The Scoop on SOCAP

I guess it’s not surprising how many times Kevin and I are asked some version of the following: Are you going to SOCAP? What is SOCAP doing now? Or, more pointedly: How do you feel about SOCAP these days?  And I think perhaps the unasked question from the group of people who read this newsletter […]

Finding the Catalytic Philanthropy to Help Black Funds Scale

The influential Aspen Institute has decided that the goal of their Future of Wealth initiative is to see Black family wealth grow ten-fold over the next twenty-five years. This would bridge a significant chunk out of the racial wealth gap; the average white family has 10x the assets of the average Black family. Aspen’s grounding […]

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Go Local :: Mortar

Innovators of neighborhood economics were the lead-in of this year’s social capital (SOCAP) conference. SOCAP is the world’s largest conversation accelerating the alignment of money and meaning as a driving force for positive social and environmental change.  Over the years, there’s a key theme they’ve been nurturing within the conference’s menu: local investments … community capital … neighborhood […]

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Ego-System vs Ecosystem

From Ego-System to Ecosystem: Reinstating the Golden Rule of Community No matter what your cultural origins, you probably grew up hearing the importance of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, a truism commonly known as the Golden Rule. Away from the adults, you might have heard another interpretation: he who […]

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The Community Social Contract

Co-Creating the Community Social Contract I recently had a conversation with a very bright, well educated, intellectually curious Millennial about the importance of the social contract as a tool to enforce accountable engagement in the world. She looked at me blankly, smiled and said, what a great idea, how did you think of that? I […]

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Community Stakeholders

The Community Stakeholder is key to a thriving community. The model of sustainable community development is changing from one of shareholders (generally driven by monetary capital) to one of stakeholders (engaging the full spectrum of community wealth) for the purpose of producing the individual and mutual well-being of all the participants, in an ongoing way. Who […]