CCWB is a community-driven, worker-led organization dedicated to transforming economic systems to close the racial wealth gap.
Our Mission
Our mission is to transform economic systems to close the racial wealth gap. We seek to foster collective power by advancing community and employee ownership, leveraging the economic engines of anchor institutions, and strengthening small businesses in historically excluded communities.
Our Vision
We envision self-determined communities, free from racism, and rooted in economic democracy, dignity, and joy.
Values
Economic Justice
We work to bring about access to opportunity that leads to health and flourishing, guaranteed by policies and institutions. We work to embed policies into our institutional partners’ practices that create access to opportunity for groups systemically left out. Economic justice cannot be achieved without collaboration with the communities most impacted by inequity, low-income and BIPOC communities. We see racial justice as fundamental to achieving economic justice.
Our vision of racial justice is one of the transformation of society to eliminate racial hierarchies and advance collective liberation.
The outcomes of economic justice include, but are not limited to, increased dignity, increased income, increased wealth, right relationships, reparations, redistribution, and the closing of the racial wealth gap.
Solidarity
Everything we do is in solidarity with the communities we serve. We are mutually accountable to and in deep relationship with low-income and BIPOC communities. We make decisions (i.e. develop strategies) with input from the businesses and communities that are most impacted by those decisions. We lift up the voices, assets, and strengths of the communities we are in solidarity with. We work together to create an inclusive economy where everyone can prosper. Low-income/BIPOC businesses and residents are in the conversation — instead of being marginalized as they currently are in the mainstream economy.
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the right of people and communities to lead healthy, economically secure lives and to define their own economic and cultural systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who live and work in a community at the heart of the economic systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations (adapted from the Declaration of Nyéléni, the first global forum on food sovereignty, Mali, 2007). We believe that ownership of real estate and businesses increases sovereignty for people and communities, leading to more prosperous and healthy outcomes. Additionally, we see both collective and individual ownership as valuable in building community sovereignty—giving them greater power to determine their shared futures. When communities make their own decisions, they reap the benefits.
We work to bring about access to opportunity that leads to health and flourishing, guaranteed by policies and institutions. We work to embed policies into our institutional partners’ practices that create access to opportunity for groups systemically left out. Economic justice cannot be achieved without collaboration with the communities most impacted by inequity, low-income and BIPOC communities. We see racial justice as fundamental to achieving economic justice.
Our vision of racial justice is one of the transformation of society to eliminate racial hierarchies and advance collective liberation.
The outcomes of economic justice include, but are not limited to, increased dignity, increased income, increased wealth, right relationships, reparations, redistribution, and the closing of the racial wealth gap.
Solidarity
Everything we do is in solidarity with the communities we serve. We are mutually accountable to and in deep relationship with low-income and BIPOC communities. We make decisions (i.e. develop strategies) with input from the businesses and communities that are most impacted by those decisions. We lift up the voices, assets, and strengths of the communities we are in solidarity with. We work together to create an inclusive economy where everyone can prosper. Low-income/BIPOC businesses and residents are in the conversation — instead of being marginalized as they currently are in the mainstream economy.
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the right of people and communities to lead healthy, economically secure lives and to define their own economic and cultural systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who live and work in a community at the heart of the economic systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations (adapted from the Declaration of Nyéléni, the first global forum on food sovereignty, Mali, 2007). We believe that ownership of real estate and businesses increases sovereignty for people and communities, leading to more prosperous and healthy outcomes. Additionally, we see both collective and individual ownership as valuable in building community sovereignty—giving them greater power to determine their shared futures. When communities make their own decisions, they reap the benefits.