Building Pathways

to a People’s Economy

March 12, 2020

peopleseconomy.org

Set-up

Click “Participants”

and “Chat” menu buttons

Rename yourself by hovering on your name and clicking “Rename”

Before we start

• Remove distractions
• Get something to drink
• Get a journal, paper, pen or whatever you need to take notes and journal
• Be present

Chat

Where are you joining from?

If you are NEC member, what organization are you from?

What are you hoping to get out of this Circle?

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Joe, PeoplesHub

Moderator

Shavaun, New Economy Coalition

Guest

Renee, Community Enterprise and Solidarity Economy Law Clinic

Guest

Yassi, Sustainable Economies Law Center

Guest

What is

• Online movement school
• Connecting with groups across geographies
• Supporting healthy group culture to build more powerful, thriving movements

Offerings

• Thriving Groups
• PeoplesHub Workshops
• Circles
• Strategy Clinics

Agenda

Overview of Pathways to a People’s Economy

• Shavaun Evans, New Economy Coalition

Engaging in Policy Change: The how and why of policy advocacy

• Yassi Eskandari, Sustainable Economies Law Center

Organizing for Policy Change: Illinois Limited Worker Cooperative Association Act

• Renee Hatcher, Illinois Coalition for Cooperative Advancement

Q & A

• YOU!

Who is the New

Economy Coalition?

peopleseconomy.org

NEC Members

200 + Member Organizations Including

peopleseconomy.org

What is the New Economy?

What does the new economy/ people’s economy mean to you?

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How have you seen it in practice in your community?

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Type In Chat

peopleseconomy.org

What is the New Economy?

A vision for a future where people control their economies through deep democracy, cooperative and public ownership, and a culture of mutual aid and respect for the earth.

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• Community Land Trusts
• Cooperatives
• Restorative Justice
• Mutual Aid Networks
• Solidarity Health Clinics
• Timebanking
• Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives
• Intentional Communities
• Tool Libraries
• Complementary Currencies

strategies that enable communities to have ownership and control over the resources they create and depend on

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• Credit Unions
• Creative Commons
• Media Democracy
• Community Networks
• Community Solar
• Debt Relief
• Revolving Loan Funds
• Public Banks
• Collectives and Unions
• ….and the list goes on

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Policy Pathways:

The Time is Now!

Provide tools to make concrete policy demands to advance a new economy

Build a narrative framework to influence campaigns on the ground

Amplify new economy policy organizing and wins

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Policy Pathways:

The Time is Now!

peopleseconomy.org

Policy Pathways:

This is How!

“If we resist the current extractive economic model,

what will replace it?”

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• The sample policies and asks can be used singularly, combined, or as a whole to run policy campaigns and influence elected officials and candidates’ platforms.

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• The one-pagers can be used for lobby days to educate legislators and their staff on new economy policy or at events to inform the public about the change that is possible.

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• The case studies provide inspiring stories of on-the-ground wins and efforts that can seed new ideas in different regions

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• The policy visions can be used to shape campaign narratives and inspire the public.

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Connect with NEC

Need additional resources to use the Toolkit in your community (additional one-pagers, social media samples, etc)?

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Connect with

shavaun@neweconomy.net

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peopleseconomy.org

Chat

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How much are you currently connected to both Building a New Economy and the issue areas in the toolkit?�

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Not Very Connected�

Very

Connected�

Policy Advocacy:

What, Why, How

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Why Policy Advocacy?

It’s a way to advance our work, enabling us to...

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...in order to advance our initiatives, social & economic models, and concepts/causes/movements

...via public programs, incentives, penalties, statutory definitions, appropriate regulations, etc.

Legalize Educate Popularize

Formalize Oppose Ban Remove barriers

Recognize Resource ($/staff/services)

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peopleseconomy.org

Why Policy Advocacy?

“Policy advocacy is the process of negotiating and mediating a dialogue through which influential networks, opinion leaders, and ultimately, decisionmakers take ownership of your ideas, evidence, and proposals, and subsequently act upon them.”

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“You have achieved success when decisionmakers present your ideas as their own.”

-International Centre for Policy Advocacy

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It Can Take Different Shapes

What you probably think about when you think about policy advocacy:

1. Introducing legislation (“resolution” “ordinance” “bill” “act”)
2. Ballot initiatives and signature gathering efforts

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But effective advocacy often requires influencing additional key elements before, during, and after a policy win:

↳ Priorities/agenda/strategy of gov’t staff & electeds

↳ Implementation & design of public programs

↳ Budget appropriations

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There are Many Ways To Make a Case for Change

If your goal is to demonstrate the need for change and convince decisionmakers to act, that can require a lot more than writing a piece of legislation.

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For some issues, it can even take decades to shift the political tides and public opinion in your favor.

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And all policy efforts can benefit from a more holistic approach.

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One Tool Among Many

Advocacy can be a powerful addition to the other work we do to usher in a new economy:

• Community organizing
• Public protest
• Leadership development
• Education
• Strategic storytelling
• Peer support networks
• Emergency aid and response
• Neighborhood groups and services...

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Chat

What kind of policy advocacy are you doing, and what are some lessons learned/tips that you can share with the group?

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Type your answer �in the Chat Box

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Best Practices

• Work in coalition and across silos
• Ensure stakeholders identify your priority issues
• Use real life stories to paint a picture of impact
• Make it easy to work with you: do as much of the research, edu, and legislative drafting as you can
• Establish relationships with the government staff that will be responsible for implementation efforts
• Consider funding needs early, and plan ahead

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Poll

What percentage of your 501(c)(3) nonprofit’s overall work can be lobbying activity?

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Nonprofit Lobbying

(Basic Rules)

• Insubstantial part test (3-5% of activities, maybe*)
• default test
• lobbying must be an “insubstantial” part of your organization’s overall activities (unrelated to costs)

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• 501(h) election (expenditure test):
• differentiates between direct & grassroots lobbying
• about 20% of org expenditures can be spent on lobbying (*dependent on budget size*)
• stricter limit on grassroots lobbying within that cap (¼ of overall limit)

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Resources

• 🌟 Lobbying resources for nonprofits🌟�www.bolderadvocacy.org

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• Hotline for free nonprofit lobbying technical assistance �1-866-NP-LOBBY // 866-675-6229

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• Women’s Policy Institute (fellowship)�www.womensfoundca.org/policy/wpi/

peopleseconomy.org

Breakouts!

1. What policy campaigns or issues are you hoping to engage?
2. How does policy advocacy support your base building and creating new/solidarity/alternative creation work on the ground?
3. What support would be helpful for you in your work?

Answer on slides

What Policy Campaigns or Issues are you hoping to Engage?

• Energy democracy - making it legal for community solar at state level
• City support for community land trust
• Philadelphia public bank
• Worker rights and eco justice jobs. Really, though, anything related to progressive justice.
• Federal legislation to amend the TVA act to bring public decision making to TVA.
• Direct cash transfers to everyone, paid for by giant corporations
• Increase youth participation & recognition in the process of economic policy making
• Michigan mosaic energy cooperative mmecoop.com
• Getting city council to commit to community wealth-building strategies esp community land trusts for affordable housing and procurement reform

• I’m working globally on the framing of a economics that supports all the things we are talking about here, including the shift in power from global corporations to local communities.
• Education to shift policymakers thinking away from classical economics toward new economics and redefining prosperity outside of these parameters
• State bill for a soil health action plan with financial incentives for farmers to implement practices to the benefit of their communities
• Focus on workers cooperatives, Getting more involved in policy & systematizing finance for it

What Policy Campaigns or Issues are you hoping to Engage?

• Prioritizing worker cooperative licensing and support for marijuana equity programs in proposed legalization legislation
• Environmental justice work
• Green new deal for agriculture - equitable parity pricing.
• Public banking, participatory budgeting, jobs for youth, youth representation in policy making, participation in non-industrial/”traditional” skills/society, gentrification, participation/centering of those most impacted, public transportation,
• Youth Pass - Free public transportation for all youth in the tri-county region. Building ridership and a climate solution to getting drivers off the road.
• OR Green New Deal and Oregon Just Transition Alliance - launching listening tour, bridging the urban/rural divide to identify equitable climate solutions and encouraging cohesive narrative for climate solutions at the state level.

• Ballot Initiative to provide direct cash transfers to all people in the state, funded by increasing minimum corporate tax.
• Policies to support the New Economy work - still developing working groups
• Community-controlled housing with those most impacted at center of solutions, e.g. Moms4Housing+ACCE+OakCLT
• Platform cooperatives & online data policy
• Policy Research
• Media work to lift up the grassroots policy work of others
• Federal policy work to clean up the legacy pollution of the coal industry in a way that creates loreng term community specific economic projects. Also work to get the Fed Black Lung fund extended to make sure miners with Black Lung and their families continue to get medical benefits paied for by the industry.

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What Policy Campaigns or Issues are you hoping to Engage?

• Free passage for all students in Portland public schools
• Fairless public transit in Portland
• Green New Deal(s) that advance just transition and center frontline communities
• Building a just transition that does not harm marginalized communities - (I second that)
• End cash bail in Atlanta, including ending risk assessments for pre-trial detention, what are the systemic issues that need to be addressed that are affecting those arrested.
• Financial and agricultural / sustainability
• Housing. Homeless people’s bill of rights

• Community solar in Cleveland
• Zero-waste campaign
• Milk with dignity (Migrant Justice in VT)
• Defunding the current criminal justice system, participatory budgeting here. Getting city and state contracts to prioritize communities of color and worker-owned coops
• Promoting time banks to facilitate citizen engagement Just beginning to look at restorative justice
• Interested in a couple key national level policies to work on that would be beneficial to local and state new economy struggles.
• Building a more just economy by changing the banking industry
• Prioritizing worker cooperative licensing and support for marijuana equity programs in proposed legalization legislation
• Environmental justice work

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What Policy Campaigns or Issues are you hoping to Engage?

• Eugene, OR: Community control of housing- trying to get infrastructure and avenues to adopt CLT/co-ops/etc. Need support with coalition building, anchor institutions on board.
• Need to better understand regulatory landscape that prevents us from doing this work, or allows us to do this work.
• Cooperative financing.
• Community ownership of energy utilities
• Community control of land
• Agriculture policy for a green new deal (supporting community food systems) would love to talk with folks more on this (zac@coloradospringsfoodrescue.org)

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• Vallejo, CA: supporting grassroots movement work, here to learn how new economy can shift power to communities
• Share/educate community and startup orgs/advocacy groups on new economy concepts and supporting the formation of worker co-ops, participatory budgeting (but got hijacked by City). Worker owned arts and creative space- art cooperative.
• Co-op conversions
• Right to own
• CLTs
• Permanently affordable housing
• Homeless people’s bill of rights in Alaska

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How does policy advocacy support base building and creating new, solidarity, alternative creation work on the ground?

• Have been creating a homeless bill of rights on the state level. Has connected to Poor People’s Campaign.
• Listening sessions, educational and networking events inspire folks to see their own power and how to plug into efforts
• Getting city hall to establish their first Community Benefits Framework
• Working on a campaign to expand democracy beyond and between elections

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• Tour highlighting benefits of milk with dignity
• Community solar fellowships to educate and recruit new advocates
• REJOICE: environmental justice policy as a process in addition to a product
• Trying to figure this out, especially engaging families/people who have been marginalized by our current systems.
• Lots of opportunity for leadership development, building new skills and building new and deeper relationships with both community folks and elected officials. Also through the policy work you learn a lot that can lead to new understanding that can lead to new project sand ideas to implement in communities.

How does policy advocacy support base building and creating new, solidarity, alternative creation work on the ground?

• Holistic and systemic analyses that emerge from cross-sector participants embolden people to envision deeper campaigns for real solutions, rather than tinkering at the edges of what people deem “politically feasible.”

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How does policy advocacy support base building and creating new, solidarity, alternative creation work

• Policy is a good place to meet non-SE folks where they’re at because grassroots organizing around policy is accessible and tangible battles for lots of folks who are not actively building SE projects.

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• It can be something positive/tangible for people to see and work on to address issues they see in their communities. Would want to make sure that it fits in with the larger vision of the work, and isn’t just chipping around the edges.

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What support would be helpful

for you in your work?

• Engaging marginalized communities, esp on a shoe-string budget
• Early campaign funding (seed funding)
• University researchers doing feasibility studies to identify best opportunities in the market for development of sustainable worker-owned cooperatives, co-op conversions, etc. (we are a non-profit worker co-op incubator)

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What support would be helpful

for you in your work?

• How to keep myself going morally and enthusiastically
• Curious how you decide when a policy toolkit is the right approach...
• Who is the primary target and how do you measure its effectiveness?
• How to handle power dynamics between policy “experts” and grassroots folks workin in coaltion. How to better center, and have decision making from the most directly impacted folks in policy work.

• How to avoid the “curse of knowledge” in comms? (the more we know about a topic, the harder it is to communicate to newbies)

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Journal

As you are listening:

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How does what Renee is sharing relate to your work at home?

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What questions do you have?

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Some Background

Building a Cooperative

Ecosystem

Process: Assessing the Needs of Worker Coops 2017-2018

Chicagoland Worker Cooperative

Ecosystem

Considerations and Priorities for

Chicago Worker Coops

• Center the needs of oppressed communities
• Sweat Equity Contributions
• Legal recognition of worker cooperatives
• Additional financing opportunities and options
• Enshrine cooperative values

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WORKER COOP LANGUAGE

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LIMITED COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION

=

IL LIMITED WORKER COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION ACT

Worker Cooperative Entity

Choice Options

New Entity Formed!

What’s Next?

• Building Pathways to a People’s Economy: Restore Our Planet April 2 3pm with strategy clinic
• Check out PeoplesHub at www.PeoplesHub.org

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