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Community Wealth Candidates
Who We Are
Who We Are
Run by Canadian volunteers, Community Wealth Candidates works with and nominates candidates for offices at municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government who will support community wealth initiatives around Community Land Trusts, Worker Cooperatives, and the progressive use of Anchor Institutions.
Around the world, this work has saved lives, transformed struggling communities, and opened systemically different futures.
In addition to nominating candidates, we speak to and organize with city councils, economic advisory committees, and community groups to create an equitable, inclusive, and resilient recovery from COVID.
Community Wealth Building
Community Wealth Building
"If traditional economic development tends to be about attracting industry to a community, building wealth is instead about using under-utilized local assets to make a community more vibrant. It’s about developing assets in such a way that the wealth stays local. And the aim is helping families and communities control their own economic destiny."
-- community-wealth.org , 2014
Economic development based on attracting corporate business has lead to an increasingly precarious workforce, abandoned communities, environmental waste, a growing divide between workers and owners, and a circular "race to the bottom" in which those at the top demand more from the rest as their power and influence grows. The enterprises are anti-democratic, the profits go to a small number of owners, and often get staved in offshore tax havens.
Community Wealth Building begins with resources that already exist, and uses them to build a locally-rooted democratic economy through different forms of community ownership.
These strategies--all with strong track records of success--can be taken one at a time: cooperative enterprise, employee-owned companies, neighborhood-owned land, and larger institutions like school and hospitals that choose to direct their purchases intentionally to local companies and social enterprises. They can also be brought together into a complex. Finance from governments and credit unions (cooperative banks) can be used to start worker cooperatives. Anchor institutions can purchase goods and services from these worker cooperatives, putting the wealth into the hands of many local worker-owners who work, live, and spend in their community. As prosperity grows, a community land trust can control land values and provide permanent affordable housing.
Integrated models like these were first used to pull many people out of poverty in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Cleveland, Ohio, whose Evergreen Cooperatives continued to expand in number and employment right through COVID. They were then taken across the pond on a larger scale to Preston, England, which was subsequently named "The Most Improved City in the United Kingdom" by the Good Growth for Cities Index.
These simple but ingenious methods can be used in any community, and are expanding rapidly all around the world.
Becoming a Community Wealth Candidate
Community Wealth Candidates endorses candidates who support Community Wealth Building initiatives expanding Worker Cooperatives, Community Land Trusts, the progressive use of Anchor Institutions, and integrated models like those used in Cleveland, Ohio and Preston, England.
City and Municipal Candidates
We will endorse candidates for city council, regional council, and mayor who pledge to:
A) Support budgeting grant creation for worker cooperatives and community land trusts.
B) Initiate a Committee for Community Wealth Building, with a focus on bringing together anchor institutions that will “hire local, buy local, live local.” This includes focusing procurement and investment locally, and prioritizing purchasing from local worker-owned companies.
In the event the above pledge is not congruent with one's jurisdiction, we will endorse and promote work around the following initiatives:
have city/region join the growing number Pledging to Support Worker Cooperatives
provide funding and administrative assistance to develop Community Land Trusts towards *permanent* affordable housing
donate under-utilized and vacant land to Community Land Trusts.
create Cooperative Development Centres to build new worker and consumer cooperatives in the community
list Succession Planning to Employee Ownership as a priority strategy for addressing the “Silver Tsunami” of retiring baby boomer entrepreneurs
form Employee Ownership Technical Assistance Centres, reaching out to and supporting the succession of enterprises to their locally-based workers
foster Integrated Community Wealth Models, like those launched in Cleveland, Ohio, and Preston, England
Federal and Provincial Candidates
We will endorse candidates who support some or all of the following:
implement Right of First Refusal policy, giving workers the first option to purchase their company and take it under worker control when it is going to be sold or close
create a Land Fund, modelled after the Scottish Land Fund, providing annual grants for Community Land Trusts to purchase land and take it under the stewardship of local, democratic non-profits.
create Public Banks, giving citizens say over where the investment goes
produce Investment Banks for Worker Cooperatives, providing low-interest loans to help transition existing business to worker cooperatives and to start new ones
offer Direct Grants for worker cooperatives
form Employee Ownership Technical Assistance Centres, reaching out to and supporting the succession of enterprises to their locally-based workers
pledge to prioritize Canadian employee-owned companies with Government Contracts
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