People’s Economy Lab has arrived at an important moment of growth and self-reflection. Last year, we decided to intentionally make time and space to commit to developing a strategic approach that reflects the type of impact we want to make in our region at the moment we’re in. We want to apply our own values to the ways we work together, identifying how we can support our organization, our PEL team members, and the communities we serve long-term.
In 2023, People’s Economy Lab began a strategic and operational planning process to reflect on our past and current work; clarify our vision, values, and role within the Just Transition movement in Washington; create goals for the next three years; and determine what infrastructure is needed to carry out these goals.
We engaged Vision Driven Consulting to support the development of our strategic and operational plan. This included environmental and funding feasibility scans, one-on-one interviews with PEL team members, focus groups with community partners and funders, interviews with colleagues in the Just Transition and solidarity economy movements, a survey of community partner organizations, and a PEL team retreat.
Here’s some of the feedback that was recorded in VDC’s stakeholder report:
“What makes us special is that we’re a community-based organization, made up of representatives rooted in BIPOC communities in Seattle and King County, that has strong expertise in principles and practices around the Just Transition framework and solidarity economy. We partner with institutions like governments and CDFIs but also work in deep engagement with community organizations to help them build capacity and to do transformative work. We’re able to empower community leaders, entrepreneurs, and others to adjust and advance transformative approaches. And we’re able to help them build their expertise and bring in resources that help them do things for their communities they couldn’t without that support.” – PEL Lab Leader
“We felt unrepresented in the Just Transition movement at first. It was older and whiter and more about the environment. Going through the program with PEL grounded us in the principles of Just Transition that were naturally there for us. It gave us a different language and framework, connected us with others like us. We are now more explicit about moving from extraction to regeneration. They helped us with branding and storytelling.” – Former New Economy Washington Frontline Community Fellow
“PEL’s Fellows and the other projects they’ve supported are diffuse at this point. It can be a very intellectual exercise to try and communicate what they’re doing, and while those who are already on board will ‘get it,’ it’s not easy to communicate a purely intellectual thing to the uninitiated.” – Leader at a peer organization
Over the last year, we have spent time discussing some of the deeper, more challenging questions about People’s Economy Lab’s role in the world, about our theory of change and organizational structure.
For the most part, our strategic planning process has reaffirmed the work we’re already doing. We are still committed to advancing a frontline community-led Just Transition to democratic, sustainable, and regenerative economies in Washington state. However, as the Just Transition and solidarity economy movements grow, new opportunities to propel our mission forward emerge all the time, and the scope of this work has grown beyond PEL’s current capacity. We know we need to grow our capacity, and we also need to get clearer about what we do and don’t take on as an organization.
Our Purpose
We envision an economy that serves people, instead of people serving the economy. Where community and worker-owned businesses meet local needs. Where the government is driven by participation instead of partisan politics. Where investing means closing the racial wealth gap instead of making the rich richer.
In order to bring our vision to life, we need to shift who makes decisions about the economy, how, and to what end. That means addressing who has access and agency, how decisions are made and assets controlled, and for what purpose.
- Access: Privilege → Equity
- Agency: Individual → Cooperative
- Decision–making: Exclusionary → Participatory
- Ownership: Private → Common
- Purpose: Accumulation → Regeneration
What is PEL’s role in this work? We identify, co-create, and make the case for better economic models. We convene leaders, develop and test better models, and push the bounds of what’s possible for a Just Transition to a solidarity economy in Washington state.
Our Programs
We’ve honed in on three programmatic areas.
- Economic Democracy: Building collaborative governance strategies for macro-economic changes in policy and resource distribution.
- Community Wealth Building: Local economic development through direct ownership and control of assets, including enterprise, work, finance, land, and procurement.
- People’s Economy Field Building: Building connections, learning, and practice through events, education, and communications.
Transitioning Fiscal Sponsors
Since 2020, People’s Economy Lab has been fiscally sponsored by Front and Centered, a statewide coalition of frontline communities advancing a Just Transition in Washington State. We’ve enjoyed a flexible and friendly partnership with Front and Centered, and thanks to their support have grown our team, our scope of work, our budget, and our network of relationships.
As Front and Centered continues to expand the scope of their work and approaches their ten-year anniversary, they’ve decided that fiscal sponsorship is no longer a part of their business plan. At the same time, People’s Economy Lab is looking for greater operational support as we take steps toward deciding how our entity will be organized in the future (501c3, LLC, co-op?). That’s why People’s Economy Lab transitioned to a new fiscal sponsor at the beginning of August: The Praxis Project.
Although Front and Centered will no longer be our fiscal home, we look forward to continuing to partner on a number of projects, in particular our economic democracy program area and piloting Community Assemblies, and working toward a shared vision of a Just Transition.
We appreciate the patience and support of all of our partners as we have taken the time to develop strategy and systems, and as we continue to transfer our contracts, grants, and fiscal and operational infrastructure to The Praxis Project.
Thank you to everyone who has helped make People’s Economy Lab what it is today! We look forward to continuing to build toward a solidarity economy in Washington State together.
