Working Capital for Economic Justice Comes in Handy During a Crisis

Mumbuca is a digital currency used in Maricà’s basic income program. Residents, with few eligibility requirements, can qualify for a monthly stipend to purchase goods and services using a smart phone or a card. The currency runs on the digital platform E-dinheiro and can only be spent in the city limits. Individuals cannot swap Mumbucas for national currency, but businesses can after a 48-hour waiting period and a 1% fee. Local currencies, which are popular in Brazil, help residents increase personal savings and, with increased stipends during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowed informal workers to stay home.

An American nonprofit called the Community Reinvestment Fund expands access to small business loans by partnering with almost two dozen groups across the country to set up and scale up their community development lending. Founded in 1988, the group essentially takes on the risk of a SBA license so that others could benefit from their license. They created an online platform called Spark that redesigned the user interface of the existing loan processor platform to better facilitate the exchange of money. They have now supported loans for 1,000 communities across 49 states.

Public banks are owned and run by governments, and because they store money for the state instead of individuals, they can invest back into the communities they serve instead of extracting from them in the chase for profits.

Lift to Rise, a Coachella Valley nonprofit that pushes for housing and poverty policy change, launched a local lending circle program aimed at serving minority residents break the cycle of poverty. Partnered with San Francisco-based Mission Asset Fund, the lending circle helps those with poor credit or no credit at all to build up a spending history, have access to loans, create a savings account, improve their score, and more. Since 2008, Mission Asset Fund has partnered with more than 50 organizations across the U.S. to provide lending circles to more than 9,000 clients.

While waiting on $1 billion of federal money to help address repercussions from a century of coal mining, communities in Kentucky and other Appalachian towns create their own solutions. Chapters of the Black Lung society seek financial means to help individuals with black lung receive medical care, and local businesses turn abandoned mines into sustainable energy plants and other new economic drivers.

The IDP Foundation created the Rising Schools Program to provide affordable credit to low-fee private schools in Ghana and Kenya. The program combines accessible loans with cash flow training tailored to local economic patterns, such as agricultural harvest cycles that affect parents' ability to pay school fees. Over 15 years, the Rising Schools Program has supported more than 2,600 schools, reached over 619,000 students, and disbursed 5,100+ loans with a 94% repayment rate.

Invest STL’s Rooted program provides financial and investment help to community members by giving them money and pairing them with a financial advisor who helps them build generational wealth and avoid displacement by putting their money into wealth-building activities like property renovations and investment portfolios. 50 people have participated in the program so far, and early evidence shows they’re investing their money in responsible, meaningful ways, and gaining a deeper connection to their fellow community members.

The Nusantra Fund provides financial support directly to community-led projects in Indonesia. The aim is to improve the livelihoods of Indigenous and local people while tackling climate change impacts and protecting biodiversity.

Every year, investors who are shareholders in publicly-traded companies have the chance to vote on proposals that shape the way the companies address issues like climate change. Whether or not they pass, climate-related proposals send a clear message about the problems activist investors want to see addressed which can spur action.

“UNDSCVRD SF," funded by the SOMA Community Stabilization Fund and produced by the nonprofit Kultivate Labs, is a night market held once a month from July to November that features a range of Filipino vendors. There were over 35,000 attendees in 2019 and it generated $300,000 in sales. It also serves as a testing ground to select businesses for Kultivate Labs’ SEED Accelerator Program and grantees for the SOMA Fund. The former provides bootcamps and one-on-one support for Filipino-owned businesses that are located in, or would like to be located in, a permanent space within the SOMA cultural district.