A prompt for finding wellbeing economy projects near you!

People tell me all the time it's not happening where they are, but I find with a quick search that's not usually true!

For the past three years, I’ve been searching for people building community wealth and wellbeing economies.

When I started out, I didn’t know what it was called. At the time, I described it as “democratising the economy.”

I searched and searched, and slowly over the years stumbled upon things like the Venus Project, and Zeitgeist Movement — which were talking about a future resource based economy, not one that was being build now!

But I didn’t give up. Slowly, I came across terms like gift economy, sharing economy, circular economy, solidarity economy, conscious capitalism, post growth, beyond growth and so, so many more.

I stopped counting after 300.

I dumped them all in my Claude project file and every time someone would tell me “It will never happen here” I would enter their city or region in my Claude project and, typically, find something.

In one case, someone from Florida was certain that it would never happen in the US, and yet I did a quick search and found an organisation at the top of the search with branches across the state.

That was Florida for Good, by the way, whose tagline is “Using business as a force for good,” which is how we are most empowered as individuals and communities to make community wealth happen.

And there are so, so many more.

I want to empower you to skip the years of flailing in the dark not know what terms to us and be able to do your own research and map your own area, so here is a prompt that will help you out.

Even if there isn’t an organisation that is specifically doing regenerative or wellbeing economics in your area, or they have no idea what that is, this prompt will put you in touch with organisations that are of that mindset and will quickly realise the benefit of community wealth. Essentially, they are already part of the wellbeing economy ecosystem in your area.

Bonus tip: Museum, library, and makerspace, flea market and farmer’s market communities are typically full of people who are community-wealth minded, and university students are often taught some of these concepts but never hear about it outside of class (and university is another community-building hotspot).

Prompt below. Happy connecting with likeminded people and building the new economy together! If you find something cool, please share and we will add it to our Wellbeing Economy & Community Wealth Wiki (a resource we’re in the early stages of developing and you can have a look at here.)

Enter this prompt (inserting your own town’s name) into ChatGPT, Claude, etc:

Help me map the wellbeing economy initiatives in my community. I'm looking for organizations and businesses that prioritize people and planet alongside profit, keep wealth local, operate cooperatively, or build community connections.

Please help me systematically search for these types of initiatives in [YOUR TOWN NAME HERE]:

Economic Alternatives: Credit unions, cooperatives, social enterprises, worker-owned businesses, community banks, local currencies, timebanks

Community Sharing: Community gardens, tool libraries, maker spaces, repair cafés, mutual aid networks, housing cooperatives, community land trusts, CSAs, cooperative housing

Environmental Stewardship: Permaculture groups, transition towns, ecovillages, sustainability committees, regenerative farms, climate action groups

Tech for Good: Civic tech organizations, community internet projects, platform cooperatives

Search for each category using terms like "[my town] + credit union," "[my town] + community garden," "[my town] + maker space," etc. Also look for university sustainability programs, farmers market vendors, and organizations that use sliding scale pricing.

For each organization you find, also help me identify:

• What type of wellbeing economy work they do

• How they might connect to other initiatives

• Any gaps in what's missing from my community

Remember that these initiatives often use different language like "community development," "sustainability," or "social justice" instead of "wellbeing economy."