​By Brando Sencion, Program Coordinator of Santa Cruz Community Ventures  
 
Beer is more than malt, water, hops, and yeast. Craft breweries provide us with economic models’ other businesses can use to their advantage to create strong local economies. 
 
According to the California Craft Beer Association, in 2016, craft breweries contributed $7.3 billion to California’s economy and the industry supports 49,308 jobs across the state. More than 900 breweries are operating across the state of California, more than any other state in the country. I use this statistic to demonstrate breweries are able to flourish in numbers, even though there are many like them.
 
A key to their success are collaborations between breweries. This is a great example of businesses working together to support their local craft beer economy. Economic Networks, are a way to promote groups and businesses to interact with each other to benefit the whole community.  Thus collaborations, allow breweries to exchange best practices, consumers, and strengthen their economic ties to each participating community. In my opinion this is key and diverts from conventional practices of competing businesses.
 
Small businesses can analyze these practices and think of innovative ways to help their own business and other potential partners. If businesses are able to create a collaborative culture the possibilities to help each other are endless.

By Brando Sencion, Program Coordinator of Santa Cruz Community Ventures

“This land is your land, this land is my land.” I sing these words in my head as I think about employee owned business models. Employee ownership is a model which workers own a majority of their company’s stock and are able to say, “I am an owner of this company.” Benefits of this business model include improved company performance and employee wellbeing. Furthermore, a culture of democracy is created among employees to participate in company decisions.

​Employee-owned companies help keep businesses locally owned and build community wealth. The economic impact for families participating in one of these companies is higher wages, asset building, and job security. Employee ownership is beneficial to all, but can particularly have positive effect on women financially. The Los Angeles Times reported, Latina women make 43 cents to the dollar compared to white men. Their ability to earn higher living wages as employee owners is higher due to increased company performance and fair distribution of wages. Higher pay means families have the ability to save, invest, and obtain financial security.

​Apart from individual benefits, employee owned businesses are beneficial because they allow communities to build their own local economies within larger economies. According to Project Equity, small businesses provide 48% of jobs nationally and locally circulate three times more money back into the local economy compared to large firms and chain businesses. Keeping money locally is needed in communities because it allows small businesses to flourish, which in return creates jobs and personalized services.

As an employee this is the coolest idea you’ve heard in a long time. However, as an owner it may be difficult to like this business model. In my opinion, running an employee-owned company as an owner is difficult because you must give up a portion of your profits to share the wealth with employees. Maybe it is not the right route for you now, but for small business owners ready to retire, this may be a solution. Due to large amounts of baby boomer business owners ready to retire within the next few years, many local businesses can potentially close. This is because over 85% of business owners do not have a succession plan in place for their business. The reason may vary on why they do not have a succession plan but, converting towards employee-ownership can be the solution. This would allow the employees to become owners of the business and continue to serve the community, while at the same time keep their jobs and become owners. 

​By: Maria Cadenas, Executive Director of Santa Cruz Community Ventures

It’s about people. At Santa Cruz Community Ventures (SCCV) we want more local businesses, families able to afford to live here, and an equitable financial system.  We want all of these because they are signs of a thriving community – where all people can live.
 
But we don’t have that quite yet. The wealth gaps are daunting and making it unaffordable for most families to live here. Parts of our county are facing up to 50% of households not using banking services. And the fast pace of change due to regional pressures like water and Silicon Valley are shocking. Not to mention the displacement and gentrification of our low-income communities.
 
Which is why our work, our willingness to innovate and try, is so critical. We know that as a world we don’t yet have the answers. But we have the urgency, the imagination, and the courage to try. We are unwilling to sit by the sidelines.
 
Over the past two years SCCV has reinvented itself to focus on building an inclusive economy. Our work has taken a thoughtful approach to innovation, community organizing, and economic development. From developing a toolkit to help immigrant families in danger of deportation protect their wealth to Youth Financial Capability models targeting middles school girls and youth entering the workforce.
 
We are doing this because our dreams of a thriving local inclusive economy are worth it. We are doing it because each one of us is worth it. And yes, it may seem a bit unorthodox to work with health providers to get them to use financial coaching as a health treatment or to view college saving accounts at time of birth as an economic strategy or to offer our fiscal sponsorship for a rapid response to facilitate supporting DACA recipients.  But we are in an unorthodox time when eight men have as much wealth as 50% of the world’s population.
 
We may be dreamers, but we are also thoughtful and intentional doers. I hope you will join us in building the Santa Cruz County of tomorrow. Dare to dream with us and help bring our vision of sustainable and inclusive economy for all to life.  

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​By: Brando Sencion, Program Coordinator of Santa Cruz Community Ventures
 
For years consumers have been “set up to fail” by short term lenders with services such as payday loans. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been calling for payday lenders to ensure that the borrowers have the ability to repay their loans, according to its terms and limit how much, customers can borrow.
 
Until today, payday lending was regulated by individual states policies. Some states had strict policy and others had no policies at all to protect families from these services. Thousands of store front payday loan services across the country, lend millions of dollars each year to families attempting to make ends meet. The inability of these families to repay the loans, more than often place them in a cycle of debt.
 
Under the new rules issued by the CFPB, payday loans will have to follow a complex set of guidelines to ensure the customer have the ability to repay what they borrowed. The lender is required to verify the borrower’s income and check other financial obligations such as rent, child support, student loans, etc. The short-term loans must be structured to allow the customer to gradually get out of debt. However, a short-term loan under $500, is not required to meet the affordability test. Additionally, the payday loan affordability test does not apply to lenders issuing less than 2,500 loans a year.
 
The newly issued policy is a great leap in the right direction, but there is more to be done. Other recommended policies for payday loans that need to be addressed are placing interest rate caps, limiting loan fees, limiting balloon payments and interest payments schedules. 

By Maria Cadenas, Executive Director of Santa Cruz Community Ventures

Last week I had the privilege of being in our nation's capitol as part of the HOPE Leadership Institute (HLI). It was our last session as a fellowship cohort  of 30 Latina Leaders from across California.  To say that I am humbled by them is not giving them justice. 

When I signed up for HLI, I was seeking a way to do more. And yet, as the days went by I realized that what I was actually getting was the words and tools to share my story and listen to stories of the women around me. It was in this finding and telling that I was given the strength to better partner with the communities I care so much about.

I was reminded of the power of stories. How its through our stories that we get to know each other as neighbors, coworkers, and friends. I was reminded that it is in this weaving of stories that we connect.  How we forge relationships and dialogue. Where we find space for new  ways and innovation. 

Sometimes, in the day to day efforts to create policy and processes, we forget the very human journey and reason we do what we do. We persist on affordable healthcare because it is about keeping people living and thriving. We persist on fair immigration policies because it is about families being together and the communities we live next door to. We persist because not doing so dishonors the very shoulders we stand on. 

Persistence means continued  effort.  A commitment to keep on keeping on. And today that means continuing to tell our stories on the value of the ACA and how it changed our lives and communities for the better - making us a #HealthierUS.

Today persistence means continuing to share the stories and value of our #DREAMers and immigrant families and neighbors. 

Today is about taking the time to know each other's story, finding our care and love for each other as people, and remembering that the world we want can only happen if we work towards it. 

By Maria Cadenas, Executive Director of Santa Cruz Community Ventures

​On the heels of Labor Day Weekend celebrations the White House announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. For many, this was an expected move, one that we hoped would not arrive. After all, DACA was a small step in recognizing who we want to be and can be as a people and a country. It was saying that you are valued as a human being, a neighbor, a part of our community. And in doing so it made us stronger. DACA provided $200 billion to the economy and one-fifth of DACA recipients work in the health care and educational sector.

But what DACA, in its own imperfect way, was really about was saying that there is no "other" in America.

And that is the real reason to defend DACA, because its end is a blatant effort to reinforce the "other." A society for some and only available to others if the ruling class approves.

And that is the great tragedy. This is not about being shocked at the administration. It is not about political expediency. This is an effort to codify and define who America is for and who it is not for. An effort to codify who gets to participate in this great American Dream - from our schools to our economy.

The question is, does the United States, as a people, want that caste system? Because DACA is not about DREAMers, it is about who we want to be.

So I ask you, in the spirit of the Labor Movement, which side are you on?

By Maria Cadenas, Executive Director of Santa Cruz Community Ventures 

Our work at SCCV is grounded on our belief that a new economy that creates a more equitable, sustainable, and just community for all is possible and necessary.  

Our work is beyond poverty, beyond access to a broken system. Our work is about the world we want to see and the economic and business systems that will help us get there. We are at a point of innovation, imagination, and vision.  

​Our work is based on the U.S. ideals that we are all created equal and with the promise that we have indelible right to life, liberty, and happiness.   

But to build something new, to emerge beyond the world we know, we have to acknowledge and recognize the hate and divisiveness that came into full view in Virginia this weekend.  

If we are brave enough to take on changing our economic and business models, we must be brave enough to talk about race. When we talk about working to create a new economy, when we speak about wealth gaps and affordability, we are talking about the fact that the system itself does not work. And it does not work precisely because of the inequities it is built on. 

Today, I ask that we have the courage to be visible and intentional about our support of those U.S. ideals of equity and opportunity for all.   
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Let us remember, that to speak of innovation and truly bring change, we have to take a long hard look at unspoken assumptions, unacknowledged privilege, and have the courage to acknowledge that we are in this together. After all, there is only us.  
 
#NotSilent