This research explores community ownership models used by organizations in Atlanta, Boston, Lisjan Territory, and New Orleans and finds that there is growing momentum to build democratically controlled and community-embedded institutions that are culturally centered. It highlights how organizations pursuing community ownership are using an ecosystem approach, shared decisionmaking structures, and community learning opportunities to advance their models and points to ways that funders and other actors can support this work.

Why This Matters

Community ownership models enable long-time residents, local workers, and representative community institutions to own community assets, shape how they function, and produce economic, environmental, social, and cultural benefits within their communities. These models help ensure that local land, real estate, businesses, and other community assets directly benefit residents. They can support the growth of locally owned small businesses; increase access to affordable housing, healthy fresh food, and community spaces; and support communities in organizing around shared visions and cultures. They are an antidote to centuries of violence, disinvestment, displacement, and exploitative or discriminatory policies and practices that have led to entrenched racial and socioeconomic inequities in the United States.

What We Found

Organizations use different types of community ownership models, such as community land trusts, cooperatives, democratic investment funds, and neighborhood real estate investment trusts to build power among residents. The featured community ownership models are guided by each organization’s unique goals and shared values of trust, reciprocity, justice, and cooperation. Their operations are supported by a range of funding sources.

Funders considering supporting the community ownership movement can do so through the following approaches:

• Funding local community ownership ecosystem builders and community-owned and -governed organizations that may fall outside of the 501(c)(3) structure.
• Funding with trust, patience, embrace of community-identified goals, and creativity by combining multiple forms of funding to support complementary workstreams and projects during their different development stages.
• Funding experiments and early pilots so successes can catalyze future support and “failures” can serve as learning opportunities.
• Funding early and ongoing support for local ecosystem- and community-building, technical assistance and capacity-building, convenings for an exchange of ideas among like-minded entities, and education to cultivate the next generation of community leaders.

How We Did It

Our research involved a review of existing community ownership and wealth-building literature, interviews with numerous practitioners, and interviews with staff or partners representing each case study organization.