Community Finance

In 2015, Inc. magazine recognized Noonday Collection as one of the fastest-growing companies in America. Years earlier, as Jessica Honegger stood at a pawn-shop counter in Austin, Texas, and handed over her grandmother's gold jewelry, her goal was personal: to fund the adoption of her Rwandan son by selling artisan-made jewelry. This first step launched an unexpected side-hustle that would grow into Noonday Collection. She teamed up with her first artisan partner, Jalia, a Ugandan jewelry maker and saw the meaningful impact Noonday brought to Jalia's community.

The national best seller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.

What if you knew how to borrow money you didn’t have to pay back? For real estate developers, the strikes might feel against you; with land, material costs, and interest rates all rising. Thankfully, there’s a smarter way to structure real estate development projects through the borrowing of construction funding that will be repaid by others. Special district financing offers a unique opportunity to those looking for a smarter path.

How Real Estate Developers Think considers developers from three different perspectives. Brown profiles the careers of individual developers to illustrate the character of the entrepreneur; considers the roles played by innovation, design, marketing, and sales in the production of real estate; and examines the risks and rewards that motivate developers as people.

We are in the midst of a startup revolution. The growth and proliferation of innovation-driven startup activity is profound, unprecedented, and global in scope. Today, it is understood that communities of support and knowledge-sharing go along with other resources. The importance of collaboration and a long-term commitment has gained wider acceptance. The Startup Community Way explores what makes startup communities thrive and how to improve collaboration in these rapidly evolving, complex environments.

A series of shifts are happening in our economy: Millennials are trading in conventional career paths to launch tech start-ups, start small businesses that are rooted in local communities, or freelance their expertise. We are sharing everything, from bikes and cars, to extra rooms in our homes. We now create, buy and sell handcrafted products in our local communities with ease. CEO of Imperative Aaron Hurst argues in his latest book that while these developments seem unrelated at first, taken together they reveal a powerful pattern that points to purpose as the new driver of the American economy.

In The Future of Community, a team of Web3 visionaries and tech-savvy executives delivers a groundbreaking new take on the seismic impact Web3 is having—and will continue to have—on our technological and social landscapes. The authors discuss why Web3 really is the "next big thing" to shape our digital and offline futures and how it will transform the world.

Frank Altman, a legendary figure in the Community Development Finance industry, offers a systematic argument for why and how American capitalism can be extended to people from every walk of life, including those from low-income census tracks. He explores the history and cultural realities that have created an unequal financial playing field, particularly for BIPOC communities and how innovative approaches can create sound investment devices and exponential growth in minority and women-owned businesses and increase levels of home ownership.

All over the world, Black and racialized women engage in the solidarity economy through what is known as mutual aid financing. Formally referred to as rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs), these institutions are purposefully informal to support the women’s livelihoods and social needs, and they act to reject tiered forms of neo-liberal development. The Banker Ladies–a term coined by women in the Black diaspora–are individuals that voluntarily organize ROSCAs for self-sufficiency and are intentional in their politicized economic co-operation to counter business exclusion.

Bigger has turned out not to be better. Servicing the global economy has exacted a heavy toll in the erosion of our communities and the destruction of our environment. Increasingly, we are coming to realize that the way forward looks a lot like the way back — back to strong local economies, back to resilient, tight-knit communities, back to the land and work that is real. As we chart our course through these uncertain times, we are hungry for inspiration.

In Mastering Community Association Management, seasoned expert Rita Khan delivers an essential guide for anyone involved in community associations—whether you're a board member, a property manager, or a homeowner. This comprehensive manual covers all facets of community association management, from understanding governance and the required frameworks to building strong partnerships with boards, managing vendor relationships, and fostering vibrant communities.

Discover the 3 rules that every successful group follows that allows them to thrive & dominate even in societies where they are unwanted minorities. This books explores what Africans need to do if they want to improve their lot on this planet and become competitive.

Like many Americans, Newbery struggled with debt. But unlike most people, he owed more than $26 million. Creditors swarmed after a natural disaster devastated his multi-illion-dollar business. The stress was crushing. He needed a way out - and what he discovered will amaze you.

Weber offers listeners practical advice about how to use family meetings to provide financial education for children and strengthen family ties. A Spectrum of Legacies includes case studies, sample worksheets, and letters from Weber’s long experience as an advisor to affluent families. Listeners can use A Spectrum of Legacies to create legacies that pass their financial assets in a way that reflects their personal values, teaches their children, and benefits their communities.

Are you overwhelmed by the extreme views on sustainability presented by the media? Struggling with feelings of anxiety, frustration, and helplessness as you navigate the pressures of living sustainably? In "Man's Search for Sustainability," David Auge, after decades of research, offers a groundbreaking perspective by comparing two of nature's most fascinating insect communities—honeybees and desert locusts.

In this groundbreaking ethnographic analysis of crypto economies and their global markets and communities, Koray Caliskan offers an inside view of how cryptocurrencies are made and traded. He argues that cryptocurrency should be understood as "data money," a historically novel money type, created as the right to send data privately over an accounting infrastructure called blockchain.

The budget battles of recent years have amplified the warnings of demographic doomsayers who predicted that a wave of baby boomers would bleed America dry, bankrupting Social Security and Medicare as they faded into an impoverished old age. On the contrary, argues award-winning journalist Chris Farrell, we are instead on the verge of a broad, positive transformation of our economy and society.

Life was good for Jorge Newbery. A high school dropout and serial entrepreneur, he had built a real estate empire of over 4,000 apartments across the USA. Taking risks and working tirelessly were the ingredients to his rise. But, he took one risk too many. An ice storm on Christmas Eve 2004 triggered his collapse. He was maligned, publicly shamed, and financially gutted - even arrested. He lost everything and ended up $26 million in debt.

Ben Price reveals that our constitution and legal system were intentionally designed to give more rights to the wealthy propertied class than the rest of us, and exposes how this hamstrings our ability to effectively address a host of pressing social and environmental problems - and what we can do about it. Many of today’s most serious issues - homelessness, gun violence, fracking, prison privatization, predatory lending, and many more - resist resolution because the “rights of property” undermine the rights of people.

Renewable energy is good for your wallet. Those who see that opportunity are already seizing it … all the way to the bank. Green Is Good is a no-nonsense guide to how you, the average American, can easily incorporate clean energy and energy efficiency into your daily life and in the process save money, make money, and help wean your community off fossil fuels.