We have a volunteer who is working on the Wiki that I am creating as an online information resource, separate from our website, of the themes and the emerging taxonomy of projects and funds that we convene at Neighborhood Economics. Scott Arvin adds order to my creation of the Wiki, which tracks who I am talking to and writing stories about for our weekly newsletter. The Wiki is where I put the links to their sites, descriptions of what they do, who funds them, etc.
For Neighborhood Economics in San Antonio, Arvin will work this week to look for content in the Wiki related to our four meta themes that we focus on at every conference: entrepreneurship as the path to wealth for marginalized communities; innovative housing solutions as a path to family and community wealth and commercial real estate with community ownership; and neighbors investing in neighbors as asset creating are the first three. The fourth is subverting redlining or other structurally racist relics of colonial-minded economic and political architecture.
Our core belief is that a job gets you by, but an asset gets you ahead, as Harold Pettigrew says. And we believe that we can create an economy where people without assets can gain economic power, through new investment and other platforms and funds that are emerging.
Our job as conveners is to bring those innovations that are ready to replicate to San Antonio. The practitioners will know that the catalytic foundations are increasingly buying into what Neighborhood Economics is doing. We highlight their successes, the ones really changing the game. We also gather investors motivated by their faith to get engaged with their local economy, and we hope to increasingly reach people in our host community who want to be part of building a community their children and grandchildren want to come back to.