Activating employee ownership in an ecosystem with Ben Hecht

[Applause] so what I want to talk about um is like how do you take that Vision that you just heard from the mayor and turn it into reality I I've had the pleasure over the years it is good to be old um in the sense that you get to see [ __ ] and and and I got to see a lot of [ __ ] over 30 years because I was a leader of three National organizations and so what I've learned over those 30 years is to get really structural fundamental change you can't follow the shiny penny that's what everybody wants to do that's what funders do that's what governments do it's not the shiny penny it's actually what has worked over the years in a lot of different fields in a lot of different places and if it sticks you care about it if it doesn't stick it doesn't matter so what have I learned in that pattern recognition over the years what have I learned about how do you do this stuff and actually not have it just sort of work in Saint Paul and elsewhere but actually grow and be can't become kind of The New Normal and so one of them is you have to build an ecosystem right and and this is like I maybe I got this out of my my kids are now 30 so who the hell knows when I got this picture but but I have been at three National organizations for 30 years so but but this is what an ecosystem is it's like every part of it it feeds upon the other right and then you like it's you can't just be a duck you gotta have the fish right because the fish are doing stuff that the duck needs and and and the fish are doing stuff that create the Lily Paws that the Frog can sit on right that's an ecosystem and despite the fact that you think you're amazing you ain't all that right you're just a lily pod hello pad and you're you're not the duck right and so what you need is a in a ecosystem is you need all of that right and and and what it means like in the real world is and so I think of an example and it's not perfect by any means but it's a good example of what over time you can see what I'm talking about and that is the Housing and Community Development field right it started out and you you let's say early as as early as the 40s 50s has a long history 60s but there are a lot of community-based organizations doing stuff right and they're like how do we figure this out how do we buy these buildings how do we turn them into co-ops or how or how can we own them or who who can we get in to own and develop so you have all this stuff going on right and then you have some philanthropies that say well maybe we can support some people to help these ragtag groups do better and so you have these intermediaries that get set up and those intermediaries are like aggregating capital and they're figuring out what's working and they're advocating for policy change and then you have government Folks at the local level and the state level you'll hear from later and they're like well how can we change policies or get rid of undo policies that are currently in the way and then you have people with capital saying well what do I have to do to be able to get in on this in part I don't believe it's real but I don't want to miss out right and then how do we start to scale it then you have the academy literally saying well I should write about this right and I should create courses about this I should train people on it and then you get this wonderful virtuous circle where the people who were educated then become the lily pad and then then they become the Frog and then they be right and that's how you build a sector it really does work but it takes a lot of work and so you'd say well how do we do it so I want to talk about just five quick things then we're gonna get to the panel right so there's kind of five things that I think I've seen in these patterns about how you have to how you get there how do you build the ecosystem five key elements one is you just gotta do it right if you're in the whatever chair you're sitting in now whether you're a uh in those four buckets public private Capital whatever you just got to do stuff around employee ownership and try it the great thing and I was talking to the director uh uh that you'll meet from California what's great about she's creating a whole new office in the state and it's like that's wonderful because no one can tell you you did it wrong because no one's had it before right and so that's what you're doing in building this ecosystem from where you sit you're gonna try stuff and you're gonna do there's gonna be you have to just you have mass doing but even after you have mass doing that's not enough because like the tree will grow and it will fall and no one will know right and so I had a mentor from the Knight Foundation many years ago when Early times of living cities and she gave me this Frame and I love it and it's really true to uh Paula Ellis if you any of you knew her she was actually the women a woman um she ran the Baltimore Sun and she ran the San Jose Mercury News as a woman in the uh in the in the late 90s and she said if you really want something to these ideas to to grow and flourish the people doing the work have a ton of information but they have to take that information and turn it into knowledge which is like well I did a lot of [ __ ] but what did I learn from it right and then once you turn it into knowledge you actually have to say and now I'm going to influence people with that knowledge and you have to know who you're going to influence right do you want to influence the mayor do you want to the governor do you want to influence a funder right but if you're out doing the work and you're not spending the time to figure out what do I know what have I done what about it is worthwhile knowing and then who do I want to influence so they change their behavior you're not going to get there but the people doing the work have to do this because you're the one who knows what's needed the third thing is you have to be a part of a network and that's what's so powerful about what you're building here right and when I was when I was at Enterprise when I when I got there in the mid 90s we we had been started by a network long story another conference but but there were like four people at the first Enterprise Network Conference right four people right and and when I got there there were I think about 250 people and when I left there were two thousand and it wasn't because I did anything it was because there's a hunger for people doing this really hard work to come together and when they come together what are they coming together about they're coming together about this they want to know what did you do what worked what were the barriers you know who do you know and it's that Network that is critical and ideally when a network works and we try to do this at Living cities as best we could it's like a network looks vertically you're like okay what do you need to start You Know It Whatever the lily pad or whatever the area you work in and then what has to happen all the way up and down that vertical but then you also have to look horizontally it's like how what has to work for government to work with financial services to work with the academy to work with non-profits right and then how do you and then you have to look across and say well and what are the gaps right so the the third is the network and the fourth is capital and you've heard a lot about this from the speakers so far and I won't spend a lot of time but you're going to hear themes that you've already heard because the problem is not Capital it's capital in the hands of black people and people of color the bottom line is I can get all the capital I really need I'm a white [ __ ] male right so the challenge is the challenges we've built system as systems as the mayor said to make sure that this guy and people that look like him can't get the capital because we don't trust them they don't know they're not going to spend it right they don't they're they're they're they're they're I perceive them as risky right and and and so what we have to do on Capital when you're building this ecosystem and you're building long-term change is we need to make sure we have the right capital and that's capital that goes to what James was saying this is that the the the chart that that James was referring to that by 2045 the majority of America is not going to be white right and that majority not to get depressed depressing but that majority because of the policies that we've had because of the practices we've had has dramatically less wealth than the current majority that has dramatically less income than the current majority that has dramatically less education if as measured by college degrees as the current majority all of that stuff doesn't get fixed in 23 years which is where we are now right unless we really start sprinting to change the trajectory right and so what does that mean it really means oops what it really means is we have to those who have power from where we sit have to change the terms of how Capital Works to show that it actually can work just fine with it with different uh uh done in a different way and so when I was at Living cities and there's folks from living City Seattle uh Thaddeus fair is here Santiago Korea is here I don't know if Dimitri Duckett is here demetric is here um they they all are still there so talk to them because they have the money I don't but but but what we did what and a lot of it through demetrics leadership because dmitrix stand up for a minute if you would [Applause] look people say we we could be brothers but the difference between to me one of the big differences is he looks darker skinned than me and so a lot what we had to do was say and demetric you know who knows Capital has a long history before coming to living cities he and other uh leaders of color in living cities and out said we need to take a fund of dollars that we had we had a a 40 million dollar fund that we had gotten from all kinds of funders including City and Prudential and we had we had built it to be an innovation fund and instead with Dimitri's leadership we're like no we're not going to be about Innovation alone we're going to be about Innovation that has to do with this every loan we're going to make and we got all the lenders who agree every loan we're going to make is going to be about how we define capital for the new majority which is what this is about and and what does that mean it means and a Dimitri I'm just mouthing your words so I want to make sure it's like these are these I I'm a good I'm a good student and then I I marry I mimic it but I also attribute the uh what we what we tested was what if we give the money to different decision makers right so what and will they make different decisions so we made loans like that what if we gave loans to folks like project Equity who are actually going to look for those people of color who are going to do employee employee opportunities right what if we actually gave loans to funds that were expanding the credit box to show that actually you're not expanding Risk by expanding credit the credit box you're actually expanding opportunity so that's great pat us on the back 40 million dollars that's a penny right it should be four billion dollars and the only way the only way get it gets to four billion dollars is if we have dozens of those kinds of funds and mainstream institutions actually saying we need our terms of capital to reflect the majority population that has characteristics around income and wealth that we created so we need a new normal and then the last thing is policy the bottom line is every ecosystem has actors at the local state and federal level who are saying what can we do to either get out of the way or or actually support it so if we go back to Housing and Community Development you know in 1986 Jim Rouse who started Enterprise one of my heroes he was one of the people lobbying for the low income housing tax credit right it is the only way low affordable housings built in America it's a flawed product I'm not going to get another conference bringing 8 billion billion dollars a year to affordable housing in the industry uh and the sector and has largely since the 80s right that's what policy enables to happen you know so it has to be it has to be all of those and what happens and this is a really fun part about being part of this is if all of those things are happening the capital people are doing their part the government people at every level of doing their part the nonprofits are doing their part it's ha you see it everywhere and it creates this air of inevitability and actually uh last week mayor I was in uh Minneapolis St Paul and and we were talking about this Minneapolis I mean St Paul Minneapolis sorry I'm getting better like when I started working there a lot I would say the Twin Cities and like there are no Twin Cities they're not no there's there's Saint Paul and there's Minneapolis if you want to talk just about the cities right but uh but but the uh when I was there there to me the definition of inevitability it's when the white CEO from X I won't say the company when they hear about what we care about at their country club we've created the air of inevitability and so that is ultimately what the ecosystem enables you to have but I want to close my remarks and then call up the panelists really ending up where the mayor ended up but not as well and that is that the only what I've learned over these 30 years is the only way you build this ecosystem is if you personally do what you can you know like and Margaret Mead said this quote many of you heard it and it sounds trite but God damn it it's true is that no never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world indeed it's the only thing that ever has and it's really true and what I've learned in all these 30 years all these pattern recognition is that it's the courageous person working with other courageous people who bring about this ecosystem and stick with it right and go from being a non-profit leader to a mayor from a mayor to a executive from an executive to uh uh uh you know it's it's this idea that we're just staying with the fight and over time we are going to build the ecosystem that we need to bring that wealth to everybody we know who needs it thank you [Applause]