Promote local economic growth and community well-being with Local First, a Michigan-based coalition supporting local wealth, social ties, and sustainability.

The LocalFirst Community is a place where we gather, collaborate and thrive. Membership in the LocalFirst Community is open to any nonprofit organization whose membership is comprised of locally-owned businesses. Whether you call yourself a Merchant’s Association, Independent Business Alliance, Collective, Guild or Group, if your members are locally-owned businesses, we welcome you to the LocalFirst Community.

Keep your money where your heart lives, support an economy of friends and neighbors, and build a community that thrives by thinking local first. Small-scale, locally owned businesses create communities that are more prosperous, connected, and generally better-off across a wide range of metrics. When we buy from independent, locally owned businesses, rather than national chains, a significantly greater portion of our money is then cycled back through our local economy…

The essential starting point in developing an economic impact assessment is understanding the key concepts that are essential to the economic impact methodology. Just as you wouldn't try and fix a computer without first understanding how it is put together, a film commissioner should have a basic understanding of how the local economy functions. The economic

Because the Economy is NOT in our Favor

Let’s look at the idea of stewardship and how it applies to everyday living, even if you aren’t religious. What is Stewardship Stewardship is the careful and responsible management of something that has been entrusted to one's care. In life, we have been trusted and entrusted with many things. We have been entrusted with our

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens explores money, energy, economy, and the environment with world experts and leaders to understand how everything fits together, and where we go from here

What is a micro-economy? Explore how communities build trust-based systems when the formal economy fails to meet basic needs.

On collapse, third-world convergence, and the only things that survive the reset. When the systems we’ve built our lives around finally buckle - and they will buckle - who and what will be left standing? What survives when the countries we call “developed” start looking a lot more like the countries we used to call “developing”?

A documentary and educational series that compares how intentional communities navigate shared challenges—transforming lived experience into collective learning.

"What the Village Movement and Time Banking can learn from each other — and why urgency may be the missing piece in building stronger communities."

What if our society was rooted in a sharing culture? Imagine neighborhoods where food, tools, housing, care, and power are shared (not extracted, exploited, and hoarded!). Where co-ops replace corporations, mutual aid replaces individualism, and collective resilience outlasts crisis. This is the solidarity economy in action.

Making it easy for people to care. The People's Community is a set of simple, accessible tools that help individuals and small groups share skills, exchange resources, coordinate care, and build stronger, more resilient lives — together. No organization. No hierarchy. No gatekeeping. Just people showing up for each other, with the right tools to make it work.

Organizers say that in response to government funding cuts, high prices and political uncertainty, interest in mutual aid efforts has picked up.

Everyone wants to build community space right now. Most are missing what made the old ones hold, and what it costs to get it back.

Why the scarcest resource in the age of instant knowledge is the structure that tells you what it all means

2026 is being called "the year of analog" across social media. There’s a shift happening, moving away from a temporary digital detox to a more overarching lifestyle change. What we’re seeing is a cultural response to digital burnout and the loss of intentionality. The new Analog trend is seeing creators approaching content creation through a more humanistic approach. 

The 30-Year Pattern & Why Web 1.0 is Coming Back. Last year, like many people, I fell out of love with posting on my social media. And, if I’m honest, it happened way before then. The break that I took 4 years ago after my Mother passed away was an inflection point in many ways. A reminder that life is lived in the moment with the people you love and not chronically online. Through the grief process I discovered much about myself, and in reflection I also tapped into a scary truth about how we live and interact with technology.