DC Community Wealth Builders

For too long, DC's economic development strategy has focused on corporate incentives as the only path to “economic growth.” When all the money, power, and investment go toward trying to “attract and retain” wealth, it becomes harder and harder for the communities that built this city to afford to stay here. Community Wealth Building (CWB) starts from a different question: who owns the assets, who makes the decisions, and where do the returns go?

CWB is an economic development strategy that invests in cooperative and worker ownership, permanently affordable housing, local financial infrastructure, local procurement, and democratic control. Instead of only chasing outside corporations with tax breaks, DC can create jobs and grow the economy by investing in people and businesses that are rooted here.