Kris Lin-Bronner: The Magic of Dr. Bronner's (Rebroadcast)

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

Kris Lin-Bronner is Strategic Adviser and CSR Manager for Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, the top-selling brand of natural soaps in North America. She is responsible for overseeing and managing many diverse projects under the umbrella of sustainability and social responsibility.

Kris advises the Special Operations Team and affiliated Fair Trade projects on financial and operational matters, provides integrated risk assessments on new business ventures, and works to institutionalize Dr. Bronner’s sustainability efforts across multiple levels of the company, from operations to governance. Prior to joining Dr. Bronner’s, she worked in the non-profit sector for programs serving recently resettled refugee and immigrant youths in San Diego.

Kris earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a graduate degree in International Economic Development from UCSD. She is a former hospice volunteer, as well as a design enthusiast, and she enjoys adventure travel. She was born in 1974 in Taiwan and currently lives in Encinitas, California with her husband David and their daughter Maya.

Some highlights from Kevin’s interview with Kris include:

• How Dr. Bronner’s models what’s possible for companies in addressing climate change

• The rippling impact of Dr. Bronner’s leading edge strategy around mitigating climate change impacts by engaging with the land use practices in their supply stream

• Dr. Bronner’s goal to get enough people to care to create the critical mass to shift away from the extractive economic model to a more regenerative model and how they pursue that goal

• The success of the Fair Pay Today program where Dr. Bronner’s and a consortium of businesses advocated for fair living wages for workers and their ongoing efforts to address income inequality

• Dr. Bronner’s excitement about Project Drawdown and how to use it as a tool to assess what role Dr. Bronner’s can play within their scope of influence

• As a top scoring B Corp, Kris shares how Dr. Bronner’s attracts new talent

 —-

Resources:

• Corporate Value Chain Standard (Scope 3 Evaluator)

• Natural Products Expo

• Cool Farm Tool

• Sustainable Food Lab’s Cool Farm Alliance

• The Guardian: The Cool Farm Tool – a better way of engaging with farmers

Videos:

• Dr Bronner's Magic Soapbox (2006) full documentary

• Cool Farm Tool Youtube Channel

Terminology:

• Curb Cuts

Organizations

• The Climate Collaborative

 ---

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

---

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.

---

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/

Frederic Laloux: Reinventing Organizations for the Next Stage of Human Consciousness (Rebroadcast)

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

A former Associate Partner with McKinsey & Company, Frédéric Laloux holds an MBA from INSEAD, and a degree in coaching from Newfield Network in Boulder, Colorado. He has traveled widely and speaks five languages fluently. Frédéric Laloux works as an adviser, coach, and facilitator for corporate leaders who feel called to explore fundamentally new ways of organizing.  His work draws on two strands: his deep understanding of the inner workings of organizations, and his longstanding fascination with the topic of human development and his own joyful journey of personal and spiritual growth.

His research in the field of emerging organizational models, published in his book Reinventing Organizations, has been described as “groundbreaking” and “a leap in management thinking” by some of the most respected scholars in the field of human development and management. The book focuses on how a currently emerging, new form of consciousness is bringing forth a radically more soulful, purposeful, and productive management paradigm.

Some highlights from our interview include:

• A brief overview of the concepts and inspiration behind Reinventing Organizations

• What Laloux would change if he could write the book over again today

• What is was like for Laloux to present his findings to the Dalai Lama

• How the election of Donald Trump has affected Laloux’s worldview

• The book he most often gives as a gift

• What’s next for him in the next 6-12 months

 ---

Resources:

Reinventing Organizations Wiki

Translations of Reinventing Organizations

Enlivening Edge: News from Next-Stage Organizations

Participatory Budgeting

Center for Courage & Renewal

The Center for Nonviolent Communication

The Mankind Project

Videos:

• Presenting the ideas of Reinventing Organizations to His Holiness the Dalai Lama

• A talk, followed by Q&A, by Frederic Laloux about Reinventing Organizations

• Charles Eisenstein - The Story of Separation

• Charles Eisenstein: Changing The Story of Separation

Books:

• Sacred Commerce: Business as a Path of Awakening – Matthew & Terces Engelhart

• The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible – Chapter 1: Separation – Charles Eisenstein

• Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition – Charles Eisenstein

• Flash Ball & Money Boys – Michael Lewis

• Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation – Parker Palmer

• Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career – Herminia Ibarra

Organizations Modeling Teal Characteristics:

• The Decurion Corporation

• Cafe Gratitude

• Patagonia

• Buurtzorg

• Laureate

 ---

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

---

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.

---

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/

Rick Ridgeway: Why Patagonia is Moving from Sustainability to Regeneration (Rebroadcast)

"When you dig down into any social justice issue, more often than not, the causes have some root in environmental degradation."  - Rick Ridgeway

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Ryan Honeyman, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Rick Ridgeway, VP of Environmental Initiatives at Patagonia.

Rick Ridgeway is one of the originals at Patagonia. He was rock climbing buddies with Yvon Chouinard before Patagonia was founded in 1973.

In this episode, we discuss Rick’s background as a photographer and filmmaker, his time on Patagonia's board of directors, and why Rick got his first “real job” only 12 years ago. We also dive into Patagonia’s famous mission statement to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

As you’ll hear, Rick is especially interested in moving away from “causing no unnecessary harm” (or sustainability) to “doing good” (which is regenerative). Rick and I discuss how things like soil health, regenerative agriculture, rotational grazing, and clothing that benefits the climate are increasingly on Patagonia’s radar.

—-

Interview Highlights:

In this interview, Ryan and Rick discuss a number of topics, including:

• Why Patagonia doesn’t mention solving social or community issues in its mission statement

• What happened when Patagonia discovered forced labor in its Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers last year

• Why the Sustainable Apparel Coalition is the largest trade association in apparel and footwear in the world

• Whether he is optimistic or pessimistic about the future

• Patagonia’s new initiatives in carbon sequestration

• Why you should know Fred Kirschenmann (from the Aldo Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture), the Carbon Underground, and Kiss the Ground

• And much more

---

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 250+ 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/

Aaron Tanaka: Creating a Just, Regenerative, and Democratic Economy (Rebroadcast)

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

As we dip into the holiday season, we will be reposting some of our most popular episodes of all time from the Next Economy Now podcast. This is from our March 2019 interview with Aaron Tanaka, founder and Director of the Boston-based Center for Economic Democracy. Aaron is also a community organizer, grant-maker, impact investor, and a founding organizer of the Boston Ujima Project, which brings together neighbors, workers, business owners and investors to create a new community-controlled regional economy. He is an Echoing Green and BALLE Fellow, and co-chair of the national New Economy Coalition and the Asian American Resource Workshop.

Some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s Conversation with Aaron Tanaka include:

• How Aaron got into the work he is doing today

• Aaron’s thoughts on democratizing capital and the launch of the Boston Ujima Project

• How social entrepreneurs can get more involved in grassroots activism and movement building

• The balance between creating examples of Next Economy solutions and organizing for policy change at the government level

• Aaron’s thoughts on how folks can help create the Next Economy 

---

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 250+ 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. 

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

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

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.

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!

---

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:

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.

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:

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.

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.

Natalie Reitman-White: Restructuring Organically Grown Co. to a Perpetual Purpose Trust

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!

Natalie Reitman-White served as Vice President of Organizational Vitality and Trade Advocacy at Organically Grown Company, one of the largest independent distributors of organic produce in the country, where in 2018 she led an groundbreaking move to restructure the company ownership under a Perpetual Purpose Trust.

This initiative was featured in 2019 Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, and Natalie was recognized as “a leading executive and change-maker in efforts to make food supply greener, healthier and equitable.”

She founded and served as the Executive Director of the Sustainable Food Trade Association (2008-12), she was on the faculty of the Institute for Sustainable Environment, serves on numerous advisory boards throughout the organic food sector.

Recently Natalie has shifted her focus to transformative finance and ownership models that ensure mission maximization, shared prosperity for multiple-stakeholders and lasting independence through growth or business transition.

In the last year she supported the launch of the Purpose Foundation to grow the movement toward a new paradigm of “steward-ownership” in the U.S. through field building, infrastructure development, and investment.

In 2020 she co-launched Alternative Ownership Advisors, is a Trustee of the Sustainable Food & Agriculture Purpose Trust, and is in Cohort 5 of the New Zealand Edmund Hillary Fellowship for Global Change Makers.

Interview Highlights:

• Natalie’s background as an activist that informed her work to shift corporate behavior that is irresponsible to it’s stakeholders

• Translating principles of regeneration in a farming context to a business context

• Examining the purpose of a corporation and making a distinction between driving shareholder value and actual value

• A background on Organically Grown Company’s mission, operations, and iterations of the company’s structure to be ever closer to the values that inform the mission

• Organically Grown Company’s innovating on the Employee Owned Trust model by making it multi-stakeholder and anchoring it in the purpose of transforming food and agriculture – a “Perpetual Purpose Trust”

Resources:

Alternative Ownership Advisors: A Steward Ownership Consultancy

Fast Company: This company pioneered a new business structure to preserve its mission

Next City: Why Employee Ownership Wasn’t Good Enough for This Organic Food Company

The National Center for Employee Ownership

Christopher Michael: Could the Employee Ownership Trust Better Sustain Perpetual Employee Ownership?

Christopher Michael P.C. – Employee Ownership Law

The Climate Collaborative

Sustainable Food Trade Association

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.

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.

Makani Themba: “Curing” What Truly Ails Us: Movement Strategy in the Time of Coronavirus

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!

Makani Themba is Chief Strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies based in Jackson, Mississippi. A social justice innovator and pioneer in the field of change communications and narrative strategy, she has spent more than 20 years supporting organizations, coalitions and philanthropic institutions in developing high impact change initiatives.  Higher Ground Change Strategies provides her the opportunity to bring her strong sense of history, social justice and organizing knowledge, and deft movement facilitation skills  in support of change makers seeking to take their work to the next level.  Higher Ground helps partners integrate authentic engagement, systems analysis, change communications and more for powerful, vision-based change.

Previously, Makani served as the founder and executive director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health justice.  Under her leadership, The Praxis Project raised more than $20 million for advocacy organizations working in communities of color and provided training and technical assistance to hundreds of organizations and public agencies nationwide.  These initiatives include Communities Creating Healthy Environments (C-CHE), an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support policy advocacy to advance healthy food outlets and safe places to play in communities of color and Building Capacity Building Power, a partnership with Ford Foundation to support grassroots civic engagement and Policy Advocacy on Tobacco and Health (PATH)

Makani is a highly sought-after public speaker, capacity builder, and trusted facilitator.  Her publications have helped set the standard for policy advocacy work and contributed significantly to the field of public health’s current emphasis on media and policy advocacy to address root causes of health problems.  

Makani has published numerous articles and case studies on race, class, media, policy advocacy and public health. She is co-author of Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention, a contributor to the volumes We the Media, State of the Race: Creating Our 21st Century, along with many other edited book projects. Makani was chosen as one of “Ten Black Thinkers” asked to comment on Black conditions as part of the NAACP Crisis magazine’s 60th anniversary commemoration of the landmark article What the Negro Wants.  She is author of Making Policy, Making Change, and she has also co-authored with Hunter Cutting Talking the Walk: Communications Guide for Racial Justice and Fair Game: A Strategy Guide for Racial Justice Communications in the Obama Era (under The Praxis Project).

Interview Highlights:

• Exploring Makani’s work in the context of the global pandemic

• Links between our electoral system and white supremacy

• Asking what does it mean to have agency and govern our own lives

• A deep dive into some of Makani’s article “Curing” What Truly Ails Us: Reflections on Movement Strategy in the Time of Coronavirus

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.

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.

Aaron Tanaka: Creating a Just, Regenerative, and Democratic 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. 

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

CHECK OUT THE

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

---

Aaron Tanaka is founder and Director of the Boston-based Center for Economic Democracy. Aaron is also a community organizer, grant-maker, impact investor, and a founding organizer of the Boston Ujima Project, which brings together neighbors, workers, business owners and investors to create a new community-controlled regional economy. He is an Echoing Green and BALLE Fellow, and co-chair of the national New Economy Coalition and the Asian American Resource Workshop.

Some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s Conversation with Aaron Tanaka include:

• How Aaron got into the work he is doing today

• Aaron’s thoughts on democratizing capital and the launch of the Boston Ujima Project

• How social entrepreneurs can get more involved in grassroots activism and movement building

• The balance between creating examples of Next Economy solutions and organizing for policy change at the government level

• Aaron’s thoughts on how folks can help create the Next Economy

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. 

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

CHECK OUT THE

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

---

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:

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.

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.

Martin Kirk: Transforming Our Values & Behavior By Exposing Unquestioned Assumptions

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

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

---

Martin Kirk is Co-founder and Director of Strategy for /The Rules, a global collective of writers, thinkers, coders, farmers, artists and activists of all types dedicated to challenging the root causes of global poverty and inequality. Prior to /The Rules, Martin was the Head of Campaigns at Oxfam UK, and Head of Global Advocacy for Save the Children. He has written extensively on issues of poverty, inequality and climate change, including co-authoring Finding Frames: New Ways to Engage the UK Public in Global Poverty to help bring insights from psychology, neuroscience, systems theory and other academic disciplines to bear on issues of public understanding of complex global challenges. Follow him on Twitter: @martinkirk_ny.

Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Martin Kirk include:

• How we might be surprised about our own beliefs about poverty

• How we can get underneath assumptions that form belief systems to transform values

• How asking key questions in a context of psychological safety aids in creating the scaffolding for transforming belief

• How the U.N Sustainable Development Goals are constructed from the false premise of boundless economic growth

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. 

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.

Kelsey Ducheneaux: Resprouting Ancestral Seeds & Local Economies

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

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

---

Kelsey Ducheneaux is a member of the Lakota Sioux Nation. Alongside her work as a beef cattle rancher on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, Ducheneaux is the youth programs coordinator and natural resource director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council, a national organization working to improve Indian Country. 

Resources:

Intertribal Agriculture Council – Youth

Native Youth Food Sovereignty Alliance

Organic reach: Food sovereignty moves to the web

Project H3LP

Lyla June

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.

Winona LaDuke: Seeds of Hope for a Healthy 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. 

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

CHECK OUT THE

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

---

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/

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.

Gopal Dayaneni & Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan: Frameworks & Strategies for 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. 

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

CHECK OUT THE

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

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.

---

Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan is Co-Director of the Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project (MG). Since 2007, MG has been bridging the gap between our current social movement strategies and the scale of the unfolding ecological crisis. As a collective member, Michelle leads trainings, facilitates strategy sessions, and works with other groups to foster a just transition to local living economies. Michelle brings over a decade of experience pairing resilience and resistance in fostering a just food system as the founding director of the Center for Food and Justice and a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow. She organized community groups in South Los Angeles and family farmers from across California to forge model programs and policy campaigns to shift power in the food system. She was one of the early initiators of the Farm to School movement in the U.S. Under her leadership, the Center for Food and Justice organized high school students, parents, and cafeteria workers in a campaign for healthy school food in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, Michelle served as co-director of the School of Unity and Liberation from 2005-2008 before joining Movement Generation. She has a M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA and grew up in Southern California. Michelle is now setting roots in Berkeley where she gardens with the extended Movement Generation family and her two lively daughters.  Contact Michelle: michelleATmovementgeneration.org

Gopal has been involved in fighting for social, economic, environmental and racial justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, speaking and direct action since the late 1980’s. Gopal is an active trainer with and serves on the boards of The Ruckus Societyand the Center for Story-based Strategy(formerly smartMeme). He also serves on the advisory boards of the International Accountability Project, and Catalyst Project. Gopal works at the intersection of ecology, economy and empire.  Gopal has been a campaigner for Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition on human rights and environmental justice in the high-tech industry and the Oil Campaigner for Project Underground, a human rights and environmental rights organization which supported communities resisting oil and mining exploitation around the world. Gopal has been active in many people powered direct action movements, including the Global Justice/Anti-Globalization Movement, Direct Action to Stop the War, Mobilization for Climate Justice, Take Back the Land, and Occupy.  Gopal is the father of two young direct action junkies, Ila Sophia and Kavi Samaka Orion, and lives in an intentional community with 9 adults, 8 kids and a bunch of chickens.  Contact Gopal: gopalATmovementgeneration.org

Resources:

https://movementgeneration.org

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.

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. 

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

CHECK OUT THE

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

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.

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

Charles Eisenstein: Awakened By A New and Ancient Story That We’ve Known All Along

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

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

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.

---

Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, human being, voracious reader, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. His books (see Resources section below) as well as his other essays and blog posts, and other media have generated a vast online following.  He speaks frequently at conferences and other events, and gives numerous interviews on radio and podcasts. Born in 1967, Charles graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. He currently lives with his wife and children in Asheville, North Carolina.

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Charles include:

• Enumerating anecdotes of the rapid ecological & economic destruction during the past half century while reframing how we think about scaling solutions for complex, adaptive, living systems – especially with regard to solutions for addressing climate change like regenerative agriculture

• Charles talks about his forthcoming book: Climate: A New Story

• Charles models using the framework of story & narrative to enroll people into a more harmonious paradigm, juxtaposing and contrasting the conditioned behavior that derives from the stories we believe

• Examining the “war on evil” story we’re often told as an explanation for the cause of racism that invites us into a judgemental position that shut out relevant data points and how we might replace this perforated story by examining deeper underlying conditions and create the conditions for a more compassionate story to arise

Resources:

• Climate Change: The Bigger Picture

• Chapter 8: Climate

• Chapter 29: Evil

• Chapter 26: Hate

• The End of War

• Drawdown: Educating girls

Videos/Audio:

• Sacred Economics

• The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

• Trump: The Anti-Green Backlash Begins

• Author Charles Eisenstein on Creating Deeper Connections in Just 60 Seconds | SuperSoul Sunday | OWN

• Charles Eisenstein: Acknowledging One Another's Humanity Could End Conflict | SuperSoul Sunday | OWN

• Charles Eisenstein on the Question to Ask to Build a More Empathetic World | SuperSoul Sunday | OWN

• What Author Charles Eisenstein Sees as Humanity's Future | SuperSoul Sunday | Oprah Winfrey Network

• A New and Ancient Story: The Podcast

Books:

• Ascent of Humanity

• Sacred Economics

• The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

• Project Drawdown

People:

• Paul Hawken

• Ken Wilber

• Oprah Winfrey

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.

Nwamaka Agbo: The Road to Restorative Economics – Community Ownership & Community Governance

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

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

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.

---

As a restorative economics practitioner, Nwamaka Agbo brings a solutions-oriented approach to her project management consulting work with community-owned and community governed projects. With a background in organizing, electoral campaigns, policy and advocacy on racial, social and environmental justice issues, Nwamaka supports projects that build resilient, healthy and self-determined communities rooted in shared prosperity. Her current portfolio of projects includes supporting organizations and initiatives like Restore Oakland, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Restaurants Opportunities Centers United, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, Democratizing Capital East Bay and others. In addition to her consulting practice, Nwamaka is also a Senior Fellow at the Movement Strategy Center. Prior to joining MSC, she served as the Director of Programs at EcoDistricts leading their Target Cities – a pilot program designed to support 11 neighborhood-scale sustainable urban regeneration projects across North America committed to equitable economic development. As the Director of Programs at Transform Finance, Nwamaka helped to design and launch the inaugural Transform Finance Institute for Social Justice leaders. The Institute was created to educate and train social justice community leaders about how to best leverage impact investments to deepen their social impact for transformative social change. She currently serves as an Advisory Board Member to Oakland Rising Action and a Board Member to the Thousand Currents, Center for Third World Organizing and the Schumacher Center for New Economics. She graduated from UC Davis with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and African American Studies and holds a Master’s of Public Administration specializing in Financial Management from San Francisco State University.

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Nwamaka include:

• While in college, Nwamaka, a first generation Nigerian American, discovered the role of economics, imperialism, and colonialism in impacting the ability of communities of color to access dignified livelihoods through an international campaign to support African countries working to cancel their debt bondage to western countries

• Inspired by community self-determination and resilience mechanisms, models, & strategies, Nwamaka’s work in restorative economics centers community ownership & community governance as a pathway to self determination

• A review of the historic Powell Memo and how it relates to redistribution of wealth & power

• Nwamaka shares how she had to challenge some of her own assumptions about finance and capital in her work with the Thousand Currents on the Buen Vivir Fund where collateral is based on the integrity of social rapport rather than asset-based

• Appreciating resistance work in addition to building of the next economy

Resources:

• Richmond’s CDE

• Structuring Development for Greater Community Benefit: An Analysis of an Opportunity Model for Developing the Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay

• The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations

• The Lewis Powell Memo: A Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

• Movement Generation Just Transition Framework Resources

• Just Transition Toolkit

• Thousand Currents’ Buen Vivir Fund

Videos/Audio:

• Nwamaka Agbo | Dreaming The Next Economy | Thrive East Bay

• Restorative Economics for a Just Transition – Nwmaka Agbo

• Our Political Reality and Building an Inclusive and Equitable Economy

• Love and Resistance: Black Land and Liberation

• “REVOLUTIONARY RESILIENCE” - Nwamaka Agbo on progressive innovation in Oakland

• Nwamaka Agbo's Keynote | Spring 2017 Pitch Day

• Panel Discussion - 37th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures

• C-SPAN – U.S. Job Market and Young Adults Panel: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

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

Terminology:

• Community-owned development enterprise (CDE)

• Community ownership

• Community governance

• Just transition

• Neighborhood assemblies

People:

• Aaron Tanaka

• Deborah Frieze

• Gopal Dayaneni

• Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan

• Ari Sahagún

Organizations:

• Center For Economic Democracy

• Boston Ujima Project

• Boston Impact Initiative

• Movement Generation

• Heron Foundation

• Novo Foundation

• Confluence Philanthropy

• Regenerative Finance

• Be Invested

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. 

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

CHECK OUT THE

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

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.

---

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.

Kevin Bayuk: Our Journey to an Economy that Works for the Benefit of All Life

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

NEXT ECONOMY NOW

WEBPAGE!

***

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

---

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.

---

Our dearly beloved co-founding member of the LIFT Team, Kevin Bayuk's has his roots in entrepreneurship, having spent nearly a decade starting and growing technology companies, and activating projects and organizations that regenerate healthy ecosystems and socially just and joyful environments. After immersing himself in all aspects of starting and growing companies, Kevin focused his attention on learning about and teaching eco-systemic design. Nowadays Kevin merges his experience in business with his experience in permaculture to help businesses care for people while enhancing the earth.  

Kevin also serves as the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown developing the business case to address climate change through existing practices and technologies. He frequently teaches classes, workshops, does public speaking, facilitates meetings, plans events and provides one on one mentoring as a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute San Francisco. Kevin has helped design and start food security gardens and public learning experiences intent on reminding people that we, too, are nature.

Kevin has raised millions of dollars to capitalize business operations, led teams of more than 30 employees, and can speak well to the benefits and pitfalls of raising capital and the many paths of growing a business. He loves spreadsheets and loves to dig into operating models. One investor of Kevin’s last technology company said, “Kevin oozes strategy.”

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Kevin include:

• Kevin recounts his process of shifting away from a worldview overwhelmed by proliferation of problems/suffering to one where he recognized countless opportunities to solve problems and inspire a movement of solutions

• How the genesis of Kevin’s interest in business & economy as powerful lever for social change grew from observations that much suffering is rooted in our system of economy that informs our cultural norms and identities

• A leisurely stroll through LIFT’s long term vision, from LIFT 1.0 to LIFT 5.0 and how the LIFT Team balances cynicism and optimism on the path to realizing our vision

• Some resources from which the LIFT Team derives inspiration

Resources:

• Meet Kevin Bayuk, From Dot-Com To Urban Permaculture Leader

• Permaculture Design as a Pedagogical Resource

Videos:

• Empower Happy Hour | Kevin Bayuk

• LIFT Next Economy Leaders Interview Series: Kevin Bayuk

• Kevin Bayuk: Urban Permaculture

• Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein - A Short Film

Books

• Tom Sawyer & Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

• Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux

• Ecotopia & Ecotopia Emerging by Ernest Callenbach

Terminology:

• Progressive Utilization Theory (“PROUT”)

People:

• Rebecca Burgess

• Paul Hawken

• Jane Jacobs

• Marjorie Kelly

• E.F. Schumacher

• Charles Eisenstein

• Lynn Margulis

• Joseph Campbell

• Alan Watts

• Robert Anton Wilson

• Elinor Ostrom

• Buckminster Fuller

Organizations

• Patagonia

• Namaste Solar

• VF Corporation

• 7th Generation

• Fibershed

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.