Cooperation Jackson has asked The Democracy Collaborative — a nonprofit research and advisory group with offices in Washington, DC and Cleveland, Ohio — to explore the feasibility of a Community Wealth Building strategy in Jackson, Mississippi. The aim of this approach is to transform neighborhoods through job creation by identifying areas where local business is under-developed and creating employee-owned businesses that can fill those gaps while employing residents, paying living wages and meeting procurement needs of existing large employers.
 
Over the past decade, The Democracy Collaborative has worked on such strategies in a number of cities, including Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Amarillo, Atlanta, Jacksonville, and metropolitan Washington DC. The most advanced work of The Democracy Collaborative is in Cleveland, where it has assisted with the development of the Evergreen Cooperatives, a network of businesses that meet the specialized business needs of area institutions, such as universities and hospitals.
 
Three research experts from The Democracy Collaborative, Steve Dubb, David Zuckerman, Jessica Bonanno along with members of Cooperation Jackson, met with various community stakeholders and institutional leaders over the course of the week (September 9th through September 12th) to Jackson  to continue sharing the Community Wealth Building strategy and explore potential opportunities to effectively employ it in Jackson. Steve Dubb and David Zuckerman were here for a week in August. 

A Community Town Hall will be held September 9th to discuss this strategy and opportunity with the greater community.
 
The interviews and research work of The Democracy Collaborative will result in the production of a strategic report that will be used by Cooperation Jackson to establish a Community Wealth Building Initiative based on the Anchor Institution model.