Exploring Local Living Economies and Community-based Business

Posted by on May 20, 2005

Exploring Local Living Economies and Community-based Business

with MICHAEL SHUMAN

Sunday, July 17 to Sunday July 24, 2005

A Residential Course at the Whidbey Institute in Clinton, WA
(on Whidbey Island…45 minutes from downtown Seattle)

What exactly is the local alternative to the global economy? This course lays out the rationale for economic systems rooted in local ownership, self-reliance, sustainability, and justice. It will provide participants with practical examples of cutting-edge proposals in local planning, entrepreneurship training, investing, and purchasing, and teach the skills needed to implement them. It also will analyze strategies for going local, including private initiative (how to form your own “community corporation”), nonprofit innovation (how to create self-financing nonprofits through for-profit subsidiaries), and public policy (how to promote laws around living wages, smart growth, green taxes, and business subsidy reform).

Michael Shuman is the author of Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age, and Vice President of Enterprise Development for the Training & Development Corporation. Among his current projects are a poultry company in Eastern Maryland financed through local stock, a small-business venture fund in New Mexico, and a local debit card in Maine. He speaks and consults around the country on strategies for strengthening local and regional economies, and he is one of the founding board members for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a network of, by, and for community-based-businesses.

For more information or to register, call 1-360-341-1884 or email whidinst@whidbey.com