"I love the idea of people being able to own something..." - George Bush, on his "Ownership Society" agenda, Dec. 16, 2004

Who defines "ownership" and what does that word mean? Is the acquisition of property the sole determinant of whether someone has a stake in the future of this country?

Everyday Americans have become award winning extraordinary Leaders for a Changing World by creating grassroots community-wide programs that work. Their work ranges from supporting employee owned businesses to reclaiming toxic neighborhoods and investing in the potential solutions that come from the diverse viewpoints of culture and community. Need the path to ownership be an individual one, or can we also work together toward an increased sense of community ownership? What is our responsibility to each other? Who are the people who have not attained ownership and what barriers do they face?

Taking the idea of ownership beyond the end of their own driveways and into the neighborhoods around them, these are their stories:

• In Ohio, an enterprising college professor has found that the closest thing to an "ownership society" we have today is employee ownership and so helps employees make the shift to owners through Employee Stock Ownership Plans and cooperatives.
  
  
• One woman sees the true meaning of "ownership society" as one that is "owned by its own people, where citizen created institutions like Social Security or cooperative enterprises assert people power over the market."
  
  
• Three women from a low income New York neighborhood run an economic development resource to community members combating loan sharks, paycheck advance agencies and high interested mortgage companies that are destabilizing entire neighborhoods opening the way for equitable lending to make ownership accessible.
  
  
• A Jewish man in Minnesota has taken the cultural value of tikkun olam (repairing a broken world) and applied it to the largely immigrant and low-income communities in St Paul. He works for the creation and retention of affordable housing and community reinvestment that creates opportunities for new business owners to emerge.
  
  
• In Kellogg, Idaho, the daughter of a miner formed a coalition of residents in her silver mining town to heal the economic suffering compounded by environmental devastation. They keep legislative pressure on cleanup of mining pollution and run a community lead health project. She sees environmental care a cornerstone of a larger economic picture that includes the physical, mental and economic health of the people and community.
  
  
• In the Ohio Valley, three women who consider the survival of the Appalachian people and regional economy tied to the mountains themselves work to hold the mining industry accountable to pollution standards that protect the people, wildlife and beauty.
  
  
• In southern New Mexico a woman provides groups of colonia women long-term training and technical assistance to develop quality licensed child-care centers. One now provides fair-wage employment to nine local women and affordable quality care to more than 40 children whose parents don't have to leave them in their cars to be able to go to work.
  
  
• A California worker who survived the civil war in El Salvador serving his neighbors in literacy classes as he earned his college degree only to find himself dependent on day labor jobs as a new immigrant in the U.S. now promotes and creates day-labor worker rights and centers demonstrating that day laborers are like other Americans, with the same dreams of raising and supporting a family.
  
  
• Using storytelling as a form of culture and history preservation, a man and woman of differing ethnic backgrounds and shared childhood experience with discrimination document the experiences of people and communities across the country, creating a national archive of stories of the civil rights movement.
  
  
• In Los Angeles, an Asian woman who experienced the pain of relocation as a child to a Japanese internment camp during WWII creates a stage for Asian Americans and other communities of color to tell stories and share experiences that create a greater sense of cross cultural connection and understanding.
  
  
• On the reservation of one of the only tribes that was never relocated from its ancestral lands, two men from very different backgrounds formed the Tohono O'odham Community Action group, bridging the gap between tribal members and non-natives and working to preserve the cultural heritage of Arizona's native people.

How is the idea of ownership being expanded to include whole communities? How does a sense of "wealth" change in different communities? What are effective ways of assisting people to become stakeholders? What type of ownership leads to greater responsibility? If we focus on acquiring assets, might we lose the sense of wealth we experience through community and culture? Do communities and citizens still share a sense of ownership in our public lands and spaces? Does this sense of ownership lend as great a sense of "ownership" as that put forward by the premise of "ownership society"?

Talking Points