We salute Woody Tasch for This Growing “SLOW MONEY ” Initiative! – Hazel Henderson, Editor

On New Year’s Eve, BusinessWeek reporter John Tozzi set the bar very high for us: he cited Slow Money as one of the “big ideas for 2010.”  This capped a year in which NPR had previously called us a movement and ACRES USA had called us a revolution.

That’s a lot of excitement for a small NGO.  A LOT of excitement.
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We support this important effort to make sure that solar energy policy includes support for small scale producers. – Hazel Henderson, Editor

Click here to download the letter (PDF)

By Nick Hodge | Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
It’s once again time to take a look at the other side of solar.

Wall Street generally gives more attention to global companies providing cells and modules, but mounting policy advantages in certain states are making regional installers increasingly attractive. Read more…

Pan American Bank and non-profit partner to produce programs to highlight the path to a higher education.
By Paul Aranda Jr, EGP Staff Writer

On a cold and rainy Friday night in East Los Angeles, local civic leaders gathered under a covered tent at Pan American Bank headquarters to honor a Montebello High School teacher’s effort’s to increase the Latino graduation rate through a pioneering Web site. Armando Sanchez founded the Latino Scholastic Achievement Corporation (LSAC) in 1992 as a means to deliver vital college application and enrichment services to his students and others in the local community. Read more…

By guest blogger Joseph Jacques
www.harmonichumanity.org

They stand in front of the grocery store and on highway entrances. They are our nation’s homeless population. Over the last twenty years, homelessness has increased significantly in the US. On any given night, approximately 750,000 men, women, and children are homeless, many of them veterans, most of them unemployed, some of them with families. Some progress has been made across the United States, however, through government subsidized low cost housing, residential health care and substance abuse programs. But, more is needed.

One solution is to help the homeless create income for themselves.

Local street newspapers like The Real Change in Seattle and the Street Sheet in San Francisco and others that operate in large cities offer a product that vendors can find expression in and sell on the street to create income (and hopefully more stable housing) for themselves. San Francisco has had a street sheet for 20 years now – vendors buy the paper for 35 cents and sell it for $1, keeping the profit. The Director of The Coalition on Homelessness –Street Sheet-, Bob Offer-Westort says,

(more…)

Ellen Brown
February 17, 2010
www.webofdebt.com/articles

While bank bailouts fatten Wall Street, states continue to battle the credit crisis. In the search for innovative solutions, some political candidates are proposing that states generate their own credit by setting up their own banks. (more…)

Webinars: http://valueforpeople.co.uk/letsmakemoney

Powerpoint: http://valueforpeople.co.uk/letsmakemoneyintroduction

Greetings,

Welcome to the February 2010 edition of Ecocities Emerging, an initiative of Ecocity Builders and the International Ecocity Conference Series.

As the consequences of climate change and resource depletion manifest themselves more and more clearly, the way we have built our cities, particularly in the past half-century, has come into question.  Read more…

(February 4, 2010 – Washington, DC) At a meeting with key leaders of community development credit unions (CDCUs) and community development banks, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced yesterday a major capital investment program for depositories certified as community development financial institutions (CDFIs).  The CDCU movement was represented at the private session by Clifford N. Rosenthal, President/CEO of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (Federation), and Luis Pastor, CEO of Latino Community Credit Union (Durham, NC), one of the most prominent CDCUs in the nation. Read more…

The Indigenous Environmental Network Wins Grant
Congressman James L Oberstar
Eighth Congressional District of Minnesota

Bemidji Group Receives Healthy Living Grant
Thursday, January 21, 2010

Washington DC – Congressman Jim Oberstar released the following statement today in response to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) decision to grant a Bemidji organization $250,000 to fight childhood obesity among Native American children. Click here for the newsletter…

This press release was put out by Claudia Viek of the California Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity (CAMEO).  In it she raises concern about the lack of impact the stimulus efforts will have on the country’s smallest enterprises.  Those whom we look to in generating jobs and business vitality.

February 1, 2010
President Obama’s address Wednesday spelled out two specific policies to assist small businesses to weather this Recession – tax credits for hiring new workers and TARP funding to community banks to lend out to credit starved small businesses.

Both are good ideas, but unfortunately, neither of these key policies will reach the vast majority of small businesses in the US – those with fewer than 10 employees, and the many self employed. Tax credits will not help businesses whose profits have evaporated. Neither do they provide an incentive to a business that is struggling in the current economy to add on another permanent employee.
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About the Center for Economic Progress (CEP)
CEP helps hard-working, low-income families move from financial uncertainty to financial security. Local in service but national in voice, we achieve our mission in three ways: we provide trusted tax and financial counseling, giving Illinois families the tools to make sound choices;  we lead a national coalition  of organizations that promote economic progress for low-wage workers and their families; and, we advance policies and practices to create a financial system that works for all.  CEP is the parent organization of the National Community Tax Coalition (NCTC) which works to create a more accessible and equitable tax and financial system for American workers.

About the National Community Tax Coalition (NCTC)
The National Community Tax Coalition, one of the nation’s largest community-based coalitions working for economic justice, is a network of 500 plus organizations that provides critical, on-the-ground financial services for working families and serves as a leading voice in Washington, DC for low-wage workers and their families.  We achieve our mission by:  building a movement to dramatically increase access to tax credits and benefits and asset-building opportunities; serving as a unified voice on tax policies and practices that impact our constituents; and improving the effectiveness, impact, and capacity of our affiliates.

The links to the job announcements are below:

Director, Community Building

Director, Policy & Research

January 27, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chairman of The Black Economic Council Meets with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to Discuss Issues Impacting the Black and Underserved Communities.

Chula Vista, California January 25, 2010.  Len Canty, Chairman of The Black Economic Council, met with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to discuss key issues directly impacting the Black and underserved communities. (more…)

Econospeak is right on this one. I would add that it’s also time to correct the GDP by changing its categorizing of EDUCATION  as an expense instead of an investment, because it’s really the most important investment any society makes in its future, by producing educated, productive tax-paying citizens.  The is why the Calvert-Henderson  Quality of Life Indicators has a distinct EDUCATION Indicator (www.Calvert-Henderson.com), and why I have advocated for 15 years that GDP create an asset side to account for such public investments as infrastructure and education. GDP still counts only the public debt to create these assets , without also carrying them on the books  as the valuable long term investments they are! Try running a company if you couldn’t include your capital investments on your books as long term assets! – Hazel Henderson. Ed.

Posted: 25 Jan 2010 09:16 AM PST
According to this morning’s New York Times, in his state of the union address Obama will call for a cap on student loan repayments. The formula will set a maximum of 10% of post-graduation income above a living allowance. Money not collected due to the cap will be replaced from the general budget. Read more…

Edgar Cahn, Jan. 16, 2009

Edgar Cahn is a member of the Ethical Markets Advisory Board in the area of Socially Responsible Investing.

If ever there was a time when Time Banking and other local currencies make sense, it is now, to rebuild Haiti. Haiti needs to find a way to do two things: (more…)

Using the Homebuyer Tax Credit to replace Mobile Homes with ENERGY STAR Manufactured Homes

Are you interested in finding ways to help the most low-income homeowners improve their energy efficiency, reduce their energy cost burden and lessen their carbon footprint?
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(January 13, 2010 – Washington, DC)  The U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund announced yesterday that five additional credit unions and a credit union service organization (CUSO) have been certified as CDFIs, bringing the total number of CDFI-certified CDCUs to 165 institutions, representing nearly 20% of all CDFIs.  Of the newly certified CDFIs four are members of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (Federation) and nearly all received assistance from the Federation with the CDFI application process. Ruth Artis, Manager and CEO of B.O.N.D. Community CU in Atanta, Georgia, was especially pleased to hear about receiving their certification. Read more…

Ellen Brown
www.webofdebt.com/articles
January 3, 2010

Where can our floundering community banks get the capital to make room on their books for substantial new loans? An innovative answer is provided by the state of North Dakota. (more…)

http://www.world-wire.com

LOUISVILLE, CO, January 6, 2010 –/WORLD-WIRE/– Solar financing for
non-profits and faith communities is often hard to find in these tough
economic times. Thanks to a new program, developed by Colorado-based
solar integrator Bella Energy, non-profit solar financing has finally
reached Colorado.
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One of the top trends for 2009, selected by Shareable magazine:
(go to that original article for the links mentioned below)

“This year saw the founding of services like Rentalic, Share Some Sugar, and Neighborgoods—all of which rely on the web and mobile technologies to facilitate neighborhood-level sharing. In 2009, the ridesharing service Zimride allied itself with the carsharing service Zipcar, both making extensive use of social media and mobile technologies.

Similar synergies emerged in citywide bikesharing programs: The Spanish company Onroll, for example, runs bike rental and return in 28 cities through text messaging. A company called PlanetMetrics created software that allows “retailers, product manufacturers, and consumer packaging manufacturers to see their supply chain carbon emissions and easily identify ways to reduce the footprint of their products or services”—often by sharing resources. Read more…