ReIMAGINE Scale: Self-Determined Power in US
By Cate Fox, Ambitio US Program Director
One of the most common questions funders raise with Ambitio US and with organizations in the Movement for localized and empowering culturally rooted economic systems is how these hyper-local efforts will scale. This question implies progress! We do not have to justify why these alternatives exist in the first place; instead, the inquirer is trying to understand how this system might benefit more people. The timing for this question is finally right, as Movement leaders are exploring these same issues.
Movement leaders have raised questions about their own individual efforts — when is it advantageous to centralize operational structures, and when is it advantageous to decentralize operational structures? How does power manifest in each scenario? Leaders have also wondered how to ensure that their efforts are part of a larger economic paradigm change, which has led to interest in researching other models from other parts of the world. Ambitio US is ready to embrace this curiosity!
During September, a group of Economic Trailblazer grantees, academics, funders, and staff are headed to Emilia-Romagna, a region in Italy with a robust cooperative sector that is decentralized and decades old, and Bilbao in the Basque Country in Spain, which is a region that has a highly centralized, established cooperative economic system. We are interested in learning more about the enabling characteristics that have led to these two thriving regional cooperative economic systems, and to consider what would be needed to scale the Movement in the United States. We intend to bring our observations, questions, and learnings back to the United States to engage the broader mutualistic economic community in imagining what is possible and how to build it. We view this both as information gathering and another opportunity to infuse joy and strengthen the ties between people in the Movement who share the goals of paradigm change but inhabit different roles. Stay tuned for more on what we learned and what questions we are pondering!
This article was originally published on Medium. Read it on Medium →
