11am to 12:30pm Eastern Time

As violence increases around the world, so does immigration. Communities – even those with a history of population loss – are confronted with new populations and new challenges. Immigration is impacted by and impacts all aspects of communities: ecological, cultural, human, social, political, financial, political and built. In the webinar we will use the community capitals framework to see how these community capitals can be mobilized to welcome immigrants and integrate them into the community as new assets, respecting new cultures that can diversify and enhance the entire community.

The International Association for Community Development's (IACD) first online seminar will be with Dr. Cornelia Flora - the Emeritus Distinguished Professor at the Department of Sociology, Iowa State University. She will discuss the subject of community capitals and migration, exploring the migration issues in the US and in Europe. The webinar is free to IACD members; non-members are asked to give a small donation: Once you have registered, you will be sent the instructions for joining the webinar. 

Register for the IACD Webinar with Dr. Cornelia Flora

The International Association for Community Development (IACD) is the only global network of activists, practitioners, researchers and policymakers, working towards social justice through community development approaches. We are a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation with members worldwide. 

When: July 8-10, 2016
Where: Buffalo, NY
Cost: Sliding scale with meals included

CommonBound will bring together hundreds of leaders and organizations from across North America for an international conference on visionary strategies for achieving deep systemic change. Participants will share insights and stories, build relationships, highlight achievements, and chart a shared path toward a society that puts people and planet first. Participants will include a cross-section of community leaders, thinkers, and practitioners from around the world, including the New Economy Coalition’s 140-plus member organizations from throughout the US and Canada.

The conference will feature more than 20 workshop tracks and day-long gatherings exploring a range of topics, including:

• Democratizing energy systems in the face of accelerating climate change
• Racial justice, and building an economy where black lives and liberation matter
• Game-changing pushes for policy and state power to achieve structural change
• Developing vibrant local economies without displacing communities
• Hacking emergent technologies in service of redistributive ends
• Worker ownership and community enterprise as vehicles for democratizing the economy
• ...and much more!

Register for CommonBound

CommonBound is taking place July 8-10 in Buffalo, NY, a city that is itself an important hub of the New Economy story. Faced with the same disinvestment that has torn through countless towns and cities along America’s Rust Belt, residents working across issues--from affordable housing, to refugee rights to community-owned renewable power--have been at the forefront of visionary organizing and institution-building. That’s why we’re partnering with the Crossroad Collective, comprised of 8 Buffalo-based community groups, to plan CommonBound, and ensure it both adds fuel to local organizers’ efforts and grounds visitors in the critical work happening in Western New York.

This spirit of collaboration extends to our programming, too. Inspired by the Allied Media Conference, CommonBound is using a decentralized planning model to engage movement leaders across the country. Over sixty volunteer coordinators have been involved in some of our earliest planning, shaping conference programming so that it reflects the organizations and communities leading the movement. In a small way, CommonBound aims to mirror the democratic world we are working toward.

Join the New Economy Coalition this July in Buffalo. Together, we can make CommonBound a conference that propels our movements forward.

For more information on the New Economy in Buffalo check-out this virtual tour and our amazing host committee members (The Crossroads Collective):

• PUSH Buffalo
• Open Buffalo
• Partnership for the Public Good
• Massachusetts Avenue Project
• The Wash Project, Coalition for Economic Justice
• Public Accountability Initiative
• Ujima Company

CommonBound was the first time I felt like I had found a community of people who got it; people who understood that our economic problems were deep rooted and based on hundreds of years of oppression, and were yet also pragmatic, creative, and hopeful in their varied efforts to bring forth a new economic model.                            ~ Evan Seitz

How do we articulate a compelling economic vision to sustain us through the unimaginable, to unite us as things fall apart? How do we experience our beauty and humanity in every condition?             ~ Adrienne Maree Brown

9am Pacific Time | Noon Eastern Time

Join the Real Economy Lab, the Next System Project and the New Economy Coalition for an interactive webinar discussion on mapping the next system.

The inability of traditional politics and policies to address fundamental challenges has fueled an extraordinary amount of experimentation, generating increasing numbers of sophisticated and thoughtful initiatives that build from the bottom and begin to suggest new possibilities for addressing deep social, economic and ecological problems. Thus we encounter the caring economy, the sharing economy, the provisioning economy, the restorative economy, the regenerative economy, the sustaining economy, the collaborative economy, the solidarity economy, the steady-state economy, the gift economy, the resilient economy, the participatory economy, the new economy, and the many, many organizations engaged in related activities.

There are calls for a Great and Just Transition, or for reclamation of the Commons. Many of these approaches already have significant constituencies and work underway. Creative thinking by researchers and engaged scholars is also contributing to the ferment. Although they vary widely in emphases and approaches, there is a good deal of commonality. These movements seek an economy that gives true priority to people, place, and planet.

Taking the next step in collective development will require better information on the array of organizations and initiatives active in this space as well as efforts to identify potential areas of cooperation and collaboration. Beyond that loom questions of scale and replicability. The Real Economy Lab (REL) has been surveying the landscape and identifying the linkages and is seeking to provide an interactive platform where the cumulative knowledge, aims, and resources of these movements can be drawn together in order to seek common ground and drive coordinated action.

In this webinar REL will present their work to date and invite you to join them and a panel of leading thinkers and practitioners in discussing these issues. We will hear about the work of REL as a connector of change makers in the next economy space, working to raise awareness and understanding of new economy theory and practice and help connect the thinkers and doers in this world for collaboration and movement building. REL will explain its theory of change and unique role in this evolving new economy ecosystem and walk us through one of their core tools, the mindmapping of the next economy ecosystem.

Register for the Mapping the New Economy webinar

Participants will also discuss questions that explore the value of mapping the next system:

1. Problem statement – What are the leading / recurring challenges in organizing more coherent effort and coalition building within and across this movement? What are the obstacles / challenges that crop up?
2. Underlying causes - What do we have in common? What principles, values and alternative economic paradigms motivate our actions, and where are we ultimately aligned? How do we talk about this more openly?
3. Solution framing – How can people and organizations build on one another’s efforts and collaboratively work towards a more capable, credible, and coherent movement for systemic change? What are leading theories of change?
4. Solution space – Where are we seeing inspiring or illustrative success stories and convergences underway in the movement? How can we measure progress and promote positive outcomes?
5. Improving the odds – How might the work of REL better support practitioners and thinkers in the next economy world? What tools, data, or support are missing from the system we all work in?

Featuring Moderator:

Gus Speth, Co-chair of the Next System Project

Panelists

• Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation
• Ferananda Ibarra, VillageLab / Metacurrency Project
• Michelle Mascarenhas Swan, Movement Generation
• Jules Peck, Real Economy Lab
• Ed Whitfield, Fund for Democratic Communities

8am - 9:30am Pacific Time

Join Transition Towns founder Rob Hopkins along with transition organizers from all around the country for an informative telephone conference about the role of Transition in the climate justice movement and the Paris talks. Hopkins will share lessons from his timely new book, '21 Stories for Transition.'

Register for '21 Stories of Transition' with Rob Hopkins

November 1st sees the publication of a landmark new publication from Transition Network.  '21 Stories of Transition: how a movement of communities is coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world' is published in advance of the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris in December, and is a joyous and inspiring celebration of what the Transition movement has become.  Here Rob Hopkins, who harvested the stories contained in the book, introduces it: 

It tells 21 stories of 39 Transition projects in 15 countries, drawing out some staggering insights into their impacts (for example, between them, our 21 stories alone have saved car travel equivalent to driving to the Moon and back 3 times, installed renewable energy equivalent to that needed by 4,000 homes, put over £1 million of local currencies into circulation, and generated over 18,500 hours of volunteer input).  But those are just the measurable impacts.  So much of what these groups do is much harder to measure, but just as important.  

More Information on the book here

The Community Development Society (CDS) and International Association for Community Development (IACD) are hosting a joint Conference in Bloomington, Minnesota in July 2016 with the theme: Sustaining Community Change—Building Local Capacity to Sustain Community Development Initiatives. 

Community Developers are change agents. We work to help inform, facilitate, plan, develop, and implement activities and projects to make a positive impact on communities. How do we ensure desired change happens? How do we determine impacts and outcomes of community change? How do we, as researchers and practitioners, help sustain positive change in communities over time?

This year the Community Development Society (CDS) and International Association for Community Development (IACD) are partnering to conduct our International Community Development Conference in Bloomington, Minnesota USA July 24 - 27, 2016, addressing the theme of Sustaining Community Change. The United Nations (UN) recently adopted 17 new Sustainable Development Goals which will be integrated with the conference theme of how to sustain community change locally and globally. The 2016 Community Development Society/International Association for Community Development conference offers a platform for dialogue about community development with an emphasis on sustaining community change.

We invite you to join us July 24-27, 2016 in Bloomington, and the surrounding Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) Metro area of Minnesota with its rich community development culture. Come to Minnesota to share your research on, learning in, and experience with community change, sustainable development, and the community development principles of good practice. This venue provides opportunities for spirited and lively exchanges about community development practice, learning, and scholarship. Won’t you join us?   

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Call for Abstracts

Download information about the Conference and how to submit your abstract (please note that the deadline is December 31, 2015 or 15th December if you are outside the USA and need an earlier notification time).

Community Development Society Conference Call for Proposals

More information regarding the Community Development Society