What We Do

We define our work by the interventions communities put in place to shift the purpose and ownership of production, and to strengthen their resilience, vitality, and well-being. That includes:

• Forms of capital that keep wealth and ownership rooted locally, such as cooperative and employee ownership and community-led investment funds;

• Systems of exchange that build mutual support and shared practice, including shared equipment, common workspaces, and coordinated purchasing;

• Governance structures that put shared stewardship into practice, giving workers, residents, and local enterprises a meaningful voice in shaping economic priorities;

• Climate resilience strategies that prepare production ecosystems to meet critical needs during disruption, localizing essential supply chains and ensuring backup capacity for vital goods; and

• Workforce training that builds the skills and ingenuity people need to respond in times of crisis, sustain production in the mid-term, and access quality, family-sustaining work over the long term.

We co-design and co-implement these interventions with communities, collaborating with a diverse set of stakeholders—from government agencies to community-based nonprofits; lenders to national think tanks; churches to universities—to drive our mission forward. Here’s what we create with our community partners: