An Integrative Economy lets us redirect our energy toward working in ways that help us realize our full human capacity to enjoy life and live meaningfully. If an Integrative Economy is going to succeed, it is vital to understand why a new employment sector—Local Community Capacity—has to be recognized and included as part of the overall employment landscape.
Local Community Capacity reflects one of the key employment changes that has been quietly transforming the economic story over the last century. As the knowledge economy emerged, our capacities as human beings expanded with it. We moved from just surviving to thriving, and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to experience that is what this new economy is about.
The Rationale
Over the last hundred years, more and more people have become employed in nonprofit work. Before the 1970s, few saw the nonprofit world as a career track; it was an entry-level stop before the traditional business arena. But in the last thirty years, this sector has become one of the fastest-growing employment arenas and an often-preferred career pathway. Much of its work focuses on quality-of-life outcomes for humans and the environment. Today there are 1.5 to 2 million nonprofits, with more than a trillion dollars circulating through them.
Full-Spectrum Employment
Nonprofits have always been a shadow sector, excluded from GDP measurement, because their funding mostly comes from the market sector (philanthropy) or the government sector (grants). When funding dries up, nonprofits close—but the work they were doing still needs to be done. An Integrative Economy requires that this sector come out from under the shadow of the market and government sectors and be given equivalent status. These four sectors—LCC, market, government, and illegal—should be recognized as an Integrative Economy’s full-spectrum employment.
Funding LCC Organizations
Funding LCC separately requires a shift toward broader wealth accumulation options—but this gives employment and compensation a broader set of tools and makes for a stronger economy. When we fund LCC organizations directly, we discover they support the market and government sectors’ futures too. As more people are employed in the LCC sector, funds circulate among the three sectors, creating a win-win economy for all.
An LCC employment sector enables a community—through a lay and professional Local Community Board (LCB)—to determine which services support a healthy community on social and environmental levels, and how much funding is necessary to do that work. This is determined by each community; it is not one-size-fits-all. As citizens work together, an Integrative Economy based on a high quality of life for people and the planet emerges—and Main Street becomes revitalized.