Community Wealth Building is a people-centred approach to local economic development. It reorganises local economies to be fairer. It stops wealth flowing out of our communities, towns and cities. Instead, it places control of this wealth into the hands of local people. Owned by Oxford is a local community wealth building partnership that supports locally led, community owned businesses that meet local needs and tackle inequalities.
Oxfordshire's wealth is unevenly distributed - to address this, opportunities and investment must be generated locally.
To address these problems with distribution of wealth and opportunity, the Owned by Oxford project is piloting an approach to community wealth building which puts an initial emphasis on building and supporting the emergence of genuinely community-led economic activity, in specific geographical areas, and among historically disadvantaged minority groups, and in parallel developing the political consensus, then the policies and frameworks which can support these new models to survive and thrive in the wider economy. Owned by Oxford have been inspired by many exemplar projects leading the charge up and down the country - projects like Nudge Community Builders, creating community spaces and jobs for local people in Plymouth.
Who has wealth, who influences it, and who benefits from it are defining features of all economies. Community wealth building aims to reorganize wealth and the local economy, from the bottom up. It aims to reduce the extraction of wealth, making wealth more generative and environmentally nourishing, where all assets have local roots, communities are put first and people are provided with opportunity, dignity and well-being.
Owned by Oxford is working to build a community-led economy in our City. We are a partnership of grass roots community enterprises and infrastructure projects working with larger anchor institutions, to test out and innovate new ideas.
An example of community wealth building in action. Food Doing Good provide a catering service committed to a vibrant, healthy and sustainable food culture for extra care housing residents.
.png){kind=small}
