alison Lingane, Co-Founder of Project Equity.

Project Equity is a nonprofit organization that fosters economic resiliency by demonstrating and replicating strategies to increase worker ownership.

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In our interview, Alison and I discuss some of the differences between worker-owned cooperatives, ESOPs (or Employee Stock Ownership Plans) and employee stock options (like you might get as an employee of a tech company like Twitter or Facebook).

We’ll also discuss the startling fact that there are only 300-400 worker owned cooperatives in the entire United States. Alison hopes to change this with her new Coop Incubator program at Project Equity.

Finally, if you are interested in increasing worker ownership at your business, we go over some of the frequently asked questions and steps you will need to consider before making the transition.

You can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Janelle Orsi: Leveraging the Legal System towards an Equitable & Inclusive Next Economy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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In this episode of Next Economy Now, Erin Axelrod, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Janelle Orsi, founder of The Sustainable Economies Law Center.

 

Janelle Orsi is an attorney living and working in Oakland, California. Her law and mediation practice is focused on helping individuals and organizations share resources and create more sustainable communities. She works with social enterprises, non-profits, cooperatives, community gardens, cohousing communities, ecovillages, and others doing innovative work to change the world. Her primary areas of legal specialty are real estate, small business, nonprofit, and estate planning law. In addition to her private practice, Janelle is Co-Founder and Director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.

 

Janelle is the author of Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy and co-author of The Sharing Solution: How to Save Money, Simplify Your Life & Build Community, a practical and legal guide to cooperating and sharing resources of all kinds. Janelle also writes for Shareable.net.

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In this interview, Erin & Janelle discuss a number of topics, including:

  • What if people could divert their funeral financing into burial plot land conservation easements?

  • The radically transformative power of worker-ownership

  • What does the real sharing economy look like? Loconomics Cooperative as a model to emulate

  • What is a multi-stakeholder cooperative and why that might be important

  • Healthy workplaces and how to alleviate nonprofit burn-out

  • “Permanent real estate cooperatives” as an iteration of Community land trusts to lessen the divide and make land trusts accessible to a more diverse socioeconomic group

  • How to catalyze a consumer revolution to create a tipping point for cooperatives

 

Towards the end of the podcast, Janelle and Erin coin the term, “Democravore,” to indicate an idea of mobilizing groups of people to come together to prioritize food spending at worker-owned food businesses.

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is a shepherdess, indigo farmer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Jessica Prentice: How to Increase Your Social and Environmental Impact

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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LIFT partner Kevin Bayuk interviews Jessica Prentice, inventor of the term "Locavore" and founder of Three Stone Hearth--a cutting edge community financed, worker-owned cooperative enterprise in Berkeley California. Jessica and Kevin discuss the deliberate investments Three Stone Hearth makes to create social and environmental impact, both in the community and foodshed, and also within the company itself.

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You can also listen/subscribe to the Next Economy Interview Series on your favorite podcasting platform, including: iTunes, Stitcher, and TuneIn.