It’s re-making our local economy, creating a robust and resilient community with trust-based relationships, local connections, individual community champions, reserves of human capital and volunteer effort.

It’s working with “anchor institutions” to maximise local economic, environmental and social benefits by focusing on their spending on goods, works and services.

“Clawing back” wealth with local import replacement and recycling of local income, thereby stemming the leakage of wealth (money and labour) leaving the Hawkesbury.

Why care about Building Community Wealth?

• This is about the dignity and sense of worth of our local community, their relevance, their well-being, and their productive and valuable place in the economy.
• It creates a fairer and more sustainable economy that retains and builds wealth that adds social value from within.
• This practical agenda addresses real, local economic and natural disaster stresses.

This is a “bottom-up” approach initiated by the Hawkesbury City Chamber of Commerce.

Successful implementation of the Community Wealth Building model can only be achieved through the collaborative actions of local communities and major institutions that are embedded in the community.  These organisations are referred to as ‘anchor institutions’.

‘Anchors” are unlikely to move from their local community; they have capital invested in their local area; their purpose as an organisation is broadly aligned with that of their community or the goals of their community; and they may have a unique relationship with customers, the community and employees.

Large institutions or organisations employ large numbers of people and have significant purchasing power and investment capacity.  When they collaborate and involve their supply chains, the effect is multiplied.  Their collective expenditure and employment capacity can be targeted towards achieving social and better environmental outcomes for the local community.  There are benefits as well for the anchor institutions becoming more integrated into their local communities as a result of these partnerships.

The Hawkesbury Chamber plans to encourage our anchors to analyse their procurements of goods and services.  “If you measure it, you can improve on it”. We need to  identify the dollar spend of anchors, how much they are spending locally and how much out side the Hawkesbury LGA. This would establish a baseline that can then be improved upon.

The Hawkesbury Chamber will encourage the creation of an “Anchor Collaborative Network” to share ideas and initiatives to increase local spending.

An example of what can be achieved can be seen in the Preston Story in the UK: In 2013, a spend analysis finds that of £750m spent, only 5% (£38m) is spent in Preston, and 39% (£175m) in Lancashire, meaning a £450m leakage.  After introducing the CWB initiative four years later, Preston’s economy’s spending increased from £38m to £111m.

There is no reason why we cannot duplicate this in the Hawkesbury!

The CWB principle relating to employment is to improve the local labour market through the anchor institutions’ employment practices and supply chains.  By analysing how many employees are currently locally employed versus those coming into the Hawkesbury daily, we establish another baseline to improve upon.

As large organisations, Anchor institutions are significant employers in their local areas.  Their employment practices can influence the local community’s employment prospects and incomes.  Leading by example and committing to fair and innovative employment practices is a first step before seeking similar commitments from others in the business community.

The “Anchor Collaborative Network”, previously established, now collaborates and shares on initiatives to improve the local workforces career pathways, generating employment opportunities, equal opportunities and improving recruitment of lower socio-economic communities.

By nurturing the growth of enterprises with diverse ownership models, jobs are created across a range of sectors, and wealth in the form of retained profits that are more broadly shared and held in the community.

Diversity amongst the cohort of business leaders will also add to the voices yielding influence in the community.

A variety of corporate structures need to be evident in a healthy and diverse economy.  This includes not-for-profit enterprises, social enterprises, mutuals and cooperatives, sole traders, start-ups and scale-ups, as well as small and medium enterprises and major companies. The coexistence of businesses of different sizes and structures within the same market benefits all.  This enhances competition, creating supply chains to develop products and services, creating distribution networks, and adding to the overall customer base within the Hawkesbury.

The Community Wealth Building approach puts businesses along a continuum from ‘extractive’ to ‘generative’.

• Extractive organisations are typically major corporations owned by shareholders.
• Generative organisations can take many forms, but all are purpose-driven. Most are for-profit organisations, and some operate in the not-for-profit charitable sector.

A healthy economy relies on the vast majority of businesses being financially sustainable.

Economies with a healthy mix of generative organisations benefit from the multiplier effect that they create, where their purpose is centred on social and economic value maximisation.

• More of the proceeds of enterprises is invested back into the local community with the creation of jobs and purchase of goods and services from other local businesses.
• Through the distribution of profits to employees through social business structures such as: ESOPs. EOTs, cooperative or employee-owned structures.
• If a business purpose is focused on broader environmental or social goals, profits are distributed more widely in the community.

Where gaps are identified concerning the diversity of business structures that can be found in the local economy, consideration will be given bythe Hawkesbury Chamber supporting these mechanisms that can establish and grow these successful business models.

Land and assets held by key institutions are a platform for generating community wealth or benefits.  Who has access to or benefits from those assets should always be examined to optimise equity and public good.

Equitable forms of ownership, management, and development can ensure that land and property assets realise benefits for the wider local community and are distributed equitably.  We need to ensure that land and property can be used for the provision of high-quality services and outcomes for the community and not privatised or used in such a way that only a few in the community benefit.

By optimising the equitable public benefit from land and property, shared community facilities, public places, parks, and other public assets, can contribute to building strong local communities and economies. It supports the community’s environmental, social and cultural goals.

Various solutions can be implemented, e.g. assets such as sporting facilities and libraries owned by the Council could be transferred to community organisations to own, manage and provide services.  The University, Hospitals, and Clubs could allow community groups and organisations to use their facilities and grounds at no charge for events such as farmers’ markets and conferences.

We do this by stopping wealth from flowing out of the Hawkesbury by redirecting it back into the local economy.  By building local financial systems and vehicles owned and controlled by local people.

A cornerstone of CWB is the idea that “stakeholders have an actual stake”.  This has fundamental implications for attracting capital into CWB initiatives and projects, shaping the types of capital that is available to support the stakeholders.

To encourage investors to invest locally, not out of the Hawkesbury or internationally.

Access to capital is restricted; by harnessing the capital from within the community, investment can be facilitated while delivering appropriate returns to investors, aligning capital with the community’s broad environmental and social goals.

The aim is to address financial exclusion faced by small to medium-sized business and the business start-up community.