When indoor dining temporarily ended in Oak Park last fall during the Chicago, Illinois suburb’s second wave of COVID-19, some residents took to social media to share their opinions on the balance between public health and small business survival.

In nature, a nest is built by gathering many, many, many, many, small little bits and connecting them productively. Cormac Russell, author of Rekindling Democracy, says that at the heart of matters in our time is nesting.

Humans are not isolated beings. We are somewhere, in a place. We make choices about where to live and those choices bring about a set of conditions that change and shape us, says Kessels and Smit human geographer and organizational journalist, Marijke Boessenkool.

Ever since members of the human race have commenced settlements and domesticated animals as a feature of organizing society, issues like COVID-19 have been present. Cormac Russell, author of Rekindling Democracy, says there has been at least a decade-long awareness that we would be contending with pandemics.

The conversations we have, the stories we collect, one by one, thicken the rope we walk on into the future, says Mara Spruyt, organizational journalist with Kessels and Smit.

It is people who make an organization. It is people who start initiatives inside their organizations. They should have a podium to give their stories back into the whole organization so other people can connect to those stories and grow together, says Derk van der Pol, and organizational journalist with Kessels and Smit.

David LePage, managing partner of Buy Social Canada, has just written and released a new book, Marketplace Revolution — from Concentrated Wealth to Community Capital. In this well-timed and pioneering work, David makes it very clear that the pathway to a more egalitarian and healthy society is in plain view. In straightforward and practical terms he shows how the purchasing power community anchor institutions like cities, hospitals, universities, and businesses could create an entirely different kind of economy, one he calls a Social Value Marketplace.

Chandos Construction is a 100 per cent employee owned, 40-year-old construction firm operating in cities across Canada. It is also a Certified B Corporation and a leader in social hiring and social procurement. Tim Coldwell is president of the company. His story is a compelling one. He is Mohawk and self-identifies as having been a youth at risk.

Martin Loosemore is professor of construction management at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

All of government, business, institutions, and non-profit organizations are purchasers. Every purchase they make has economic, environmental, and social value-creation power. What if that purchasing power was redirected to support the creation of community capital? There is a tremendous opportunity to supply revenue into what David LePage of Buy Social Canada calls a Social Value Marketplace.