Neighborhood Economics: A National Conversation With a Local Impact

Working together to create a just economy for everyone

Join us as we facilitate ongoing conversations across geographies that help people build the economic architecture so everyone will thrive.

We curate diverse, focused, and high-energy teams working on areas ready for breakthrough.

We partner with cities and communities fueled by the urgency of the interlinked crises we face (such as climate change, social unrest, and racial disparities) and motivated by a common moral hunger.

Who Do We Gather?

• New players with new varieties of patient catalytic tools who are willing to move fast and take risks providing the capital that’s needed for the folks who typically don’t get it;

• Innovators working to bridge the racial wealth gap at neighborhood and city scale; and

• Faith communities mobilizing to tackle economic injustice across race, class, and neighborhoods.

Format

Through curated experiences, working groups, and neighborhood tours that showcase the possibility and urgency of our shared work, we will build momentum and new connections over three days. A movable feast of ideas, meals, and design sessions, this event will culminate in commitments from each working group and a shared celebration.

In each location, we will curate design labs made up of 2-3 domain-focus hosts, 7-10 leading practitioners with promising, replicable innovations from around the country, and 2-3 locally selected guides.

Through these convenings, we then build the architecture to facilitate ongoing conversations across geographies and across multiple years as we work together for change.

Event Producers

Our events work with funding and strategic partners, and are produced by a team with decades of experience in social impact and conferences. Started by the founders of SOCAP and Neighborhood Economics, this work will be led by managing producer, Rosa Lee Harden; Leroy Barber, executive director; event curator Kevin Jones; Tim Soerens, of the Parish Collective; and Melissa Scheiderer, a seasoned event director.

Our events are strongly informed by an expanding programming/advisory council, which currently includes: co-founding advisor Tim Freundlich, Founder & Executive Director, Strategic Development, ImpactAssets; Stephanie Swepson-Twitty; Eagle Market Streets Development Corporation;  Lyneir Richardson, a Neighborhood Investment Trust pioneer; and Coté Soerens, Resistencia Coffee. In addition to these folks, we are continuing to work to build an inclusively structured stakeholder mix and funding partners with domain expertise and bandwidth. Our events work with ImpactAssets for any expenditure responsibility grants through IA’s 501(c)3 for sponsorships, as well as to coordinate the Neighborhood Economics companion DAF.

Location: Jackson, Mississippi

Dates: April 24, 2023 - April 26, 2023