Citizen-led Innovation For A New Economy

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: learning materialsfor comparable organizations.” The Fund’s clientsranged from First Nations to small scale entrepreneurs, from cultural and heritage tourism businesses to high value-added wood products manufacturers and community-owned fishery operations.In the years between 2005 and 2010 EC began tobranch out into projects aiming to demonstrateanother way of doing business. Demonstrating theshift from support to action, in 2005 EC brokeredover 1 million to purchase the Trilogy Fish Company, one of the last remaining fish processingplants on the Tofino waterfront and the only placeon that section of the BC coast to sell fresh seafood supplied by local fishermen. This more directinvolvement in enterprises subsequently spread tosawmills and fishing licence banks, managing forests, and an enterprise to help businesses measure,reduce, and offset their carbon emissions (ClimateSmart).The global financial crisis of the late 2000sprovided both challenges and opportunities forEC to demonstrate the conservation economy inaction. Some of its initiatives had to be closed (suchas the Coastal Loan Fund) or were hived off (such asClimate Smart). Other opportunities opened up asthe financial crisis generated a public searching fornew economic models.EC continues to develop projects that demonstrate“proof of concept,” but with increasing levels ofscale and influence. One of the most promising isThisFish, a traceability tool to map seafood fromthe boat to the plate that has the potential to beexpanded to other commodities and to redefinethe relationship between producers and consumersin Canada and around the world. Another initiativeEC is “incubating” is a forest carbon sequestrationproject in a community forest “that will documentcarbon stored in the forest, link this stored carbonto the company’s forest management plan, andtake the carbon to market for sale. If successful, thisinitiative promises to open a whole new discussionin Canada about how to maximize and diversifyrevenues associated with forestland management.”Since its inception, EC has been citizen-led inthe way it has been responding to the desiresof citizens and their organizations for a differentkind of economy. Issues that EC focuses on originate with the organizations, communities, andproducer groups with which EC works. Buildingrelationships of trust with local people ensuresthat the movement for a different kind of economyis collaborative.EC’s projects have been important in testing andvalidating an alternative approach to business. Itsimpact is slowly extending beyond its home territory of British Columbia and some of its projects arebeing taken up in other parts of Canada. By workingwith communities to create their own stories aboutthemselves and their future, EC makes the case for adifferent approach to the stewardship of natural resources, for collaborative associations of producers,and a new type of entrepreneurship integrating andbalancing economic development, environmentalprotection, and social equity. Through these stories,communities see themselves, their assets, and theiragency, in a new way.This is a summarized version of the full case study, found in:Cunningham, G. and Merrifield, J. (2015) Ecotrust Canada: Building the conservation economy. In AlisonMathie and John Gaventa (Eds.) Citizen-led innovation for a new economy.(For details see www.coady.stfx.ca/coady/nacommdev/)-2-

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: Learning materialsA vision of flipping the iceberg of power: TheGreater Edmonton Alliance faces Big Landand Big OilIn the Canadian prairies, the Greater Edmontonmunicipal region consists of over 1 million people, aregion strongly connected to the oil industry. Since1997, a city-wide alliance, the Greater EdmontonAlliance (GEA), emerged in response to neoliberalgovernment reform, which profoundly reshapedthe relationships between the public and privatesector and civil society. As a broad-based organization comprised of over 40 different institutions- faith groups, unions, community organizations,professional organizations, immigrant and ethno-cultural organizations, and small business - it ismulti-sector and multi-issue, working across manyfacets of diversity. GEA has achieved significantpolicy changes, particularly related to affordablehousing and the creation of a comprehensive localfood strategy. It has spawned a spin-off social enterprise that addresses local sustainability throughgreen retrofits of existing housing stock, contributing to the municipal goal of a carbon-neutral city.Most importantly, it has contributed to a shift inthe public’s political and environmental consciousness. Through exemplary leadership training, it hasfostered much higher levels of civic engagement,holding government and private sector leadersaccountable to citizens.This case offers insights into a deliberate strategyto apply Alinsky-style organizing in a Canadiancontext. Core organizers from inner city, union, localneighbourhood and aboriginal community settingsin the Edmonton area first explored the characteristics, strategies and formation of broad-based organizations. They then fanned out to do ‘relationals’or individual meetings with a wide range of peoplewho in turn did their own relationals, building anetwork of citizen power in the city. Their conversations expanded into church social action communities, labour unions, and inner city organizations.Consistent with the first steps in traditional Alinskyorganizing, the goal was to identify people whowere moderates, had large informal social networks,would be effective public leaders, and could bringin the support of their organization.Regional and national leadership training wasprovided by the Industrial Areas Foundation for allmembers, with the goal of strengthening organizational life in member organizations. As the alliancegrew, the need for paid leadership became moreurgent. A windfall donation made it possible to hireleadership who could in turn attract dues-payinginstitutional partners. The organizing momentumled to a Founding Convention in May 2005, withover 1000 individuals and 50 institutions attending, including the Mayor and other city councilors.The publicly launched Greater Edmonton Alliancewould double its dues-paying members over thenext five years.GEA demonstrated its mettle first by negotiatingsuccessfully for social housing, brokering a threeway conversation between tenants, a local developer, and a government-funded nonprofit corporationto devise a workable solution.Inspired by “green” job creation schemes in the US,GEA created SustainableWorks in 2008. With solidsupport of the trades, government, financial sectorand power utilities, they undertook five renovationpilot projects and hundreds of home audits. Eventually, through the support of a new Social Enterprise Fund and with the assistance of several local-3-

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: learning materialseco-business people, SustainableWorks evolvedinto a spin-off social enterprise called C-Returns. Itwas launched in 2012 to help homeowners “see returns” in terms of community revitalization, carbonsavings, cash savings, comfort and increased resalevalue. While contributing to the city’s zero carbonvision, they are also injecting millions of dollars intothe local economy and providing an avenue forGEA organizing among community leagues.In 2008, Edmontonians had little local food or sustainability consciousness, yet many congregationalpeople remembered growing up on the perimeterof the city, now paved-over farm land. One GEAmember congregation began identifying peopleinterested in local food and concerned about theencroachment of developers onto farmlands withClass One soils adjacent to the city. Through variouslocal food meals, surveys, and workshops, GEA developed a vision of generating a vibrant local foodeconomy.This vision was translated into the goals of protecting prime agricultural land, ensuring local controlover food supplies; ensuring access to quality foodfor citizens over multiple generations; promotingenvironmental stewardship by reducing the transport of food between field and fork; promotingthe strength and sustainability of local farmersand producers as part of the local economy; andstrengthening citizen leadership in civil sectororganizations and communities. They wrote theirown detailed analysis of local food systems callingit The Way We Eat. They launched a campaign calledThis Land is our Land and hosted numerous publicevents, such as “Shake the Hand that Feeds You”where urban eaters purchased hundreds of baskets of food from local farmers, “The Great PotatoGiveaway” where city folk jammed roads for thechance to pick 50 pounds of free potatoes, and bustours of the threatened farm lands. The City was inthe process of developing their 10-year MunicipalDevelopment Plan and Area Structure Plans, whichinvolved the farmland in question. After turning outover 500 people for numerous hearings, the firsttime that citizens had been mobilized to attenda public hearing in these numbers, GEA scored asignificant victory - the city administration passeda progressive policy that included a full chapter onfood and urban agriculture in the Municipal Development Plan, the first time that local food and foodsecurity were included within planning parameters,and where rezoning of agricultural land needed toadhere to a new City Wide Food and AgriculturalStrategy.GEA has five key tools – relational meetings, indepth leadership training sponsored by the parent IAF as well as individual mentoring, housemeetings or listening campaigns, power analysisand research, directed and disciplined action, allfollowed by evaluation. While there is no room forcomplacency (“it’s about organized money; they’restronger than us still” ), the quiet, behind-the-scenesrelationship building has created a web of citizenpower that becomes boldly visible at times, showing the passion and brilliance of ordinary people tochallenge and create systems level change for thegreater good.This is a summarized version of the full case study, found in:Lange, E. (2015) A vision of flipping the iceberg of power: The Greater Edmonton Alliance faces Big Landand Big Oil. In Alison Mathie and John Gaventa (Eds.) Citizen-led innovation for a new economy.(For details see www.coady.stfx.ca/coady/nacommdev/)-4-

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: Learning materialsHumility and audacity: The story of VivreSaint-Michel en Santé (VSMS)This case documents a 10-year history of some ordinary citizens doing some extraordinary things. Theresults have been gradual, honest and humbling attimes, but the real innovation lies in the process ofstimulating and supporting citizen engagement.It is a story of collaboration, compromise, andconfrontation if necessary, by a group of new andestablished immigrants. It offers practical lessonsfor those working in urban, multi-cultural contexts,which is increasingly becoming the new face ofQuebec and Canada in general. The case also provides an interesting window into a hybrid model oforganizing strategies from both Quebec - a province that has historically had to act in solidarity touphold its unique French heritage in Canada - aswell as strategies from around the world.Saint-Michel is a neighbourhood of 56,000 people located in the northeast of Montreal. Whenit became a ward of the city 45 years ago, it wasknown for all the wrong reasons: high crime rates,street gangs, poverty and unemployment. It wasa neighbourhood in rapid decline. But this is onlypart of its story. Over the past ten years, residentshave articulated a new vision with an ambitious andconcrete action plan to turn Saint-Michel around:Saint-Michel: a pleasant neighbourhoodwithin which to live, supportive of familylife and multicultural exchanges, an activeand unified community, which takes chargeof its affairs and also contributes to thevigour of Montreal.Those involved in this movement are a dynamicand diverse mix of immigrants who genuinely wantto make a life for themselves and their families asactive citizens who are respected for their culturalheritage. These individuals are all part of an organization called Vivre Saint-Michel en Santé (For aHealthy Saint-Michel), which is an umbrella organization established to support the neighbourhood’srevitalization strategy and vision. The organizationitself is also diverse, including several community-based organizations and external institutions thatsupport VSMS in a professional capacity.The organization has deliberately sought outresources to support citizen participation, whichwas not a straightforward task in a transient anddiverse neighbourhood with high levels of poverty.In addition, while many residents were activists intheir countries of origin, they had little experiencein community-building and civic leadership in theCanadian context. However, VSMS has helped tomove citizens from acting as individuals (“I”) toacting as a group (“US/WE”) and then to acting asa neighbourhood (“together”). They have createdthe spaces and provided the resources for residentsto learn democracy through practice in a fun andvibrant environment. They have nurtured relationships and achieved tangible results.Today, there is a constant buzz and flurry of activity.The neighbourhood’s self-initiated committees andassociations involve people from different ethnicities and backgrounds to address issues related topoverty, income, employment, housing, security,culture, sports and recreation, neighbourhoodbeautification, and education – to name only a few.Over time, these associations have complementedthe increasing number of services that have beenestablished in Saint-Michel. As a result, a once highly transient population has begun to stabilize andresidents are choosing to stay.-5-

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: learning materialsThis is not to say there have been no tensions.Residents of Saint-Michel have been described asbeing ‘pragmatists, not ideologists’; ‘modest andhumble negotiators’; ‘non-militant’; ‘respectfullyconflictual’; ‘willing to compromise’; and ‘relativelyapolitical’. They have lived through the practicalitiesof budget shortages and understand bureaucraticrequirements very well. As a result, citizens andorganizations have cultivated positive relationshipswith donors and government, and this explains partof their success.However, this kind of collaboration introduced ethical dilemmas for some of VSMS staff, who admittedto finding themselves in uncomfortable “ideologicalgrey zones” as a result of their engagement. For example, in the case study interviews, some membersfelt that the organization had become opportunistic at times, and linked with partners that compromised their original collective vision. Some feltthat engaging with some donors and governmentdepartments with rigid priorities and objectiveshad led to mission drift and an increased dependence on non-profit institutions as the conduit forcommunity activities. These organizations are oftenstaffed by people living outside Saint-Michel whoare experienced in managing project funds andare able to follow external reporting requirements.Some wondered if this had the effect of professionalizing a grassroots movement, driven by staffinstead of citizens. Furthermore, accepting fundingopportunistically may have made VSMS dependent on “soft” money to drive their projects forward,and unintentionally overburdened volunteers andmembers who were already stretched to achievethe ambitious mission of the neighbourhood.This ten year process has left people inspired, butalso very tired. As fun as those involved admit theirparticipation is, collaboration in process-orientedchange places heavy demands on human resources, whether coordination and execution are fundedor not. Some members are concerned that volunteers and staff are going to burn out. This is oftenwhat happens during periods of change.Saint-Michel citizens have demonstrated thatcommunity organizing, as a concept, can be quitesimple. It does not always take years of education tounderstand, nor does it always require a rich naturalresource base, political clout, adequate physicalinfrastructure or financially stable citizens andinstitutions – although this would certainly help.However, it does take people with experience, patience, passion and heart, both inside and outsidethe neighbourhood, who are willing to invest in adeliberative process over the long term, oftentimesoutside of office hours and above and beyond whatresources will pay for or job descriptions can possibly capture. It’s the irreplaceable ‘x factor.’ It’s messy,heavy, ever-shifting, and requires constant facetime, phone calls, emails and attention to process.There is no substitute. The good thing is that thisis replicable in any community, even in those withdiverse backgrounds facing challenging situations.This is a summarized version of the full case study, found in:Peters, B. (2015) Humility and audacity: The story of Vivre Saint-Michel en Santé. In Alison Mathie and JohnGaventa (Eds.) Citizen-led innovation for a new economy.(For details see www.coady.stfx.ca/coady/nacommdev/).-6-

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: Learning materialsNew Dawn Enterprises: Becoming a“community instrument through which thepeople can do for themselves”This is the story of an organization that startedsmall, with a big idea. New Dawn Enterprises started 37 years ago in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia witha vision to be a “community instrument throughwhich the people can do for themselves”(MacIntyre 1995: 79)1. Working in industrial Cape Breton,the poorest area of one of the poorest provinces inCanada, New Dawn has grown into a not-for-profitcompany employing 175 people in a network of 19companies, enterprises and projects including realestate, health care, social care, vocational trainingand local business support. As the oldest Community Development Corporation (CDC) in Canada,some of its staff and supporters treat its survivalwith some surprise, even as a “miracle.” But NewDawn has done more than survived: it has createdjobs, services, is a trusted partner in a wide rangeof community projects and an increasingly strongvoice speaking on behalf of community assets.the community rather than private profit. Viewedthrough the lens of the Ford Foundation’s wealthcreation framework, which places value on all formsof wealth, this case illustrates how, responding tocommunity needs and opportunities, New Dawn’swork has created built capital, financial capital, individual capital, social capital, and political capital.New Dawn traces its ancestry to the AntigonishMovement of the 1930s and 40s, in which adult education mobilized people to form credit unions andco-operatives as part of self-generated communityeconomic development. Under the leadership ofRankin MacSween, it sees itself carrying those traditions forward with an emphasis on co-operationand the “potential of each community to determineits economic destiny” (MacIntyre 1995: 80).Wealth in communities is more than money.Throughout its history, New Dawn has createdeconomic enterprises directed toward the good of1MacIntyre, G. A. (1995). Active partners: Education andlocal development. Sydney: Cape Breton University Press.First, New Dawn invested in real estate: the “builtcapital” of affordable housing developments such asthe Pine Tree Park Estates, a 3.5m redevelopmentand re-purposing of a former military radar station to residential, healthcare and commercial usecatering, especially to under-served people suchas seniors, disabled, and mentally ill people. Second, it took advantage of provincial tax incentivesfor creating financial capital through CommunityEconomic Development Investment Funds (CEDIFs),a vehicle for keeping investment dollars close tohome and for providing a pool of capital to fundthe type of projects and investments the organization had become known for. Third, New Dawn’sleadership understood that real estate and financial capital alone were not enough, but they alsohad to help people build capacity and confidence,creating “individual capital.” New Dawn’s creativeapproach to meeting the requirements of peoplewho need caregiving, whether seniors or thoseneeding emotional support, is an example of howNew Dawn’s social enterprises respond to complexcommunity needs. At the same time, opening NewDawn College (www.newdawncollege.ca) createdopportunities for job training in the services NewDawn was providing. For example, it offered Community Care Assistant training when New Dawn developed its home care programme, and established-7-

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: learning materialsa Guest Home and senior care living centre at thePine Trees estate. Early in 2012, New Dawn Collegemoved to a downtown campus and is expandinginto other skills training areas including hospitalityand tourism.Fourth, New Dawn’s purpose from its beginningwas “the goal of community building” (MacSween1997b: 16), and building community requiresdevelopment of social capital. Much of New Dawn’sown social capital has been created as part of theirinvolvement with large numbers of local residentsthrough the services it provides. According to itswebsite New Dawn companies and projects servicesome 600 people each day (http://newdawn.ca/about/). Also, its long history, and its partnershipswith other o

Citizen-led innovation for a new economy: Learning materials Citizen-led innovation for a new economy Introduction and acknowledgements In June 2012, the St. Francis Xavier University Extension Department and the Coady International Institute hosted the forum Citizen-led sustainable cha