from New Economy Coalition:

CommonBound will bring together hundreds of leaders and organizations from across North America for an international conference on visionary strategies for achieving deep systemic change. Participants will share insights and stories, build relationships, highlight achievements, and chart a shared path toward a society that puts people and planet first. Participants will include a cross-section of community leaders, thinkers, and practitioners from around the world, including the New Economy Coalition’s 140-plus member organizations from throughout the US and Canada.

The conference will feature more than 20 workshop tracks and day-long gatherings exploring a range of topics, including:

• Democratizing energy systems in the face of accelerating climate change
• Racial justice, and building an economy where black lives and liberation matter
• Game-changing pushes for policy and state power to achieve structural change
• Developing vibrant local economies without displacing communities
• Hacking emergent technologies in service of redistributive ends
• Worker ownership and community enterprise as vehicles for democratizing the economy
• …and much more!

CommonBound is taking place July 8-10 in Buffalo, NY, a city that is itself an important hub of the New Economy story. Faced with the same disinvestment that has torn through countless towns and cities along America’s Rust Belt, residents working across issues–from affordable housing, to refugee rights to community-owned renewable power–have been at the forefront of visionary organizing and institution-building. That’s why we’re partnering with the Crossroad Collective, comprised of 8 Buffalo-based community groups, to plan CommonBound, and ensure it both adds fuel to local organizers’ efforts and grounds visitors in the critical work happening in Western New York.

This spirit of collaboration extends to our programming, too. Inspired by the Allied Media Conference, CommonBound is using a decentralized planning model to engage movement leaders across the country. Over sixty volunteer coordinators have been involved in some of our earliest planning, shaping conference programming so that it reflects the organizations and communities leading the movement. In a small way, CommonBound aims to mirror the democratic world we are working toward.

Join us this July in Buffalo. Together, we can make CommonBound a conference that propels our movements forward.