Advisory Council

Our advisory council speaks and writes about alternative systems, sustainable communities, and local living economies.

Partner Links

Economic Sustainability 

Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Supports humanly scaled politics and economics. Subscribe to receive the inspirational Home Town Advantage Bulletin with information on promoting local ownership and community empowerment.

Rocky Mountain Institute
An entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that fosters the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining.

E.F. Schumacher Society
Programs demonstrate that both social and environmental sustainability can be achieved by applying the values of human-scale communities and respect for the natural environment to economic issues.

Ecotrust's Conservation Economy Framework
A framework for developing a conservation economy.

Local Food Systems 

Organic Consumers Association
Campaigning for food safety, organic agriculture, fair trade, and sustainability.

American Farmland Trust
Founded by a group of concerned farmers to stop the loss of productive farmland and to promote farming practices that lead to a healthy environment.

Land Stewardship Project
A grassroots membership organization made up of farmers, as well as rural and urban residents, working together to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture, and to develop sustainable communities.

Robyn VanEn Center for Community Supported Agriculture
Ensuring the survival of local agriculture today and for future generations. Resources include the national CSA farm directory.

FoodRoutes Network
Provides communications tools, technical support, networking, and information resources to organizations nationwide that are working to rebuild local community-based food systems.

Downtown Preservation 

The National Trust Main Street Center
National clearinghouse for the preservation-based commercial district revitalization movement.

Land Trusts 

Institute for Community Economics
Provides technical assistance and financing to community land trusts and those working to produce and preserve affordable housing, land, and other resources in communities where they are most needed.

The Land Trust Alliance
Offers user-friendly information on protecting land, setting up a land trust, and land trust success stories.

Healthcare and Health Insurance 

Healthcare Democracy
Low-cost health insurance for everyday emergencies as modeled by the Ithaca Health Alliance and Philahealthia.

Community Corporations 

Community Wealth
Great resource for community-based economic development, with information about community corporations, CDCs, community land trusts, and many other innovations.

Business and Environmental Sustainability 

GreenBiz.com
Green Business tips and tools.

Small Is Profitable
Critical lessons for the new century – energy technologies tailored to the needs of people, not the reverse, can improve the economy and the environment.

Ecological Footprint Quiz
Estimates how much productive land and water you need to support what you use and what you discard. After answering 15 easy questions you'll be able to compare your Ecological Footprint to what other people use and to what is available on this planet.

Sustainable Measures
Develops indicators that measure progress toward a sustainable economy, society, and environment.

Conscious Consumption 

Delocator
Find the independently owned coffee shops near you!

Co-op America's Green Pages and Global Exchange
Fair trade and human rights organization fighting globalization; along with Co-op America they promote alternatives through their Green Festivals.

Community Capital 

Investors' Circle
Started a decade ago to provide a meeting place and information-sharing forum for socially conscious investors, this group is expanding its activities, and membership, for sustainable investing.

Socially responsible mutual funds.

Domini Social Investments
Carries its proxy voting decisions for the 400 companies in its mutual fund portfolio.

Ethical Markets
Weekly half-hour financial lifestyle magazine TV series redefining success through a positive look at what is possible.

Advocacy and Policy 

Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
CEDLF was formed to provide free and affordable legal services to grassroots, community-based groups, and local governments working to protect their quality of life and natural environment through building sustainable communities.

Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Advocates moving 15% of Pentagon-related tax money to such state and local priorities as education and healthcare.

Responsible Wealth

A national network of businesspeople, investors, and affluent North Americans concerned about deepening economic inequality who are working for widespread prosperity. They focus on tax fairness, corporate responsibility, and living wages.

Reclaim Democracy
Restoring citizen authority over corporations – inspiring citizens to consciously choose what role corporations should play in our society and to limit them to that role.

United for a Fair Economy
A national independent nonpartisan organization that puts a spotlight on the damaging consequences of growing economic inequality

National Business Networks 

Social Venture Network
SVN brings together entrepreneurs, investors, environmentalists, and social activists to promote new ways to make our economic system benefit the natural environment and people, particularly those in need.

American Independent Business Alliance
AMIBA shares information on forming an independent business alliance in your community.

Co-op America
Promotes socially and environmentally responsible business, publishes the national green pages, and promotes socially responsible investing.