How does TDC Support CWB?

TDC’s CWB work falls into the following three primary, interconnected focus areas: Movement Building, Strategic Advising, and Research.

Movement Building

TDC’s CWB team shapes spaces that build relationships, trust, and understanding to cohere a self-conscious and empowered movement of CWB activists and leaders. In this, TDC leverages its national and international positioning and perspective to bring together and connect actors across sectors so that they can ideate and take forward the work of CWB together. We do this through:

  • This cohort is made up of place-based leaders and activists already working in coalition to advance different elements of CWB locally. The goals for this network are to share approaches to CWB across diverse places and practices; explore successes, and how to build on them; and understand and overcome inertias, barriers and active blockers.

  • This cohort, launching in the first half of 2025, will have the same goals as the USA CoP, but working across a global geography to scale both learnings and resources.

  • This network of action-oriented researchers and academics provides a forum for discussing and coordinating engaged CWB research, building out and strengthening the evidence base for CWB as both a concept and a practice, and enhancing linkages across academics conducting CWB research globally.

  • TDC’s CWB team cultivates and manages ongoing relationships with allied organizations and sister movements such as the solidarity economy, wellbeing economy, donut economics, circular economy, new municipalism, and the new economy. To raise awareness of CWB and TDC’s work, our team attends and participates in lectures, conferences, and speaking engagements at global, national and local events.

Strategic Advising

TDC’s CWB team develops the resources and strategic approaches necessary to powerfully advance CWB practice in place. Drawing on the experiences—both the successes and challenges—of CWB efforts in the USA, the UK, Europe and elsewhere in the world, TDC distills these learnings into a variety of different tailored and actionable tools for partners in place.  We do so through:

  • TDC produces various materials for practitioners seeking to pursue and advance a CWB approach locally, including for economic development practitioners, community activists and organizations, anchor institutions, local government agencies and leaders, and other stakeholders. Our most recent guide presents a practical framework for action, offering starting points to help local stakeholders plan and work together.

  • TDC works with local governments and coalition leaders to develop the policies and infrastructure needed to strategically connect and augment local CWB activities to move this activity from the fringes to the mainstream. We do so through variations on a comprehensive and strategic action planning approach that is amended to the needs and context of place. The action planning process is based on an appreciative inquiry method that results in  an integrated CWB strategic plan across all of the pillars, providing  local institutions and organizations with practical, tailored actions using the tools and frameworks already at their disposal.

  • TDC staff offer customizable and interactive trainings for partners and their stakeholders. These sessions provide an overview of the CWB approach, explore the economic concepts behind CWB that help to address the structural underpinnings of inequality and wealth disparities, and explain ways to implement practical strategies across all five pillars of CWB. Sessions can be structured with time to work together and dig in on applying the assets and capacities of stakeholders to build coalition and drive action.

  • The CWB frame is meant to fit into, complement, and enhance  existing strategies and plans of place and we tailor our work to assist with these efforts. To that end, our CWB team provides light touch advice and support on the overall frame of CWB and what it entails, either as a  one-off engagement or in pursuit of  deeper relationships and contracted work. We also sit on advisory bodies and act as subject matter experts on different and specific applications of CWB work in place.

Research

TDC’s CWB team conducts research to grow the knowledge base of CWB activities and approaches, producing reports and writing to showcase learnings and demonstrate the impact of CWB work in place. Our research is responsive to the needs of a growing and emergent field, lifting up on-the-ground experiences within a body of analysis, evidence, and theory of political-economic change. Our current research is focused on the following areas:

  • These “elements” are the various vehicles  that deliver outcomes in each of the Five Pillars of CWB. TDC is currently working on detailed explainers of specific elements to help practitioners understand best practices with real-world application and how these actions fit into a fulsome approach to CWB. We will make these elements available on our website and also use them to support our Guides and toolkits.  

  • To build up a body of evidence on the local impact of CWB work, TDC is currently writing up a series of case studies highlighting CWB efforts in places across the USA. These case studies will be available as reference for our Communities of Practice and as material for both toolkits and trainings.  They will be available on our website in the future.  

  • To grow the profile of CWB efforts, TDC’s CWB team writes public-facing blogs and articles and contributes chapters for academic books and papers. Later in 2024, the team will be releasing a short comparative analysis report offering some patterns and factors that aid in the success and augmentation of CWB work on the ground.