BCI's Work Highlighted by Greater Washington Community Foundation

BCI was recently given the opportunity to share about our work with Greater Washington Community Foundation, as part of their Sharing Community initiative. We’re excited to include a few highlights from our conversation — you can read the full post at the link above.

GWCF: What excites you the most about receiving support through the Sharing Community initiative?

BCI: What is most exciting… is knowing that the Sharing DC Committee really understands and believes in our vision. We realize that our organizing model as a solidarity economy organization is unique. Our power building strategy is through institution building (through cooperatives) and membership, but also includes a programmatic and technical assistance component. Our work with “high touch” cooperatives is essentially base building with poor and working class BIPOC workers in order to build a coop from the ground up. There is more and more research that traditional workforce development and job training programs don't guarantee jobs or increased income. By developing and supporting worker-owned cooperatives, creating market access for local BIPOC-owned cooperatives, and using DC SELF to invest an additional 1 million dollars in local cooperatives over the next 2 years, we are working to close the racial wealth gap. The funding from Sharing DC committee means they believe in our vision too.

GWCF: As a nonprofit leader in our community, what are your dreams or aspirations for the future?

BCI: Last summer, the local coop ecosystem came together to vision what's possible and shape our work for the future. Their collective vision included affordable care cooperatives (childcare, home health care, elder care), bookkeeping and legal cooperatives, coop grocery stores, and collectively owned spaces for artists and food businesses. BCI is always dreaming about more community control over resources in our community -- think grocery stores, workplaces, land, banks, housing, and more!

M. Felix Macaraeg on Ecosystem Building

BCI’s Organizing Director M. Felix Macaraeg was recently highlighted in Nonprofit Quarterly for their description of the differences between campaigning and ecosystem building.

“It’s just radically different, and I don’t think we can explain that enough…We need time to get to work, to do the sufficient accompaniment work, that it will take to employ these scaling strategies…I’m not saying we are the silver bullet, but unless we start to actually build in the shadow of empire and are resourced to do it and build our own protected enclaves, and interweave those strategies to scale…we don’t even get a start.”

The Regional Solidarity Economy Ecosystem Organizing Model

Building on BCI’s webinar with Nonprofit Quarterly and New Economy Coalition that looked at the national movement for solidarity economies in February 2024, BCI’s Program Director Bianca Vazquez facilitated an online conversation on March 27th about what it takes to build a regional solidarity economy in the DC area, and what’s possible when we focus locally on the well-being of people rather than profit.

Many of us live and work in places where gentrification, displacement of local businesses and families, and low-wage extractive work are par for the course. Over the past several years Beloved Community Incubator has dreamed and organized to build a different kind of city and region — one that prioritizes community accountability, collective and democratic planning, and equitable production and distribution of everything that people need to live, rather than maximum extraction, endless growth, and unchecked profit.

It can often be difficult for people interested in anticapitalism, cooperatives, or collective models to figure out how to plug into the work happening at the regional level. Our conversation brought together people from different cooperatives, both operational and in incubation, union members, funders, other regional cooperative incubators, and people generally interested in building solidarity economies in their regions.

During the call we shared practical models that we can use to evaluate and map the needs of our solidarity economy ecosystem, and collaboratively mapped our resources and needs in the DC area.We envision this regional conversation and skill-share as the first of many, as we weave together our collective vision for the DC area. We invite you to watch this call and reach out to us with questions, resources, and other needs you’d like to add to our regional solidarity economy ecosystem map!

DC Grocery Co-ops Build Connection + Solidarity

"The Takoma Park/Silver Spring Co-op & Glut are wonderful places to shop/work. Now, we can add the City Garden Co-op to that list. It was great hearing that our meeting yesterday fulfilled their long-standing desire to connect with Community Grocery Cooperative. Their 30 years of experience will provide valuable insights." - Loryne JOYce, Community Grocery Coop Member

Members of the Community Grocery Cooperative, which is organizing to build a community-owned grocery store serving neighborhoods East of the River, were excited to visit the City Garden Coop in Mount Pleasant over this weekend, which has been serving its 130 members since the 1970s.

"City Garden Coop seems to be a great benefit to its members and a model that our CGC can learn from. I enjoyed hearing details about how they have kept the business  operation running for over 40 years. I’m looking forward to continued dialogue with them. And it was especially wonderful to catch up with so many of our CGC members in person." - Nancy, Community Grocery Coop Member

City Garden Coop members were generous in sharing a wealth of insights and resources related to their coop's operations, including information on sourcing goods, managing financials, scheduling volunteer shifts, and making collective decisions. This information will be instrumental to the Community Grocery Coop as we grow our buying club and build toward our vision of operating a brick and mortar store. We look forward to continuing the conversation with City Garden Coop and we appreciate Beloved Community Incubator for facilitating this exchange. 

"It was really encouraging to share with and learn from City Garden folks. Even better to share and feel the energy of the CGC fam." - Anthony

Remaking the Economy: Regional Solidarity Economies

The national movement towards a solidarity economy has grown exponentially over the past few years, seeded by regional ecosystems that are building grassroots power across the country. Over the past six years, BCI has been working to build a regional solidarity economy in the DC area — and our strategy of organizing with cooperatives and workers is being recognized nationally.

Building on the series in Nonprofit Quarterly this winter that highlighted case studies of solidarity economy ecosystems, including BCI’s organizing work with cooperatives and workers, Nonprofit Quarterly and the New Economy Coalition are co-hosting a webinar to dig deeper into how we build regional economies rooted in community ownership.

BCI Organizing Director Felix Macraeg shared about BCI’s work of organizing a regional solidarity economy in the DC Metro region, and the national impacts of our work with the New Economy Coalition. We invite you to watch the recording of this free webinar below.

The BCI License Fund: $125,000 for DC Street Vendors

Today BCI is excited to announce the launch of the BCI License Fund, which covers 90% of the costs associated with applying for a Street Vendor License under DC’s new vending laws! This $125,000 fund, made possible by generous individual donors, will help ensure vendors are able to afford the many costs of applying for licenses.

“With this $125,000 fund, we are giving DC’s smallest business owners a fighting chance to fulfill their dreams,” Geoff, BCI’s Legal & Technical Assistance Director, says of the fund. “We are doing our part to support street vendors. Now it is time for the Mayor’s executive agencies to do their part.”

Although the new law was passed in April 2023 and went fully into effect in October, vendors are just now beginning to see city agencies move to create a real pathway to compliance. The Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (DLCP) is responsible for creating a license application process that works, but vendors often find themselves tangled in red tape, unable to finish the license application process.

Many of DC’s agencies have a long and shameful history of providing services that are inaccessible to poor and working class street vendors due to language, literacy, and technology access issues, along with ineffective communication between agencies. You can read more about this in our new report, A Brief History of DC Street Vending which chronicles the history of street vendors fighting for recognition and legalization in DC, and the equally long history of DC Government’s regulatory repression and lack of support for one of the District’s oldest forms of entrepreneurship.

Since last summer, BCI has been pushing DLCP to cut through the red tape and create a series of pop-up clinics for DC Street Vendors. Today vendors are showing up to a clinic where financial need and barriers to tech, literacy and language access do not stand in their way. We hope this clinic is the first of many! 

DC Street Vendor Sunni T. Shares Stories from #DecrimVending Campaign

Sunni T, the co-owner and head chef of Sunni T's Kitchen. and a future member of the Vendors United Catering Co-op, shared highlights and stories from the successful campaign to decriminalize vending in DC at the Community Storytelling event sponsored by Baldwin House and Ward 1 Mutual Aid on Wednesday, January 31.

“Being apart of DC street vending has been more than just a job for me – it’s been a life-changing ride,” Sunni shared.

“I’m not just making ends meet; I’m making history. It’s incredible to know that I am seen as a role model and a leader in my community. Fighting for the legalization of street vending wasn’t just about the law; it was about standing up for what’s right and making a difference.

I’m glad to be a part of DC’s legacy, doing something chefs aren’t known for – changing laws and getting involved in the community. It feels good to know that I’ve inspired others to join the street vending world with a catering-style setup similar to mines. Seeing people set up their tents next to me brings joy, and I always offer words of encouragement, while supporting them in any way that I can.

Sunni T and BCI Advisory Board Member Celeste Smith

Yet, it’s frustrating to see the mayor trying to reverse our hard-fought victory of making street vending legal. My food alone was bringing the community together, bridging gaps between ages and cultures. It’s more than a business for me; it’s a source of comfort and the means to provide for my children. I strongly disagree with the notion that our neighborhood is worsening; in fact, my presence has been a positive force.

I am paving a way so that my boys won’t have to face the same struggles. I’m teaching them, and other youth, to believe in what they stand for, to be unwavering, and never give up. I am going to keep moving forward, inspiring others, and building a future where everyone has a shot at success. Thank you, and here’s to my journey!”

Excluded Workers' Stop the Swipe Campaign

In 2020, workers excluded from COVID-19 federal stimulus funds, including undocumented workers, people married to undocumented immigrants, and workers in the informal cash economy such as street vending, along with citizen worker-owners who were denied employment insurance and pandemic unemployment assistance because many were not classified as employees, organized the Excluded Worker Campaign. BCI signed on as one of the lead organizers of the campaign, which secured more than $61 million for workers. 

Earlier this spring, DC’s Mayor stole the final $21 million in assistance as part of her budgeting process. In response, the Excluded Worker coalition has created the Stop the Swipe Campaign, which over the past few weeks has put pressure on the DC Council to restore the stolen money to excluded workers. Today, we celebrate that campaign was successful in convincing the DC Council to restore the $21 million for workers!