2025 was a rough year in many ways. We won’t dwell on why. And yet, despite significant challenges, our communities showed up for each other and held onto a vision of a bright future for us all.
People’s Economy Lab continued our work to advance a Just Transition to a solidarity economy, striving toward shared prosperity and well-being. Here’s a snapshot of everything we did in 2025:
Collaborative Governance
PEL’s Collaborative Governance program area aims to make our systems of governance more participatory, developing and testing tools for collective problem solving with community members and government representatives. Governance is much more effective when it is built with and by communities.
- Just Futures Community Assemblies
- The Just Futures partners and assembly anchor organizations held a report out for Washington State legislators and staff about the 2024 statewide community assemblies, which brought together community members impacted by poverty and pollution to shape state policy.
- In June, we convened a Movement Building & Strategy Summit, gathering the Just Futures partners, assembly anchors and some participants, government and funding partners to connect with each other and strategize next steps.
- In December, we shared our final report on the Just Futures Statewide Community Assemblies Pilot.
- We continued to partner with the Washington Department of Social and Health Services’ Economic Justice Alliance team.
- City of Seattle Climate Assemblies
- The 2024 climate assembly anchors, MLK Labor and Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, shared their assemblies’ recommendations with the City of Seattle Green New Deal Oversight Board.
- The 2024 climate assemblies were featured in Grist.
- PEL supported two more climate assemblies, anchored by the Washington Bus Education Fund (led by youth) and sləp̓iləbəxʷ (Rising Tides) (led by Indigenous and Urban Native community members).
- The recommendations from all four of these assemblies will inform the City of Seattle’s Climate Action Plan update.
- We supported the Thurston Climate Action Team with two climate-related deliberative engagement sessions.
- State & National Alignment on Co-Governance
- We participated in Washington’s Belonging Table and Well-being Economy Alliance State Networks.
- We were featured in Partners for Dignity & Rights’ Assemblies as a Tool for Just Democracy report & case studies.
Community Wealth Building
Our Community Wealth Building program area promotes Community Wealth Building as a transformative strategy to close the racial wealth gap. We believe that Community Wealth Building empowers Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color to build wealth within the current economy and to drive transformation towards the economic justice and solidarity economy we seek to build.
- Abundant Neighborhoods
- We hosted Community Wealth Building Fellow Jackie Mena who formerly led the Generational Wealth Initiative at the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.
- We supported Jackie in developing the Abundant Neighborhoods Initiative, which partners with neighborhood networks to develop place-based Community Wealth Building plans and hero projects, as well as fundraising to support this work.
- Partnership Development
- We continued to develop our partnership with Seattle Public Utilities, outlining a plan for a place-based entrepreneurship pilot program to advance Community Wealth Building. This work is set to begin in 2026.
- We established a partnership with Skyway Coalition to lead a landscape analysis of housing projects in Skyway and evaluate Neighborhood Land Trusts and other models for the purposes of fighting displacement and creating affordable housing.
- Local Alignment
- We participated in United Way of King County’s Community Reinvestment Project Community Healer Participatory Funding Cohort.
- We participated in a community of practice for local partners and funders working on providing capacity for community development.
Movement Building
PEL’s Movement Building program area grows the people power needed to create a solidarity economy in Washington State. We build connections, learning, and practice through events, education, and narrative strategy.
- Economics for Emancipation King County
- We evaluated our first Economics for Emancipation King County learning series, which took place in 2024.
- We developed a plan for our second E4E King County learning series, put out a call for applications, and selected participants for the second cohort. (We held our first learning session of the series on January 16!)
- A People’s Economy Narrative
- We participated in Community of Opportunity and Resource Media’s Powerful Narratives Work Fellowship.
- We also participated in the Rising Majority Coalition‘s Narrative Praxis Table.
- We researched economic narratives, developed draft messaging for a People’s Economy Narrative, and began message testing. All of this with the intent of increasing cultural appetite for economic democracy.
- We published several blogs incorporating our People’s Economy Narrative:
- Events
- We launched our Lunch Lab virtual series, featuring five guest speakers: Jackie Mena, Alice Park and Stephanie Morales, Caleb Jackson and Myron Curry.
- We hosted two happy hours for the People’s Economy Network.
- The New Economy Washington Funders Collaborative
- We continued to meet and organize with the New Economy Washington Funders Collaborative. They supported our Lunch Labs and happy hours, advised us on the development of Abundant Neighborhoods, and more.
And more…
- We hired Mary Mitchell, our Operations & Administrative Coordinator.
- Lab Leaders Shiho Fuyuki and Deric Gruen both welcomed new babies and took time off for bonding.
- We hosted Seattle mayoral candidate Katie Wilson for an Abundant Neighborhoods Community Wealth Building session in Brighton.
- Lab Leader Faduma Fido was selected to serve on Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson’s transition team, and Wilson’s team also invited us to provide a memo with recommendations for local economic development.
Thank you to all of the partners, funders, and every member of our communities who made this work possible! Achieving a solidarity economy will take all of us.
