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Public Dollars for Public Good

NonProfit Quarterly

What do community organizing calls for police abolition and recent federal public investments like the American Rescue Plan Act (more popularly known as ARPA) have in common? Public investments like ARPA have reawakened a commitment by politicians to use our dollars to improve access to quality housing, schools, and jobs.

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The Economic Case against Work Requirements

NonProfit Quarterly

Image credit: AndreyPopov on istock.com Work requirements—or requiring people to find employment in order to access public benefits—force people to prove that they deserve a social safety net. But where did they come from, and why are they still a central part of economic policy today?

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??How Community-Based Public Space Can Build Civic Trust: Lessons from Akron

NonProfit Quarterly

Ongoing neglect and isolation led to entrenched, concentrated poverty and a growing distrust of civic leaders. That changed when a team from Reimagining the Civic Commons decided to reinvigorate public spaces in Akron’s systemically disinvested neighborhoods, including Summit Lake. The city’s Black business district was devastated.

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Shifting the Harmful Narratives and Practices of Work Requirements

NonProfit Quarterly

Image credit: Drazen Zigic on istock.com Work requirements—or requiring people to find employment in order to access public benefits—force people to prove that they deserve a social safety net. But where did they come from, and why are they still a central part of economic policy today? So, what keeps them alive today?

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Why Reparations Can Counter the Legacy of a 50-Year “War on Drugs”

NonProfit Quarterly

Co-produced with the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), this series will examine the many ways that M4BL and its allies are seeking to address the economic policy challenges that lie at the intersection of the struggle for racial and economic justice. Of course, the drug war is not the only reason why reparations are required.

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Equity in Employment: A Vital Step Toward Dismantling Structural Racism in Brazil

Stanford Social Innovation Review

Almeida defines structural racism as a broadening of the notion of institutional racism, and argues that institutions are only the materialization of a social structure or a means of socialization whose components include racism. Per the World Bank’s poverty line threshold, 18.6 And while unemployment plagues 11.3

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Building Youth Power

Stanford Social Innovation Review

It inspired them as they marched and protested as part of the Black Lives Matter movement; it inspired them as they engaged in nonpartisan campaigns to change state and local policies; and it inspired them as they worked to get out the vote.