Community Wealth Building in Jackson, Mississippi
Type
Policy Brief or Report
Year
2015
Level
City or Town
State(s)
Mississippi
Policy Areas
Community Development, Democracy & Governance, Economic Justice
Cooperation Jackson emerged as an independent organization focused on developing a cooperative economy in the city of Jackson in 2014. As a network of cooperative enterprises, Cooperation Jackson works to reduce income and wealth gaps, generate living wage jobs with quality healthcare, and ensure the provision of adequate housing through the growth of worker cooperatives and other democratically owned enterprises. Cooperation Jackson is leading a comprehensive place-based development initiative, called the Sustainable Communities Initiative, centered on creating employee-owned cooperative enterprises in West Jackson that partner with and serve the supply chain or service needs of “anchor institution” employers in the city, such as large, place-based nonprofit and public institutions that are unlikely to move location because of their mission, invested capital, and customer relationships. This report details their pursual of a bottom-up approach of establishing worker-owned cooperatives and a cooperative economy in Jackson.