Purpose: Establishing the group that will carry on the effort of building the Economy for Our Common Good

 

Materials: List of the people who volunteered to carry on

 

Paradigm: The classes are over and the map is yet to be completed.

Context: The most heartening and surprising response to the class was that people wanted to continue working on the project. In many years of teaching we had never had class participants want to carry on into the future. As a result we formed what we call the Club for the Common Good that has not only carried on with the building the map, but has branched out into a book club and other ventures. We meet every several months at the local library public room. People still show enthusiasm for the project.

If you do not get many volunteers, you probably have enough of a basis for mapping your Economy for the Common Good to get a grant to continue the program to completion

 

Activities: If you have finished the map, you should plan how to launch it. It took us almost a year after the last class to get to the point launching the map publicly.

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We planned our public launch as a public event in a local community center where we invited two people that were experienced in forming co-ops, collectives and community organizations. We created a poster for the event and sent an invitation letter to all of the people who worked on the map, all of the organizations on the map, all of the people who had worked on any of our projects and all elected politicians and public officials who need to know about this project. You can download a copy of our poster and our invitation letter, which can serve as samples of what you can do.

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We also put announcements in the local paper, public service announcements on radio and television programs and got on to a radio program to promo the event.

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On the day of the event, we set up a room for all of the participants to have a round-table discussion on creating co-ops, collectives and community organizations to keep building our Economy for the Common Good. We leveraged the knowledge of our invited speakers to address local issue around building our Economy for the Common Good.

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You can also set up a room to display the map in multiple ways. Project it on the wall and then show people how to navigate around the map. Set up a table for each of the economic sectors. On those tables, put representations of each organization on the map from that sector. Create a binder for each sector table with a page for each organization’s popup box. Have representatives from the organizations at the table to talk about what they do and why they are on the map. Set up tables to talk about the overall project and allow people to add their own ideas

 

If, however, you are like us and your map is not ready to be made public by the end of the workshops you should bring together all of the people who want to carry the map to completion, what we call The Club for the Common Good. The first item to discuss with this group is why the map is not completed.

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In our group, and possibly in yours, the reason was because of the bottlenecks around collecting the data. We moved to a more efficient process of collecting data. We had our Club for the Common Good members research and fill out the data for a specific organization and then send that partially filled out survey form off to the organization to be edited and completed. To do this process we reconfigured the introductory letter and the survey form. Please download the revised introductory letter and survey form if you need them.

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Once people have collected information on the various organizations, someone has to enter them into the database. Then someone has use the database to create the public map. At this point you should refer to all of the activities described above to launch your map publicly.

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Once the fanfare of the grand opening has faded, this project should live on. Your Club for the Common Good is an appropriate group to make sure that the mapping process carries on and grows in the future. The organizations on the map will change or move. New organizations will be created and deserve to be on your map. New uses for the map may be require a new format. You may want to expand the map using a different mapping program, or expand the stories into a documentary. You will certainly want to have a central website that will house the map. All of this will require ongoing diligence. Such ongoing diligence may require a financial component. We have not faced this reality yet, but we would be happy to keep you updated on the evolution for the map of our Economy for the Common Good. It is crucial to the future of life that human existence on this planet become completely sustainable and in balance with nature, the environment and each other. Building your Economy for the Common Good is a crucial part of this process.

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Good luck with all of this. Let us know if you have any questions. Thanks for moving ahead with building the Economy for the Common Good.