Guiding Principles
At LocalCode, we align our choices and actions with our core values and guiding principles. We believe that this approach brings out the best from our team and best serves our mission.
"From the inside out," community engagement as a never ending practice and leadership from within the community
Build ownership into the fabric of the local economy, with local ownership of both businesses and real estate.
Mentorship and collaboration between local leaders and development practitioners
Mission aligned financing with a non-extractive appreciation rate
Continuously cultivate our understanding of the moving parts and system dynamics necessary for local wealth and wellbeing, and regenerative economics. Use this understanding to best support the on-the-ground local community.
Focus on the key challenges for local development efforts, releasing the bottlenecks and filling gaps so the local efforts flourish.
Foster and support the development of a healthy community economic engine - not just individual businesses or buildings - building the ecosystem of business, culture, non profit and civic entities for a thriving main street
Integrate the principles of a Regenerative Economy in all our efforts.
Macro Principles & Regenerative Development
The proper purpose of the economy is to provide the highest quality of life for all people, operating in harmony with natural systems. Key elements include just, sustainable, and joyful livelihoods, distributed local ownership, and emphasis on the quality of life experience over the material ownership of goods.
Our hierarchy of principles reflects the primacy of public good over private profit: collaboration over competition, diversity over uniformity, internalize over externalize, values bring good profits over good profits bring values, abundance and quality of life over growth.
The principles of a Regenerative Economy is humanity’s best expression of a healthy functioning economy at this time in history.
All change happens locally, global change is more accurately a balance sheet of local change everywhere. If we want a future in which humanity lives in greater harmony with each other and with natural systems, we need to meet each other where we are at, and evolve in collaboration.
In a regenerative economy, national and other macro-level organizations operate best in support of the local, minimizing extraction and maximizing generative economic dynamics at the local level.
The ability to form a business is not a right, but a privilege granted by society to business owners to generate benefit for society, operate in harmony with natural systems, and provide opportunities for meaningful, just work.
A well-designed platform business creates synergies and an ecosystem of economic activity that is greater than the sum of its parts. The effect is activated by having all the essential pieces of the system in place, eliminating value chain gaps and bottlenecks, and creating the baseline conditions for the system to take on a life of its own.
Systemic approach to business, with well designed processes (both cyclical and linear) and clear parameters around collaboration, roles, transparency, and accountability, generates the best results, by bringing out the best from the team. We are committed to designing our internal and external processes to bring out the best in human nature from all participants.
In Right Relationship: Humanity is an integral part of an interconnected web of life in which there is no real separation between “us” and “it.” The scale of the human economy matters in relation to the biosphere in which it is embedded. What is more, we are all connected to one another and to all locales of our global civilization. Damage to any part of that web ripples back to harm every other part as well.
Views Wealth Holistically: True wealth is not merely money in the bank. It must be defined and managed in terms of the well-being of the whole, achieved through the harmonization of multiple kinds of wealth or capital, including social, cultural, living, and experiential. It must also be defined by a broadly shared prosperity across all of these varied forms of capital. The whole is only as strong as the weakest link.
Innovative, Adaptive, Responsive: In a world in which change is both ever-present and accelerating, the qualities of innovation and adaptability are critical to health. It is this idea that Charles Darwin intended to convey in this often-misconstrued statement attributed to him: “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals.” What Darwin actually meant is that: the most “fit” is the one that fits best i.e., the one that is most adaptable to a changing environment.
Empowered Participation: In an interdependent system, fitness comes from contributing in some way to the health of the whole. The quality of empowered participation means that all parts must be “in relationship” with the larger whole in ways that not only empower them to negotiate for their own needs but also enable them to add their unique contribution towards the health and well-being of the larger wholes in which they are embedded.
Honors Community and Place: Each human community consists of a mosaic of peoples, traditions, beliefs, and institutions uniquely shaped by long-term pressures of geography, human history, culture, local environment, and changing human needs. Honoring this fact, a Regenerative Economy nurtures healthy and resilient communities and regions, each one uniquely informed by the essence of its individual history and place.
Edge Effect Abundance: Creativity and abundance flourish synergistically at the “edges” of systems, where the bonds holding the dominant pattern in place are weakest. For example, there is an abundance of interdependent life in salt marshes where a river meets the ocean. At those edges the opportunities for innovation and cross-fertilization are the greatest. Working collaboratively across edges – with ongoing learning and development sourced from the diversity that exists there – is transformative for both the communities where the exchanges are happening, and for the individuals involved.
Robust Circulatory Flow: Just as human health depends on the robust circulation of oxygen, nutrients, etc., so too does economic health depend on robust circulatory flows of money, information, resources, and goods and services to support exchange, flush toxins, and nourish every cell at every level of our human networks. The circulation of money and information and the efficient use and reuse of materials are particularly critical to individuals, businesses, and economies reaching their regenerative potential
Seeks Balance: Being in balance is more than just a nice way to be; it is actually essential to systemic health. Like a unicycle rider, regenerative systems are always engaged in this delicate dance in search of balance. Achieving it requires that they harmonize multiple variables instead of optimizing single ones. A Regenerative Economy seeks to balance: efficiency and resilience; collaboration and competition; diversity and coherence; and small, medium, and large organizations and needs.