Convening, Recruiting, and Connecting People Who Repair Local Economies
It’s easy to find stories about what’s broken in our economy, how inequality deepens, systems fail, and despair feels justified. These challenges are real and must be acknowledged. But when they dominate the conversation, we risk missing something equally true: there are hundreds of people, enterprises, funds, and initiatives actively repairing their local economies, quietly, […]
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 […]
by Kevin Jones Patrick Covington helps lead a small foundation in Houston that’s beginning to switch to a place-based approach, as opposed to focusing on specific issue areas like education or health. Being focused on a place helps a local foundation see the connections between what can otherwise be siloed approaches and focus on root […]
In the last few weeks, as we have worked toward our event in San Antonio, I have explained our broad audience to several people. It occurred to me that my clarifications might be interesting to our readers, as well. To explain this, I need to include some history, first. At SOCAP: the Conference at the […]
I will be the first to admit that my belief in a better world and systems that work for all people may be a little more hopeful than what is visible in our current condition. If I go down the rabbit hole of what is happening systematically, then my cynical self is called to the […]
It’s always fun to be at SOCAP and to be able to connect with what Fran Seegull started referring to as the “OGs” who really are the team that started and grew SOCAP: Tim Freundlich, one of the founders; Lindsay Smalling, the amazing curator who managed content for most of the time our group owned […]
These past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to travel the roads of Texas to listen, learn, and visit organizations and possible partners in our work of convening and supporting the process of getting resources to places they haven’t gone historically. I have driven about 2,000 miles and still haven’t seen a giant portion […]
Every week, our planning for the San Antonio event gets more and more rich. And the connections we are making are incredible. Last week, Paula and I were in Texas on a scouting trip mostly focused on speaking with colleagues in theological education about how the conversations we have at Neighborhood Economics connect with the […]
On our last night in Texas, just before we went to the Broken Spoke, we had an extraordinary conversation at Still Austin, where our friend, Chris Seals, told us what he is up to in the whiskey distilling business in Texas. He even gave me an exquisite bottle of rye to take home with me. […]
Jeremiah Robinson and I had lunch today at Maria’s, billed as the best little taco place in Texas. If you’re from out of town, you won’t find it if you don’t know where it is. We were taken there by Janie Barrera. Her liftfund.com invested in the business run by Maria and her daughter Linda; […]