DRIVE’s north star goal is economic growth in Fresno that is based on transformed infrastructure and systems that enable historically excluded racial minority communities to prosper and to achieve this goal requires inclusion and participation from all, versatility, flexibility, and big thinking.
In the last year, the DRIVE team has been engaging and drawing inspiration from the book Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter by Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor. We are asking ourselves and our community – what would a solidarity economy look like and mean for Fresno? Benner and Pastor define solidarity economics with three beliefs:
Our economy is not some abstract natural phenomenon driven by rigid forces but rather created by people through collaboration as well as competition,
When we recognize and reinforce those collaborative elements, we end up with not only better social outcomes but also better economic outcomes; and
Because some people benefit from the current system and would prefer to divide us, social movements for change are critical to economic success, both because they can help shift power and because they can help build and broaden our sense of mutuality.
The authors make the case that an economy is only possible because it is created by people and that there should be active participation and collaboration for a thriving economy. Benner and Pastor also believe that a thriving economy requires social movements generated by people to change power and build relationships and community.
Solidarity economics deeply resonates with DRIVE and is currently inspiring the next phase of our collective impact. We have begun to weave together a transformative community engagement plan and are fostering spaces for issue and place-based organizing – of which is strengthening a social movement for DRIVE. We launched the
Facing Fresno initiative to build a shared understanding and agreement on the impact of racism in Fresno – the solidarity economics framework requires us to do the truth-telling of how our economy has been shaped. We developed an evaluation system to help DRIVE and its initiatives understand what is going well and where improvement is needed – it will be critical to measure community power and evaluate its role in shifting systems.
Over the next few months, we will share how DRIVE’s collective work is tied to this new narrative on our economy, the stories of impact we are seeing, and the systems-change conversations we are a part of.
We invite you to learn more about Solidarity Economics and hear directly from the authors!
Monday, March 31
1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (book signing first hour)
The Grand - 1401 Fulton Street
