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REMAKING THE ECONOMY: LEVERAGING ANCHOR INSTITUTIONS begins with a brief interview of William (“Bill”) Generett Jr., vice president of community engagement for Duquesne University. Generett, before coming to Duquesne in 2017, spent decades promoting community wealth building in his home town of Pittsburgh.

Following the interview, NPQ Senior Editor Steve Dubb facilitates a panel with three expert speakers: Melvyn Colón, who is executive director of the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance in Hartford, Connecticut; Jessica Curtis, who leads hospital community benefit nationally work for Community Catalyst, a Boston-based nonprofit; and Felipe Witchger, executive director of the Community Purchasing Alliance, a  purchasing co-op based in Washington, DC that began as a community organizing campaign and helps churches and other local institutional member-owners shift their spending to support locally owned businesses in communities of color.

This webinar includes a wide-ranging discussion centered on the questions below:

  • What is an anchor institution, anyway?
  • What are the challenges in getting nonprofit anchors to change their business practices?
  • How can nonprofit hospitals and universities use their wealth to support local business in low-income communities and communities of color?
  • What are points of leverage available to movement leaders?
  • What is the ecosystem that helps sustain positive shifts in anchor practices?
  • What shifts in thinking, practice, and culture need to occur?

More broadly, in this webinar—through presentations, in response to NPQ and audience questions, and in conversation with each other—the panelists engage in deep conversation about what it means to partner with place-based nonprofit anchor institutions, calling attention to both the promise and the potential perils of doing so.