Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees (Rebroadcast)

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Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

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Interview Highlights:

• How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

• Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

• How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

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LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 8,000+ subscribers and get our free 60-point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

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Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 350+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

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Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast. 

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Kanyon CoyoteWoman Sayers-Roods: Decolonizing & Reindigenizing Our Relationships (Rebroadcast)

Subscribe to Next Economy Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts.

Kanyon Sayers-Roods is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash; she also goes by her given Native name, “Coyote Woman”. She is proud of her heritage and her native name (though it comes with its own back story), and is very active in the Native Community.

She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony.

Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reinidgenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves, Art.

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Interview Highlights:

• Kanyon CoyoteWoman speaks to her experience as an ancestor in training and as an indigenous entrepreneur

• The importance of establishing authentic relationship through asking, listening, respecting, humility, & permission

• Why we should be shifting policy to authentically understand & respect local indigenous cultures

---

LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 7000+ subscribers and get our free 60 point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

---

Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 300+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

---

Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts by visiting: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy
Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Noran Sanford, Ravin Patel, & Norman Garcia-Lopez: "Flip Your Prison" with Growing Change

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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Founder of Growing Change, Noran Sanford grew up in an abusive, working-class Scot-Irish family in rural North Carolina. Ever since a young age he had a strong sense of justice, and took a stand against racism in his home even though it meant getting knocked down.

Scholarships for community involvement in high school helped Noran attend university at UNC-Chapel Hill. There he co-founded one of the few college Habitat for Humanity chapters in the country and, when then-President Reagan’s policies resulted in large populations of people shifting from mental health institutions to homeless shelters, he rallied UNC’s athletes to volunteer in shelters, helping deescalate violent situations and prevent police intervention. As a young professional, himself diagnosed with PTSD, he won awards his work in the passage of mental health parity laws in Virginia and for his work advocating for students with disabilities.

In 2000, Noran got married and moved back to Laurinburg to provide home care for his mother who was an Alzheimer’s victim. He “was stunned to find that our challenged area had grown more difficult.” Noran had been heavily involved in community work but, after 20 years “in the trenches”, he became disillusioned with the impact he was having as a counselor. Then, five years ago, at the funeral for “another young man who was lost to gang violence” he made the commitment to “never stand at another graveside for a young person I worked with asking myself if I could have done ‘more.’ This is the 'more.'”

Interview Highlights:

• How Growing Change is a youth-empowered model taking closed prisons locally – among the hundreds nationally – and transforming them into a replicable model with sustainable farms that generate revenue and livelihoods while regenerating the land and local communities.

• Hear directly from youth leaders Ravin Patel and Norman Garcia-Lopez about their skills and experience with Growing Change

• Stay tuned for the Growing Change youth-led DIY “Flip Your Prison” series on their YouTube channel and the “Prison Flip Toolkit” soon to be available on their website (where you can support their work by donating via their PayPal link)

Resources:

Youth Are Flipping an Abandoned North Carolina Prison into a Sustainable Farm

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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.

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. 

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

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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.

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

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

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2. RATE & SUBSCRIBE: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Spotify | Etc.

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

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!

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

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

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2. RATE & SUBSCRIBE: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Spotify | Etc.

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

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!

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

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

1. SHARE: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Etc.

2. RATE & SUBSCRIBE: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Spotify | Etc.

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.

Jessica Norwood: The Power 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. 

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

Jessica Norwood is founder of the Runway Project. She is also the executive director of the Emerging ChangeMakers Network, an organization dedicated to working with inspiring leaders and innovative ideas that end economic inequality. As a leading social entrepreneur in her region, she supports strengthening social enterprise and social investing as a way to build community resilience. Jessica previously spent years in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, as a political fundraiser and consultant, raising millions of dollars for various campaigns. Jessica is a past member of the board of directors for the Highlander Research and Education Center, a former Emerging Leaders Fellow at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, and the Political Power Fellow with the Hip Hop Archive at the Du Bois Institute at Harvard University.

Interview Highlights:

• How Jessica first got interested in the type of work she is doing today

• How The Runway Project is supporting Black entrepreneurs with non-extractive finance

• Jessica’s Buddhist practice and how it influences her work

• How she is feeling about the Democratic Primary process so far

• The individuals and organizations she most admires

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This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (http://www.lifteconomy.com/mba).

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

Join the growing network of nearly 250+ alumni who have learned essential skills, increased their confidence in Next Economy business fundamentals, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Courses are offered twice per year. Learn more and/or register today at http://www.lifteconomy.com.mba.

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If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-economy-now-business-as-a-force-for-good/id1074584017

For show notes and past guests, please visit www.lifteconomy.com/podcast

Sign up for our monthly newsletter to get tips, advice, and guidance on how you can help create the Next Economy: http://www.lifteconomy.com/newsletter

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Kanyon CoyoteWoman Sayers-Roods: Decolonizing & Reindigenizing Our Relationships

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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Kanyon Sayers-Roods is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash; she also goes by her given Native name, “Coyote Woman”. She is proud of her heritage and her native name (though it comes with its own back story), and is very active in the Native Community. She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony. Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reinidgenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves, Art.

Interview Highlights:

• Kanyon CoyoteWoman speaks to her experience as an ancestor in training and as an indigenous entrepreneur

• The importance of establishing authentic relationship through asking, listening, respecting, humility, & permission

• Why we should be shifting policy to authentically understand & respect local indigenous cultures

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

1. SHARE this post on social media!

2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

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.

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees

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!

CHECK OUT THE

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OVER 150 EPISODES TO CHOOSE FROM, THEMED PLAYLISTS, AND MORE!

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Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

Interview Highlights:

• How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

• Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

• How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

1. SHARE this post on social media!

2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

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.

Tiffany Jana: Erasing Institutional Bias

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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Dr. Jana is the founder and CEO of TMI Portfolio, a collection of socially responsible and interconnected companies working to advance more culturally inclusive and equitable workforces. An award-winning diversity practitioner and international public speaker, Dr. Jana has been featured in publications including Psychology Today, the Huffington Post, Fast Company, MarketWatch, and Forbes. They were also named an Inc.com Top 100 Leadership Speaker in 2018.

Some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s Conversation with Tiffany Jana include:

• How Dr. Jana got into the work she is doing today

• Why the first step to erasing institutional bias is understanding the problem

• The different types of biases Dr. Jana explains in her book, including occupational, racial, gender, hiring, customer, and retribution bias

• Dr. Jana’s new tech product, Loom, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help companies identify and address bias in their workplaces

• Whether Dr. Jana is optimistic or pessimistic about racial justice in a time of Trump

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

1. SHARE this post on social media!

2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

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

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

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

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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.

Laurie Lane-Zucker: Expanding the Impact Ecosystem

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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Laurie Lane-Zucker is Founder and CEO of Impact Entrepreneur, LLC, a for-benefit enterprise that includes the Impact Entrepreneur Center for Social and Environmental Innovation; the Impact Entrepreneur Network, a 19,600 member global network of entrepreneurs, investors and scholars; and a consulting company that works with blended value companies, impact investors and academic institutions.

For nearly 30 years, Laurie has been a “pioneer” (Forbes) and recognized leader in sustainability, social enterprise and impact investing. Laurie was the founding Executive Director of the international environmental organization, Orion, as well as the founder of a global sustainability think-tank, Triad Institute, and a "Founding” B Corporation, Hotfrog, which was the first company to complete a private equity transaction on an impact investing exchange.

Laurie is the bestselling and award-winning publisher and editor of books and magazines on sustainability and social impact, and the author of numerous articles on entrepreneurship and impact investing. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the University of Vermont's Sustainable Innovation MBA program. He did his undergraduate studies at Middlebury College and the University of Edinburgh, and his graduate work at Columbia University and the Bread Loaf School of English.

Here are some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s conversation with Laurie Lane-Zucker:

• Laurie’s background and how he first got interested in social entrepreneurship

• His varied interests in the impact ecosystem, including: media, environment, arts, social justice, place-based education, intellectual and journalistic freedom, entrepreneurship, social ventures, impact investing, and wisdom.

• How he met the founders of B Lab and certified his company as a founding B Corporation

• Why Laurie is focusing on funding, accelerating, and expanding the impact ecosystem

• His recent report with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors entitled “Philanthropy Transforming Finance: Building an Impact Economy.”

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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.

Beth Rattner: Exciting Opportunities Through Biomimetic Design

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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Beth Rattner is the executive director for the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit co-founded by Janine Benyus. Beth directs the Institute’s strategic vision and mission to create a new generation of nature-inspired innovators and oversees the organization’s three programs: Youth Design Challenge, Global Design Challenge + Launchpad, and AskNature. She is a frequent speaker on how biomimetic design in products, cities, and agriculture can bring about a new level of repair and cooperation to our economy and ecosystem which in turn will spur new levels of social equity. 

Prior to this position, Beth worked with William McDonough and Michael Braungart on The Upcycle, the sequel to Cradle to Cradle, before she helped co-found the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and became its first executive director and vice president. Beth was also a managing director for one of the first sustainability business consultant firms, Blu Skye, and business manager for Hewlett Packard’s Emerging Market Solutions (EMS) group. This HP internal “start-up” championed a new lens on providing technology solutions to those who earn less than $2 a day. The team launched HP’s first multi-user, daisy-chained computer for poorly funded schools and a solar-powered printer. The printer provided microfinance opportunities for women who brought paid photography to remote villages, allowing people to photograph their family events for the very first time. Beth is a graduate of U.C.L.A. and Loyola Law School and lives in Marin County, California.

Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Beth Rattner include:

• A brief introduction to the field of biomimicry

• How so much of what we depend upon in the chemical & materials world could be addressed through structural design

• Examples of exciting products inspired by biomimetic design

• How biomimicry is a perfect compliment to many of the solutions proposed in Project Drawdown

• How the Biomimicry Institute can capture the genius of today’s engineers and designers to solve today’s most pressing challenges
  

Resources:

Book: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature

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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.

Winona LaDuke: Seeds of Hope for a Healthy Next Economy

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Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. And in her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non profit organizations in the country, and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering. In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her leadership and community commitment. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms.Woman of the Year ( with the Indigo Girls in l997) , and the Reebok Human Rights Award, with which in part she began the White Earth Land Recovery Project. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has won many awards- including the prestigious 2003 International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity, recognizing the organization’s work to protect wild rice from patenting and genetic engineering. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and is presently an advisory board member for the Trust for Public Lands Native Lands Program as well as a boardmember of the Christensen Fund. The Author of five books, including Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations and a novel- Last Standing Woman, she is widely recognized for her work on environmental and human rights issues

https://www.winonashemp.com/

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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.

Jay Coen Gilbert: B Corps & Fixing the Source Code Error in the DNA of Business

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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Despite having no game, Jay Coen Gilbert co-founded and sold AND 1, a $250M basketball footwear and apparel company based outside Philadelphia. He led AND 1's product and marketing for 13 years and was AND 1's Chief Executive Officer during its period of most rapid growth. He is also cofounder of B Lab, a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world, and as a result society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity. Jay is co-chairman of Investors' Circle, an organization dedicated to the acceleration of patient capital markets for a sustainable future. Since 1992, Investors' Circle's core activity has been the Investors' Circle Network, a national network of angel investors, venture capital funds, foundations, and others that has facilitated the flow of over 111 million into 182 companies and venture funds addressing social and environmental challenges.  Jay is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a Board member of the Philadelphia chapters of KIPP, a national public charter middle school. He is also a Board member of City Year, a leading Americorps youth service program, and Monteverde Friends, U.S. Jay grew up in New York City before heading west to Stanford University, graduating with a degree in East Asian Studies in 1989. Prior to AND 1, Jay worked for McKinsey & Co and several organizations in NYC's public and non-profit sectors.

Resources:

• B Lab's Website

Videos/Audio:

• TEDxPhilly - Jay Coen Gilbert - On better businesses

Books

• The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy

Neelam Sharma: The Black Panther Party, Food Justice, and Self-Reliant 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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Our guest today is Neelam Sharma, Executive Director of Community Services Unlimited (or CSU), which is a non-profit organization based in South Los Angeles, CA.

CSU was founded in the 1970’s by the Southern California Chapter of the Black Panther Party. CSU’s mission is to foster the creation of communities actively working to address the inequalities and systemic barriers that make sustainable communities and self-reliant life-styles unattainable.

In Ryan Honeyman's interview with Neelam, they discuss a variety of topics, including:

• Neelam’s upbringing in India and in London

• Her early involvement with activism and her work cofounding a chapter of the Black Panther Party in London in the 1980s

• Her visit to CSU in the mid 1990s and eventual move to Southern California

• CSU’s latest project launching the Village Market Place, a social enterprise that was designed to complement their education and training programs, and meet the growing demand for good (affordable, beyond organic, culturally appropriate, exploitation free) food in South Los Angeles.

For folks who are interested in learning more, please visit www.csuinc.org to check out the amazing work CSU is doing in South Los Angeles. You can also follow CSU on Twitter, @CSUINCLA.

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.

Keba Konte: Red Bay’s #BlackCoffee

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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Now rooted in Oakland, CA, Keba Armand Konte was born and raised in San Francisco. He is an artist, food entrepreneur and man of the community. His artwork has been published widely and exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. He is the co-founder of Guerilla Cafe, the founder of Chasing Lions Cafe and the Founder/Roaster for Red Bay Coffee – an investee of LIFT Economy’s Force For Good Fund. In his spare time he enjoys aquaponic gardening, judo and making vegan waffles for his family.

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Keba include:

• Keba illustrates his colorful journey from the heyday of Haight-Ashbury in SF to his first career choice as a photographer – notable works from the 90’s independent hip hop scene: Boots Riley & The Coup, E-40, Master P, Too Short, 2-Pac, etc, with spreads in magazines like Rolling Stone, The Source, etc – transitioning in the early 2000’s to a career as a critically-acclaimed visual artist with unique documentary-style pieces & installation, conceptual, and interactive art (see Resources below to see Keba’s photography & art) which ultimately led Keba to co-found Guerilla Cafe as a hub for culture, art, and coffee vibes.

• Keba shares how he’s always been very intentional about the political implications of where he spent his money, a values-driven skillset that transferred to business decisions which enabled him to support black/POC entrepreneurs & provide livelihoods to youth

• Keba’s coffee enterprising began with Guerilla Cafe – which held the first wholesale coffee shop account for Blue Bottle Coffee.  Building from that success, Keba founded Chasing Lions Cafe and by structuring it to work so he would not work in the business so that he could work on the the business, he carved out the space he needed to cultivate the craft of roasting in his “Coffee Dojo,” finally launching Red Bay Coffee in 2014

• How the often normalized systemic racism of Starbucks culture recently captured on video has brought attention to the merit, meaning, and unique value proposition of the Red Bay Coffee model, resulting in a rapid increase in demand for Red Bay Coffee shops nationwide at a time when Red Bay is already ramping up for expansion (stay tuned for new locations in LA & Philly)

Resources:

• 10 Minutes With Keba Konte, Owner of Red Bay Coffee

• Keba Konte: Serving coffee with color, social justice

• Can specialty coffee be about more than fastidious white hipsters?

• Oakland’s Red Bay Coffee Expands Production, Teaches Farmers to Roast

• Red Bay Coffee gets new digs, signs on with Uber

• Berkeley Bites: Keba Konte

• Keba Konte to Debut '888 Pieces of We' Photo Exhibit at Oakland Art Gallery

• Beauty is ingrained in Berkeley artist's portraits

• Photomontage on Wood

• Keba Konte Discography Photographer Profile (62 Albums, 1993-2014)

• The Root Cities: Oakland's Hip-Hop Activism

• Forget Wealth And Neighborhood. The Racial Income Gap Persists

• New App Helps Users Support Black-Owned Businesses

• Meet the Baye Fall of Senegal

• The roots of fashion and spirituality in Senegal’s Islamic brotherhood, the Baye Fall

Videos/Audio:

• African American owned coffee shop looks to become next Starbucks with a different philosophy

• Coffee - Creating Roast Profiles

• Red Bay Coffee Investor Update

• Cupping With Keba Konte Owner Of Red Bay Coffee

• My Bag of Beautiful Coffee Transforms Low-Wage Jobs

• Design Talk | Growing Local: Designing Sustainable Food Businesses

• Aniyia Williams & Keba Konte: Keba Konte: Coffee with Soul & Aniyia Williams & Keba Konte: Q&A

• Keba -Konte - chasinlion

• 8 Factors Success Stories: Keba Konte, Guerilla Cafe

• Urban Organic Episode 1 - OAK: Aquaponic gardening with Bryant Terry, Keba Konte and Eric Maundu

• Sorry To Bother You | Official Trailer

• How to make Cafe Touba // How Do You Make Touba Coffee?

Books:

• Photomontage on Wood

Terminology:

• Café Touba

• Baye Fall people

People:

• Raymond Lawrence Riley // Boots Riley

• James Freeman

Organizations:

• The Coup

• Soul Salon 10

• Guerilla Cafe

• African American Farmers of California

• Scott Family Farms

• Blue Bottle Coffee

• Chasing Lions Cafe

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.

Nikishka Iyengar: Bolstering Entrepreneurial Ecosystems with Equitable Real Estate 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. 

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Nikishka Iyengar is a entrepreneur and strategist building the next economy. Using a whole systems approach to address social and environmental challenges, Nikishka is Founder and CEO of The Guild – a social enterprise developing co-living spaces to empower changemakers and build resilient communities. An investee of LIFT Economy’s Force For Good Fund, The Guild explores what community-led real estate development could look like, and has raised impact investment dollars to grow its model.  Nikishka is also the owner of Whole Systems Collective, an impact consulting collective helping companies innovate towards systems change. Previously, while earning her dual degree in Finance & Economics  at University of Texas at Austin, Nikishka conducted research on the socioeconomic impact of the e-waste trade in China and India, and on the social impact of microfinance with the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.  Originally from Mumbai, India before moving to Singapore and eventually to the US, Nikishka has been recognized by GreenBiz as a "30 under 30" emerging leader in sustainability.

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Nikishka include:

• How witnessing stark economic disparity in India, Singapore, & the United States has informed Nikishka’s journey in economics, finance, and social impact

• As Nikishka helped start the sustainability & social impact consulting initiative at Deloitte, she often observed “predatory delay” (see terminology section below) and a spectrum of sincerity in the field with some being lulled into complacency thinking that addressing the issue at all was enough, while others demonstrated steadfast commitment to pushing for real systems change in the world of impact

• How the shifting immigration landscape has shaped Nikishka’s experience and identity

• How Nikishka’s introduction to cooperative living & decision making in college inspired her ideas to create spaces to support the local social entrepreneur ecosystem through The Guild

• A reframe on the degree to which communities front tremendous risk with new real estate developments and how developments might be approached more equitably

Resources:

• The Guild Is Bringing A New Co-Living Concept to Downtown Atlanta

• The 2016 GreenBiz 30 under 30

Videos/Audio:

• PEOPLE TO WATCH 2017 ....Dinner With Friends X Creative Loafing

Terminology:

• Predatory delay

• Transform Finance Principles

People:

• Alex Steffen

• Morgan Simon

Organizations:

• Carbon Disclosure Project

• Housing Justice League

• The Coalition for Community Benefits

• ATL is Ready

• East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative

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.

Morgan Simon: Transformative Principles & Practices Yielding REAL IMPACT Returns

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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Building bridges between finance and social justice, Morgan Simon is a widely-recognized leader in impact investment, influencing over $150 billion in investment capital over the past seventeen years.  Morgan co-leads Candide Group, which supports two clients, including members of the Pritzker family on behalf of the Libra Foundation. She is also co-founder and chair of the non-profit Transform Finance.  Morgan previously served as the founding CEO of Toniic, a global network of impact investors, and as the founding executive director of the Responsible Endowments Coalition. She has worked with the United Nations in Honduras, in corporate reform with ForestEthics, and in domestic microfinance with the Women's Initiative for Self-Employment. She currently serves on the boards of the Restaurant Opportunity Center, The Working World, and CARE Enterprises. A graduate of Swarthmore College, Morgan serves as an adjunct professor at Middlebury College's graduate school program. She lives in the Bay Area and is the author of “REAL IMPACT: The New Economics of Social Change.”

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Morgan include:

• Morgan’s path to shift economic systems to be more just, moving from activism in immigrant communities in downtown LA to shareholder activism through university endowments to work in impact investing through a constellation of leading finance & social justice organizations

• A review of the 3 Transformative Finance Principles intended to democratically guide and inform non-extractive impact investments and how they are applied in practice as a tool to center impact in every asset class for systemic transformation

• How picking out eggs at the grocery store relates to investment decisions

• Balancing the mindset & practices of financial return with the mindset & practices of impact return

• The genesis of Morgan’s book, the coupling of ethical principles with impact investment, and asking the right questions as the field rapidly scales

Resources:

• Investor, Activist Seeks To 'Transform Finance' For Good

• Harvard Business School Case Study: Pi Investments

• Academic Guide for “Real Impact: the New Economics of Social Change”

• GMJ: Where’s the Community Accountability in Impact Investing?

• Impact Investing: Morgan Simon, Toniic CEO, Offers A Road Map To New Kind Of Financial Backer

• Redefining Community Impact - Andrea Armeni

• 2,934 hours // Buen Vivir Fund

• So, you want to write a book? Here’s what you need to know

Videos/Audio:

• Morgan Simon Interviewed by Cheddar at the NYSE

• SOCAP17 - Morgan Simon, Managing Director, Candide Group

• SOCAP17 Purpose of Capital: Morgan Simon's Remarks

• SOCAP16 - The Transformative Edge of Impact

• Introduction to REAL IMPACT

• FLII CA&C 2017 - Fortaleciendo acciones que disminuyen brechas - Morgan Simon

• Responsible Endowments Coalition Exec. Director Morgan Simon

• Andrea Armeni: Transforming Finance To Finance Transformation

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

• The Working World's Model Works: Non-extractive Finance with Tailor-made Business Support

• Morgan Simon Bioneers Presentation

• “INCREDIBLE DIVERSITY” - Morgan Simon on social entrepreneurship in Oakland

• Real Impact: Bringing communities into impact investing (podcast)

Terminology:

• Registered Investment Advisor

People:

• Andrea Armeni

• Regan Pritzker

• Aner Ben-Ami

Organizations:

• The Working World

• Grupo Yansa

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.

Bettina von Hagen: Blending Capital & Worldviews That See the Forest for the Trees

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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Bettina helped launch Ecotrust Forests and joined Ecotrust Forest Management (EFM) as CEO in 2008. Bettina has spent the past 15 years working to promote economic viability, social equity, and environmental health in the Pacific Northwest with a particular focus on forestry. A former commercial banker, Bettina has over 20 years of experience in banking, impact investing, and fund management. She also has significant expertise in emerging markets in ecosystem services, particularly the forest carbon market, where she is involved in developing markets and protocols for high-quality forest carbon projects at the state, regional, and federal levels. Previously, Bettina was Vice President at Ecotrust for forestry programs and for the Natural Capital Fund, a $20M fund which invests in key businesses and initiatives in the conservation economy. Prior to joining Ecotrust in 1993, she was a vice president and commercial lender at First Interstate Bank of Oregon and has been a Member of Environmental Advisory Board of Wells Fargo & Company since March 2006. She currently serves on the board of Forest Trends. Bettina has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from the University of the Pacific.

Some highlights from Erin’s interview with Bettina include:

• The origin story of Ecotrust & Ecotrust Forest Management and the blended capital approaches to addressing complex ecological challenges

• How unlike early U.S. conservation approaches that divorced people from the land, Ecotrust brings an approach that integrates conservation w/ community needs in ways that advances conservation while advancing livelihoods (ie: 100% of the landscape matters & 100% of people matter)

• Ecotrust’s creation of a for-profit bank that targeted enterprises enhancing ecological and social outcomes – a bank that grew into and was acquired by Beneficial State Bank, carrying the same original intention

• Ecotrust describes their worldview & style of forestry as the 5 R’s – Rotation, retention, reserves, resilience, relationships – suggesting practices that foster regional forest systems which yield greater value and health, rather than narrowly managing for a single commodity like timber

• Ecotrust’s deep involvement & relationship w/ tribal communities from elevating indigenous worldviews to repatriating ancestral lands and other natural resources

Resources:

• EFM's B Impact Report

• New Report Shows That Impact Funds Outperform Competition in Timberland Investments

• EFM Sells 3,200 Acres of Ecologically and Culturally Significant Coastal Oregon Forestland to Coquille Tribe

• Ecotrust Blogs on their work with Native Communities

• Project Drawdown Solution #5: Tropical Forests

• Project Drawdown Solution #12: Temperate Forests

• Project Drawdown Solution #15: Afforestation

• Project Drawdown Solution #38: Forest Protection

Videos/Audio:

• Empower Happy Hour | Bettina von Hagen

• Monetizing forest ecosystem services

• 2017 Philanthropy Awards: Ecotrust

• Resilience Project

• Spencer Beebe: Ecotrust & The Redd on Salmon

• TEDxPortland 2011 - Spencer Beebe - The Magic Canoe

• The networked beauty of forests - Suzanne Simard

• How trees talk to each other | Suzanne Simard

• Nature's internet: how trees talk to each other in a healthy forest | Suzanne Simard | TEDxSeattle

• Kat Taylor: Can a Bank be an Agent of Radical Social and Environmental Change?

Terminology:

• Hybrid organization

• Blended capital

• Seral community

• Complex early seral forest

• Monetization strategy/Revenue model

• Salal/Gaultheria shallon

• Huckleberry

• Oregon grape

• Ferns

• Ectomycorrhiza

• Carbon emission trading

• Emissions Trading

• Pine Oil

People:

• Spencer Beebe

• Kat Taylor

Organizations

• Beneficial State Bank

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.