Areas of Focus / Economic Resiliency

Launched in 2019, Rising Communities’s (RC) economic resiliency plans are now accelerating, and at the center of its efforts is The Food Tech Hub, the planned HQ for RC and a community economic engine focused on food access and food entrepreneurs. Economic shocks such as recessions or a global pandemic have had a long-lasting impact on the communities we serve. We seek to understand the economic forces affecting South LA families so we can prepare people to better withstand, recover, and ultimately avoid economic hardships. RC’s Economic Resilience programs are developed in response to community needs using non-extractive economic models.

South LA Food Tech Hub

An ecosystem of nonprofits working together to address the South LA food desert. The project features a hydroponic business that will provide locally grown produce for the Hub’s partners. The Hub will also have office space for the partners, community classrooms, a commercial kitchen, a small grocery store, warehouse and distribution space, and cold storage. RC’s partners in the Hub include LA Care, See LA and Seeds of Hope.

Hydropod

Hydropod is designed to create an affordable “off the shelf” hydroponic pod that families can use to grow produce for their consumption or sell to create income. RC created the concept to reduce food scarcity and create local sources of produce that can be tapped in the event of a disaster. The pod was designed in collaboration with Morphosis Architects.

Coalition on Economic Resiliency

The Coalition on Economic Resiliency was created in September 2019 by the Social Change Institute at Rising Communities. In our first convening, we invited 100 leaders from Los Angeles to dialogue on ten different topics:

• Mutuality
• Debt Alleviation and Wealth Building
• Building an Intellectual Property Pipeline
• Future of Work
• Reparations in Advancing Resiliency
• Global Perspectives – South Johannesburg and Los Angeles
• What Happened to Charity?
• Disaster and Trauma Informed Community Planning
• Philanthropic Investment Portfolios
• Small Business and Entrepreneur Resiliency.

RC’s Platform for Social Enterprise

Social Enterprise at RC is an organizational mindset and framework that integrates business management and donative-based non-profit principles, models and mission aligned practices in such a manner that actions lead to intended and measurable monetary and non-monetary impacts that sustain and enhance the organization’s capacity, subsequent initiatives and relevant stakeholders.

Social Enterprise Principles:
Commit to initiatives and projects that best utilize RC’s expertise and capacity—managing complex social projects involving strategic partners.
Act primarily as a catalyst, bringing together initiatives and projects with the right resources, leaders and partners.
Maximize impact of its commitments.
Seek Intellectual Property (IP) rights that can be used in and by the community and others and that have commercial potential.
Bring wealth and wealth-building to the communities we serve.

Social Enterprise Initiatives:
Strategic action plans for institutional capacity development and for external actions by sector (e.g., health, social equity, new finance tools) that serve as the framework for specific Social Enterprise Projects

Social Enterprise Projects:
Sector-specific projects such as a virtual community network, urban hydroponic farming projects, “smart cities” technology, entrepreneur training, and nonprofit capacity building via Leading for Equity—similar to RC’s grant-driven projects and with the potential to be operated as a separate entity such as a joint venture or even a spin-off.