Building wealth through community ownership – and setting realistic expectations
Community ownership offers pathways for building long-term collective health and wealth for a community, and is critical to the sustainability of the social economy and reducing inequalities. But impact leaders must have eyes wide open to the challenges that come with this endeavour.
That was the consensus of a panel of social enterprise, nonprofit and business leaders convened around the topic of “Community Wealth Building Through Asset Ownership” at Connect Money Impact 2023. The conversation focused on building an economy that is distributive by design, as well as the challenges and benefits of employee ownership and community wealth building through asset ownership.
Panel moderator Cody Lowry, Director of Business Development at Chandos Construction, was joined by Caroline Noga, Executive Director of The Clubhouse Child Care Center; Brandon Robson, Business Banking Advisor at Valley First Credit Union; and Casey Hamilton, Founder and Executive Director of Okanagan Fruit Tree Project.
Building Wealth, Collectively
Through cooperative ownership, employee ownership, and community wealth building, the power to create and distribute wealth is plucked out of private hands and placed in the care of many. This is a critical step toward long-term health and sustainability for all, and creates a shift in the end goals of wealth and how wealth is viewed.
Wealth is defined more in terms of resources, employees, knowledge, technology, equipment, and enterprise than money. This is especially true in community wealth building through asset ownership, which is defined through resources such as equipment and land.
“The reason why we do things is not for profit but for the good of the community,” says Brandon Robson, who emphasized that being a co-op affects everything Valley First does as an organization.
Similarly, Chandos Construction uses employee ownership; everyone in the company has an opportunity to become an owner, and the company really focuses on social procurement.
The shared ownership that comes with building wealth collectively creates wider-picture thinking that considers the needs of everyone, not just a select few people; requires everyone to consider how their actions impact the collective group, taking responsibility and outcomes to a personal level that affects all involved; and seeks to benefit all.
Facing Unique Challenges
While many hands make light, beneficial work, there are also many challenges that are unique to collective wealth building and asset ownership.
Caroline Noga discussed a major challenge that The Clubhouse Child Care Centre faced: purchasing land for childcare facilities and nature-based programs. Caroline described how difficult it is as a nonprofit organization to buy property, and that it is critically important to have partners who are experts to help with such big decisions and complicated processes.
“When you go and borrow a million dollars and you are not the one paying it back, it is really tough,” Caroline said, sharing that she and the board expected to be told no or to pay a bigger down payment.
Casey Hamilton also provided insight into challenges that are reflective of the trials that come with community-wealth building, explaining that the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project is in constant survival mode, but they are hard at work building equity into the system. Things are not necessarily equal at this stage, but they are fair.
Additionally, Casey shared that the Project was gifted a farm. While this was a great step toward their goal of cultivating community through local food, it brought fresh challenges to the fore. There are things that they have never had to do before, such as property management and maintenance. Out of these experiences, Casey posed an important question, “What does it mean as a charity to be a community farm?” This is something anyone in this position needs to thoroughly research and understand.
The learning and growing process is not something that can be rushed, either. “[The] important part is clipping people’s wings,” Casey said. “We have no money to do stuff on their property, so they have to build slowly. It’s really hard when people want things to be done yesterday.”
Focusing on the Benefits and Outcomes
No matter how great the challenges may be, the benefits and outcomes of community wealth building toward the common good are always worthwhile.
For the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project, the plan is to forward their mission, connecting people to the land, and providing access to food systems. While this may take time and a great deal of work, collaborative efforts and slow building on their farm property will enable them to make a lasting impact and see their mission through.
The Clubhouse Child Care Centre found itself ahead of the game with a bit of revenue to stream, which gives hope to all that community wealth building can be successful, empowering beneficial initiatives to do good in the world. The Centre saw the potential to bring children outside and help them through therapy, such as playing with animals and picking vegetables, and they took the necessary steps toward this goal.
During the panel, Cody Lowry also reminded us that methods like employee ownership not only allow you to control your own wealth, but they inspire long-term engagement of employees. The more dedicated we are to working together in the long term, the more we can accomplish.
And community wealth building is an important part of creating a better world for everyone. We just have to be patient and realistic about the challenges so we can overcome them and make collective impact a reality.
This is the ninth in a series of blog posts about Connect Money Impact 2023 created for Purppl by Sparx Publishing Group, a purpose-driven full-stack marketing agency on a mission to make the world better.
The Sparx Publishing Team
