Convening, Recruiting, and Connecting People Who Repair Local Economies
CategoriesCatalytic Capital Innovation StackImage courtesy of NC3 Tracy Loh studies community capital at Brookings Institute, Metro. When she talks about the Diversified Community Investment Fund — the DCIF — the first thing she says isn’t about returns or impact. “It’s already legal,” she told me. “It doesn’t require any action on the part of Congress, or a state […]
CategoriesEcosystem AnalysisFor years we have been teaching the Field Guide to Transformation as a forensic player map. Who is on the field? What role are they playing? Is there a System Entrepreneur calling plays? Is there a Finance Wizard devising funding innovations? Has the local Prophet been co-opted by the institution they were supposed to hold […]
CategoriesEcosystem AnalysisI’ve been working on a book with Rosa Lee. Our working title is This Shit Works — And Why It Matters. One of my tasks has been compiling case studies of economic justice solutions, projects like Buy Back the Block, which enables average people in poor neighborhoods to become owners of commercial real estate in […]
CategoriesAccess to CapitalA group of CDFI and other innovative finance professionals who attended the recent Neighborhood Economics conference in Chicago have been hard at work. They’re building a playbook to address a thorny community investment problem: CDFI capital often doesn’t reach entrepreneurs from marginalized communities, who are more likely to lack collateral or the friends-and-family funding to […]
CategoriesCollective TurnFor years, Neighborhood Economics has focused on the mechanics of local repair: entrepreneurship as a path to wealth for marginalized communities, community-owned real estate, housing that’s “more affordable than affordable,” faith-friendly participation, and the catalytic capital that makes all of it possible. But a new chapter is opening—one that goes beyond individual ownership or single […]
CategoriesInnovation StackThere’s a particular kind of magic that happens when people who are repairing local economies find each other. Not in an abstract, “let’s collaborate someday” kind of way — but in a real-time spark that produces something new. At Neighborhood Economics, we’ve started to call that the place where solutions have babies. From Libraries of […]
CategoriesChicagoIt happened at 11 am, in a session on soft capital.I’d been writing for a few weeks about how the solutions to repair and heal local economies are becoming replicable, not just complex one-offs just short of rocket science. I was thinking of work like what Lyneir Richardson and his company, Chicago TREND, had done […]
CategoriesAccess to CapitalSoft Capital, Strong Communities: Emerging Housing Finance Models for Equity and Belonging What if the greatest barrier to home ownership wasn’t income or credit—but the lack of early, flexible capital that trusts people first? From Cincinnati to Denver, South Bend to Boise, innovators are piloting early-stage soft capital tools that build equity, permanence, and community […]
CategoriesAccess to CapitalFunding the Quarterbacks: Chicago’s Patient, Place-Based Strategy Chicago’s anchors and philanthropy are choosing to fund intermediaries as “community quarterbacks,” doing it patiently and with enough resources to actually move the needle. Two live examples are West Side United’s food-system market formation and Community Desk Chicago’s community-owned real estate work. Why Community Quarterbacks Matter If you […]
How Two Strangers Sparked a Citywide Awakening Sometimes, the most powerful outcomes begin with a single unexpected moment. In 2023, Joe Minicozzi of Urban3 took the stage at Neighborhood Economics in Jackson and revealed how property tax systems often force low-income neighborhoods to subsidize wealthier ones. In the crowd was Patton Dodd, director of storytelling […]