AN INTRODUCTION TO NEC

We believe that all our struggles —racial, economic, and environmental— are deeply interconnected and that the most powerful solutions are those that tackle the systemic roots of our issues, rather than treat them in isolation.

In 2016 we saw social movements step up to disrupt the status quo, challenge the political establishment, and demand economic, racial, and environmental justice. But as the faults of our current system become clearer, so does the need for visionary alternatives.

People across the globe, including NEC’s 180+ member organizations, are pushing at the boundaries of the popular political imagination to show that there are many alternatives to our current system. NEC serves as a hub—amplifying stories, connecting aligned groups, and providing resources—for those working to create an economy where people, communities, and the ecosystem thrive.

NEC Staff: Movement Organizers

NEC organizers:

• Connect NEC members through online and in-person gatherings and regular one-on-one conversations and introductions so members can share skills, knowledge, and resources and form collaborations.

• Coordinate working groups where members can tackle common issues and launch shared action.

• Strategically grow a more comprehensive network by engaging groups working in different geographies and issue areas.

• Resource imaginative, impactful new economy initiatives led by youth, students, and groups on the frontlines of systemic crisis and change—providing funding and supporting these groups in communicating their work and connecting with key allies.

• Amplify the work of our members—and others in the new economy movement—in social media and traditional press to counter narratives that promote an extractive, destructive economy.

• Provide tools and trainings in response to member needs.

• Build bridges with networks and organizations around the world who share our vision and have similar goals.

A Member-Led Network

NEC is made up of a diverse network of groups paving the path to a new economy with dynamic strategies to democratize wealth and power. These groups include local and regional hubs of actions, national advocacy groups, thought leaders, youth organizations, technical assistance providers, alternative economy networks, and media makers. They’re based in 29 U.S. states and five Canadian Provinces working on issues at the intersections of new economy and migrant justice, energy democracy, democratic finance, affordable housing, education, labor, food justice, racial justice, and more. As a group, they play an active role in guiding the work of NEC and have a voice in everything from board elections to strategic planning to program execution.

Some of Our Members

Racial Justice: Project South

Project South is a Southern-based leadership development organization that creates spaces for movement building. They work with communities pushed forward by the struggle to strengthen leadership and to provide popular political and economic education for personal and social transformation and to address the root causes of poverty and racism through collectivizing the maximum participation of people most affected and in need of change.

Indigenous Sovereignty: Oweesta Corporation

Oweesta provides financial opportunities to Native people by assisting in the establishment of strong, permanent institutions and programs contributing to economic independence and strengthening sovereignty for all Native communities. They are the only existing Native CDFI intermediary offering financial products and development services exclusively to Native CDFIs and Native communities.

Worker Freedom: Tightshift Laboring Cooperative

Tightshift Laboring Cooperative is a worker-owned laboring business in DC. Tightshift promotes worker freedom and is DC’s first worker-owned cooperative business founded by citizens returning from prison.

Education: IDEA (Institute for Democratic Education in America)

IDEA’s mission is mobilizing action to advance meaningful learning and build a more just and sustainable democracy. Where enough people and communities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico have the tools, visions, stories, and strategies to create educational experiences and systems that lead towards young people and nations that are resourceful, equitable, and sustainable and where citizens are active, lifelong learners who desire, create, and utilize knowledge to improve their lives and their world.

NEC Board: Decision-Making and Guidance

NEC’s majority member-elected Board offer their diverse talents and skills to provide in-depth, high-level, ongoing governance and strategic guidance on all aspects of NEC’s operations and programs.

At a time when many social justice organizations are mired in despair, the New Economy Coalition is focused on solutions. The NEC network has developed deep roots in communities around the country where changemakers are improving lives. These are the stories journalists need to tell, which is why we are so proud to partner with NEC to help get these stories into the media. —Jo Ellen Kaiser, The Media Consortium

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NEC In Depth: 2016 Work

FUELING FRONTLINE CHANGE

Regranting

We are inspired by how those hurt most by our broken economic system are working so hard—and so effectively—to change it.

Youth, students, and people from low-wealth communities and communities of color are leading the fight for a more just, sustainable society: developing democratic economies, taking on the fossil fuel and prison industries, creating green energy solutions, demanding racial justice, and more. These groups are doing phenomenal, much needed, and underfunded work.

We give grants so that youth, student, and grassroots groups can launch bold, cutting-edge campaigns, initiatives, and alternatives that have the power to lead the way to an economy that works for everyone.

Our regranting program funds projects that focus on leadership development for youth, student, and grassroots organizers, increase collaboration and connectivity within the movement for a new economy, and build the capacity of under-resourced groups. We fund projects and groups that would have a hard time accessing traditional funders, which may be less likely to fund smaller experimental projects or convenings.

In 2016, we granted over $45,000 to 15 groups working on the frontlines of issues such as mental illness, racial justice, and criminal justice reform.

Action at Build Black Futures Advocacy Day, September 14, 2016

Example Grantee Projects

Action at Build Black Futures Advocacy Day, September 14, 2016:

Build Black Futures Advocacy Day, Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100)

The Build Black Futures Advocacy Day was led by BYP100, an activist member-based organization of Black 18-35 year olds. Members of BYP100 met with 25 Republican and Democratic Congressional offices to ask for legislation to defund policing and prisons and invest in Black communities. The day was an opportunity for young Black activists to hone their advocacy skills and form relationships with members of Congress: building a foundation for fundamental policy shifts necessary for a future where all Black people thrive.

Train the Trainers gathering, The Icarus Project

The Train the Trainers gathering was organized by the Icarus Project, a support network and education project for people diagnosed with mental illness. The Icarus Project focuses on the emotional struggles of those most marginalized by our economic system and of social justice organizers working to change that system. Over three days, seasoned social workers and organizers provided training to social justice, youth, LGBTQI, and POC activists on how to lead workshops to help others heal from legacies of oppression.

Co-op Roadshow, Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City (CEANYC)

CEANYC, a network of New York City cooperative and solidarity economy groups and community-based organizations invested in economic democracy, organized a Co-op Roadshow bringing a political education curriculum to three different sites in New York City. The goal of the Roadshow was to give participants a deeper understanding of the potential for social change when solidarity and cooperative economy groups organize together.

2016 Grantees

• Black Youth Project 100 (Build Black Futures Advocacy Day)
• Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City (Co-Op Roadshow)
• Democracy at Work Institute (Worker Cooperative National Conference)
• Enlace (National Prison Divestment Movement to End Mass Incarceration, Deportation, and Detention)
• The Icarus Project (Train the Trainers gathering)
• Living the Next Economy Collective (Living the Next Economy Convergence)
• North American Students of Cooperation (Cooperative Education and Training Institute)
• The Ordinary People Society (Prison labor strike and boycott)
• Responsible Endowments Coalition (International solidarity trip to the Phillippines)
• Salish Sea Cooperative Finance (Outreach campaign and guidebook)
• Soulardarity (Let There Be Light Campaign)
• US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (Youth cohort)
• US Solidarity Economy Network (Youth Convergence at the North American Social
• Solidarity Economy Forum)
• West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition (Training for Trainers)
• Wildfire Project (Wildfire Winter Camp)

Divestment and Reinvestment

NEC has remained an anchor in the growing Reinvest in Our Power project (RiOP), a collaboration of grassroots organizations campaigning to divest holdings in the fossil fuel and prison industries and reinvest the money in a community-governed financial cooperative. This project is aimed at building a new energy economy and is centered on the self-determination of communities on the frontlines of racial, economic, and environmental injustice. Rather than allowing people to be a tool of finance, the project makes finance a tool of the people.

One of NEC’s organizers, Sachie Hayakawa, coordinates RiOP, managing the decision-making process within the RiOP network; managing grants and supporting fundraising; developing trainings and other resources for network members; and supporting the development of reinvestment campaigns.

CREATING CONNECTIONS FOR A STRONGER MOVEMENT

People across the globe believe in a world where everyone can thrive: where the oppression of human beings and the abuse of the planet have ended and the deep wounds from centuries of injustice and waste have healed. They believe our struggles are interconnected and that we can create the world we want to see if we work together: from racial and climate justice activists to organic farmers to labor unions to worker cooperatives to community-controlled financial institutions and more.

A movement for a new economy is rising—we connect people, groups, and communities to make that movement stronger.

We hold large cross-issue, cross-region skill-building, connection-building, and knowledge-building gatherings that are open to everyone invested in a just transition to a sustainable world and that are co-led with our members and allies.

And we link our 180+ member organizations working across issues and movements so they can collaborate, share skills, and provide mutual aid.

After many decades of hard fought, hard won advances, people across the country are rising up together to say that they want something more from the systems governing their lives. NEC is a guide for those leading this transition. It links us, across regions and nations, so that we can see the interconnected landscape of our efforts and work together in the most effective way possible. NEC has allowed me to make valuable connections for myself and for my organization and have allowed us, and the communities we serve, to have a greater voice in the movement for a new, just economy. — Ivy Brashear, Communications and Appalachian Transition Associate at the Mountain Association for Economic Development (NEC member) and NEC board member

CommonBound 2016

Last year, in Buffalo, New York, we partnered with over a hundred organizations—including many of our members and local partners PUSH Buffalo and the Crossroads Collective—to hold our third international conference on the new economy. CommonBound addressed issues, strategies, and solutions in a wide range of topics—including energy democracy, worker ownership, development without displacement, building economies where black lives matter, and using public policy to achieve structural change—and provided space for participants to think and collaborate across issues to chart a shared path to a new system. The conference has been our largest and most successful gathering so far.

Facts about CommonBound

The three-day conference included, among other things:

• Over 900 people from 16 countries and 44 U.S. states
• 105 workshops in 17 thematic tracks focusing on different areas of the work toward a just, sustainable economy
• 16 day-long network gatherings
• 260 presenters
• Three plenary sessions
• 19 plenary speakers
• Three in-person tours of community-based economic solutions in Buffalo
• Musical performances and installations by local artists

A majority of CommonBound participants who responded to our exit survey reported that:

• They had made or deepened connections with people doing new economy work in sectors and regions other than their own.
• They had made plans for new collaborations.
• CommonBound included strong representation of everyone invested in a new economy, including those often underrepresented in the new economy space.
• CommonBound addressed the issues most important to achieving a just, sustainable, democratic economy.
• They would return to CommonBound in future years and would recommend it to others.

For more photos, details, and participant feedback on CommonBound, visit commonbound.org.

It's really awesome to see how much this movement has grown to include everyone working towards justice. I loved how diverse the topics were and all the opportunities to learn about other movements so we can figure out how to leverage our collective power and social capital. —Sarah McGowan Dear, Arroyo Sustainable Economies Community Organization; Shakti Rising

Year-Round Network Organizing

We have dedicated staff working on an ongoing basis to recruit new members into the network and bring members together to share resources.

A majority of members responding to a recent survey stated that:

• Direct communications with NEC staff were useful to their work and learning.
• They were able to make valuable connections because of NEC.
• They were able to learn from other NEC members with skills of interest to their organizations.

In 2016 we added almost 40 new members, including many in geographies and sectors previously underrepresented in the network: specifically, those based in the South and the Plains States and those focusing on gender justice, migrant justice, education, and housing.

NEC creates an important space for people from different places, strategies, and networks to come together and form innovative collaborations. An NEC gathering is where I was first able to plug into the Reinvest in Our Power Network, which I have since been deeply involved in and is growing into a national force. These dynamic collaborations happen much easier when supported by a national umbrella organization like NEC. —Aaron Tanaka, Boston-based community organizer and finance activist, co-founder of the Center for Economic Democracy (NEC member), and NEC board member

A Few of Our New Members

The Northern Plains Resource Council (Northern Plains) is a grassroots conservation and family agriculture group that organizes Montana citizens to protect their water quality, family farms and ranches, and unique quality of life. NEC has helped Northern Plains advance their new economy work by connecting them with national leaders on community-controlled renewable energy and cooperative regional food hub systems.

Highlander Research and Education Center (Highlander) is an 85 year old popular education center located in New Market, Tennessee and serves a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South. Highlander develops leadership and helps create and support strong, democratic organizations that work for justice, equality, and sustainability in their own communities and that join with others to build broad movements for social, economic and restorative environmental change. NEC supports Highlander’s Economics and Governance program for community groups that are looking to incorporate visionary organizing strategies into their work.

Jobs with Justice Education Fund (Jobs with Justice) believes that all workers should have collective bargaining rights, employment security, and a decent standard of living within an economy that works for everyone. Jobs with Justice brings together labor, community, student, and faith voices at the national and local levels to win improvements in people’s lives and shape the public discourse on workers’ rights and the economy. NEC has worked with Jobs with Justice Education Fund to help them strategize about ways to incorporate worker ownership into their strategies for economic justice, and Jobs with Justice Education Fund has helped NEC think through ways to deepen our relationship with organized labor.

Working Groups

At our day-long 2016 annual members meeting, we led a process for our members to identify their most pressing needs and how the NEC network can support them in meeting those. Through this process, our members formed working groups: productive collaborations, meeting regularly, where members can share skills and launch shared initiatives. We are providing organization and resources, such as online tools, so these groups can thrive.

The NEC Policy Working Group is working to understand the landscape of policy work and the policy-related needs of coalition members so that it can support new tools, peer-learning, and increased collective impact on policy. In 2016 the group launched a series of online workshops in policy and advocacy for grassroots new economy organizations.

The NEC Network Building Working Group believes in finding better ways to tap the incredible wisdom of the NEC network. In 2016 the group organized virtual networking opportunities for members and began developing a centralized, virtual platform for member communications and action planning.

The Community Organizing and Economic Development (CO-ED) Working Group aims to support community organizing and social movement work that advances economic self-determination and to support new economy enterprises in better integrating their efforts with organizing and social movement work. Projects the group is exploring include disseminating case studies, organizing tours, compiling training resources, and organizing peer support forums.

Partnerships with Allied Movements

Those hit hardest by economic injustices are most likely to bear the burdens of racism and climate change. These marginalized communities have been forced to innovate, reimagine, and challenge the status quo economy to survive. Leading with visionary alternatives, these frontline communities have developed many models for transforming society.

NEC works with allied movements—from international solidarity economy leaders to environmentalists and Indigenous rights activists—to deepen collaborations across issues while continuing to engage with a broader range of organizations who have tremendous knowledge, technical expertise, and resources to contribute to building the next system.

In 2016 we supported campaigns and grew partnerships with leaders in allied movements such as the Climate Justice Alliance, the Movement for Black Lives, and the Indigenous Environmental Network.

We also collaborated with international solidarity economy actors, including the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS) and the Canadian Community Economic Development Network. We were a lead partner on the RIPESS North America Summit and anchored U.S. involvement in the Global Social Economy Forum, a major international gathering of municipal officials and new economy allies.

NEC provides a unique convening space that brings together so many people from different regions and movements. We desperately need coherence in articulating the mosaic of new economy solutions that can replace our current system, and NEC does and will play a crucial role in that effort. NEC has brought me closer to other new economy movement builders from DC and around the country and world. Those spaces have been transformative experiences that help to inform and shape our local work. —Allison Basile, member at Tightshift Laboring Cooperative (NEC member) and NEC board member

COMMUNICATING WHAT’S POSSIBLE

To change an economic system that’s failing most of us, we have to shift the underlying culture. At NEC, we believe this means shifting the story: about the system we need and the solutions that are possible.

In 2016, we took steps to grow NEC's capacity to contribute to that shift. We expanded our communications team, experimented with new digital strategies, and deepened partnerships with narrative and media organizations so that we can communicate more new economy stories beyond the choir.

Making Solutions Visible

As the public is waking up to the realities of a failed system, it’s crucial that NEC consistently share not only evidence of this failure, but solutions—all in real time. In September 2016, we launched a bi-weekly movement newsletter (The New Economy Roundup), which reaches approximately 25,000 people directly and hundreds of thousands via social media platforms.

We also launched a monthly newsletter specifically for NEC members, which reaches more than 450 individuals from our network, making the work of our members visible to each other and seeding new possibilities. As a result we’ve seen increased engagement between members, who are sharing each other’s victories and openly engaging in new projects.

Growing Social Media Presence

With a tweeting POTUS and a climate of rapid change in the ways people consume the news, it’s crucial that NEC turn up the energy on where and how it shares information. We have 15,000+ Twitter followers and 13,000+ Facebook followers, and these numbers are growing daily. We regularly post cutting-edge new economy solutions and actions, ideas, and journalism in resistance to the current economic system. Major publications and influencers have shared our posts and information in the last year.

Metanarrative: Moving to a Shared New Economy Story

Through the Metanarrative Project, led in partnership with the Center for Story-based Strategy (CSS), NEC seeks to build alignment within our network around a common story about the new economy, while also building our members capacity to tell that story in a coordinated and effective way. Through a participatory process, we are co-creating narrative tools—language, memes, and metaphors—that can challenge today’s conventional economic wisdom with a coherent and widely appealing vision for a new economy.

In 2016 we released a metanarrative report for NEC members based on a listening project we conducted in 2015. The report assessed how the new economy story was being told, as well as the need for and opportunities to collaboratively develop shared tools for telling it.

We also launched a task force that includes NEC members and that is driving the project forward, laying the groundwork for member-led narrative campaigns in 2017.

We’re in a moment in history where people across the U.S. are hungry for radical transformation of our economic system. NEC is uniquely positioned to harness the energy of this moment to bring together folks from across the spectrum to articulate a new economic narrative that can speak to many people. And that’s why we’re partnering with NEC to help groups tell this story.

—Christine Cordero, the Center for Story-based Strategy

Nurturing New Relationships

We won’t be able to build a new economy unless we build new relationships. At CommonBound, we worked to help others in the new economy movement forge connections with journalists. NEC invited several media outlets to attend the conference and co-hosted an event with Yes! Magazine and The Laura Flanders Show that was a space where CommonBound participants could connect with media: pitching stories or just chatting informally. This resulted in some highly visible placements in national media outlets like The Huffington Post, Next City, and Truthout.

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What’s Happening in 2017

Strengthening Our Network

Our three-day member gathering and annual meeting happening in May 2017 will bring together representatives from our 180+ member groups to organize and plan joint action, helping alternatives builders develop strategies for an age of resistance. The gathering will include strategy sessions, the formation of lasting collaborations, and trainings on community organizing and communications campaigns. We will provide scholarships covering travel and housing for low-resource, grassroots groups participating.

Our staff are continuing to serve as connectors among our members by identifying and facilitating collaborations. We are also expanding our membership to encompass a broader range of social movements, including in communities of color and indigenous communities and in sectors like healthcare, housing, and education. We are strengthening our partnerships with leaders in those movements and leveraging our connections with groups across regions and sectors to make those movements stronger.

We are innovating new online tools for the movement like Lumen, an open source member platform that makes it easy for members to share resources and opportunities, to request support and advice, and to engage in mutual aid.

We are incubating new working groups of our members, including those grounded in different regions of the U.S. and focusing on place-based issues.

Resisting and Building

In this challenging political moment, we will intensify our efforts to connect campaigns, protests, and political advocacy for racial, economic, and environmental injustice with efforts to build democratic economies, such as cooperatives and community-owned enterprises led by members of traditionally marginalized communities. With our members and allies, we will continue to ask questions like:

How do we move away from fossil fuels as a nation and at the same time move control of energy to local communities? How do we organize against police brutality and at the same time support and create independent black-owned businesses?

Seeding New Stories

The biggest news story right now is the one that’s not being reported: the emergence of a new economy movement. All across the United States, Canada, and around the world, people are building solutions that meet their communities’ needs, especially people most deeply affected by our unjust economic system. In an era where people feel increasingly despondent and disconnected from one another, it is more important than ever to center the needs of frontline communities—rural and urban—and to center the leadership and solutions those communities are offering.

This year we’re partnering with the Media Consortium and The Laura Flanders Show on the New Economies Media Project. The goal of the project is to raise the profile of underreported, innovative solutions, such as participatory budgeting, cooperatives, and community ownership. NEC members will educate journalists on new economy work through a series of press briefings coordinated by the Media Consortium. They will also receive specialized training on media skills from the The Laura Flanders Show. As a result of the project, at least 30 new economy stories will be published in U.S. media; our members will gain media skills and connections that they can use and build on to powerfully communicate their work to a wide audience; and journalists who care about the new economy movement will gain the knowledge to continue reporting on new economic solutions far into the future.

We partnered with NEC because we want to be at the forefront of media coverage on the solidarity economy, providing a platform for the under-reported progressive thinkers that are working towards a commonomics future and building relationships with those thinkers. While corporate media attempts to illuminate stories of division, we think NEC is demonstrating viable images of the pro-equity, pro-justice work that we hope to uplift. —Laura Flanders, The Laura Flanders Show

Creating a Common Narrative

We are moving forward with our Metanarrative Project: leading, in partnership with members and CSS, a narrative power analysis focused on a new economy. The goal of the narrative power analysis is to reveal hidden assumptions behind narratives supporting extractive economies in order to better challenge those narratives. The analysis will form the foundation of communications campaigns and experiments in 2017 and beyond. We are also launching a member working group which will become the driving force for the project into the future.

Beautiful Solutions

In partnership with Beautiful Trouble and the Highlander Research and Education Center, we’re excited to help launch a new movement resource: Beautiful Solutions: Toolbox for the Future. Through a book, online tools, and popular education program, Beautiful Solutions will collect and share the most promising, replicable strategies for building equitable, sustainable economies. The goal is to inspire people as to what’s possible and to support communities who are interested in exploring new economy strategies in their own communities. A full-length book will be coming out in 2017!

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Community

2016 NEC STAFF

• Kate Aronoff, Communications Manager
• Shavaun Evans, Network Organizer
• Eli Feghali, Communications Director
• Jamie Frank, Development Director
• Araz Hachadourian, Communications Coordinator
• Sachie Hayakawa, Programs Coordinator
• Emily Hardt, Special Projects
• Richard Hines, Operations Manager
• Anand Jahi, Program Director
• Tori Kuper, Operations Coordinator and CommonBound 2016 Buffalo Coordinator
• Natalia Linares, Communications Manager
• René Pérez, IT Manager
• Emma Puka-Beals, Development Associate
• Jonathan Rosenthal, Executive Director
• Mike Sandmel, Membership Director
• Ash Trull, CommonBound 2016 Project Manager

NEC MEMBERS AS OF MARCH 1, 2017

2016 NEC Board of Directors

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Acknowledgements

THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS

Many people and organizations--donors and others--make our work possible. Thank you to all who supported us in 2016.

2016 Donors

• Bluestein Family Foundation
• Jessica Brackman and Charles Melcher
• Capital Institute
• The Chorus Foundation
• Cloud Mountain Foundation
• Cooperative Development Institute
• Cooperative Fund of New England
• Corporate Accountability International
• Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps
• Equal Exchange
• Eliot Estrin
• The Fund for Democratic Communities
• Deborah Frieze
• The Germeshausen Foundation
• Neva Goodwin
• Kathryn Grody
• Agnes Gund
• Farha-Joyce Haboucha
• Hildegarde Hannum
• The Harvey L. Miller Family Foundation
• Julie Brotje Higgins
• The John R. Oishei Foundation
• Ashley Kidd
• M&T Bank
• The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
• Elizabeth McMeekin
• Jeremy Mindich
• Ron Miller
• National Cooperative Bank
• The New England Grassroots Environment Fund
• New Visions Foundation
• NoVo Foundation
• The Overbrook Foundation
• Park Foundation
• The Paul & Edith Babson Foundation
• Phalarope Foundation
• Proteus Fund
• William Raap
• Kim Rosenthal and Andrew Nicholson
• RSF Social Finance
• Charles Sandmel and Barbara Simonetti
• Laurie Schecter
• Naomi Sobel and Rabbi Becky Silverstein
• Sarah Stranahan
• Threshold Foundation
• Trillium Asset Management
• Sam Vinal
• Marc Weiss
• The Working World

Only donors who gave $350 or more are listed.

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Financials