Podcast

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

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

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**Special Announcement:

Next Economy MBA

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

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

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Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Brendan include:

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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Jonathan Rosenthal: Transforming Stories of Oppression Into #NowWeOwn

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

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**Special Announcement:

Next Economy MBA

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

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

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Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Jonathan include:

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

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

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

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

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

  • Jonathan’s leadership advice around becoming a lifelong learner

 

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

Jennifer Pryce: Wall Street Refugee Champions Gender Lens & Access to Impact Investing

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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Jenn Pryce is President and CEO of Calvert Foundation. Having worked at Calvert Foundation for nearly a decade, Jenn has shaped the strategic direction of the organization to lead on rising trends such as investing with a gender lens and making impact investing more accessible to retail investors.

Jenn started off in the Peace Corps working in Africa where she was exposed to the frustrating limited flows of capital to lower income communities. From there she set off to work for major banks in New York and London including NeubergerBerman and Morgan Stanley focusing on capital streams in emerging markets. She then realized she could hone her focus on investing in a socially responsible way supporting underserved communities. She has since committed her career to impact investing at Calvert Foundation.

Jenn has previously served on the boards of the Hitachi Foundation, Institute for Sustainable Communities, Impact Assets, Groundswell, and Apple Tree Institute. She received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from Union College and her MBA from Columbia University.

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Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Jennifer include:

  • An overview of the Calvert Foundation and their initiatives including their Community Investment Note, Women Investing in Women (“WIN-WIN”), the RAICES Investment Initiative (now #ParteDeLaSolution), & Capital Aggregation

  • Ryan Honeyman’s personal testimonial about Calvert’s Community Investment Note

  • How Calvert measures impact and their rather impressive track record – a 100% repayment rate for investors of both their principal and interest, while generating positive social and environmental returns

  • Leadership advice and fundraising tips for savvy entrepreneurs & differentiating the variety of folks who refer to themselves as impact investors (Hint: look at where the capital is coming from and the typical investments that capital makes)

 

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

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

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

Farhad Ebrahimi: Widening Our Circles for a Just Transition Toward a Regenerative Economy

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

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Farhad Ebrahimi is the founder and chair of the Chorus Foundation, which works for a just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States. The Chorus Foundation supports communities on the front lines of the old, extractive economy to build new bases of political, economic, and cultural power for systemic change.

Farhad’s family history has been defined by multiple cultures, nationalities, political revolutions, and refugee experiences. To say that his parents talked politics at home when he was growing up would be an understatement, and the experience of being a first­-generation Iranian American throughout the 1980s had a profound impact on Farhad in ways that he’s still unpacking. These early experiences – combined with a lifelong love of punk and subversive art in general – have defined a political trajectory that’s informed both his personal and professional outlook.

Through his work with Chorus, Farhad is most interested in the question of how philanthropy might play a role in putting itself out of business. Which is to say, how can the redistribution of consolidated wealth support the transition to a world in which such wealth is no longer extracted and consolidated in the first place? It is in this context that Chorus will be spending down its entire endowment by 2023.

Farhad serves on the boards of the Democracy Alliance and the Wildfire Project. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics with Computer Science, and currently lives in Brooklyn.

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Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Farhad include:

  • How Farhad’s unique mixed-race family and background in punk music and art informs his work with the Chorus Foundation

  • Spending time with and funding communities directly impacted by climate change and resource extraction resulting in support for the Just Transition framework and 3 key learnings: 1) social change requires social movements 2) systemic problems require systems systemic solutions 3) local place-based engagement is where it all comes together

  • How and why philanthropy should be putting itself out of business in order to realize a regenerative and just economy

  • A closer look at the communities and enterprises the Chorus Foundation supports

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Neal include:

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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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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.

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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

 

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

 

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


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

Ed Whitfield: Racial Justice Meets Non-Extractive Financing

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

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

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

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

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Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Ed include:

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

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

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

  • How philanthropy is an afterthought of extraction

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

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

 

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

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

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

Kevin Egolf: Supporting Small Farmers Through Sustainable Farmland Finance

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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Kevin Egolf is an impact investing professional focusing his efforts on socially responsible farmland investing. His passion for sustainable agriculture and extensive finance background naturally led him into the growing impact investing field and towards impacting agriculture. Through Iroquois Valley Farms, a leader in triple bottom line impact farmland investing, and Local Farms Fund, a land access venture for early stage farmers in the NY Foodshed, Kevin helps investors achieve financial returns while providing social and environmental benefits alongside the investment gains.

As the Managing Director of Business Operations at Iroquois Valley Farms, Kevin was integral in growing the company from six farms when he joined to over 20 and tripling the number of investors (as of January 2015).  As a Co-Founder and Manager of Local Farms Fund, Kevin is bringing the Iroquois Valley Farms investment model on a small scale to local early stage farmers. Local Farms Fund is opening the doors of private investments to all investors, including non-accredited, following the principles of Slow Money.

Prior to his work in socially responsible farmland investing, Kevin spent several years in investment banking and private equity developing extensive experience in corporate valuation, transaction management and fundraising. He started his career at Bank of America, in the Consumer and Retail Investment Banking division as the go-to analyst for restaurant transactions, advising on several high profile deals including the buyout of Outback and sale of Applebee’s. After Bank of America, Kevin spent four years with Castle Harlan, a middle market private equity firm in New York. During his tenure, Kevin raised $700 million of debt financing and $300 million in co-equity investments across multiple investments as well as completed the first restaurant IPO in over four years at the time.

Kevin is a graduate of Wesleyan University with a Bachelor of Arts in both Economics and Computer Science. At Wesleyan University, he was Academic All-American, All-New England, 4-time varsity letter recipient and senior captain in the sport of wrestling. He continues to promote and teach the sport of wrestling as a wrestling coach. Prior to a recent relocation, Kevin was the coach at Hunter College High School in New York City. Kevin lives in Providence, Rhode Island with his wife, Amy, and daughter, Aurora. Biography Other Interests Outside of sustainable farmland investment and wrestling, Kevin is an avid proponent of regular exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. He mainly follows a routine of running, lifting weights, and (ungraceful) yoga, but also bikes, hikes, paddles, SCUBAs or does any outdoor activity when available. Additionally, Kevin loves to travel and has been to all seven continents. While at home, Kevin can often be found in the kitchen pretending to be a chef, cooking local, seasonal and sustainably sourced meals.

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Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s interview with Kevin Egolf include:

  • An inside look into the Local Farms Fund

  • How Kevin structured the fund to serve both farmers and investors

  • Exploring the possibility that the Local Farms Fund can be a model that can be replicated in bioregions across the country

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

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

Karlene Hunter & Mark Tilsen: How Tanka Bar is Restoring Indiginous Land, Livelihoods, and Culture

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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Cofounded by CEO Karlene Hunter and President Mark Tilsen, Native American Natural Foods is based on Pine Ridge Reservation in Kyle, South Dakota (Oglala Lakota County).  The company's line of Tanka products is based on the traditional Lakota recipe that powered Lakota Sioux warriors for centuries. The company's first product, launched in 2007, Tanka Bar, was the first snack bar to combine meat and fruit for the national market.  The company was created to help combat obesity and diabetes on the reservation and to provide opportunities for employment and economic development in the Native American community. Additionally, proceeds from the company's products support the Tanka Fund, which is helping to return buffalo to the land, lives, and economies of Indian people.

 

A member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Karlene Hunter has an MBA from Oglala Lakota College and over 25 years of experience in educational and economic development on Pine Ridge.  Over $25 million has been raised under her leadership – including raising the funds for the establishment of the first library on the reservation and the creation of new college centers in each of the nine districts on Pine Ridge.  The recipient of numerous awards, she serves on the Board of Directors of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development and previously served on the Board of Directors for the Native American Rights Fund, the National Indian Business Association, and the Pine Ridge Area Chamber of Commerce.    

Also a recipient of numerous awards, Mark Tilsen has over 25 years of experience in nonprofit fundraising, marketing community development, and 18 years in special events marketing and productions.  A lifelong supporter of Native American causes, he began working as a volunteer in 1973 for the Wounded Knee Defense Offense Committee (cofounded by his parents) and has since honed his skills coordinating award-winning, database-driven direct marketing campaigns for Native American educational and environmental organizations.  A serial social entrepreneur, Mark Tilsen has co-founded several successful community organizations and businesses, including:

  • KILI Radio, the largest indigenous community-owned radio station in North America.

  • The Black Hills Alliance. a coalition of Native and non-Native Americans that had a major impact on changing the environmental policies and practices in the Black Hills.

  • Direct Expressions, the company that launched the first direct marketing campaigns for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and Oglala Lakota College.

  • Direct Events, now the largest independent music promotions group in Austin, Texas.

  • Manager of Indigenous, the first Native American musical group to have a Top 10 hit on radio since the '70s.

  • Lakotamall.com, a web portal providing Internet market access to small businesses and non-profit organizations serving Indian Country.

  • Lakota Express Inc., the only reservation-based Native American-owned direct marketing firm in the nation.

  • Maz, Inc., a talent management group based in Minnesota.

Some highlights from Erin’s interview with Karlene & Mark include:

  • How a Lakota “give-away” celebration launched Tanka Bar into a national company

  • The creativity and resilience of the Lakota people at Pine Ridge Reservation – despite the unyielding systematic oppression and exclusion from economic opportunity informing their current status among the top 3 poorest counties in the U.S (an unemployment rate of ~70% and ~$5600/year average per capita income)

  • The ecological benefits of buffalo on the land & how prairies are one of the largest carbon sinks in the world (apart from rainforests and oceans)

  • The transformative impact of Native American Natural Foods/Tanka Bar: simultaneously regenerating an endangered species, regenerating the prairieland of America’s Great Plains, and regenerating Lakota culture and economy

  • How Native American Natural Foods/Tanka Bar is the first enterprise in history to restore an endangered species through entrepreneurship, now with almost half a million buffalo in the lower 48 states today  

  • How the company is struggling to maintain their position in a category they created, the cultural appropriation that’s involved in that struggle, and the importance of supporting and sharing the authentic, transparent story behind the Tanka Bar brand

 

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


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

Rebecca Adamson: Indigenous Self Determination & Principles Benefiting Both People & 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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Rebecca Adamson, an Indigenous economist, is Founder and President of First Peoples Worldwide, the first US based global Indigenous Peoples NGO, which makes grants and provides technical assistance and advocacy directly to Indigenous-led development projects. Rebecca has worked directly with grassroots tribal communities, both domestically and internationally, as an advocate of local tribal issues since 1970. She established the premiere US development institute, First Nations Development Institute, in 1980 and in 1997 she founded First Peoples Worldwide.

Rebecca's work established the first microenterprise loan fund in the United States; the first tribal investment model; and, a national movement for reservation land reform. Her work established a new field of culturally appropriate, values-driven development, which led to legislation that established new standards of accountability regarding federal trust responsibility for Native Americans. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Bay and Paul Foundations and the Calvert Social Investment Fund.

As a trustee of Calvert, Rebecca partnered with the Fund to create the first Indigenous Peoples' rights investment screen in 1999, and led the creation of the Indigenous Rights Risk Report, the first quantitative assessment of corporate risk exposure to Indigenous Peoples' rights, in 2014. In 2015 she has established three Shareholder Advocacy Leadership Training Centers located in Guatemala, Mexico and Canada as a new strategy for Indigenous leaders in addressing extractive industry on Indigenous territories. She was appointed as an advisor to the U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Multi-Stakeholder Group, serving from 2014 to the present. She holds a Masters in Science in Economic Development.
 

Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Rebecca include:

  • Rebecca’s role with Indian-controlled schools leading up to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 and how this shaped her strategy of focusing on culture, development, and financial self-sufficiency

  • The history of the Lakota fund which birthed the microfinance movement in the U.S.

  • A comparison of the key underlying paradigm informing traditional Indigenous economic principles and values with the current dominant principles and values of capitalism

  • Nuanced history and details of DAPL and the larger pattern in which it fits

  • How using Indigenous economic principles have demonstrated superior economic performance in terms of both financial metrics as well as holistically

 

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

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

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

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

Tyler Gage: Using the Lessons of the Amazon to Live Your Mission in Business and 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. 

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Tyler Gage is an entrepreneur, author and speaker who uses wisdom from the Amazon and start­up success to bring innovation and inspiration to growing organizations.

Tyler has spent the last 12 years studying with indigenous elders in the Amazon rainforest, venturing far from his suburban roots at the age of 20. After graduating from Brown University, Tyler turned down a Fulbright grant to start RUNA, a social enterprise that makes energizing beverages with guayusa (pronounced gwhy-you-suh), a rare Amazonian leaf, and improves livelihoods for 3,000 indigenous farming families in Ecuador. With over 70 employees and 15,000 stores selling RUNA beverages in the US and Canada, RUNA has grown to be one of the 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the US according to Inc Magazine.

Tyler was named a Forbes “30 Under 30 Entrepreneur” and winner of both the Big Apple Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the Specialty Food Association's Citizen Leader of the Year Award. ABC Nightline, National Geographic and Richard Branson's book Screw Business as Usual have all featured Tyler for his unique and powerful approach to building businesses and creating social good.

Tyler also serves on the Board of Directors of DavidsTea (NASDAQ: DTEA) and on the Advisory Council for Entrepreneurship at Brown University. In addition to advising and investing in other start­ups, Tyler is a co­founding partner and strategic advisor to NAKU, a pioneering indigenous healing center in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Tyler lives in Bellingham, Washington with his wife Michelle and enjoys boxing, yoga, riding his unicycle and studying ethnobotany.
 

Some highlights from Shawn’s interview with Tyler include:

  • Tyler’s liberal arts approach to business and use of the culture around guayusa to inform RUNA’s business model

  • The strategic reasons behind the tandem for-profit and nonprofit approach that enables RUNA to not perpetuate harmful dynamics of past business (ie: United Fruit Company)

  • Tyler discusses his new book – Fully Alive: Using the Lessons of the Amazon to Live Your Mission in Business and Life

  • The power and  importance of embedding the organization's beneficial impact in the structural DNA and core operations of the business rather than tacking programs onto the business

  • How inspired Tyler feels about organizations like Tanka Bar and Kara Solar (see Resources section below)

Resources:

ORGANIZATIONS:

BOOKS:

 

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

Paul Hawken on Drawdown, The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed for Reversing Global Warming

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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Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, author and activist who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. Among the environmental movement’s leading voices, and a pioneering architect of corporate reform with respect to ecological practices, his work includes founding successful, ecologically conscious businesses, writing about the impacts of commerce on living systems, and consulting with heads of state and CEOs on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy.

Paul has founded several companies, starting in the 1960s with Erewhon Trading Company, one of the first natural food companies in the U.S. that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods. He went on in 1979 to co-found Smith & Hawken, the retail and catalog company. In 2009 Paul founded OneSun, an energy company focused on ultra low-cost solar based on green chemistry and biomimicry.

Paul authors articles, op-eds, and peer-reviewed papers, and has written seven books including four national bestsellers: The Next Economy (1983), Growing a Business (1987), and The Ecology of Commerce (1993) and Blessed Unrest (2007). The Ecology of Commerce was voted as the #1 college text on business and the environment by professors in 67 business schools. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999) co-authored with Amory Lovins, has been read and referred to by several heads of state including President Bill Clinton who called it one of the five most important books in the world today.

Paul has served on the board of many environmental organizations including Point Foundation (publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs), Center for Plant Conservation, Conservation International, Trust for Public Land, Friends of the Earth, and National Audubon Society.

In 1965, Paul worked with Martin Luther King Jr.’s staff in Selma, Alabama prior to the historic March on Montgomery. As press coordinator, Paul registered members of the press, issued credentials, gave updates and interviews on national radio, and acted as a marshal for the final march. That same year, he worked in New Orleans as a staff photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality, focusing on voter registration drives in Bogalusa, Louisiana and the panhandle of Florida, and photographing the Ku Klux Klan in Meridian, Mississippi, after three civil rights workers were tortured and killed. In Meridian, he was assaulted and seized by Klan members, but escaped due to FBI surveillance and intervention. Paul has spoken, conducted research, and traveled extensively throughout the world, undertaking journeys into insurgent-held territories of Burma to research tropical teak deforestation, as well as a 1999 humanitarian/photojournalistic trek to war-torn Kosovo and Macedonia.

He has received numerous awards and recognitions over the years, has received six honorary doctorate degrees, and he is now Executive Director of Project Drawdown, a non-profit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. The organization maps and models the scaling of one hundred substantive technological, social, and ecological solutions to global warming.  

The incredibly inspirational team at Project Drawdown recently released their book, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed for Reversing Global Warming – which has become a New York Times Bestseller overnight.  Paul wrote and edited the book in collaboration Project Drawdown’s research team. He is also authoring a book entitled Carbon, The Business of Life, to be published in 2018.

Some highlights from Kevin’s interview with Paul include:

  • Our history of understanding climate change and global warming

  • The origins of and motivation for Project Drawdown

  • Moving from a “game over” to a “game on” attitude

  • The importance of naming "drawdown" as the goal in relation to global warming

  • Paul's surprise with regard to some of the food-, land-, & women-related solutions

  • Meeting our needs in ways that enhance and restore the environment (ie: regenerative development)

  • How we've unintentionally created an elitist climate movement

  • The flipside of Trump pulling out of Paris agreement

  • What's next for Project Drawdown

 

Resources:

 

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

 

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


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

Daniel Goleman: Mindfulness, the Dalai Lama, and How You Can Be a Force for Good

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. Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; it is available around the world in 40 languages, and has been a bestseller in many countries.  Goleman is a co-founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, originally at the Yale Child Studies Center and now at the University of Illinois at Chicago. CASEL’s mission centers on bringing evidence-based programs in emotional literacy to schools worldwide.  He currently co-directs the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University. The consortium fosters research partnerships between academic scholars and practitioners on the role emotional intelligence plays in excellence. Goleman is a board member of the Mind & Life Institute, which fosters dialogues and research collaborations among contemplative practitioners and scientists. Goleman has organized a series of intensive conversations between the Dalai Lama and scientists, and shares the Dalai Lama’s vision for our world in his recent book entitled Force For Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World.

 

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Dr. Goleman include:

  • A description and definition of emotional intelligence as comprised of four parts: self-awareness, self-management, empathy, & relationship skills

  • How mindfulness meditation and emotional intelligence are important for cultivating leadership that is more present and how the kind of person you are as you lead matters

  • A winning combination for leadership: mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and values

  • Greyston Bakery as a shining example of using business as a force for good

  • The driving principles advocated by the Dalai Lama in the vision expressed through Daniel’s book and how education is key

  • The need for widespread education and competency development in systems thinking that’s rooted in empathy and compassion and some exciting initiatives in the International Baccalaureate program that are taking this on

  • How the news skews our view of what’s really going on in the world

 

Resources:

BOOKS

ARTICLES:

AUDIO/VIDEOS:

ORGANIZATIONS/PEOPLE:

 

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


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

Sheryl O’Loughlin: How to Grow Your Business Without Losing Your Heart

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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Sheryl O’Loughlin is a serial entrepreneur and author of Killing It! An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Head Without Losing Your Heart (Harper Collins, December 2016). She has served as the CEO of Clif Bar, where she led the concept development and introduction of Luna Bar. In Sheryl’s three years as CEO, the company revenue doubled from $100M to $200M.  She then went on to co-found and serve as CEO of Plum Organics. Plum was sold in 2013 to The Campbell Soup Company. She was the Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Sheryl is currently CEO of REBBL, a fast-growing maker of super herb beverages.

 

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Some highlights from our interview include:

  • What it was like moving from working at large multinationals (like Kraft and Quaker Oats), to joining Clif Bar in 1998

  • How she helped Clif Bar launch the Luna Bar, and how Sheryl eventually became CEO of Clif Bar

  • How she co-founded Plum Organics with Neil Grimmer

  • Sheryl’s advice for entrepreneurs when they are considering raising money (and a story of what it looks like when you bring on bad investors)

  • We also talk about her latest projects, including REBBL and the company’s mission to abolish modern day slavery

  • Sheryl shares her struggle to overcome an eating disorder

  • And finally, we discuss Sheryl’s book “Killing It,” and how entrepreneurs can launch and grow their business while maintaining their well-being.

 

Resources:

BOOKS

FILM:

 

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

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

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

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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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:

Books:

Organizations Modeling Teal Characteristics:

 

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

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

Sarah van Gelder: The Revolution Where You Live

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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Sarah van Gelder is the co-founder of YES! Magazine and author of The Revolution Where You Live: Stories from a 12,000 Mile Journey Through a New America (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2017). Sarah speaks and writes regularly about solutions journalism, grassroots innovations, and social change movements. She is also the editor of Sustainable Happiness: Living Simply, Live Well, Make a Difference, and This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99 Percent Movement (both with Berrett Koehler).

 

In our interview, we discuss:

  • Her experiences living and working in China in the mid 1980s

  • How she first got interested in “solutions journalism” and when she decided to start YES! Magazine

  • Her thoughts on Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and the future of the democratic party

  • The top solutions she found on her 12,000 mile journey through America

  • And finally, we discuss her new school project that has a goal of increasing collaboration across communities and spreading some of the key learnings that she found while writing the book “The Revolution Where You Live.”

 

Resources:

Book: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Sarah van Gelder’s talk on Sustainable Happiness: Living Simply, Live Well, Make a Difference

Book: Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

W.S. Merwin

Wendell Berry

Indigenous Environmental Network

Honor The Earth

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In our interview, we discuss things like:

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

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

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

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

  • How birdwatching can lead to being a successful CEO

 

Resources:

Book: Black Elk Speaks

Wendell Berry

Mighty Organic

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Some of the highlights from our conversation include:

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

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

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

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

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

 

Resources:

Aaron Tanaka

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

 

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

 

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

Tom Steyer: Climate Change, Trump, and How to Create Prosperity for All Americans

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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Tom Steyer is an active citizen, business leader and philanthropist working to ensure that everyone shares the benefits of economic opportunity, education, and a healthy climate.

Tom’s dedication to public service is greatly inspired by his wife, Kat, the co-CEO of Beneficial State Bank in Oakland. They founded the nonprofit community bank in 2007 to provide loans to the underserved in California and along the West Coast.

In 2010, Tom and Kat pledged to contribute most of their wealth to charitable causes during their lifetimes. That same year, Tom worked to defeat Proposition 23, an attempt by the oil industry to roll back California’s historic plan to reduce pollution and address climate change. Later, in 2012, Tom led a campaign to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in California schools annually by closing a corporate tax loophole.

Before retiring from the private sector, Tom founded and was the Senior Managing Member of Farallon Capital Management. Currently, Tom Steyer serves as the President of NextGen America, an organization he founded to prevent climate disaster and promote prosperity for all Americans. Tom also serves as co-chair of Save Lives California, the coalition to prevent teen smoking and fund cancer research.

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Some of the things we discuss in our interview include:

To learn more about Tom, check out his official Facebook page and his bio at NextGen America.

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

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

Jennifer Astone: The Connection Between Indigenous Peoples, Biodiversity, and Climate 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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Jen Astone joined the Swift Foundation as Executive Director in 2011. Swift Foundation provides grants and investment capital to promote cultural and biological diversity with a focus on land stewards and agroecology.

Through this work, Swift funds organizations led by or focused on Indigenous and other communities involved in advocating for land and resource rights, investing in traditional knowledge systems and creating alternative economic models.

Jen leads Swift’s work with two sustainable agriculture collaboratives: the AgroEcology Fund and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. She also supports Swift’s initiatives with First Nations and civil society in the Sacred Headwaters region of Northwest British Columbia, and with food sovereignty advocates in the countries of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Prior to Swift, Jen served as the first executive director of the Firelight Foundation and as Africa program officer with the Global Fund for Women, two foundations focused on grassroots grantmaking to community-based and human rights organizations. She has a PhD in cultural anthropology based on fieldwork she conducted on women’s home gardens in Guinea, West Africa.

 

In our conversation, Jen and I discuss a wide range of topics, including:

  • United Parcel Services (or UPS), and why the foundation was started

  • A company called Native American Natural Foods and how it is aims to use a traditional Lakota recipe to break the economic isolation of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

  • The top 2-3 challenges that most foundations face

  • The debate about whether foundations should “sunset” or remain in perpetuity

  • Tips on what most people miss when writing a grant proposal to a foundation

  • Some of the thought leaders in this space that Jen looks to for inspiration

  • Why “Homecoming” by Yaa Gyasi is her favorite book of the moment

 

Resources:

 

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

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