IDEAS FOR CAMDEN
COMMUNITY BUILDING SOCIETY
alt.power
What is it?
A community savings account where residents would invest in community shares, backed by a proportion of public money.
Why is it useful?
London boroughs are facing significant cuts to their core funding whilst demand for public services is rising. What if we could develop a community savings account that enables residents to invest in their local community whilst receiving interest.
These 'community shares' could be backed by public money, BID revenue or from Section 106 funds. The Citizens’ Assembly could be used to help identify community needs that the account could invest in. This could be combined with a local incubator which would support projects developing solutions to those needs.
These 'community shares' could be backed by public money, BID revenue or from Section 106 funds. The Citizens’ Assembly could be used to help identify community needs that the account could invest in. This could be combined with a local incubator which would support projects developing solutions to those needs.
Who would need to be involved?
- Camden Council
- Camden residents
- Citizens' Assembly
- Financial experts
- Local businesses
Where do we start?
- Research and map existing community investment schemes, learning from successes and failings.
- Hold an open assembly to gauge citizen interest and start to design proposal.
- Run a focussed design workshop with citizen representatives, Camden Council and crowdsourced financing experts to create paper prototype.
- Develop a small scale functioning prototype of the account and start testing with the community.
- Develop a governance framework to be implemented, tested and iterated.
Some thoughts…
- What can be learnt from existing community investment projects e.g. Repowering?
- Could this idea be incorporated into existing institutions like the BIDs?
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