Welcome to the Remix, as we take our latest spin around the economy. Today’s column “Connecting Faith Institutions to Capital” reports on a conference held this past April in Jackson, MS. where Black church leaders and community investors sought common ground.
The idea that religious institutions can be a source of capital for building a more democratic economy is not new. Indeed, it is impossible to tell the story of the development of the community development financial institution sector without discussing the story of the early investors—often nuns from liberal Catholic orders—who provided the initial capital that made community investment happen.
In Jackson, the focus was on how Black churches and other Black-led institutions, such as historically black colleges and universities, better known as HBCUs, can leverage their land holdings to support an economy rooted in values of solidarity. The effort was organized by Neighborhood Economics, a group founded by folks within the “SOCAP” impact investing world who wanted to go “deep and local and long-term.”
At the conference, there were a few confessions. One Black church leader spoke about how he had once earned a high-six-figure salary for Goldman Sachs but realized he was “willingly participating in an oppressive system.” The need for structural change—and not just reform within the existing system—was widely touted.
A focal point of the conversation centered on fostering community ownership, whether that involved a community land trust that owns housing or a tribal nation that owns a wind power generation authority. There was also a call to be strategic in the sense of ensuring community control of key land parcels and supply chain segments as key tactics to ensure that the income earned stays in communities, rather than leaking out of them.
Black churches and HBCUs, it was noted, could be central actors in much of this work. As one speaker observed, both are often “land rich and cash poor.” Their land holdings could potentially—in combination with impact investor and philanthropic capital—be employed to help finance a new type of economic development, one anchored in community ownership and community control.
As you read this article, I encourage you to reflect on how to build alliances that can combine faith and capital to advance economic democracy.
Until the next Remix column, I remain,
Your Remix Man:
Steve Dubb
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