The following is a transcript of the video above from our webinar, Remaking the Economy: Building Regional Solidarity Economies. Watch the full webinar here.
Sign up for our free newsletter
Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to get our top stories delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive communications from NPQ and our partners.
Something that has already been mentioned is the patience that this work entails and how slow the development of these projects is [can be]. [It takes] five years to make a company almost self-sufficient. This isn't the kind of fast-moving thing – you're making an investment, [and] Thousands of people received something within a year or two of the grants being awarded – situations that many, many funders are used to. I think that philanthropy here is really about existing with us in the solidarity economy and not doing things so hectic and fast [they]We're used to it and don't require metrics that aren't really actionable in the community. [To] Trust us and the people we work with to figure out what we need and get it done in the time frame that will actually make a difference.
This often looks like a long-term commitment of funds and not a one- or two-year grant. Something like a three or five year commitment. It looks like we are lifting some of the restrictions on this money to allow the community to be creative and respond to emerging needs locally. It also looks like we'll be funding some of these shared commons, resource and capital pots that we've put together to support them [the] Solidarity economy. I'm thinking about the Seed Commons loan fund, which all of our organizations are part of. [which is] an opportunity to invest slow money in something that will impact co-ops across the country in ways that their respective regional ecosystems need. We have members who do the local organizing work, and Seed Commons creates a backbone infrastructure at the national or international level to provide this funding in a non-extractive way. These are some of the first things that come to mind: slower commitments, [and] greater interest in letting communities determine what impact they need to have.
Comments are closed.