Building Community

• Bioneers / Monthly Community Group Potlucks
• Democracy School
• Harnessing the Power of Storytelling for Non-Profits Workshop
• Spokane Sustainable Agriculture Leadership Team
• Practicum in Community Building Internship Program
• Community Indicator Initiative of Spokane County
• Socially Responsible Local Investing: A Sustainable Investments Fund

Bioneers & Monthly Community Group Potlucks

In October of each year, New Priorities Foundation hosts several guests at the annual Bioneers Conference held in San Raphael, CA. The purpose of the conference is to provide visionary and practical solutions for restoring the earth and its people. As an outgrowth of the experience at Bioneers, local conference attendees meet for a monthly potluck to discuss a variety of issues with the purpose of education, strengthening our community and initiating positive change. These gatherings also provide a regular venue for sharing news, networking, and building relationships. Visit www.bioneers.org

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Democracy School

Tired of winning a local issue while watching corporate control expand? Democracy School teaches us why democracy is impossible when corporations wield constitutional rights against communities to deny the rights of people. New Priorities Foundation, in partnership with Spokane’s Center for Justice, has hosted two 3 day sessions of democracy school (July ’05 and Feb. ’06.) 39 attendees represented NPF grantee recipients, local activists and Center for Justice staff and colleagues. The purpose of the weekends is to instigate democratic conversations and actions that contest the authority of corporations to define our culture, govern our nation and plunder the earth. Visit www.poclad.org

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Harnessing the Power of Story for Non-Profits

Well-crafted, thought-provoking stories are a powerful way to make a point. They have the unique ability to instantaneously capture the minds, hearts, souls, and physical beings of those who hear them. On Sept. 8, 2005, New Priorities Foundation hosted a seminar titled, “Harnessing the Power of Storytelling for Non-Profits” led by national facilitator Lori Silverman. The day-long intensive provided participants the opportunity to create powerful, memorable stories that convey passion and commitment in order to enrich the fabric of community and inspire positive change in the world. Visit www.pfprogress.org

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Spokane Sustainable Agriculture Leadership Team

One of the ways that New Priorities Foundation provides leadership in the community is through the involvement of its Executive Director in the creation and support of projects that reflect our mission. The Spokane Sustainable Agriculture Leadership Team is such a group and was formed in order to support a sustainable local food system where producers earn a viable income and consumers can access locally produced foods. SSALT acts to connect all community stakeholders in an effort to promote this food system through:

• Increased capacity of local processing and distribution for small and sustainable producers
• Increase access to information between buyers and sellers of locally produced foods
• Provide a forum for networking with like-minded individuals and organizations to share information and leverage resources
• Increase consumer access to locally produced foods: Farmer’s Market, grocery stores, restaurants, CSA’s, etc.
• Educate the community about the importance of supporting a local food supply- consumers, chefs, diners, distributors, etc.
• Promote public policy development that supports local agriculture- act as a central voice and advocate for Spokane area sustainable agriculture.

• Jennifer Hall, WSU Extension, Small Farm Direct Marketing Director, Executive Director of Chefs Collaborative
• Maurice Robinette, Washington Sustainable Food & Farming Network Eastern WA organizer, owner/operator Lazy R Ranch
• David Bauermeister, Director Ag and Natural Resources, Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce
• Dave Sanders, Community Coordinator, Community Building
• Bob Gregson, Washington Sustainable Food & Farming Network
• Gary Angell, Rural Roots Board, owner/producer Rocky Ridge Ranch
• Patty Gates, Executive Director, New Priorities Foundation
• Eli Penberthy, Founding Director, Friends of the Farmers’ Market

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Practicum in Community Building Internship Program

New Priorities Foundation supports the Practicum in Community Involvement (PICI) program which has offered Lewis & Clark High School seniors the opportunity to make a positive difference in the Spokane community since 1994. PICI is an award-winning community based course through which students develop an expertise on an issue guided by a mentor with academic and career credentials compatible with this issue, consult with EDU faculty on their research, intern 3 hours per week throughout the academic year at a community non-profit organization addressing this issue, and work with clients served by the organization. There are 30+ affiliated organizations from which students can choose internships. Other internship options include documentary filmmaking through North By Northwest and public interest radio programming through KPBX Spokane Public Radio. PICI interns produce throughout the academic year evidence of progressive research on their issue specialty, including refined working bibliographies, writing reviews of current research, reading two books on their issue, and presenting their findings through peer teaching, a paper, a symposium in April and a project in May.

As PICI interns acquire more expertise on their issue, they teach other students in the course January-March. Generally 50% of the appraisal of the student is based on the internship while the balance is apportioned to research, peer teaching, regular journaling, and, second semester, the paper, symposium, and project.

PICI is based on the democratic classroom, which compliments one of the course's objectives: To nurture informed and inspired citizens. To this end in part all students will be provided with a copy of Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time (St. Martin's, 1999) The curriculum is designed in part by decisions made by consensus during the year; thus, the course evolves to better meet the needs of the learner and the community.

This course is indispensable for the college-bound, pre-professional senior. As a high quality service learning experience, it imparts demonstrable advantages in college admissions and scholarships, and, as numerous studies indicate, infuses the last year of high school with meaning and vitality; moreover, students who engage in service learning such as PICI tend to be better prepared and thus more successful in college.1

For more information, please contact John Hagney, PICI teacher, at 354-6948 or e-mail (johnhag@spokaneschools.org).

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Community Indicator Initiative

The Community Indicators Initiative (CII) in Spokane County is a civic initiative formed under the leadership of Patrick Jones, Director of Eastern Washington University’s Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis in partnership with the following local and regional organizations: Spokane Regional Health District, New Priorities Foundation, City of Spokane, Community-Minded Enterprises, The Lands Council and Spokane County United Way. A grant from New Priorities Foundation was provided as start-up funding and our director has been an active member of the working team since its inception.

The purpose of the initiative is to create an indicator system that supports efforts contributing toward a healthy, vibrant community by fostering informed dialog and by tracking progress on shared goals. Across the country, indicators have become a popular tool for tracking trends and measuring outcomes. “Democratization of data” is the core concept at the heart of indicator projects. Once data have been gathered on specific indicators they will be made available to the public through a website. This new resource will also provide analysis and reports on indicators in interest to the community.

The local Community Indicator Initiative process has been informed by the contributions of over 150 participants and experts through a series of focus groups providing ideas for indicators in the following categories:

• Arts, culture and leisure
• Economic vitality
• Education
• Environment and natural resources
• Health
• Housing and transportation
• Public safety
• Social capital

For a full description of the Community Indicators Initiative of Spokane County please visit: http://www.ewu.edu/x4901.xml

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Socially Responsible Local Investing: A Sustainable Investments Fund

Background:

This concept is being developed by a small but growing group of advocates for sustainable local development, including New Priorities Foundation. We are exploring the potential to bring an innovative, entrepreneurial approach to meeting the economic, social and environmental challenges in Spokane.

Inspired by an ongoing effort in New England, we seek to explore the potential for addressing Spokane’s pressing development needs by inviting every citizen to become a direct investor in growing local businesses that can provide new jobs and tax revenue in an environmentally and socially beneficial way.

This small group is looking to expand its membership to include several representatives of the investment and banking industries as well as representatives of local, state and federal economic development agencies and local not-for-profit community organizations.

Here’s our concept:

The Goal: Area citizens will have the opportunity to invest even modest amounts of their incomes or savings in local businesses that have solid business development plans and high potential for growth in value and/or income. Those investments will be focused on businesses that make a specific, written commitment to grow themselves sustainably, meaning they will pay particular attention to the environmental and social impacts of their growth.

The Objectives:
Our concept has three objectives:

• local business development, locally funded;
• specific commitments to environmentally sustainable business practices
• development of tradable equity instrument to allow broad-based public participation in the financing of local businesses.

Our idea is to create and market an investment security that allows the average Spokane citizen to invest relatively modest amounts of their own assets in environmentally and socially responsible, local business development, buying shares in Spokane’s best businesses.

This concept is a dramatic departure from traditional approaches to business development. It would mean that local entrepreneurs, particularly small startups, would not have to rely exclusively on loans or venture capital firms or "angel investors," to grow local their businesses.

We recognize that there will always be a need for these other more conventional avenues to capitalizing business growth. Entrepreneurs with significant resources actively searching out opportunities for personal gain in our community will always be an important asset. We also recognize the limits to their business model when it comes to achieving the three objectives listed above.

Next steps:

At this early stage, we feel the priority tasks (not in sequence) are:

• Define the geographic scope for business participation, as well as the criteria for qualifying business to participate in the equity pool.
• Expand the working group with professionals who have the appropriate expertise to develop the investment instrument and the economic, environmental and social benefit criteria that would apply to participating businesses.
• Explore options for financial instruments that can accomplish the objectives listed above
• Articulate the regulatory and financial challenges inherent in attempting to develop such an investment vehicle;
• Perform a preliminary assessment of the potential market for the financial vehicle we would create.

What you can do to help:

To get involved, you can contact any of the following members of the organizing team:

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