Shift Capital, Shift Power: Community-controlled investing for regenerative economy

Over the last decade, a flourishing ecosystem of community organizers, financial activists and social movement groups have been developing new infrastructure for putting capital and power into the hands of communities on the frontlines of social change. These community-controlled, movement-owned, and democratically governed investment vehicles are playing a critical role in advancing justice and shared prosperity by building the economic power of communities who have historically been shut out from decision making about the flow of capital. Even in impact investing spaces, their voices, perspectives and priorities are still largely missing. In this session, we will explore how these innovative investment vehicles are disrupting the concentration of wealth and power, learn about the creative ways in which foundations are mobilizing endowment dollars to invest in these vehicles as a complement to their grantmaking, and how collaboration, coordination and solidarity are at the core of these successful experiments that are redefining risk and return, challenging assumptions about the role of capital, and advancing an impact-first approach for accelerating transformative social change and economic systems change.