Published 7 September 2023 in Strategy • 5 min read • 
Audio available
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, we were all encouraged to “think globally and act locally”. Forty years on, we are still engaged in a perpetual global conversation, but what has happened to the second half of the phrase?
With attention focused on issues affecting the whole of humanity as captured by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, such as climate change and improving conditions for all citizens, it can be tempting to think that the global stage is where the action is. But work at a local level is where real change can take place – and where things truly get done.
In this era of separateness and divisiveness, having a local connection is more important than ever. To capture how local actions bring about social change, we developed a versatile framework called “civic wealth creation”, or CWC. CWC spans a broad range of solutions, from bringing water supply to a poor village in South America to transforming a food desert (urban, often low-income areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious foods) affecting a minority neighborhood in Boston, MA.
While different, what both solutions rely on to improve lives is a strong local fabric and connection with local issues and citizens. Simply put, to achieve positive and lasting societal change, what is needed is to engage diverse actors at a local level – citizens, social workers, local officials, entrepreneurs, capital holders, philanthropists – to understand the problem at the civic level from the perspective of those who experience it. This is one of the principles of civic wealth creation.
Addressing issues at a civic level doesn’t happen overnight. Success depends on how you get the communities, and their different stakeholders, together – and who initiates the change.
Take the homeless community of Detroit, for example. Veronika Scott, a graduating student and social activist at the Graduate School of Design, started to engage with a community of homeless people with the hope of addressing some of their issues.
She discovered that space in the shelters where she volunteered was limited and restricted, meaning some people were forced to sleep on the streets. Scott decided to design a sleeping bag that transformed into a coat. This not only protected rough sleepers against the brutally cold Detroit winter but also removed the inconvenience and the stigma of carrying around a sleeping bag.
As it gained scale, her organization – the non-profit The Empowerment Plan – made a point of hiring homeless women with children to give them economic opportunities as well as access to more stable housing solutions.
This example shows the kind of driving force that is needed. It rests with entrepreneurs who are embedded in the communities and understand their struggles – and by doing so can make change happen.
Creating civic wealth rests on bottom-up, collaboratively thought out, and carefully executed solutions. Many of the initiatives we looked at happen in communities that have been left behind.
Let’s say a major international factory closed because it was cheaper to manufacture in Mexico. Where does that leave the community? How do you engage entrepreneurs to take the initiative in such communities?
Take the example of Fogo Island, on the coast of Newfoundland in eastern Canada. From the 1850s until the 1990s it was a fishing community famed for its cod. The community was badly hit by the collapse of the Northwest Atlantic cod industry. Stores closed and the population halved.
Then came Zita Cobb, an eighth-generation Fogo Islander. After making her money in Silicon Valley, she and two of her brothers returned to Fogo Island. They pulled the community together and established Shorefast, which has since become one of Canada’s largest social enterprises.
After initially setting up a luxury hotel, Cobb became the driving force behind the creation of an arts scene and a variety of businesses on the island. The community has been able to create a new environment in the face of fleeting economic resources, leaving behind feelings of depression and lack, and regaining its sense of increased economic well-being and love of place.
It might sound unlikely, but there is always money out there for worthwhile projects. Yet support goes way beyond providing financial assistance. Let’s say that you have a group of people who have become aware of an abandoned building which is about to be demolished but would make a wonderful arts center which could champion diversity in their town.
This kind of project definitely needs people who are excited about preserving old buildings and those who are going to write significant cheques. But eventually you’ve got to have the whole community involved – those who live around the building, as well as those whose art is going to be displayed, those who will provide unique and valuable insights into its design and development and those who will be customers.
“Civic wealth is much more than just financial and material wealth. It is about human capital, social capital, cultural capital, political capital, and natural resources.”
For civic wealth creation, three key words are compromise, collaborate, and cooperate.
Civic wealth gets created and sustained when a whole network of supporters gets behind a project and contributes expertise, resources, and social capital. As such, everyone needs to have a voice, which requires patience and time. You must work through any objections that arise to ensure everybody feels heard.
Civic wealth is much more than just financial and material wealth. It is about human capital, social capital, cultural capital, political capital, and natural resources to name just a few.
For it to work, three things are needed.
First, entrepreneurship is central. It is clear that solutions must be both self-sustaining and lasting.
Second, it is about bringing a diverse coalition of stakeholders around a table and making sure their voices are heard.
And third, there must be buy-in. You can’t just drop a solution on a community. You need to engage the people that you’re trying to help so they are empowered to create, develop and implement the solutions. When the joint interests and efforts of engaged stakeholders blend around a local initiative, communities prosper, long-standing structural issues are resolved, self-reliance grows, and civil society is strengthened.
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