The premise of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is that organizations, like people, grow in the direction in which they focus their attention and energies. For this reason, organizations must:
• Empower their members to believe that they can make a difference (and actually allow them to do so)
• Reward leaders who empower others
• Direct the energy of the system toward generative and creative forces.In Appreciative Inquiry an important emphasis in the search for solutions to problems is openness to change. This may include change in the way that issues are explained, in beliefs concerning what is "real," in basic priorities concerning what opportunities to pursue, in choices of what ends to serve, and in change of world views.
Most approaches to organizational management focus upon changing people. By contrast, Appreciative Inquiry invites people to engage in building the kind of organization and community in which they want to work and live. The AI process enables the participants in human systems to engage in continuous learning, and to translate that learning into ongoing innovation.
Because worker-ownership (see below) gives workers a much greater share in the success of the company than traditional absentee shareholder ownership, AI promotes better communication, greater productivity, and better corporate planning. Through affirming the primary importance and responsibility of the worker-owner for the profitability of the business, Appreciative Inquiry helps assure the mutual wellbeing of all participants.
For details, please see:http://www.CenterforAppreciativeInquiry.net
http://www.CompanyofExperts.net
http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/
Community banks and credit unions are locally owned financial institutions which (over and above profitability) have as their objective the financing of projects that will capture equity for the local owners of local businesses in a local economy.
Key functions of community banking are the provision of microcredit loans (see below) for small businesses, and for the provision of financing for worker-owned businesses (see below).
In addition, community banks may also provide individual accounts and loans.
Community-Based Revolving Loan Funds
Community-based revolving loan funds are typically adminstered through community banks or credit unions (see above). They exist to help small, local companies and nonprofit organizations meet their social and economic goals.
These objectives are achieved by using both public and private money to make funds available for community projects, typically at below-market interest rates.
This type of fund is called "revolving" because as the original loans are paid back, the money is used to make further loans to other small businesses or nonprofits. In this way, the money in the fund can be made available indefinitely.
Community land trusts exist to make land available for the common good of the communties in which they exist. Land may be purchased, but is also often given to CLTs as a charitable donation.
Land trusts often provide property upon which to construct affordable housing. In some cases, equity is held in perpetuity by the CLT, which typicaly owns both the housing and the land upon which it is constructed, and the units may not be sold for profit. In other cases, owners can sell their unit at market rates, since the resident owns the house, but the CLT owns the land. An underdeveloped niche for CLTs is the purchase of land for the purpose of developing ecovillages (ecologically sustainable communities).
Other forms of community land ownership include the regional community land trust and the private land trust.
For details, please see:
School of Living
Founded: 1934
SoL Community Land Trust
432 Leaman Road, Cochranville, PA 19330
610-593-6988
artiey@epix.net
http://www.S-O-L.orgE. F. Schumacher Society
Founded: 1980
Community Land Trust of the Southern Berkshires
140 Jug End Road, Great Barrington, MA 01230
413-528-1737
efssociety@aol.com
http://www.schumachersociety.orgInstitute for Community Economics
Founded: 1967
57 School Street, Springfield, MA 01105
413-746-8660 x118 Fax: 413-746-8862
JorvisICE@aol.com
http://www.weown.net/clt.htmOzark Regional Land Trust
Founded: 1983
427 South Main Street, Carthage, MO 64836
417-358-0852 Fax-5176
orlt@ipa.net
http:// www.orlt.org
Conflict resolution refers to any of the great many alternative approaches to the resolution of conflict without resort to the court system. Conflict resolution of this type is particularly valuable to those engaged in developing communities with shared resources, such as cohousing communities, intentional communities, and ecovillages. It is also of value for those engaged in cooperative business ventures, such as worker-owned businesses (see below).
For details, please see:
Community Dispute Resolution Manual: Insights and Guidance from Two Decades of Practice
The National Institute for Dispute Resolution
1901 L St., NW, Suite 600, Wash., D.C. 20036
(202)466-4764.Dispute Resolution Training Manual
Conciliation Forums of Oakland
672 13th St., Oakland, CA 94612
(510)763-2117.“The Face-to-Face Program”
Community Alternatives, Inc.
5606 S. Court Place, Littleton, CO 80120
(303)794-3224
(This resource is for both victims and offenders.)The Community Boards Program”
149 Ninth St., San Francisco, CA 94103
(415)552-1250Center for Resourceful Mediation
1158 High St., Suite 202, Eugene, OR 97401
(503)345-1205.Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution (SPIDR)
815 15th St., NW, Suite 530, Washington, D.C., 20005
(202)833-2188.
Consensus Decision-Making Process
Consensus decision-making is a process of arriving at a decisions that seeks to be inclusive of voices not in the majority. It is of particular value in voluntary organizations in which compulsion of one sort or another is eschewed and in which actions for which there is no considerable consensus are not likely to be carried out.
The process typically includes identifying and addressing minority concerns, and developing alternatives approaches that take into account these concerns, often by combining the elements of multiple alternatives.
For details, please see:
Community Bookshelf, Fellowship for Intentional Community
http:// www.ic.org
Building United Judgment: A Handbook for Consensus Decision Making, 124 pp., 1981
A Manual for Group Facilitators, 88 pp.The Center for Nonviolent Communication
http://www.cnvc.org
(Search under “Compassionate Communication” for many regional centers.)
Constructive criticism is an approach to addressing problems that 1) seeks to minimize purely personal, ego-invested conflict, and 2) has as its objective the identification and proposal of satisfactory alternatives to the problem or practice in question.
For details, please see:Constructive Criticism: A Handbook, by Gracie Lyons
A consumer cooperative is any business that is owned by the people who use its goods or services. Among the chief advantages of a cooperative in a consumer perspective is the fact that cooperatives are not in business to make a profit, and consequently can offer lower prices. Additionally, since the members of the cooperative are also the owners, cooperatives are far more democratic in nature than the conventional shareholder-owned public corporation.
Cooperative corporations are for-profit businesses owned and operated by those who work in the corporation. CCs are much better positioned to retain jobs in a globalizing employment arena than shareholder-owned corporations. Even more fundamentally, cooperative corporations are in alignment with the most basic principle of economic justice: that ownership of the means of production be, as much as possible, in the hands of the individuals actually doing the producing. Over time, members of cooperative corporations achieve growing equity in the CC where they work. Thus, employees in shareholder-owned corporations may be thought of on analogy with renters, who never achieve any equity, while the members of a cooperative corporation may be thought of on analogy with home owners, who eventually own equity in their homes. Cooperative corporations have been shown to be both more productive, and to pay higher wages and benefits than comparable shareholder-owned businesses.
The best-known cooperative corporation is probably the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation of Spain.
Equity financing is a means of funding new businesses (or bringing in additional funds for existing companies) by means of the sales of stock to investors. Thus, partial ownership of the business is surrendered in order to raise capital. Equity investors may also participate as members of the board of directors. In such cases, not only is partial ownership of the business surrendered, so is managerial control.
The other common means of funding new businesses is debt financing. However, debt financing must be paid back over time, often at high interest rates. By contrast with equity financing, it is sometime said that equity financing isn't paid back. However, it would be truer to say that equity financing is paid back out of the profits of the company, assuming there are any.
The investors who provide the capital to the business are sometimes referred to as "angel investors". It is arguable, however, that equity financing can be more of a bargain with the devil. Not only do the original founders of the company give up partial ownership, much of the profit, and perhaps managerial control, those who work for the company never have any managerial control in the first place, and are locked out of any claim upon the profits of the company, even though they provide the labor that generates most of that profit.
Employee stock ownership plans only partially redress these problems.
Cooperative corporations (see above) provide perhaps the best alternative approach to financing.
Equity sharing is a means to shared home-ownership. Typically, two parties are involved: an investor, who provides all or part of the down-payment, and a buyer-occupant who either pays rent to the investor or the mortgage to the mortgage company. After a contractually-specified period of time, the jointly-owned property is sold, and profits are split between the investor and the buyer-occupant. The investor can also write off a portion of the mortgage interest and property taxes (as can the buyer-occupant).
Equity sharing is of special benefit for those who have sufficient income to pay a mortgage, but who lack funds for a down-payment.
An 'intentional community' is a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values. By contrast, most communities in America are better referred to as 'circumstantial communities', the residents of which have little or nothing in common, and no common purpose of any kind.
Intentional communities may take the form of cohousing, residential land trusts, ecovillages, or housing cooperatives.
Land Conservation Trusts are tax-exempt organizations which exist to preserve open space, including parks, and/or agricultural land, parcels of which may in some cases be leased out at low rates so that community members can grow their own food. More ambitiously, entire family-scale farms may be purchased and leased to those interested in local farming (and local sales through farmer's markets).
LCTs organized to preserve natural land, usually do so because of unique features or life forms that exist on the land. In some cases, development of LCT land is prevented by means of "conservation easements", where only certain rights are placed in trust, like development, access, mineral, timber, water, etc.
For details, please see:Trust for Public Land
Founded: 1972
San Francisco, CA
http://www.tpl.orgLand Trust Alliance Founded: 1982
1331 H St. NW, Suite 400, Washington D.C. 20005
200-638-4725 Fax: 202-638-4730
lta@lta.org
http://www.lta.org
A limited liability corporation is a form of business organization that limits potential losses to the amount invested in the corporation in the form of dues or shares. In principle, this form of organization exists to facilitate the buying and selling of shares. In actuality, the more obvious effect is to increase the number of individuals willing to invest (because of the minimization of the downside of the investment). At the same time, however, it creates a kind of firewall between the investor and the moral consequences of his investing (as the investor is, after all, a partial owner of the business in which he/she invests). Because limited legal and financial responsibility rather easily translates into limited moral concern, the prevalence of the LLC as a form of corporate organization does much to contribute to an amoral investment climate.
Market loans are conventional loans obtained through banks, credit unions, or mortgage companies. Interest rates for loans of this nature are typically based upon the Federal Reserve's prime interest rate. Alternatives to market loans are loans from family, friends, or institutions such as community-based revolving loan funds (see link above).
Microcredit is a form of lending in which very small amounts of money are advanced to persons of limited financial means. Conventionally, credit is most likely to be extended to those with considerable collateral, a stable history of employment, and a good credit record. (Individuals of this sort are said to be "bankable".) In a sense, then, credit has conventionally been most likely to be extended to those who are least in need of it.
Microcredit programs originated in developing countries as a means to allow those living in poverty to begin to build modest wealth, often through programs of self-employment. These programs have often proven to be immensely successful, with the rather amusing consequence that bankers, who previously took no interest in them whatsoever, have now begun to consider "unbankable" individuals as being instead "pre-bankable".
There is, of course, no reason why microcredit programs should be limited to developing countries, and they may indeed be adapted for implementation in any country where the "unbankable" encounter difficulty in acquiring financing for economic projects.
Perhaps obviously, non-profit organizations exist for some purpose other than creation of profit for investors. Typical NPO objectives may be educational or charitable in nature, but are not limited to these alone. In general, NPOs may be found where some goal has intrinsic moral worth, but comparatively little potential for economic gain.
NPOs have in common with for-profit organizations the legal requirement that a board be organized and that trustees or steering committee members have an obligation to act in the best interests of the organization. There are usually other legal requirements concerning the organization and functioning of non-profits as well.
Non-profit organizations do not have shareholders.
The "open book" in open book management refers to provision of such corporate financial information as is relevant to a given employee's job responsibilities (which doesn't, however, include all corporate financial information). Employees are then given a financial stake in the performance of their company (such as a bonus or equity sharing), and responsibility for the "numbers" under their control.
Socially Responsible Investing
Socially responsible investing refers to the practice of limiting one's economic investments to companies which have committed themselves to observing moral criteria in their economic activity. Various sorts of moral "screening" may be applied according to the values of greatest importance to the socially responsible investor.
Money, having no value in and of itself, is a purely symbolic medium of exchange. Conventionally, labor is "exchanged" for money, which in turn can be exchanged for goods valued in currency. However, other systems of exchange are possible. For example, labor exchanging involves working so as to accumulate personal hour-credit balances which can then be exchanged for other people's services (or, potentially, goods valued in hour-credits). Of course, this requires the prior establishment of some sort of system of "time banking", i.e., a method of tracking and crediting the personal hour-credits. In a common form of time banking, participants earn one time dollar for each hour they devote to providing a service. The person receiving the service then owes one time dollar, which they pay by themselves providing an hour of service. Typically, participants will describe what services they can provide, and when they can provide them. This information is entered into a computer. When someone is in need of a service, their need is matched to the services provided by other participants. They then pay back the service with their own time dollars.
The advantage of time-based economies is that they can facilitate economic activity even when money earned by conventional means is hard to come by in an economically depressed community. By implication, any person with a needed skill, no matter how poor, can still participate in a time-based economy.
The phrase "time-based economies" refers to any economy based upon some such time-based medium of exchange.
Worker owned businesses reverse the typical equity distribution of corporate capitalism, in which ownership of corporate assets is limited to management and shareholders, and employees are excluded in part or in whole. Instead, employees own the corporate assets, the company is managed cooperatively, and there are no shareholders, or else shareholder equity is strictly limited. Thus, worker-owned businesses exist specificially for the purpose of providing employee-owners with a livelihood and for creating prosperity for those actually doing the work.
Worker-owned businesses have show higher levels of profitability, and are less apt to abandon their communities, and are less likely to externalize costs onto those communities than shareholder-owned businesses.
In the US, worker-owned businesses typically take the form of ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans). However, a superior form of corporate organization is the Mondragon cooperative.
| Contact Us | Main Menu | Overview | Glossary |