Building Community Wealth
Building community wealth means valuing and nurturing all the ways that we can collectively live in abundance, now and in the future.
At GWI, we are committed to building local economic power and encouraging projects to democratize wealth. In alignment with that mission, we have been working towards the creation of a community-controlled fund, designed and run by the Kingston community.
The questions that drive this work come from a deep desire for solidarity in our economy. How can we nurture community resources, rooted in local values and stewarded by the people who live and work right here? What are ways we can bring abundance and collective thriving to this community, from within the community? Who can we learn from and what models can we adapt for our own context?
Over the course of nine months, we facilitated a journey with 18 members of the community to learn, collaborate, and collectively design a fund that is dedicated to advancing Just Transition in the city of Kingston.
What gets created is up to the Kingston community. Will it be a loan fund, an investment fund, a grant fund, an emergency fund, some kind of hybrid? We don’t know: we’ll have to see what emerges.
For more on the genesis of this project, check out our post “Making a Community Fund Here in Kingston”.
Timeline
Rooted Resources Festival
Community Forums
Application + Selection
Community Fund Design Program - Phase 1 (Learning + Design)
Community Fund Design Program - Phase 2 (Blueprint Design)
Community Fund Implementation
Our Ongoing Role
We believe in order to change the outcomes we also have to change the process. How we work together is just as important as achieving the creation of a fund.
GWI’s role is to facilitate this process of creating a fund and to activate a broad community conversation around it. We’re bringing our Just Transition-aligned work around shared leadership and navigating conflict to the forefront, and will continue to be a resource for this collective effort.
Community Fund Design Program
GWI facilitated a nine-month journey for 18 diverse Kingston residents to collaborate with each other and to engage the larger community in deciding on the structure and mission of a Just Transition-aligned pilot community fund.
Phase 1: Learn + Design, June – December, 2023
Phase 2: Create Fund Blueprint, January – March, 2024
Participants in this collaborative program learned from each other and from the offerings designed by GWI in support of trust, collaboration, democratic-decision making, shared leadership, and community engagement. We offered training and encouraged shared understanding into different ways to design community funds, with invited guests who have launched funds themselves. We had time to get to know one another and create a supportive, nourishing environment for this work, as we confronted what “money” brings up for each of us.
All these skills and experiences have been woven together with the goal to create a fund design that is grassroots, creative, feasible, and that will directly benefit the residents of Kingston. What has emerged in the process is a crucible for all sorts of new ideas to sprout, supported by the tight-knit group who came together with a commitment to building Kingston’s vital, just future, together. We can’t wait to see where it goes next.
The implementation of the community fund is coming. This program supported an equitable design process to create a pilot fund, a real life experiment! The fund will launch in 2024, seeded with $150,000. Stay tuned for more information as we move into making this idea a reality.
For more on Phase 1: Looking Back: Updates from the Community Fund Design Group
Rooted Resources posts give us a clearer vision of what “democratizing wealth” means, refracted through the living experience and emerging projects of people making change today. This series grows out of the Rooted Resources Festival (May 12-15, 2022) and the Community Fund design project.
Get involved!
Take part in imagining and building a people-powered fund that benefits the long-term health and vitality of Kingston. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact us by filling out this form! We’d love to hear from you.
Partners and Supporters
We are grateful to the Novo Foundation for their early support of this project, and look forward to working with them as initial funders for the Kingston Community Fund once it is created. We’re also actively looking for additional partners to support the development of this community fund and to join us as partners and funders. Contact us to learn more or offer your support.
THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNERS
