Our History
Jump to: Founding Leadership
2012
The Center for Economic Democracy was founded as the Economic Justice Funding Circle (EJFC) in 2012 to provide a space for Boston’s grassroots leaders and funders to develop shared vision, strategy and practice for transformational movement building in Massachusetts and beyond. With support from its founding donors, EJFC’s steering committee of grassroots organizers stewarded $500,000 in grants to advance racial and economic justice organizing in the community.
2013
Between 2013-2014, CED staff was subcontracted by the Participatory Budgeting Project to help design the City of Boston’s “Youth Lead the Change” initiative, Boston’s first participatory budgeting process and the first citywide youth-led democratic budgeting process in the country. As Lead Organizer, CED helped design the process and support over 1,200 young people ages 12-25 to propose and/or vote on how to spend $1 million of the City’s annual capital budget.
Between 2013-2015 EJFC convened, funded and launched the Boston Jobs Coalition, a citywide network fighting to ensure that employment opportunities generated by Boston’s construction boom benefitted local residents. After protesting unfair worksites and passing requirements for hiring in key neighborhoods, Boston Jobs Coalition’s multi-year campaign culminated in 2017 with the passage of a new city law that established the most inclusive racial and gender hiring policies for private construction in the US.​
2014
In 2014, EJFC transitioned its name to the Center for Economic Democracy (CED) to represent a broader vision for our role in the movement for justice and liberation in the United States. CED co-founders included members of EJFC, additional leaders of local nonprofits, and several graduate student fellows from MIT and Tufts urban planning departments.
Members of the Boston Community Finance Study Group (2014).
In the summer of 2014, CED convened and co-hosted the Boston Community Finance Study Group with local investment fund Boston Impact Initiative, housing justice organization City Life/Vida Urbana, and two dozen other organizers, funders, business owners and nonprofit staff from aligned organizations. The group hosted eight sessions exploring alternative financial institutions and economic power building strategies.
Co-founders of the Solidarity Economy Initiative in Buffalo, NY.
Meanwhile, in late 2014, CED and Access Strategies Fund co-convened three additional aligned funders and eight of Massachusetts’ leading community organizing groups to launch the Solidarity Economy Initiative (SEI). A hub and community of practice for both grassroots organizers and movement funders, SEI was designed to strengthen the grassroots ecosystem across Massachusetts in response to five themes that were identified through a multi-month listening process led by CED staff:
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Our movements are losing courageously, badly.
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We need a long term vision for the transformation of capitalism.
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We need to build on elements of solidarity economy that already exist.
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We must evolve the methodology of the organizing sector, especially in the areas of:
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Healing and cultural organizing
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Cooperative economic development
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Growing multi-sectoral organizing
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Political power building innovations​
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We need to strengthen the capacity of grassroots nonprofits by building shared organizational infrastructure.
2015
In 2015, the Solidarity Economy Initiative formed a pooled grant-making vehicle hosted by the Solidago Foundation to resource the learning and incubation of new grassroots strategies to advance a Just Transition to a Solidarity Economy in Massachusetts. To help seed the Solidarity Economy Initiative Fund, CED committed EJFC's final grant of $250,000.
Building on the learnings of the 2014 Boston Community Finance Study Group and the efforts of dozens of founding volunteers throughout 2015, CED launched the Boston Ujima Project. Centering Boston’s Black, Indigenous and other communities of color, Boston Ujima Project was conceived as a cooperative economics ecosystem that connects small business owners, impact investors, residents and anchor institutions to grow and circulate local wealth; expand the community’s capacity to govern their own economy; and model democratic control of finance.
2016-2017
From Ujima’s Solidarity Summit pilot investment day in 2016 through Ujima’s formation as a membership organization at its first general assembly, Dreaming Wild in 2017, CED provided support to the Ujima staff team with fundraising, direct staffing, strategic technical assistance and co-design of Ujima’s participatory investment processes.
2018
Beginning in 2018 and with support from our founding donors, CED began an 18-month transition from a volunteer driven organization with one full time staffer (Aaron Tanaka) to a team of six full-time employees, a small board of practical visionaries, five inaugural CED Fellows, and a robust range of partnerships with organizations in Massachusetts and across the US.
2019
As of mid-2019, CED supported the successful launch of the Ujima Fund, which raised $500,000 from 100 investors in its first 100 days and aims to raise $5 million through 2020. The Solidarity Economy Initiative has expanded its membership of grassroots organizations and funders and helped train and inspire hundreds of local activists to build the next economy today. The Solidarity Economy Fund has made $612,000 in total grants to grassroots organizations to date.
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In addition to supporting its two core programs, in 2019 CED helped launch the Massachusetts Employee Ownership Table,co-convened a study group on democratizing Boston's City Charter, helped establish the Boston PILOT Action Group, co-convened the Boston Divest-Reinvest Network and continues to advise foundations and wealth holders to adopt "Solidarity Philanthropy" practices while providing trainings and workshops for progressive networks across the United States.
“No idea is original, there’s nothing new under the sun.
It’s never what you do, but how it’s done.”
-Nas “Lost Tapes”
Founding Leadership
Dozens of volunteers and funders helped launch our early programs, lay the groundwork for our organization, and continue to support our work today.
Economic Justice Funding Circle
Founding Donors
David Ludlow and Joann Gu
Center for Economic Democracy
Founding Steering Committee
Aaron Tanaka, Director
Center for Economic Democracy
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Chuck Turner
former City Councilor
Curdina Hill
City Life Vida Urbana
Juan Leyton
Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative
Kalila Barnett
Alternatives for Community and Environment
Lisa Owens Pinto
City Life Vida Urbana
Lydia Lowe
Chinese Progressive Association
Mel King
former State Representative
Nene Igietseme, CED Fellow
MIT Department of Urban Planning and Studies
Penn Loh
Tufts University Urban and Environmental Planning
Rebecca Tumposky
Tufts University Urban and Environmental Planning
Xau Ying Ly, CED Fellow
MIT Department of Urban Planning and Studies
Early Funders
The Arnow Family
Chorus Foundation
David Ludlow and Joann Gu
Echoing Green
Fund for Democratic Communities
Hyams Foundation
Nathan Cummings Foundation
Novo Foundation
Solidago Foundation
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Solidarity Economy Initiative
Founding Steering Committee
Alexie Torres-Fleming, Co-chair
Access Strategies Fund
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Aaron Tanaka, Co-chair
Center for Economic Democracy
Deborah Frieze
Boston Impact Initiative
Aditi Vaidya
Solidago Foundation
Penn Loh
Tufts University Urban and Environmental Planning
Trina Jackson
TSNE MissionWorks
Founding Grassroots Cohort
Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE)
Boston Workers Alliance (BWA)
Chinese Progressive Association (CPA)
City Life Vida Urbana (CLVU)
Ex-prisoner and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement (EPOCA)
Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N)
Neighbors United for a Better East Boston (NUBE)
New England United for Justice (NEU4J)
Founding Funder Cohort
Access Strategies Fund
Boston Impact Initiative
Center for Economic Democracy
New Economy Coalition
TSNE MissionWorks
Solidago Foundation
Boston Ujima Project
Founding Steering Committee
Aaron Tanaka
Center for Economic Democracy
Darnell Johnson
Right to the City Boston
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Deborah Frieze
Boston Impact Initiative
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Hendrix Berry
Balanced Rock Investments
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Libbie Cohn
MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
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Lisa Owens
City Life Vida Urbana
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Lor Holmes
CERO
Maya Gaul
CERO
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Nia Evans
NAACP Boston
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Sarah Jimenez
Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Planning
Stacey Cordeiro
Boston Center for Community Ownership
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Teena Marie Johnson
Youth on Board