Community stories & examples

Neighbor Power – The Seattle Way of Building Community by Jim Diers describes Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods and its bold experiments in bottom-up neighborhood planning and development. Click here to…

The steady progess since 1998 of Winnipeg’s North End Community Renewal Corporation (NECRC) makes this organization seem like a textbook example of the successful evolution of a community development corporation….

Sangudo, Alberta used to have many things in common with other rural towns: retiring shop owners, boarded-up shops, youth exodus, and resignation to its fate. Things are turning around in…

We are a group of people who live or work in the Gorge Tillicum community.  We have a two-fold purpose: Sharing information about, and practical support for, various aspects of…

Thirty groups have started Repair Cafes across the Netherlands, where neighbours pool their skills and labour for a few hours a month to mend clothing and revivify old coffee makers,…

The Vancouver Tool Library is a cooperative tool lending library located at 3448 Commercial Street in Vancouver, BC. We carry a wide variety of tools for home repair, gardening, and…

The Mt. Pleasant Solar Cooperative in Washington, DC helps shine a light on how to bring affordable and convenient solar power to your community. Click here to watch the video….

Strengthening Neighbourhood Resilience: Opportunities for Communities and Local Governments This report highlights some of the research and approaches that have been explored and the lessons that have been emerging during…

The Cooperative City: Social and economic tools for sustainability by John Restakis of the BC Co-operative Association, February 2011. A discussion of policies for promoting cooperative companies of different kinds…

nef is the UK’s leading think tank promoting social, economic and environmental justice. Our purpose is to bring about a Great Transition – to transform the economy so that it…

Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed by Francis Westley, Brenda Zimmerman, Michael Quinn Patton. This book introduces the importance of complexity theory and systems thinking for social innovation…

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon Sets out a theory of the growth, crisis, and renewal of societies, what can we learn…