September 14, 2020
Contact: [email protected]
Social change venture proposes blueprint for a more equitable, inclusive, and resilient economy
Washington, DC – Today, Omidyar Network released Our Call to Reimagine Capitalism in America, the social change venture’s blueprint to reimagine capitalism for the benefit of the many, and not just the privileged few. In this moment of extreme crisis, it’s become even more clear that our current version of capitalism is inadequate and failing most Americans. Omidyar Network believes an updated capitalism must place individuals, community, and societal well-being at the center of our economy.
“Capitalism, in its current form, has caused record income inequality, staggering racial wealth and wage gaps, sluggish productivity, and declining economic dynamism and innovation,” said Mike Kubzansky, CEO of Omidyar Network. “These individual and societal ills are a direct result of the markets we created and the choices we’ve made. We can choose to build something better. We can reimagine capitalism so that markets are less likely to produce unequal outcomes. We can ensure that people who have been historically and systematically marginalized will have opportunity, power, and the self-determination that comes from economic prosperity and an equitable and responsive democracy.”
In its blueprint, Omidyar Network outlines how democracy, society, and the economy are fundamentally intertwined, and argues that markets are not inherently free, but instead, built by our societies’ ideas, norms, values, culture, politics, laws, and power dynamics. Omidyar Network offers an alternative vision for an economy in which the real creators – working people, consumers, individuals, small businesses, and families – can have equal voice, hold power, and get ahead. That vision centers around five key pillars of change:
- An economy grounded in new ideas, shared values, and inalienable rights
- An explicitly anti-racist and inclusive economy
- The creation of counterweights to economic power
- A rebalanced relationship between markets, government and communities
- A resilient economy that accounts for a 21st century context
Omidyar Network previously announced a commitment to spend $35 million over three years (2019 to 2021) to Reimagine Capitalism, centering its work around efforts to seed new economic narratives, expand worker power, strengthen financial reforms, reshape corporate governance, and build grassroots infrastructure. Omidyar Network is on track to disburse more than $20 million across 100 different grants by the end of 2020, having accelerated its grant-making to help address the current crises of the global pandemic, resulting economic recession, and the movement for racial justice.
As part of its efforts to Reimagine Capitalism, Omidyar Network is proud to support the work of the following organizations, across several key programming areas:
Seeding a New Economic Paradigm
Building alignment around a coherent new vision and set of economic values
Citizens for Tax Justice*
Community Change
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
Roosevelt Institute
The Washington Center for Equitable Growth
University of Florida’s Center for Public Interest Communications
Building Worker Power
Supporting new organizing models and labor reform policies to increase the power of workers in innovative ways
Brookings Institution – Metropolitan Policy Program
Center for American Progress – The American Worker Project
Harvard Labor and Worklife Program: Clean Slate for Worker Power
Worker Power coalition led by Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA)
Labor Innovations for the 21st Century (LIFT) Fund
National Domestic Workers Alliance
United for Respect – WorkIt App
Grassroots Infrastructure
Strengthening the infrastructure that serves grassroots economic advocacy groups with coordinated catalytic funding over the long-term
Action Center on Race & the Economy Institute
Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy*
Make the Road Action in NY, NJ, PA, CT, NV*
New York Communities for Change*
Progressive Caucus Action Fund
TIRRC Votes + Central Labor Council*
Shifting Corporate Governance
Promoting business decision making, practices, and norms that benefit all companies’ core stakeholders, and contribute to societal health and environmental sustainability
Aspen Institute Business in Society Program – Worker Voice in Corporate Governance
Center for Political Accountability
Reforming the Financial Sector
Promoting reforms that keep financial sector power in check and that build a fairer, healthier, more inclusive financial system
Americans for Financial Reform
Curbing Monopoly Power
Creating a fair and competitive technology ecosystem by curbing the power of dominant platforms
American Economic Liberties Project
Economic Security Project Anti-Monopoly Fund
Open Markets Institute
Public Knowledge
Thurman Arnold Project
*Indicates organization that received funding via the COVID-19 Economic Response Advocacy Fund
You can read more about Our Call to Reimagine Capitalism in America HERE.
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Established by philanthropists Pam and Pierre Omidyar, Omidyar Network is a social change venture that has committed more than $1 billion to innovative for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations since 2004. Omidyar Network works to reimagine critical systems and the ideas that govern them, and to build more inclusive and equitable societies in which individuals have the social, economic, and democratic power to thrive.
