Commonbound 2016

Want to get your work covered in the news? Join hosts YES! Magazine and The Laura Flanders Show to connect with media covering the New Economy movement. Share your work, pitch your stories, or just come and relax — free drink tickets available for the first 100 guests!


Join us for drinks, light appetizers, and special guests at this classic Buffalo pub — and help raise a toast for YES! Magazine’s 20th Anniversary!

BEFORE ADDING THIS TOUR TO YOUR SCHEDULE, PLEASE NOTE: Registration for tours is not included in general conference registration.  In order to attend a tour you must register for it here.

The Community First Alliance (CFA), comprised of a diverse array of stakeholders, including Fruit Belt residents, entrepreneurs, social and economic justice advocates and labor leaders, is currently leading a campaign to negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC), ground zero for current economic development in the region. The CFA has been a champion for “high road” economics that put people and neighborhoods first.

It’s important that Buffalo has a comeback for all, not just the few. If you care about rents going up, come on this tour. If you care about strategies to create economic opportunity without displacement, come.  If you want to know what decision-making at the local level looks like, come.  If you want to see and support longtime residents of one of Buffalo’s most historic and diverse neighborhoods, come. We’d love to have you.

All bus tours will depart at 2pm at Cleveland Circle and return before 4pm. 

BEFORE ADDING THIS TOUR TO YOUR SCHEDULE, PLEASE NOTE: Registration for tours is not included in general conference registration.  In order to attend a tour you must register for it here.

The West Side Tour will focus on three local Buffalo organizations:  PUSH Buffalo, Massachusetts Avenue Project, and the WASH Project

PUSH Buffalo’s Green Development Zone (GDZ) is a place-based initiative focused in a 25-block district on Buffalo’s West Side. Renewable energy projects, green housing rehabilitation, urban farming and green infrastructure installations have transformed over 200 parcels within the zone. Projects in the Zone have generated more than 100 living wage jobs accessible to neighborhood residents in a range of sectors and have reduced carbon emissions by approximately 155 Metric Tons of CO2 annually. The Zone has gained worldwide attention as a model of building community wealth and power while reducing the carbon footprint through intensive interventions through energy efficiency and renewables.

Massachusetts Avenue Project has built cultural, economic and political power by engaging youth in the food justice campaigns and community planning processes and by helping to lead the creation of community-controlled social enterprises in the food sector that advance the self-sufficiency and localist elements of the New Economy. MAP’s mission is to nurture the growth of a diverse and equitable Western NY food system, providing economic opportunities, greater access to affordable, nutritious food and food sovereignty for all.

The WASH Project engages residents in planning the future of their communities by integrating interactive visual and performing arts projects with regional organizing initiatives. The WASH is a mixed-use laundromat and community arts center serving Buffalo’s most diverse neighborhood. The WASH establishes an outlet to create and engage in art, music and literacy, as well as a neighborhood access point for information regarding a wide range of community services and cultural opportunities.

All bus tours will depart at 2pm at Cleveland Circle and return before 4pm. 

BEFORE ADDING THIS TOUR TO YOUR SCHEDULE, PLEASE NOTE: Registration for tours is not included in general conference registration.  In order to attend a tour you must register for it here.

Across the country the energy economy is shifting. Coal fired plants are closing due to lack of growth in electricity demand and noncompetitive prices. As a result of this shift, there are impacts to private and public sector jobs, and the communities where these plants are located.

The tour will include a visit to a coal fired power plant in the decommissioning process, and demonstrate a joint campaign built between a local environmental justice organization and organized labor in response to the retirement.

All bus tours will depart at 2pm at Cleveland Circle and return before 4pm. 

We live in turbulent times.  Climate change, growing structural inequality, mass incarceration, and the subversion of democracy are just a few manifestations of the way our political and economic systems are increasingly failing our communities.  In a moment like this it becomes easy for reactionaries to exploit people’s fears and to scapegoat the vulnerable and it becomes essential for those of us who value fairness to not just play defense but to present a positive, inclusive visions of a better way to do things.


This session will utilize a modified version “open space” facilitation to initiate conversations on the strategic, tactical, and practical questions that we each bring to this space as New Economy activists who are all wrestling with the larger question: “How might we use this unique moment to advance a fundamentally different kind of economy?"  If you have a topic you’d like to discuss as part of this session please drop by the social hall on Saturday morning or during lunch and put it up on the big board.

Come learn about Reinvest in Our Power - a coordinated effort to bridge movements, build power and create deep and lasting infrastructure for a Just Transition. And figure out how to engage! Have you been hearing a buzz about student divestment forces teaming up with
grassroots and community-based organizations? Do you want to know how they are moving resources out of the extractive economy to build economic democracy? Have you been wondering what non-extractive finance means or what a financial cooperative is?