Community Wealth Building: From ideas to local action

What if we organised our local economies to create wealth for communities, rather than allowing it to flow away?

Community Wealth Building (CWB) offers a different approach to economic development. Instead of focusing primarily on attracting external investment, it explores how local institutions, businesses and communities can work together to build, retain and share wealth locally.

During this session, Sarah McKinley introduces the principles of Community Wealth Building and shares insights into how this approach can transform local economies. Her presentation is followed by a Q&A.

Muntuit then introduces community rooted finance, exploring how financial resources can be mobilised and anchored locally to support community needs and ambitions.

After the lecture, you are free to stay for the second part of the session where we move from ideas to practice through three parallel roundtable discussions, each exploring a concrete opportunity in Ghent:

Student cooperative housing: How can students, universities and other partners develop cooperative housing solutions that create lasting community value?

Food Deed: How can we strengthen local food systems through new forms of cooperation and shared ownership?

Rooted finance: How can we mobilise local savings and financial resources to support projects that benefit the community?

Together, we explore how Community Wealth Building could take shape in Ghent, identify opportunities for collaboration and discuss the first steps towards building a local coalition.