Action guide for advancing Community Wealth Building in the United States

Executive Summary 

Community Wealth Building (CWB) is an economic development model that transforms local economies based on communities having direct ownership and control of their assets. It challenges the failing economic development approaches that have been widely accepted for too long in the United States and addresses wealth inequality at its core. It is a method for making local economies more just, equal, and socially and ecologically sustainable.

This action guide is for those seeking to pursue and advance a Community Wealth Building approach in their locality, including economic development practitioners, community activists and organizations, anchor institutions, local government agencies and leaders, and other interested stakeholders. It is designed to be a practical framework for action to help readers determine how they can begin to advance Community Wealth Building where they are, using the resources and policy levers already available to them. It takes readers through the process of adopting a Community Wealth Building approach and the steps required to develop a CWB action plan, offering practical tools to help local stakeholders plan and work together.

What this guide does: In three detailed sections, this guide introduces CWB by presenting a definition and a framework for how it should be practiced, explaining some of the key concepts behind it, offering a brief history, and laying out some of the steps and resources needed for getting started. 

It then goes through each of the “five pillars” of CWB practice:

Inclusive and democratic enterprise

Locally rooted finance

Fair work

Just use of land and property

Progressive procurement

It presents problems in current economic development practice and the CWB solution, outlining key CWB elements and approaches in each pillar, highlighting examples and case studies, and offering questions to consider, steps for getting started, critical indicators to track, and additional resources to be aware of. The final section of the guide offers suggestions to build in governance structures that will imbed CWB action for the long haul. 

What Community Wealth Building offers is a framework for reimagining local democracy by putting citizens at the heart of key decision-making processes—as workers, caregivers, consumers, and community members. The principles and new institutional arrangements at the heart of Community Wealth Building represent foundational steps for building a new economy from the bottom up in which the needs of the community and planet come first.

We hope you find this guide helpful for “getting started” as you set out on your own transformational Community Wealth Building journey.