This is the first in a series of posts from Our Economy Initiative, a partnership of Movement Strategy Center and The Workers Lab focused on sharing innovations that place our values at the center of our economy.

I lived in Oakland in 2008, when reckless, predatory, and under-regulated financial practices came crashing down into the Great Recession. Working for an organization dedicated to community empowerment and justice, I was devastated to see family after family facing foreclosure from skyrocketing loans designed to displace them, long-term workers struck with pink slips, and parents struggling to put food on the table for their kids.

I was still here in Oakland in 2012, when the impact of the Great Recession finally hit the nonprofit sector I work in. As many of our groups struggled, some even closed their doors. I was heartbroken when after 25 years, the Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment shut down, leaving Oakland’s low-income women with no support for the homegrown micro-enterprises they were building. In that moment we lost a catalyst in the grassroots economic development that truly builds and anchors communities – the community self-determination I’ve worked for my entire adult life.

I haven’t given up. In fact I’m more determined than ever.

These days I focus on two crucial questions:

• How do we claim our financial independence in the nonprofit sector and build vibrant communities based on shared prosperity and community wealth?
• What are the pathways to transition to a just economy that embodies resilience, interdependence, regeneration and collective well being?

These questions challenge me, and all us movement builders, in many ways. These questions challenge assumptions that shape our beliefs and understanding of our current economy. And they demand that we confront our aversion to capital and money, both as individuals and as movements.

Photo: Daniel Arauz, licensed under CC BY 2.0

More and more organizations and individuals are exploring and making progress towards answering these questions, showing up with experimentation and courageous inquiry that give me great hope.

The shift to a new economy is already underway – visible in the burgeoning sharing economy, in business models like Evergreen Cooperatives, and in regenerative forms of finance. To continue the momentum of this shift, we need the active engagement of those committed to a quadruple-bottom line economy to help shape the new economy’s form and build the linkages we need for long-term success.

Today, right now, we need innovations like Restore Oakland and the Better Builder Program. Restore Oakland (a joint initiative of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United), and the Better Builder Program of Workers Defense Project are organizations that have taken the initial steps in moving towards a new economy by piloting market-based projects as a response to some of the challenges that impact the communities they serve.

Check out the New Economy Spotlight Interviews below with Robert Delp and Zack Norris to find out what makes these efforts so needed and so visionary.

New Economy Spotlight: Better Builder Program

Interview with Robert Delp, Better Builder Program Director

Nwamaka Agbo: What is the Better Builder Program?

Robert Delp: The Better Builder Program (BBP) of the Workers Defense Project (WDP) asks developers to commit their construction contracting chain to Better Builder standards for construction workers on their projects. BBP seeks to provide construction workers with a living wage, OSHA-10 safety training, and workers’ compensation insurance (not currently required by law in Texas) for all construction workers. Furthermore, BBP is organizing towards achieving a local hiring goal for construction projects and to secure independent on-site monitoring provided by a Workers Defense Project certified monitor. BBP standards were directly established by WDP’s members working in the construction industry to address the poor, and often deadly, conditions construction workers face on a daily basis.

NA: What is BBP’s business model?

RD: WDP’s Better Build Program is a market-based strategy that provides a fee-for-service to developers by ensuring that their business practices and standards are up to code through consistent on-site monitoring. Developers invest into BBP and justify the cost for their services to their shareholders by demonstrating that the cost savings and value-add of being in compliance with construction labor and safety code, in addition to having well trained construction workers, are better for the company’s profit margin than being served with significant fines and liens that are more expensive for the project overall.

NA: What innovation is BBP spawning?

RD: One out of a few innovations that Better Build is pursuing is policy advocacy around reforming the City of Austin’s permitting process. Because of Austin’s exploding growth, the time it takes for a development to secure the necessary construction permits can take months, rather than days or weeks. On a $30 million project, the carrying costs on a construction loan for a development that is idly waiting for permits can be $30-50,000 per month. Workers Defense Project has developed a proposal currently being reviewed by city staff that would grant access to an expedited permit review process for developers who commit to the Better Builder Program and enter into a covenant agreement between the developer, the City of Austin, and Workers Defense Project.

These are new concepts, and educating policy makers and staff about the potentially transformative effect both policies could have on the families who build our cities is a necessary process that takes time and resources. Still, Better Builder has monitored six projects since 2012 and recently secured our standards on Austin Community College’s $286 million bond program, so we are confident that the value and community benefit are evident.

NA: What challenges does BBP face?

RD: Some of the challenges that we are experiencing include opposition from some developers and contractors to our program. We organize workers, have direct actions, hold bad actors accountable for illegal behavior and poor working conditions, and seek to alter the regulatory environment in which the construction industry operates in favor of workers. Allowing oneself to be open to scrutiny, especially by an organization seen by some as inherently combative towards the industry, is nothing short of a laborious prospect for some firms. The Better Builder Program will need to continue to make the case that our monitors are genuinely interested in true partnerships with responsible developers to create good, safe construction jobs in Texas, and to find each worksite in compliance with the standards set out by the Better Builder program.

NA: Who does BBP partner with?

RD: Since joining The Workers Lab, we have honed our business model, value proposition, and lean startup approach of our day-to-day operations. These steps have been critical in helping us refine our market-based approach to social justice. More broadly, the Better Builder program engaged extensively with the Partnership for Working Families in the beginning to model our program after some of the groundbreaking Community Benefit Agreements (CBA’s) implemented across the country. We have also collaborated closely with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the important victories they have achieved in the Florida tomato industry through their code of conduct signed by both national buyers and regional growers of tomatoes to strengthen protections for agricultural workers.

New Economy Spotlight: Restore Oakland

Interview with Zachary Norris, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center

NA: What is Restore Oakland?

Zachary Norris: Restore Oakland is a collaboration between Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United where  community leaders are coming together to articulate a vision for what they want their communities to look and feel like and then taking the next step in actively bringing people together to implement that community-driven vision. We are clear that more prisons and more police do not make our neighborhoods safer. Restore Oakland is a manifestation of true community vision for safety and economic opportunity.

NA: What myths does Restore Oakland challenge?

ZN: The past 40 years of disinvestment and this latest wave of displacement and gentrification have been based on the premise that the market will fix things as needed. Restore Oakland is our attempt to debunk that premise and to demonstrate that we need community-driven efforts to build economic sustainability for our neighborhoods. Part of seeding that vision requires us to build the high road for employers to make just decisions for workers in the work place and to create a space for healing and reconciliation so that we can all move forward with vibrant and healthy lives.

NA: What innovation is emerging from Restore Oakland?

RD: Restore Oakland is an exciting and innovative new project that creates an opportunity for organizations and individuals to explore new governance models and legal structures for the management of land and assets. We are working with a set of experts to assist us in assessing and vetting which governance and legal structures are best suited to uphold the mission, vision, and values of Restore Oakland as an equitable development project. Furthermore, Restore Oakland will need to seek out financing to acquire real estate and to advance this bold vision. We will determine what type of financing is best suited for our project needs and who are the lenders or investors that are willing to work with us to move this project forward.

NA: Who is Restore Oakland partnering with?

ZN: In addition to our partnership between EBC and ROC United, we are fortunate to have a set of strategic partners that we are collaboratively working with to refine the design of Restore Oakland. We are partnering with Community Works West, Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth and Urban Peace Movement to work through the facility design and integrated programming for the restorative justice healing circles at the site. We are also working closely with organizations and businesses like Causa Justa::Just Cause and Designing Justice Designing Spaces to ensure that this project serves as an example of what equitable development can look like in Oakland, in partnership with the neighboring community.

This past July I went to Netroots where I was honored to attend powerful sessions like “The Resurgence of Black Feminism” and “Ain’t I an Organizer? How Women of Color are the Future of the Women’s Movement”, as well as the closing talk by Rinku Sen, publisher of Colorlines and director of Race Forward.

In the 5 minutes allotted for a Netroots “Ignite” presentation, Rinku challenged all of us to become more effective in our work for racial justice. Rinku listed three responsibilities everyone needs to consider:

1. Accept yourself,
2. Tell the truth, and
3. Focus on structural inequity.

In this brief interview, I asked Rinku to share some highlights from her talk.

Julie Quiroz: What does “accept yourself” mean and why did you put it first?

Rinku Sen: In building cross-racial relationships, organizations and alliances, people can cause a lot of drama by not being clear about who they are and by not being okay with who they are. That kind of denial makes us defensive when we are challenged around those identities, like being an Asian person in the midst of a black or Latino community. Defensiveness closes doors rather than opening them. I think I’m much more effective cross racially now than I was in my youth because I don’t feel the need to deny or hide anything about who I really am.

At Race Forward we do a training called Identity Facets and Assets, which is geared toward imagining how every aspect of us — the oppressed and the privileged — gives us an asset in racial justice work. At Netroots I said that building bridges requires a strong foundation, and that foundation can’t come from anything outside of your self.

Photo: Steve Stearns

JQ: Telling the true story seems like what we’re all trying to do.  Where are we going wrong?

RS: My second principle for multiracial communities is to be explicit about our racial justice commitments so it’s clear that we have them, and to be explicit about who would be affected by them.

I especially note the need to name actual communities rather than using proxies like “inner city” or “disadvantaged.” There’s far too much fear of race talk that makes it easy for  the right wingers to control the conversation, partly by accusing those who favor racial justice of being the “real” racists.

If race conservatives are the only people willing to be frank, then the rest of us are talking around, across and over each other and the public. Also, we can’t use jargon that only makes sense to people who write grant proposals out of non-profits. If you want to reach everyone else, you have to talk in everyday language.

JQ: People often think that focusing on structural racism is really hard.  Is it?

RS: It’s really challenging talking about systems in our exceptionally individualistic society, so yes, it is difficult. But it is no more difficult than talking about systemic problems in unemployment, domestic violence or any other social issue.

One problem with a structural analysis is that it can really make people feel powerless to change anything. If things get decided thousands of miles away from me, or systems are churning along based on decisions made 100 years ago, then what is my role in making it different? Another problem is that it’s hard to hate a system the way you would hate an individual villain, or to love a system that’s working the way you’d love an individual protagonist.

JQ: How does Race Forward talk about structural racism?

RS: At Race Forward we work a lot to connect stories of individuals to systems, but we have to think about how to sustain an emotional resonance evoked by the individual through the systems portion of the story. Learning to talk about race is a creative, intellectual process. We need to learn what works by continuing to do it in as many different ways as we can and by taking time to reflect and pull out the lessons of each attempt.

Accept yourself. Tell the truth. Focus on structural inequity. Reflect. Repeat.

Erica Woodland works with Brown Boi Project, an organization seeking to transform the way people of color experience gender and to create healthy models of masculinity. Erica has worked for more than a decade on issues of gender and gender-based violence, including her earliest work with men and women in prison in Maryland and her current role leading the Brown Boi Project’s middle school program for boys of color in Oakland. Let’s Talk asked Erica to help us understand this moment in gender and gender justice.

Let’s Talk: The past few weeks have been filled with public discussion of gender. What should we make of that?

Erica Woodland: I think people are ready for a new kind of discussion. Gender as we’ve understood it is no more.

There’s an explosion of conversation about gender right now, with lots of activity on Facebook and Twitter, especially from young people.

It’s been amazing to see Laverne Cox on the cover of Time, not just because she’s a trans woman of color but because her analysis of race, class, and gender is pushing us all to look at this moment in its political dimensions. The Time cover happened in the same week as the letter to President Obama from 200 Black men calling for inclusion of girls and women in My Brother’s Keeper and pushing for a more complex conversation on gender.

We’ve also witnessed terrible recent atrocities related to gender and the hatred of women and girls in our society. We’ve seen the murders at UC Santa Barbara and the assault of two black trans women in Atlanta who were stripped and beaten while others watched and took video of the incident.

These incidents – and so many others that never make the news — ask us all to look at the role we play in supporting a culture that hates femininity. We see this hatred in the way we treat women and girls, including trans women and girls. We see this hatred in discrimination against men, straight and queer, who embody femininity. We hear “boy’s don’t cry” and “man up” and wonder why men of color struggle to heal.

The big incidents dominate public consciousness for really short periods of time. We get angry or excited and share something on social media, but what are we going to do after the buzz subsides? How are we going to do the proactive day-to-day work of transforming ourselves, our relationships and our culture?

LT: What does the day-to-day work of transforming gender look like?

EW: At Brown Boi Project we offer space to create the relationships necessary for deep conversations about masculinity and power. Brown Boi has developed leadership circles engaging more than 150 young people of color nationally; these leadership circles have included young people across the masculine spectrum from masculine of center womyn to trans men to queer men to straight men. We have reached hundreds more young people of color in the circles we have held at universities and conferences.

Brown Boi has helped spark bold conversations about gender and race in unlikely places. In 2012, we brought three of our high school leaders from Los Angeles to facilitate a training with faith-based leaders open to the work of Brown Boi and gender justice. The youth identified as either queer or trans and were concerned that the faith-based leaders would judge them for their gender expression and sexual orientation. One gender non-conforming young person even considered wearing a dress to make the folks in the training feel more comfortable!

Despite their worries the youth shared their experiences as young queer and trans people and the challenges they face in their communities and from their families. The faith-based leaders got the opportunity to build relationships with young people which helped them to understand how everyone gains from exploring gender, to work more effectively with queer/gender non-conforming people in their congregations, and to begin to imagine programs that would make gender justice a real part of their work.

People often only see the work of the Brown Boi Project as LGBTQ. But everyone is affected by gender, race and power in our culture, not just queer and trans folks.

LT: How can people get involved with gender justice?

EW: Everyone can show some love for gender justice!

First, support organizations and work led by and for women of color, especially trans women of color in your community. At the Brown Boi Project we have a commitment to donating money and sharing relationships that can be used to leverage resources to work led by women of color.

Second, own our privilege as people of color. For all of the challenges we face, there are always others in our community who need our support. Make a commitment to step up in situations that reinforce violence and hatred towards women and girls, queer and trans people, people of color, poor folks and people with disabilities. Gender justice cannot exist without racial, economic, LGBTQ and disability justice.

Third, accept that we are all learning and growing and will make mistakes. Cultivating the practice of gender and racial justice is an on-going process. The moment we think that the work is done, we are faced with our own blind spots and unconscious prejudice. Be open to feedback and doing things differently in these moments — they are a gift.