The Anti-Fragile Neighborhood Wealth Production model is designed to bring forward the hidden wealth of neighborhoods, creating an accessible, inclusive story of the future for all, no exceptions.

What’s in the package?

The Anti-Fragile Playbook is an easy to follow guide for self-governance, and features a neighborhood franchise, where the neighborhood goes into business with itself to create a citizens assembly that’s entirely self-supporting and regenerative. 

And in this Podcast, you'll hear how the insights gained by Kent while sleeping in his truck and walking the homeless camps deeply informed the design of the self-sustaining microeconomy and self-governance framework which serves as the foundation of the Anti-Fragile Playbook.

Some of these veterans shared well-informed ideas for how the community could come to manage their own affairs, on their terms, and in so doing move away from being treated as dependents, few of whom expect a hand-out. Thus: financial self-sufficiency is a baseline goal for a community seeking to reclaim its dignity.

Paraphrasing Ruth: "in our pursuit of wisdom we transform from otherhood to brotherhood, because we are each other's keeper."

An interesting paradox exists whereas those most impoverished tend to be the most generous with their donations of hard capital.

Why is that?

This phenomenon is so persistent, it’s almost as if the “poor” are eager to convert hard capital (cash) into alternative expressions of wealth (soft capital) that are more highly valued within their hyper-local community.

Counter to intuition, when the economy gets worse, those who are typically dismissed as poor become more generous, creating soft capital "pockets" that boast immense potential to effect change.

"Experts" scold us for this behavior, but what if there is a perfectly rational reason for this?

What if "the poor" recognize something that the middle class has been taught to ignore?

When hard capital is exchanged into forms of soft capital through acts of service and generosity, it becomes more valuable when times get hard.

Maybe "the poor" know something that we don’t?

And more to the point: are there ways to identify and activate these "pockets" of soft capital to accelerate community redevelopment, leveraging locally-sourced leadership? 

And money doesn't always solve problems; if you've failed to invest in a foundation of soft capital, more money brings more problems, and chaos ensues.

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss how activation of these pockets of soft capital unlocks your potential to generate hard capital as well as creates a foundation that mitigates risk and chaos as your redevelopment effort grows.

In this podcast, Ruth Glendinning shares her experience as founder of Community Renaissance Market: an innovative incubator containing 40+ microbusinesses that met the criteria of sustainable, local, organic work.

Ruth's hard work delivered significant impact and earned some recognition for the value it provided.

Additionally, the City of Austin issued a proclamation, celebrating Ruth's spirit of service to her community by observing "...during the current economic downturn, Community Renaissance Market is on an upswing, revitalizing an old building, creating community and positioning more people for a sustainable financial future."

Project genesis: 

In 2009 a 60,000 square foot Albertson’s grocery store closed in Ruth's south-Austin neighborhood.

Through a series of conversations, Ruth had the unexpected opportunity to test out her ideas about growing community based microbusinesses when she was handed the keys and the freedom to use her imagination.

This was the chance for Ruth to test out her model of cultural strategy which promoted the importance of creating a balance between community, culture and commerce for a sustainable economy.

Community Renaissance Market became the pilot project needed to move from ideation to actualization as it was repurposed into a microbusiness incubator containing 40+ microbusinesses that met the criteria of sustainable, local, organic work.

Many of the businesses originally incubated at  Community Renaissance Market  are still operating in new locations, lifelong connections between those brave souls who took a chance on themselves and others are flourishing and the seed of an idea has continued to blossom & grow.

Imagine a pop-up market that funds hyper-local self-governance.

Imagine a self-funded, hyper-local, self-governing committee that breaks the cycles of generational trauma.

Anticipating a retreat in formal government that will leave the vulnerable behind, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren have partnered to create an Anti-Fragile Playbook that will guide people through the steps necessary to launch and sustain their own renegade “pop-up” market that funds their community’s self-governance.

This self-governance model delivers hyper-local “earn and learn” programs encouraging people to become producers instead of just consumers, with an explicit focus on regenerative best practices.

In so doing, people become place-makers instead of just placeholders, producing their own wealth, on their terms.

At the heart of the whole thing is a model for short-circuiting the cycles of generational trauma, poverty, and abuse, designed by Ruth herself, and explicitly acknowledging the value of soft capital.

In Ruth’s words, this plan helps people “transact transformation.”

This community activation app was designed to address the challenges faced by charities seeking to secure hard capital in pursuit of their visions.

We do so by:

In this episode, Ruth Glendinning and Kent Dahlgren discuss forms of soft capital that are ordinarily overlooked as a person considers how to step out of the cycle and begin to effect change for the better.