#2. Local Community Capacity (LCC) Employment Sector

Full Spectrum Employment in an Integrative Economy

An Integrative Economy lets us redirect our energy to working in ways that help us realize our full human capacity to enjoy life and live meaningful lives. If an Integrative Economy is going to succeed, it is vital to understand why the designation of a new employment sector, Local Community Capacity, has to be recognized and included as part of the overall employment landscape.  LCC reflects one of the key employment changes that have been quietly transforming the economic story in the last century. Today, this change holds a solution for the unemployment problem, an economic transformation and the rise of a vibrant future for all.

LCC Sector Rationale

A Local Community Capacity employment sector brings into full view the reality that over the last 100 years, more and more people have become employed in the non-profit/NGO (non-governmental organization) areas. Prior to the 1970’s few people saw the non-profit/NGO areas as a career track. Instead, it was often an entry level job to gain experience before entering the traditional business arena.  But in the last 30 years, this sector has evolved to be one of the fastest growing employment arenas and has become an often preferred career pathway.  Much of the work done in this sector is focused on quality of life outcomes for humans and the environment.  Today there are over one million non-profits with more than $660 billion dollars circulating through them.

Full Spectrum Employment

Nonprofits / NGOs have always been a shadow sector; not included in GDP.  This is because their funding mostly comes from the market sector as philanthropy or the government sector as grants.  A new Integrative Economy requires that this sector not only come out from under the shadow of the Market and Government sectors but be given equivalent status as we expand how we measure our economic health and well being.  Nonprofits / NGOs work represents a significant portion of the work necessary in an Integrative Economy and as such should be viewed as the equivalent of the other three employment sectors.  These four sectors (LCC, market, government, and illegal) should be recognized as part of an Integrative Economy’s full spectrum employment.

Funding LCC Organizations

When we fund LCC organizations directly we discover that they are supporting the market and government sector’s future too. Today, market sector businesses are retracting and government is shrinking.  The need for services that fall into the LCC employment areas are increasing in demand.   As more and more people are employed in the LCC sector the funds will circulate between these three sectors creating a win-win economy for all.  A LCC employment sector enables a community through a lay/professional Local Community Board (LCB) to determine just what services support a healthy community on social and environmental levels and how much funding is necessary to do this work.

 LCC Employment Sector

The work done in the LCC sector is no longer ‘not government and not market’; instead it is its own employment sector focused on building Local Community Capacity in all of its various ways. After making this shift we see an Integrative Economy based on a high quality of life emerge and a Main St. become revived as citizens work together to build the most vibrant economy ever imagined.