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Together, We’re Redefining Black wealth

Fred

Through programs like our North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship and the Open Road Fund, Nexus Community Partners is reimagining Black wealth.

Building Black wealth means healing from over five centuries of labor and livelihood stolen from us on this stolen land. It’s owning what we produce and building and inventing for our families and community. It is a creative and sovereign practice of restoration that reaffirms the excellence that has always been in us.

Meet Amoké Kubat

Artist, writer, and Yoruba Priestess Amoké Awele Kubat is a Minneapolis “Northsider for life” who has been empowering mothers and families since 1987.

Amoké first heard about Nexus in 2011 through a friend who was being mentored by Nexus CEO Repa Mekha. Through her friend, she learned about Nexus values, strategies, and vision—all rooted in community. Seven years later, Amoké took a deep dive with us, joining our second North Star cohort.

“I was thrilled to be in the company of people who looked like me, who shared the diversity of the Black Experience as descendants of Africans. We were more than survivors. We held the roots and seeds of our Ancestors’ dreams and hopes. We were visionaries, warriors, educators, artists and more, who aspired to own businesses and cooperatives.”

Amoké’s co-op, YO MAMA’S HOUSE, INC., is an art and healing space for mothers of all ages. They empower mothers by disrupting the devaluation of women’s invisible labor and increasing recognition of the ART of Mothering. North Star helped Amoké build community with other Black cooperators while also accessing the technical assistance and funding opportunities she needed to further grow YO MAMA’S HOUSE.

In 2023, Amoké joined our Black Community Trust Fund advisory committee. As a respected Elder, she shared her wisdom in renaming the trust fund as the Open Road Fund—which comes from the English translation of Ejio Ogbe, meaning, “an open road leads to the fulfillment of destiny.”

“I firmly believe that people of African descent are NOT destined to fail. It is one’s birthright to live a long life, in good health, and live abundantly.”

Amoké’s greatest takeaway from her work with Nexus is that communities matter. “The workload is not heavy when we stand with likeminded people,” she says. “People have more power than they think they do—especially in solidarity.”

Will You Join Us?

In a time of ongoing and relentless attacks on Black life and well-being, initiatives run by and for Black folks to achieve Black liberation are essential.

Any gift you make between now and the end of the year will be doubled thanks to our friends at Voqal Partners.

  • Monthly gifts of $20 are a way to honor our 20th anniversary throughout the year.
  • $100 helps support costs for expanding our online work in Greater Minnesota.
  • $500 covers a stipend that keeps our fellowships accessible to all.

Make a donation or share your Nexus story

Together, we are building Community Wealth for a just and liberated future.

Over the last 20 years, Nexus has worked to usher out the rigged rules, attitudes, and practices that concentrate wealth and power in fewer and whiter hands. For folks who have been intentionally shut out of mainstream economies, cooperatives present a tried-and-true alternative.

Cooperatives embody the idea that wealth is more than the success of any one individual—that wealth is owning what we produce. To us, wealth is building and inventing for our families and community, not only in crisis, but also in the pursuit of our dreams.

Meet Denise Butler

For more than a decade, Nexus Community Partners and African Career, Education, & Resource Inc. (ACER) have been partners in organizing, funding, and community wealth building. When Denise Butler, Associate Director at ACER, approached Nexus to work with an emerging collective of 24 Black immigrant women and business owners, we jumped at the opportunity.

With the help of Nexus and ACER, these women formed a cooperative: The Ignite Business Women’s Investment Group. Last year, Ignite purchased their first property: Shingle Creek Center in Brooklyn Center.

At the beginning, the Shared Ownership Center at Nexus (SOC@N) helped Ignite determine their cooperative structure, articles of incorporation, and bylaws. As the project developed, SOC@N worked closely with ACER, Ignite, their legal team, and project manager to provide flexible support wherever necessary, from weaving together knowledge, resources, and connections to successfully acquiring the 18-unit shopping center.

“Nexus was instrumental in supporting ACER’s work in building the first Black women’s cooperative in Minnesota. The infrastructural support provided by Nexus speaks to their expertise in the cooperative development landscape.” – Denise Butler, ACER

This milestone was years in the making. It has been an honor to walk alongside Ignite and ACER as they expand their work to meet the needs of their community. Join us in scaling up BIPOC-led cooperative development!

Make a donation

Whether you can contribute $20 or a story about what Nexus means to you, you will continue to make our work possible!

Share your story

Have you participated in one of our fellowships? Been a longtime partner? However you’ve crossed paths with Nexus, we want to hear from you!

The National Conference on Black Cooperative Agenda was a thought-provoking, community-building, and spiritually nourishing gathering of Cooperative folks across the country. Thank you to all the attendees, volunteers, and organizers who made it happen. If you missed it, you can listen to this broadcast from the conference! Everything Co-op’s Vernon Oakes interviews St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, Nexus’ Christina Nicholson, and Jessica James.

Listen here!

 

Since Christina Nicholson joined the team last November, her energy, humor, and deep knowledge of cooperative economics have already made an impression. Christina is the Worker Ownership Initiative Program Manager, an Aquarius, and a talented quick-bread maker. We sat down over zoom to talk about her role, her journey to Nexus, and her hopes for the future.

Interview edited for length and clarity

What do you do at Nexus?

Everyday for me in the Worker Owner Initiative is a new learning experience! For example, through our role as a Minneapolis C-TAP provider (Cooperative Technical Assistance Program), I’m working with a small language-learning cooperative. We meet weekly to develop their new bylaws and articles, as well as helping them build their internal culture and their ecosystem of outside resources. Together, this foundation will help the cooperative grow and thrive once it’s established. I am also doing work as a financial analyst – looking at another business who is considering converting to a cooperative, and helping them understand how to create a fair sale price for the worker owners who are considering purchasing the business.

In general, I have found in business that people are disinvited from their own agency when it comes to the language of finance. In my new role, I have found that helping teams understand the technical side of things can help build a cooperative’s culture— this is exciting because it becomes a more empowering relationship. The goal for me is for the teams I serve to be able to say “We understand this model, we’re taking this model, and moving beyond it.”

What did you do before Nexus?

In my 25 year cooperative career I’ve done every job from front line bagging to leading whole organizations as a general manager. In 2019, I got my MBA to understand how current capital systems move, at a more technical level, to help people build the bridge between their work and their ability to claim their own agency.

I’ve learned that you are always a better leader if you are doing the work with people. Successful leaders aren’t only thinking about the work, or visioning, but they are IN it. My work has been about leading on the ground and being influenced by those around me. Cooperatives help foster that environment and give you a sense that you are truly interdependent in the work you do.

What do you hope to learn next year?

I want to learn how to support people’s health, agency and wellbeing while seeing them move away from conventional, white supremacist, capitalist models of business. As more people from historically marginalized communities continue to grow in their power, I am energized to see how their cultural and individual gifts will shape the future of cooperatives!

What do you like to do outside of work?

I love to cook, and I always overplant kale in my garden. We have a LOT of recipes for raw kale salads. Thankfully, my daughter appreciates the earthiness. I also love to travel—I love oceans and mountains, but I am the happiest when I get to spend time with my wife and a good book!

In a recent Next City article titled “City Halls Now Hiring for Community Wealth Building,” Reggie Gordon lifted up community wealth building as a strategy that cities across the country are beginning to invest in.

Reggie Gordon is the director of Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building, the first of its kind in the nation. As he says, minorities all too often suffer from high unemployment or are pushed into low quality, service-sector jobs that don’t give them the opportunity that they need.

“The first step is to call it out,” says Gordon. “This isn’t fictional. Sixty years ago, there was intentionality around redlining and segregation that led to concentrated poverty. And here we are in 2018 receiving the byproduct of those intentional decisions … It’s up to us to be just as intentional about solving these problems.”

Check out how Community Wealth Building is gaining momentum around the country!

The Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA) CSA shares are back at Nexus again this year! Sign up today for your spring and summer shares to pick up Thursdays between 12-4:30pm at Nexus Community Partners.

Welcome to the 2018 HAFA CSA! We offer fresh produce and flower shares throughout the growing season. The HAFA CSA features produce grown by Hmong farmers in the Greater Twin Cities area. When you purchase a HAFA CSA, not only are you committing to eat fresh produce, you are investing in local farmers and your community.

Check out HAFA’s CSA site for more information and to sign up today!

Reposted from the Neighborhood Funders Group member blog posted by Shannon Lin, January 22, 2018:

The Story of the Blue Line Coalition

How Philanthropy Can Promote Equity through Community Engagement

“When NFG members Nexus Community Partners and The Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota heard that there was a light rail extension planned to connect Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park, they knew there was an opportunity to leverage their resources to support community power in the process. 

Many of the neighborhoods that the light rail extension would pass through are home to a population of majority people of color and immigrants who would likely be left out of the conversation if traditional planning processes were followed. As Patrick Troska, Executive Director of the Phillips Family Foundation said, ‘If the community wasn’t engaged in this decision from the very start, then the outcomes the community needed wouldn’t have been accomplished.’

Nexus and Phillips are organizations committed to living out the values of community engagement and working alongside community leaders and organizations. They believe that every community member, especially those who have been historically oppressed or ignored, should have access to opportunities to influence decision-making that affects their lives. Using their resources to fund and support community engagement was critical to ensuring all of the community could benefit from this large public infrastructure investment.”

Read the full blog here

Nexus’ partner, the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA), just announced that their 2018 CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Memberships are now open!

“We are excited to announce that our 2018 CSA signups are open!  We are out of the field, busy planning for the coming season and learning more about soil health and all the new food safety rules.  We will be starting the first CSA crops in early March and have so much to do before then!  In the meantime, your CSA membership will help us buy the seeds and greenhouse supplies, to get these plants growing.”

Learn more about how you can support Hmong farmers in Minnesota – and eat deliciously fresh produce this summer!

Nexus is proud and excited to share that three of our community partners are receiving the 2017 Bush Prize for Community Innovation!

Congratulations to Appetite for Change, the Hmong American Farmers Association and the Latino Economic Development Center for the well-deserved recognition and added capacity for all your amazing work in community!

“Now in its fifth year, the Bush Prize celebrates organizations that are extraordinary not only in what they do but in how they do it. As models of true problem solving, they work inclusively, in partnership with others, to make their communities better for all.

“’The Bush Prize recognizes organizations that are creative, fierce and dogged in the way they work and in what they accomplish,” said Bush President Jennifer Ford Reedy. “As models for problem solving, they consistently pick a path of innovation that drives profound results for their communities.’” 

Read the entire announcement and learn about all seven 2017 Bush Prize winners from the Bush Foundation here. 

 

We are at a critical moment in history.

Wealth disparities across the country are at an all-time high, and in Minnesota growing racial and economic inequalities threaten our econom­ic vitality. The Twin Cities has the third highest employment gap between whites and people of color among the large metropolitan areas.1 In 2015, the overall poverty rate in Minnesota was 10.2%, but it was 16.4% for Asians, 20.8% for Latinos, 32.4% for blacks, and 25.1% for American Indians.2 According to a recent Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) report, it will take the average African American family 228 years to amass the same level of wealth as the average European American family.3

At the same time the trend in disparities threatens our economic vitality, the unprecedented wave of baby boomer retirements could further entrench the wealth gap. Nationally, approximately 50% of privately held businesses are owned by baby boomers, with 85% of owners having no succes­sion plan.4 One-third of business owners over the age of 50 report having difficulty finding some­one to purchase their business.5 This could result in the loss of millions of jobs, billions in tax reve­nue; leading to significant economic instability.

But the ‘silver tsunami’ doesn’t have to be an eco­nomic disaster. The trend could actually provide opportunities to mitigate wealth disparities and root ownership in communities of color. Across the country, the strategy of converting business­es to worker cooperatives is gaining traction as a means to redefine the traditional notion of ownership and build community wealth. In the worker cooperative business model, employees become the new owners; sharing the profits, ac­cumulating wealth, and participating in decision making through a one worker, one vote structure. Worker cooperatives offer a way to promote local and broad-based ownership, provide dignified employment and eliminate racial and economic disparities.

In 2016, Nexus Community Partners and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota began conducting a landscape analysis to assess the potential impact on our local economy and to identify potential opportunities for conversions to worker coop­eratives. What follows are the results, a case for worker cooperatives and a set of recommenda­tions for how the Twin Cities region can support the growth of the cooperative sector in commu­nities of color.

Click here to continue reading the Impact Brief: Business Conversions to Worker Cooperatives.

We are excited to have Nkuli join the Nexus family! She is the new community wealth building coordinator through the AmeriCorps VISTA program that is sponsored by The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota. In this role, she will help with the Community Wealth Building work focused on assisting with the Community Wealth Building AmeriCorps VISTA cohort, the Culturally-based Cooperative Development TA cohort, and the East Side Economic Growth Initiative (ESEGI). Please help us welcome Nkuli!

“Art and farming join forces this fall when the Hmong American Farmers Association and a trio of Twin Cities artists add a new staple to the CSA produce box: art.”

Check out how Nexus’ partner, the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA), is getting creative this Thanksgiving by adding Hmong arts and culture to their community supported agricultural (CSA) share. Read the full MPR story here.

Listen to HAFA’s executive director and Nexus board member, Pakou Hang, talk about how community wealth building is grounded in cultural practices.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxTiTYAvFlo[/embedyt]