Next Economy Now Blog — LIFT Economy

women

Kanyon CoyoteWoman Sayers-Roods: Decolonizing & Reindigenizing Our Relationships

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

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

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Interview Highlights:

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

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

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

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

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

Dana Kawaoka-Chen: Justice Funders' Framework for Philanthropic Transformation

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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As the Executive Director for Justice Funders, Dana Kawaoka-Chen partners and guides philanthropy in reimagining practices that advance a thriving and just world.  She is a co-author of “The Choir Book: A Framework for Social Justice Philanthropy,” and frequently serves as a trainer and facilitator for values-aligned practice in philanthropy.  Dana’s leadership has been recognized by her peers–in 2014, she was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award by Oakes College of the University of California at Santa Cruz, and in 2015, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy recognized Dana as one of twenty-five national “Leaders in Action.”

Dana has previously served in executive functions for two other non-profit organizations.  She has a Masters of Science degree in Organization Development from the University of San Francisco, Bachelor of Arts degrees in American Studies and Visual Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Non-Profit Management Certification from San Jose State University.

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Interview Highlights:

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

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

Nia Evans & Lucas Turner-Owens: The Boston Ujima Project

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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Nia K. Evans is the Director of the Boston Ujima Project. Her educational background is in the areas of labor relations, education leadership, and policy. Her advocacy includes a focus on eliminating barriers between analysts and people with lived experiences as well as increasing acknowledgement of the value of diverse types of expertise in policy.

She is a co-creator of Frames Debate Project, a multimedia policy debate project that explores the intersection between drug policy, mental health services and incarceration in the state of Massachusetts.

Ms. Evans has a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a Master of Arts in Education Leadership, with a course of study in Leadership, Policy, and Politics from Teachers College at Columbia University. She also studied abroad at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where she focused on International Labor Relations.


Lucas Turner-Owens serves as the Fund Manager for the Boston Ujima Project. As the Fund Manager, he is responsible for loan packaging, underwriting, and managing Ujima's portfolio of investments. In addition, Lucas also provides technical Assistance to entrepreneurs, connects them with business support organizations, and gives financial education to Ujima's investor base.

Prior to joining the Project, Lucas worked as an economic policy analyst for Operation HOPE, a nonprofit focused on consumer financial education. In this role, Lucas acted as an advisor to the CEO on government affairs and public policy with a focus on strategies designed to benefit underserved communities. After this time spent working in the economic policy space, Lucas worked as a loan officer for Cooperation DC, providing technical assistance and expansion loans from a network of impact investors to grow social enterprises and worker-owned co-operatives in Washington D.C. Following this Lucas joined Next Street Financial as a senior analyst in their Boston office. In this role, he applied his background in small business development and public policy to support clients making impact investments and strategic growth decisions.

Lucas was a founding member of Youth Against Mass Incarceration and has been active in local grassroots movements in Boston in partnership with groups such as Alternatives for Community and Environment and Reclaim Roxbury. Lucas holds a BA from Wesleyan University.

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Interview Highlights:

  • How Lucas and Nia first got into the type of work they are doing today

  • How the Boston Ujima Project is organizing neighbors, workers, business owners, and investors to create a new community controlled economy in Greater Boston.

  • The importance of centering working-class communities of color in the Boston Ujima Project’s work

  • Why the Ujima Project demonstrates new ways to invest, work, buy, own, and advocate.

  • Advice for other groups looking to start similar ecosystems in their own region

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

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

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees

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

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

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Interview Highlights:

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

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

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

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LIFT Economy 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.

Funmilola Fagbamila: Black Lives Matter, White Allyship, & Emotional Intelligence

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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Funmilola Fagbamila is a Nigerian American scholar, activist, playwright and artist. She currently serves as a professor of Pan African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. As a founding member of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Funmilola has been organizing with BLM since its inception in 2013 and currently serves as the Arts and Culture director for the Los Angeles chapter. Her writing, political analyses and social commentary have been featured in publications such as the Guardian, NOW THIS news, and NPR. Funmilola has delivered keynote addresses at colleges and universities across the country. Her public commentary frequently touches on the topics of critical race theory, black complexity, criminal justice, health and wellness, modern pan-africanism, and the Arts.

Some highlights from Erin Axelrod’s conversation with Funmilola Fagbamila include:

  • Exploring the roots of the Black Lives Matter Movement

  • Discussion of the myth of meritocracy in America

  • Emotional intelligence helps us to hear each other across ideological differences

  • Suggestions for supportive white allyship

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

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

Varshini Prakash: Sunrise Movement Sees The Green New Deal on the Horizon

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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Varshini was born and raised outside Boston, MA. She got involved in the climate movement as an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She joined the UMass Fossil Fuel Divestment campaign early in her time at UMass and led the campaign for two years. In Spring 2016, the campaign won after a 2-week long mass escalation in which over 700 students, faculty, and alumni participated. 32 were arrested after peacefully refusing to leave the Whitmore Administration Building until UMass agreed to climate action. For the last three years, she has coordinated fossil fuel divestment campaigns with the Fossil Fuel Divestment Student Network at a regional and national level. She supported campaigns across the country through training, mentorship, and strategic guidance. Varshini supported the launch of Sunrise, a movement building an army of young people to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. 

Some highlights from Erin Axelrod’s conversation with Varshini Prakash include:

  • The Sunrise Movement is mobilizing tens of thousands to stop business as usual with The Green New Deal

  • The Green New Deal aims to address our climate crisis as well as wealth- and racial inequity

  • Today’s youth leadership are particularly positioned to be vanguards for social change

  • Envisioning a world where all of our basic needs as humans are met while providing a benefit to each other and our environment and contrasting this vision with our current world which is more of a lose-lose, zero-sum game.

  • How the Green New Deal harkens back to The New Deal and how the Green New Deal will similarly take many pieces of legislation over a period of decades.

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

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

Lindsay Cruver: Raising Our Regenerative Mussel Memory at Catalina Sea Ranch

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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Lindsay Cruver is the Director of Research & Development at Catalina Sea Ranch, and her team evaluates and implements new science and technology to advance sustainable and regenerative offshore crop cultivation. She earned her bachelors degree in Biology from the George Washington University and is the daughter of the CEO of Catalina Sea Ranch, the first offshore aquaculture facility in the United States, based in Los Angeles, California.

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Some highlights from Erin Axelrod’s conversation with Lindsay Cruver include:

  • The 100-acre Catalina Sea Ranch is the first and currently the only offshore aquaculture facility in the U.S. and is located on the periphery of about 26,000 acres (40 square miles) of U.S. Federal waters of the San Pedro Shelf.

  • Lindsay describes the sea ranching process and the technology that Catalina Sea Ranch uses and contrasts clean aquaculture from dirty aquaculture

  • Lindsay shares how their production process benefits their environment by creating habitat for other organisms such that private and commercial fishers surround the ranch to catch yellowtail fish the ranch attracts

  • Listeners are invited to consider mussels as a healthy source of sustainably produced protein

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

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

Tur-Ha Ak & Nicole Deane: Safety, Self-Determination, and Equity for the Disenfranchised

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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Tur-Ha Ak is the CEO of Urban Protection Industries, a harm reduction security company. He created the unique "harm reduction security" model to provide security for drug rehabilitation clinics in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco in the 1990s. The harm reduction security model emphasizes maintaining and enforcing boundaries within a specific geographical area, and building and utilizing community relationships to enhance security. Urban Protection continues to use this model today as the primary security for the Laurel Business Improvement District in Oakland. Urban Protection has also provided personal security services for Cheryl Davila of Berkeley City Council, Patrisse Cullors of Black Lives Matter, and Cat Brooks (Oakland Mayoral candidate) in the face of heightened threats from white nationalists. 

Tur-Ha is also the founder of Community Ready Corps (CRC), a Black grassroots organization with a mission to organize and empower the Black community towards safety, self determination and equity. Under Tur-Ha’s leadership, CRC has spearheaded and helped build effective multi-racial coalitions that address the most pressing issues facing the Black community in the Bay Area, including the Anti Police-Terror Project (which created the first replicable model nationally for community rapid response to police violence), the State of Black Oakland (a People’s Assembly), and Oakland Justice Coalition. Recognizing that Black people face a triple threat of state, racist vigilante, and inter-communal violence, Tur-Ha has dedicated his life to creating a culture and climate of safety and protection in Black communities by organizing neighborhood safety teams and rapid response networks, and providing free, regular self defense training for children and adults.

Nicole Deane is an organizer, filmmaker, and co-founder of Community Ready Corps (Allies & Accomplices), a cross-class, intergenerational and multi-tendency organization of white people committed to fighting white supremacy. CRC(A) works to move, teach, and support white people to weaponize white privilege and divest of white power, and to organize in a direct and disciplined relationship with Community Ready Corps.

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Some highlights from Erin Axelrod’s conversation with Tur-Ha Ak & Nicole Deane include:

  • Community Ready Corps was born in the moment when Oscar Grant was murdered

  • The “Next Economy” really begins with deep discussion of the existing predatory economy that’s built off the backs of disenfranchised people before we can formulate just and equitable next steps, such as achieving self determination for all people (which is CRC’s Prime Objective).

  • Defining the terms “persistent reestablishment of white supremacy” and “The 5 Methods of Weaponization and Divestment of White Power & Privilege

  • How the 2018 Black Solidarity Week began with listening sessions for each of the “9 areas of self determination” to determine ways to best support existing community efforts and how the 2019 Black Solidarity Week (Feb 17-23, 2019) attempts to organize and present a Black Solidarity Agenda and Plan of Action

  • The CRC’s Black Solidarity Fund, already having raised ~$25k of it’s $30k 2019 goal, is now giving out Black Solidarity Micro-grants of $500-$1500, to support existing programs from other organizations and to fund CRC’s programs

How Listeners Can Support Black Solidarity Week

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

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

Robin DiAngelo: White Fragility and Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism

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Dr. Robin DiAngelo is a former Associate Professor of Multicultural Education (Westfield State University) and currently Affiliate Faculty at the University of Washington. Dr. DiAngelo’s scholarship is in Critical Discourse Analysis and Whiteness Studies. In addition to her academic work, she have been a consultant, mediator, and workplace racial equity trainer for over 20 years. Dr. DiAngelo has numerous publications and books, including “What Does it Mean to be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy." Her first book, co-authored with Özlem Sensoy: "Is Everyone Really Equal: An Introduction to Social Justice Education" received the Critic's Choice Award by the American Educational Studies Association and the Education Award from the American Educational Research Association. Her latest book, "White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism" (Beacon Press) has been on the New York Times Bestseller List since it debuted in June 2018. For more information see her website: www.robindiangelo.com.

Some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s Conversation with Robin DiAngelo include:

  • How Dr. DiAngelo first got into this work as a “classic white progressive” who was “clueless about racism.”

  • Why good, open-minded, liberal progressives (who marched in the 60s) still have a fundamentally racist worldview

  • How having one or more historically marginalized identities (e.g., being a woman, low-income, LGBTQ, etc.) does not mean that one understands the experience of racism

  • Why naming, disrupting, and dismantling white supremacy shifts the problem to white people, where it belongs.

  • How the unexamined values of individualism, meritocracy, objectivity, and conflict avoidance are part of the dominant culture and lead to problematic outcomes for people of color.

Resources:

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

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

Rinku Sen: Racial Justice, Feminism, and Economic Empowerment

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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Rinku Sen is a writer and a political strategist. She is currently Senior Strategist at Race Forward, having formerly served as Executive Director and as Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. She is also a James O. Gibson Innovation Fellow at PolicyLink. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward has generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes of recent years, including Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets changing their practice. Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. She writes and curates the news at rinkusen.com.

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Some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s Conversation with Rinku Sen include:

How Rinku initially got into racial justice organizing at Brown University

  • Rinku’s professional path through Race Forward and the Center for Third World Organizing

  • How she thinks about centering race, without losing sight of other historically marginalized communities

  • How the Restaurant Opportunities Center (which she covered in her second book, The Accidental American) has created a model for successful organizing of low-wage workers that has actually changed the restaurant industry

  • Rinku’s thoughts on identity politics and her new book that is in the works

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

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

Tiffany Jana: Erasing Institutional Bias

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diana Leafe Christian: Finding Community & Creating a Life Together

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

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

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

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

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

Email Diana at diana~at~ic.org

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

  • An overview of the various common forms of intentional communities

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

  • How to integrate critically important feedback loops for group processes

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

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

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

Carol Fulp: Success Through Diversity

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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Carol Fulp is President and CEO of The Partnership, Inc., New England’s premier organization dedicated to enhancing the competitiveness of the region by attracting, developing, retaining and convening multicultural professionals. During its 31 year history, The Partnership has collaborated with 300 corporations who have sponsored more than 4,000 multicultural executives and professionals in the organization’s innovative leadership development programming. She is also the author of Success Through Diversity: Why The Most Inclusive Companies Will Win praised by Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

Prior to The Partnership, Carol was Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility and Brand Management for John Hancock Financial. Previously, Carol was the Director of Community Programming and Human Resources for WCVB, the ABC-TV Boston affiliate. She also served as the Corporate Employee Relations Manager for the Gillette Company.

Given her leadership in business and public service, former President Obama appointed Carol as a Representative of the United States of America to the Sixty-fifth Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

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Some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s Conversation with Carol Fulp include:

  • Carol’s experience marching on Washington, D.C. during the civil right movement

  • How President Obama chose Carol to be the United States’s representative to the 65th General Assembly of the United Nations

  • Her experiences and learnings as President and CEO of The Partnership, Inc., in Boston

  • Carol’s newly released book: “Success Through Diversity: Why the Most Inclusive Companies Will Win”

  • Why companies should not silo diversity into a narrow category, but should touch every aspect of a company’s operations

  • Why middle managers are incredibly important to engage in any diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts

  • And much more.

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

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

Beth Rattner: Exciting Opportunities Through Biomimetic Design

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

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

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

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

  • A brief introduction to the field of biomimicry

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

  • Examples of exciting products inspired by biomimetic design

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

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

Resources:

Book: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature

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

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

Debby Irving: How White People Can Advocate For Racial Justice

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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Debby Irving is a racial justice educator, author, and public speaker. A community organizer and classroom teacher for 25 years, Debby Irving grappled with racial injustice without understanding racism as a systemic issue or her own whiteness as an obstacle to it. As general manager of Boston’s Dance Umbrella and First Night, and later as an elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she struggled to make sense of racial tensions she could feel but could not explain. In 2009, Debby took a graduate school course, Racial and Cultural Identities, which gave her the answers she’d been looking for and launched her on a journey of discovery. Now, speaking and leading workshops around the country, Debby devotes herself to exploring the impact white skin can have on perception, problem solving, and creating culturally inclusive communities. A graduate of the Winsor School in Boston, she holds a BA from Kenyon College and an MBA from Simmons College. Her first book, Waking Up White, tells the story of how she went from well-meaning to well-doing.

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Some highlights from Ryan Honeyman’s conversation with Debby Irving include: 

  • Why it is important for white people to get involved in racial justice work.

  • The advice Debbie would give a white person who was interested in the “how” of getting involved in anti-racist work.

  • How living in a culture of white supremacy is not limited to the KKK and neo-nazis.

  • Why the “oppression olympics” of trying to define which groups are more oppressed than others is a road to nowhere.

  • Books, resources, and advice Debby has for folks who want to take the next step.

Resources:

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

So You Want to Talk About Race

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

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

Penny Livingston-Stark: Ecoliteracy, Permaculture, and Regenerative Design

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

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Penny Livingston-Stark is internationally recognized as a prominent permaculture teacher, designer, and speaker. She holds a MS in Eco-Social Regeneration and 3 Diplomas in Permaculture Design. She has studied, taught with, hosted and learned directly from Bill Mollison, and David Holmgren the co-founders of Permaculture and the developers of the Permaculture Design Certification Course curriculum.

Penny has been teaching internationally and working professionally in the land management, regenerative design, and permaculture development field for 25 years and has extensive experience in all phases of ecologically sound design and construction as well as the use of natural non-toxic building materials. She specializes in site planning and the design of resource-rich landscapes integrating, rainwater collection, edible and medicinal planting, spring development, pond and water systems, habitat development and watershed restoration for homes, co-housing communities, businesses, and diverse yield perennial farms. She as taught Herbal Medicine Making, Natural Building and Permaculture around the US as well as Bali, Indonesia, Peru, Germany, Mexico, France, Turkey, Portugal, Australia, Belize, Brazil, England and Costa Rica.

With her husband James Stark, and in collaboration with Commonweal — a cancer health research and retreat center — Penny co-manages Commonweal Garden, a 17-acre organic and certified salmon-safe farm in Bolinas, California.

Penny co-created the Ecological Design Program and its curriculum at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, co-created the Permaculture Program at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center with Brock Dolman, co-created the Earth Activist Training with Starhawk and she co-founded the West Marin Grower’s Group, the West Marin Farmer’s Market, and the Community Land Trust Association of Marin. Penny has also worked with the Marin County Community Development Agency and Planning Department to develop recommendations on sustainability for updating the Community Plan.

Penny is a founding member of the Natural Building Colloquium, a national consortium of professional natural builders, creating innovations in straw bale, cob, timberframe, light clay, natural non-toxic interior finishes and other methods using natural and bio-regionally appropriate materials for construction.

She has been featured in the following films: Symphony of the Soil by Lily Films and Deborah Koons Garcia, 2012: A Time for Change by Joao Amorim and Daniel Pinchbeck and Permaculture: The Growing Edge by Belili Films and Starhawk.  Contact Penny at penny@regenerativedesign.org.

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Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s interview with Penny Livingston-Stark include: 

  • A glimpse into the early days of permaculture in the US and common misconceptions about permaculture

  • The importance of ecological literacy and appreciating design considerations such as “embodied energy” of system inputs

  • Appreciating bird song and other gifts of our nonhuman neighbors

  • How dairy and cattle ranching is stigmatized but how it can in fact be a powerful driver of ecological regeneration if managed to optimize for soil health

  • The importance of supporting your local herbalists

 

Resources:

Permaculture

Ecoliteracy

Regenerative Design Institute

Tom Ward

Rick Valley

Bill Mollison

Ianto Evans

John Todd

Lost Valley Education & Event Center

Jude Hobbs

The Ecology of Commerce

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

Constructed Wetland

Sacred Economics

Embodied Energy

David Holmgren

 

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

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

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. 

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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. 

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Resources:

Intertribal Agriculture Council – Youth

Native Youth Food Sovereignty Alliance

Organic reach: Food sovereignty moves to the web

Project H3LP

Lyla June

 

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

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

Darrie Ganzhorn: Transforming Land & Lives at Homeless Garden Project

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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Darrie Ganzhorn is the executive director of Santa Cruz’s Homeless Garden Project, an incredible nonprofit that provides job training, transitional employment and support services to those in need on an organic farm and garden.  Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Ganzhorn studied marine biology at UC Berkeley. She worked at the Hopkins Marine Station after graduation, but when her son was born, she had an epiphany. “I didn’t want to do research anymore. I wanted to do something based on human needs. I wanted to do something that was more basic and vital,” Ganzhorn said in her interview. She found meaningful work at the Homeless Garden Project, where she interned in 1991 when she began working one-on-one with Project trainees, not long after the Project was started by UCSC philosophy professor and social visionary Paul Lee.  Darrie has held various positions at the Homeless Garden Project evolved. She provides a multi-year perspective on the development of this internationally known organization.

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Resources:

Shop around in HGP's Online Store

Growing Hope, part 1  & Growing Hope, part 2 (This thirty minute video, narrated by Harrison Ford was filmed in 1996 and shows the beginnings of the homeless garden project. DVD available here.)

Book: Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander

HGP Blog Post: Here, Amongst the Flowers and Vegetables

Permaculture Action Network

 

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

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

Winona LaDuke: Seeds of Hope for a Healthy Next Economy

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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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

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https://www.winonashemp.com/

 

 

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


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

Sharon Salzberg: Working with Mindfulness & Loving-kindness at Work

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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Sharon Salzberg is a pioneer in the field of meditation, a world-renowned teacher and NY Times bestselling author. She has played a crucial role in bringing meditation and mindfulness to the West and into mainstream culture since 1974, when she first began teaching. Sharon is the co-founder of the first western meditation center in the US: The Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, MA. She has authored ten books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, her seminal work, Lovingkindness and her 2017 release, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection. Acclaimed for her down-to-earth teaching style, Sharon offers a secular, modern approach to Buddhist teachings, making them instantly accessible. She is a regular columnist for On Being, a contributor to Huffington Post, and the host of her own podcast, The Metta Hour, with over 70 episodes.

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


Phoenix Soleil, Partner at LIFT Economy, is a teacher of Nonviolent Communication and mindfulness and has a passion for developing people, teams, and organizations. She has led trainings in communication, racial justice, personal development, theater improvisation, and play for individuals, groups, and organizations such as Google, the Kellogg Foundation, Mind Body Awareness Project, and Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute.  Phoenix is also an Affiliate Trainer for Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, where she offers organizational development trainings focused on increasing inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Email Phoenix at phoenix@lifteconomy.com.