2018

Annual
Report
Dear friends,

NEC has come a long way since our founding in 2011.

We have grown into a network of 200+ member

organizations across the United States and Canada.

We have committed to a vision of the new

economy movement led by those on the frontlines,
to talking about and being about racial justice, to
valuing the essential role of grassroots organizing in
social change.

We have transformed our organizational culture

from being top-down and led by a single Executive
Director to a less hierarchical Co-Directorship model,
embodying solidarity economy values such as
democracy, plurality, and cooperation.

We are shifting power by turning workers into owners,

like supporting members as they had a major hand
in passing the first ever piece of federal legislation
for worker cooperatives - the Main Street Employee
Ownership Act.

We are convening spaces – like the 2018

CommonBound conference in St. Louis – that bring
new people into our movement and give seasoned
activists and practitioners the opportunity to sharpen
their analysis and form cross-sector partnerships.

We are resourcing experimental innovation, including

food sovereignty initiatives in Puerto Rico, black-
owned businesses in Mississippi, and agricultural
programs that support economic liberation for
formerly incarcerated workers in Washington.

We are building the road while walking, thanks to the

leadership and hard work of our staff team, our board,
and our members.

Our project is a bold one – we are seeking to

transform the economic system. The future we are
building will require a culture of abundance and
interdependence. Transformation asks us to dig
deeper, to test our assumptions, to rely on our
community. To make our movement what we need it
to be, we need all of us.

We’re excited to be on this road with you.

Onward,
The New Economy Coalition staff
PURPOSE | Broad Scale Systemic Change

Our Purpose
We aren’t meant to live in a world where most
of the wealth is in the hands of less than 1%
of the population; where governments are
controlled by banks, fossil fuel companies,
and other special interests; where the well-
being of people and the planet are secondary
to the profits of corporations.

In this time of far-right ascendency, people’s

movements have demonstrated courageous
resistance, linking arms and shouting “No!”
to the theft of our land, labor, and lives. This
resistance is essential, but it’s not enough.

People across this country are hungry

for real solutions. To dismantle the old
economic order, we must build a new one
to replace it.

Over the past eight years, the New Economy

Coalition has been the primary network
focused on building the power of the new
economy movement in the United Status. Our

3 | 2018 Annual Report

members are bringing to life a vision for the
future where people control their economies
through real democracy, cooperative and
public ownership, and a culture of solidarity
and respect for the earth.

NEC’s 210 members represent a diverse

cross-section of our movement, including
cooperatives and community land trusts,
democratized finance, policy makers, and
grassroots organizers working on climate
and racial justice. By building this powerful
coalition of organizations who share a
common vision and who are on the frontlines
of imagining and creating transformative
economic models, NEC is developing
the connective tissue and infrastructure
necessary to usher in broad scale systemic
change.

We can only go where we have first gone

in our dreams. NEC exists to imagine and
realize a new dream for America.

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PURPOSE | Broad Scale Systemic Change

“ We’re very grateful that this network

exists, for the relationships we’ve

made as a result of our participation,

and for the tremendous work of NEC’s

staff in keeping it going and bringing

us all back together at such well-run

conferences and member-meetings year

after year. If we didn’t have NEC, you

know the first thing we’d need to do is

go out and start up a new one. ”

JAKE SCHLACHTER
We Own It

5 | 2018 Annual Report

6
PROGRAMS | Build A More Just Economy

Our Programs

Movement Engagement
Trump and state level right wing leaders have
continued to attack and dismantle programs
and policies that support marginalized
communities. As a result, organizers have
become increasingly convinced of the
importance of building institutions that are
owned and controlled by the communities
they serve and are not subject to the whims
of Wall Street investors or whoever happens
to be in office this year. This has contributed
to a rising tide of interest in new economy
strategies and practices.

In 2018, we redoubled our commitment to

building strategic alliances with other social
movements fighting on the frontlines of the
multiple issues we face.

• We joined the leadership team of the

Majority, a multi-racial alliance convened
by the Movement for Black Lives. Working

7 | 2018 Annual Report

 in collaboration with other movement
leaders, we’re planning a mega-convening
of multiple social movements for early 2021.

• We became members of the Climate

Justice Alliance and the US Solidarity
Economy Network with the aim of working
more intentionally with other leaders
focusing on new economy work.

Movement Support
NEC’s movement support programs directly
support the connectivity, infrastructure and
resourcing necessary for a new economy to
take hold in the United States.

• We held the fifth year of our regranting

program, providing small grants to
under-resourced new economy projects,
experiments and organizations.

• We democratized the governance of the

regranting program by turning it over
to a committee of NEC members and
past grantees, scaling our capacity to
lead, govern, and resource work in more
participatory and democratic ways.

Our network’s Working Groups and Peer

Circles build power and synergy for members
working within and across regions and sectors.

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PROGRAMS | Build A More Just Economy

• Our Rural Electric Co-op Working

Group is building a toolkit to leverage
the latent, democratic power of
rural electric cooperatives to drive
the transition to renewable and
community-owned energy production.

• Our Policy Working Group is developing

visionary policies and practical legislative
pathways to scale four new economy
areas: worker cooperatives, housing,
climate justice, and financial justice.

• Our Executive Directors Peer Circle

provides space for movement leaders to
learn from each other and to support each
other’s growth and leadership.

Movement Convenings
Our biennial CommonBound conference
brings together a powerful cross-section of the
new economy movement to share practices
and stories, highlight achievements, and
create new and stronger relationships that
can propel this work forward.

9 | 2018 Annual Report

“ Commonbound was a tremendous

experience, and helped me to

see new ways that grassroots

organizers can work together to

build a more just economy together.

We ate together, danced together,

learned together, and built the kind

of relationships that are vital to

changing our world for the better.”

MO MANKLANG
U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives

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 “ The climate solutions beat takes
a problem-solving and results

approach to one of the most

pressing issues of our time. This

style of journalism is the opposite

of defeatism – it’s about examining

how to take effective action. ”

NEW ECONOMIES
REPORTING FELLOW

11 | 2018 Annual Report

CommonBound 2018 was held in St. Louis,
MO.

• We convened 700 organizers, story-

tellers, advocates, researchers, and
thought leaders from 11 countries.

• We hosted 13 network gatherings on topics

such as worker cooperative development,
funder organizing, and solutions journalism.

• We featured 50 workshops, plenaries, and

site visits.

Movement Communications
The ideas and visionary models that define
the new economy movement are bubbling
up all around the world, but too few people
are aware they exist. Though we are seeing
increased attention on specific solutions like
cooperatives and participatory budgeting,
the movement at large is underreported and
unknown to large segments of the population.

Toward that end, we are deepening relationships

with journalists and publications, supporting
our members with media placement, and
providing shared access to tools and training.

Our second year of the New Economies

Reporting Project engaged 14 reporters, from

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PROGRAMS | Build A More Just Economy

both mainstream and independent outlets,

in a year-long journalism fellowship program
where they attended briefings informed by
NEC partnerships and network. Reporters
then produced 45+ stories reaching hundreds
of thousands of readers.

In 2018 we launched Movement Voices, a

media training fellowship program for leaders
within our network. The fellowship is hands-
on, challenging, and provides fellows with
in-person and virtual trainings on pitching
stories to TV bookers and journalists, as well
as framing and fine-tuning messaging.

The stories seeded through our

Communications programming are providing
hope, concrete steps forward, and a succinct
narrative of the readers role in affecting
change. Reaching a critical mass with stories
like these will build power across movements
and shift culture, policy, and systems.

13 | 2018 Annual Report

 Our People
2018 NEC Staff
Kelly Baker, Development
Director
Lex Barlowe, Membership
Manager
Shavaun Evans, Membership
Director
Eli Feghali, Communications
Director
Jeremy Graf Evans,
Development & Comms
Coordinator
Olivia Gilmore, CommonBound
Communications Intern
Sachie Hayakawa, Movement
Engagement Manager
Umeme Houston,
CommonBound Coordinator
Anand Jahi, Movement
Engagement Director
Tori Kuper, Events Manager
Natalia Linares, Communications
Manager
15 | 2018 Annual Report
René Pérez, IT Manager
Jonathan Rosenthal, Executive
Director
Analise Sesay, CommonBound
Operations Intern
Kierra Sims, Development
Manager
Nicolette Stosur-Bassett,
CommonBound Digital
Organizer
Nicole Sullivan, CommonBound
IT Intern
2018 NEC Board
of Directors
Allison Basile, Tightshift
Laboring Cooperative
Harper Bishop, PUSH Buffalo
Ivy Brashear, MACED
Jordan Estevao, National
People’s Action
Neva Goodwin (Emerita), Tufts
University
Hildegarde Hannum, Leslie Lindo, BALLE
Schumacher Center for a New
Economics Kate Poole, Chordata Capital

Renee Hatcher, The John Sarah Stranahan, Democracy

Marshall Law School - Chicago Collaborative

Julia Ho, Solidarity Economy St. Aaron Tanaka, Center for

Louis Economic Democracy

Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan, Chris Tittle, Sustainable

Movement Generation Economies Law Center

Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Ed Whitfield, Fund for

Local Self-Reliance Democratic Communities

Our Donors

Many people and organizations – donors and others –

make our work possible. Thank you to all who supported
us in 2018.

Anonymous Cooperative Development

Institute
Adam Roberts
David Roswell & Maggie Heraty
Ashoka US
Deaconess Foundation
Beneficial State Foundation
Deborah Frieze
Boston Impact Initiative
The Democracy Collaborative
Chorus Foundation
Dominique Tan
Cloud Mountain Foundation

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 Elias Foundation Marc Weiss

Equal Exchange Naomi Sobel and Becky

Silverstein
Erika Leaf
Neva Goodwin
Fund for Democratic
Communities New England Builders &
Contractors Inc.
Green/McKinley Family Trust
New Visions Foundation
The Harvey L. Miller Family
Foundation NoVo Foundation

Hildegarde Hannum The Overbrook Foundation

Ho-Chou Family Foundation Park Foundation

Holmes Hummel Paul & Edith Babson Foundation

Ike McCreery Reid Williams

Jane Lerner Roy A. Hunt Foundation

Jessica Brackman and Charles Solidaire

Melcher Gift Fund
Sustainable Economies Law
Karen, Ryan, and Tim O’Neill Center

Karen Orrick Tarbell Family Foundation

Kate Poole Threshold Foundation

Kathryn Grody The Working World

Korostoff Murray Donor Fund We Own It

Lucia Margaret Khan

*Donors who gave $1,000 or more are listed.

17 | 2018 Annual Report

2018 Financial Snapshot
17%
INDIVIDUAL
REVENUE GIFTS

3%
COMMUNITY &
C O R P O R AT E D O N AT I O N S

3% I N - K I N D D O N AT I O N S
66%
F O U N D AT I O N
GRANTS 11% EARNED INCOME

Foundation Grants $934,200

Individual Gifts $233,630
Community & Corporate Donations $49,404
In-Kind Donations $37,442
Earned Income $149,824
Total Revenue $1,404,500

EXPENSE

28%
A D M I N I S T R AT I V E

12%
FUNDRAISING

60%
PROGRAMS

Administrative $365,374
Fundraising $153,311
Programs $764,366
Total Expense $1,283,051

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new economy. net