What are the stories that we need to tell to better understand our economy, and lay the groundwork for building a more inclusive, democratic world? Storytelling—the construction of spoken or written accounts of a series of events that we tell each other to understand our world—offers critical tools to build movements, upend myths that hold us back, and construct cultures that can sustain a democratic economy. This webinar conversation, a coproduction of NPQ and the BLIS Collective, takes a deep look at how to use storytelling to advance transformative change. Participating in the c ..read more

Image credit: Artem Maltsev on Unsplash In “an attempt to explore the sorrow and anxiety of living and parenting in a world on fire,” Jared Beloff started writing a book. Amid the raging pandemic in 2020, the writer couldn’t ignore the severe weather events happening around the world in close succession: intense wildfires in California, surging floods in Pakistan and China. “I kept a journal for a while just chronicling these things, to bear witness,” Beloff told NPQ in an interview. “Eventually that desire to witness became the centerpiece of my poems, which I wrote over the next tw ..read more

Photo by TopSphere Media on Unsplash The South is often depicted as a backward place—where reproductive and civil rights are restricted and White supremacy prevails. But this narrative erases the fact that the story of the South—the Blackest region in the country—is also a story of community, self-determination, and a people who strived to be seen even as they combated attempts to render them invisible. In recent years, Black women who understand on both personal and political levels what it feels like to be erased have worked to reclaim space in the South in public ways. In rec ..read more

  The following is a transcript of the video above, from our webinar “Remaking the Economy: A Policy Vision from the Movement for Black Lives.” View the full webinar here. Rahel Teka: When you use participatory budgeting processes as a method to directly and boldly face the legacies you’re standing on, there’s a lot of opportunity to have conversations that you’re not having otherwise. You’re not going to have these conversations during the election cycle about how a particular neighborhood was targeted [by redlining]. You’re not going to have conversations about how you use actual money ..read more

  The following is a transcript of the video above, from our webinar “Remaking the Economy: A Policy Vision from the Movement for Black Lives.” View the full webinar here. Our economic power is tied very closely to our political power. Amara Enyia: Here are some data points that people know: for every dollar of wealth that White people have, Black folks have 24 cents to the dollar. When it comes to housing affordability, people are spending about 42 percent of their household income just on housing alone. We are seeing the rates of evictions, the unhoused numbers skyrocketing, and it’s ..read more

Image credit: Z Sarpong on unsplash.com In Ghana, a centuries-old savings system called susu provides a means for people with limited access to formal financial support to solve economic problems in their communities. Meaning “little by little” and also “to plan” in Ghana’s Twi language, susu is a type of what is sometimes more broadly labeled a “rotating savings and credit association” (ROSCA), in which a set amount of money is collected regularly from each member of a group, with the total then distributed to each individual within the group at regular intervals, typically either w ..read more

Image credit: Rawpixel on istock.com We’re in the middle of a historic and long-overdue uprising of worker power in the United States. Working people who’ve been told their whole lives to be grateful for a job—any job—are finally, understandably, fed up. As billionaire profits increase while wages remain stagnant and inflation looms, record numbers of Americans have quit their jobs. Those who haven’t quit are increasingly joining unions or finding other ways to organize—and going on strike. These seismic shifts in the labor market will hopefully presage a new era of worker voice and ..read more

  The realities of Black women in leadership have arrived at the center of discourse across the nation. Black women leaders and their accomplices are driving the effort to unpack and move through shared experiences of harm. In this discussion, four leaders came together for a discussion on black women leadership and the archetypes that enable injustice. Our facilitator was NPQ Editor-in-Chief and President, Cyndi Suarez. She was joined by our panelists: Dr. Yanique Redwood is the author of White Women Cry and Call Me Angry: A Black Woman’s Memoir on Racism in Philanthropy. Kerrien S ..read more

Image credit: Isabella Angélica on unsplash.com The dismal statistics on maternal health outcomes in the United States are well-known in health justice, health equity, and health philanthropy circles. Among developed nations, the United States has the worst maternal death rate. The maternal mortality rate is 2.5 times higher for Black women than their White counterparts, with Black women and birthing people being three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than their White counterparts. A small body of research is drawing critical attention to the mental strain attached to th ..read more

Image credit: Jakayla Toney on unsplash.com The images on social media show a gleaming silver trailer outfitted with three private shower rooms. Inside the rooms are a heated shower, toilet, sink, mirror. The images were shared by a librarian in Georgia to support the work of Flowing with Blessings, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that serves unhoused people. A big part of the group’s mission and work is providing free showers and hygiene assistance to those in need. Outside the trailers, parked that day at a public library, free gift bags were available, stuffed with toiletries and cloth ..read more