Kate Sofis created SFMade in San Francisco to find creative ways to support local manufacturing. The organization has helped push the local government to create more inclusionary industrial zoning, which incentivizes ...

Worker co-ops, a business model that many people are not aware of, are gaining momentum in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Cooperative Alliance (PACA) has helped push more education and funding around co-ops to come to...

Hope Credit Union has a mission: serving mostly black, marginalized communities in the South whose capital was historically displaced through slavery. In 2017, the credit union gave out $100 million in loans. ‘That to...

Leaders in Baltimore realized that improvements in food policy would be enhanced by more accurate language and more local activism. The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative brings together city agencies and uses data and ...

A community land trust is helping people in the Keys find another home, after Hurricane Irma ravished the area. “Four cottages are expected to wrap construction this fall, with another five finished by early 2019.” Th...

A nonprofit launched by formerly incarcerated men in New Orleans addresses some of the immediate challenges people face in the first 72 hours coming out of prison. The First 72 offers them a place to go, which can be ...

An Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania art project "gently" demolished a historic, vacant building and reassembled it as a communal space. This is an example of "creative placemaking," a method to both preserve the character of...

The Cleveland Museum of Art has developed a multi-faceted plan to close the large disparity between the demographics of the community it serves and the demographics of its staff and visitors. Initiatives in the plan i...

A food truck in a Detroit Latinx neighborhood offers “decolonized” food—food made up of staples of the Latinx culture before colonization. In this way, the truck—and other community activists working on food issues—ho...

COOP LA in Los Angeles is a commercial space featuring business commonly found across the city but with a distinct difference: they are all worker cooperatives. These cooperatives effectively create jobs and develop l...

Untold RVA, a project developed by ‘tactical urbanist’ Free Egunfemi, intervenes in public space to foreground the history of slavery and the lives of the enslaved in Richmond. While work is being done to dismantle Ri...

Community organizing may be the key to a comeback along New Orleans’ Claiborne Avenue. Once home to a booming block of African American-owned businesses, many left once a new expressway demolished the street in the 19...

Photographer Tonika Lewis Johnson created a “Map Twins” project to bring together people from often strictly segregated sections of Chicago. Connecting people who live on the same number block of the north and south s...

A unique financial set up in Portland has led to the creation of the East Portland Community Investment Trust, in which residents in four local zip codes can invest small amounts of money into local projects, specific...

Fresno sits in right in the middle of the Central Valley of California. The region is known for its vast agriculture and farming communities, but to locals, it's also known for its horrid air quality. This is especial...

The San Francisco Bay area is home to a number of crucial wetlands and streams that are quickly being impacted by climate change. For nearly two decades, however, elementary teachers and their students have been playi...

Central District, a historically black neighborhood in Seattle, is getting a makeover to better align it with its roots. Africatown is a nonprofit community land trust that is using its influence to bring Afrocentric ...

Financial Empowerment Centers work with clients to help them build savings, improve credit scores, and take full advance of assistance programs. While the daily demands of poverty often create an inability to plan for...

New guidelines to help cities manage bike-share programs, based on feedback from 60 cities, could be the key to success for dockless vehicles. The guidelines include recommendations about permits and fines, ways to co...

Community dinners can highlight locally sourced ingredients, shine a light on food systems and their impact, and create solidarity among cooks and attendees. The Dream Cafe, a pop-up restaurant using food from Detroit...

Southern Bancorp is a regional bank based in Little Rock, Arkansas and is a member of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. Founded after the financial crisis in 2009, the Alliance shows that values-based banks, ...

The Akron Community Revitalization Fund has already invested in the development of downtown Akron, a city once known for rubber manufacturing but now working to redefine itself. The revolving loan fund is comprised of...

Community foundations have a new way to invest their funds: they can opt to invest in community projects, such as credit unions, as opposed to more traditional financial investments. The Self-Help Federal Credit Union...

The Los Angeles-based group Across Our Kitchen Tables is hoping to overcome the underrepresentation of women of color in the food industry. The group connects women, helps them discuss ideas and recipes, and hosts wor...

After witnessing the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina, changemakers in Alabama took control of creating a more accountable insurance system that valued weather-resilient home construction.