Oscar Abello on Muck Rack

Oscar Abello

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  • Senior Economic Justice Correspondent, Next City
New York, São Tomé and Príncipe
As seen in: Next City, Medium, Aol, Fast Company, Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Tacoma News Tribune, Wichita Eagle, EIN News, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Fresno Bee and
Covers:  Equitable economic development. People, policies and innovative models that help the least powerful, the most disadvantaged to access economic tools and opportunities.
Senior Economic Justice Correspondent for @NextCityOrg. Author of The Banks We Deserve @islandpress oscar@nextcity.org he/him #FilAm
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Is a Community-Minded Business Model Doomed in Gentrifying San Francisco?

Is a Community-Minded Business Model Doomed in Gentrifying San Francisco?

nextcity.org — According to one longtime Mission District entrepreneur, "the new residents take pictures in front of the murals, but they don't know the people in the murals." (AP Photo/Ben Margot) When Carlos Navarro decided to try his hand at running a karate studio, it was never about the money. He was looking to give neighborhood kids a positive, uplifting activity - an alternative to falling in with gangs or making other harmful life choices. He decided to charge each client a case-by-case price, based on need. It may not be the soundest business model, but Navarro knew when he started that if it could work, it was worth trying, to better his community.
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Can Crowdfunding Level the Playing Field for Investment?

Can Crowdfunding Level the Playing Field for Investment?

nextcity.org — (Photo by Wouter Engler) President Barack Obama recently challenged us to think about why we call Johnny back for a job interview, but not Jamal. Johnny and Jamal are competing for more than jobs, however; they're also competing for investors. You can probably guess who's winning. It's more difficult for minority-owned (not to mention woman-owned) firms to raise venture capital than non-minority-owned firms. Only 1 percent of venture-backed firms are founded by African-Americans, and only 13 percent of all venture-backed firms are founded by any ethnic minority, according to CB Insights.
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Developer Takes Big Picture Approach in Baltimore Neighborhood

Developer Takes Big Picture Approach in Baltimore Neighborhood

nextcity.org — East Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood (Photo by Oscar Perry Abello) "I'm here to tell David when to say, 'No' to this deal or that deal, based on whether or not it will be good for the community in the long run," says Baltimore resident Earl Johnson. "It's a check-and-balance." Johnson's a partner at Come Home Baltimore, a real estate development company working in East Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood. He's also executive director of the Come Home Baltimore Foundation, a nonprofit arm created to coordinate and liaise with resources in the community. "David" is David Borinsky, Come Home Baltimore's CEO.
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Developer Takes Big Picture Approach in Baltimore Neighborhood

Developer Takes Big Picture Approach in Baltimore Neighborhood

nextcity.org — East Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood (Photo by Oscar Perry Abello) "I'm here to tell David when to say, 'No' to this deal or that deal, based on whether or not it will be good for the community in the long run," says Baltimore resident Earl Johnson. "It's a check-and-balance." Johnson's a partner at Come Home Baltimore, a real estate development company working in East Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood. He's also executive director of the Come Home Baltimore Foundation, a nonprofit arm created to coordinate and liaise with resources in the community. "David" is David Borinsky, Come Home Baltimore's CEO.
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Business Improvement Districts Are More Than Just a Name on a Trash Can

Business Improvement Districts Are More Than Just a Name on a Trash Can

nextcity.org — (Photo by Oscar Perry Abello) You see the names at every street corner. They're usually on the trashcans. In New York, there's the Times Square Alliance. Baltimore has the Downtown Partnership. There's the Golden Triangle in Washington, D.C. Business improvement districts, or BIDs for short, are sort of like the urban equivalent to a mall: "Tenants" pay into a centralized organization that takes care of things like maintenance, safety, amenities and, of course, trash. There are now over 1,000 BIDs in the U.S. alone, and New York counts 72, including 39 in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods.
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How Communities Can Build Wealth by Knocking on Doors

How Communities Can Build Wealth by Knocking on Doors

nextcity.org — Democracy Collaborative released a 30-inch poster along with its new report on building community wealth. (Credit: Democracy Collaborative) Jennifer Meccozi spent two decades chopping onions as a restaurant cook before she became "chief door knocker" in Buffalo, New York, or in other words, director of organizing at People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) Buffalo. PUSH is a membership-based community organization dedicated to affordable housing, equitable jobs and ecological sustainability for the West Side of the city. "People know that there are door-knocking campaigns and community organizers do it all the time, but have they thought of this consciously as a tool for economic development," explains Keane Bhatt, senior associate for policy and strategy at the Democracy Collaborative, based in Takoma Park, Maryland.
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Despite Setback, NYC Keeps Fighting for the Unbanked

Despite Setback, NYC Keeps Fighting for the Unbanked

nextcity.org — In June, the New York City Comptroller's office released "Take It to the Bank," an online tool to help address the problem of the unbanked in New York City. Stand in front of an ATM in New York City, and count the next 100 people who walk by. It won't take very long. Thirteen of them won't even be able to use that ATM because they are among the 13 percent - that's 825,000 New Yorkers - who lack even a basic checking account. It's even worse, percentage-wise, in other big cities. Fourteen percent are unbanked in Buffalo, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
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Workers Score Paid Sick Leave Victory in Pittsburgh

Workers Score Paid Sick Leave Victory in Pittsburgh

nextcity.org — (Photo by Samey Jay/Pittsburgh United) With more than 43 million private sector workers in America unable to take sick days, and the federal-level Healthy Families Act remaining on the table, city-level activist groups and policymakers across the U.S. continue to take initiative on an issue that's not just about fair workers' rights but also public health. Earlier this month, workers in Pittsburgh scored a victory with the passage of a paid sick days bill, just a month after its introduction in city council.
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Taxes Could Help Reduce Inequality--But They Just Make It Worse

Taxes Could Help Reduce Inequality--But They Just Make It Worse

fastcoexist.com — If there were a way to eliminate tax loopholes for the superwealthy and corporations while simultaneously reducing income inequality, you would think it'd be more popular. But tax reform is not high up on the list of exciting reforms that might create a more equitable society. But there is at least one group of people who are focused about the debate on comprehensive tax reform that's gearing up this year: the lobbyists who will be paid handsomely to swing things their clients' way. The poor and middle classes, however, don't have any lobbyists, which may explain why taxes and public spending in the U.S.
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Your Coffee Is Getting Fancier, But Is It Getting Better For The World?

Your Coffee Is Getting Fancier, But Is It Getting Better For The World?

fastcoexist.com — "Steaming milk is a skill," says Karen Cantor, co-founder of Chipped Cup Coffee, West Harlem's first artisanal coffee shop. "It actually really affects the taste," she continues, her passion for crafting a latte clearly colored by her background in art history. "If you steam it to just the right temperature, and just the right consistency, it brings out this beautiful texture and sweetness." Cantor and co-founder Andrew Ding opened Chipped Cup in July 2012. "We were interested in adding value to the neighborhood," Ding says, by trying to create a "community living room."
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Why Bill Gates Can't Solve Problems For The World's Poor

Why Bill Gates Can't Solve Problems For The World's Poor

fastcoexist.com — We can learn more about development from one block in SoHo than reading Bill and Melinda Gates's 2014 Annual Letter. That's according to William Easterly, professor of economics and director of the Development Research Institute at New York University, and his new book The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor, . Development really is a spontaneous order full of surprises, and cannot be 'intelligently designed' by a ruler or a philanthropist. The block is Greene Street between Prince and Houston Streets, on the west side of Manhattan, not too far from NYU.
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A New Label Lets You Know How Much Social Justice Is In Your Shopping

A New Label Lets You Know How Much Social Justice Is In Your Shopping

fastcoexist.com — If you want to know about the nutritional value of the food you buy at the grocery store, you can find a nutrition label on the container or somewhere nearby. If you want to know how your potential purchase contributes to a more just and equal world, what do you look for? That's the idea behind JUST, the first ever social justice label, a voluntary disclosure program consisting of 22 indicators with a simple one, two, or three star rating for each. The indicators are arranged into six broad areas measuring an organization's contributions to a more just and equitable society: diversity, equity, safety, worker benefit, local benefit, and stewardship.
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Want To Boost The Economy (And Make The World Better)? Let In More Immigrants

Want To Boost The Economy (And Make The World Better)? Let In More Immigrants

fastcoexist.com — We love to exalt changemakers. The social entrepreneur, the impact investor, the innovator-but the bravest changemaker of all turns out to be the most controversial: the immigrant. Here in the United States, the current cap for family- or employer-sponsored visas per country of origin is just 25,620-the same number for Belgium or New Zealand as it is for China or India. There are hundreds of millions who want to move but can't because their countries' quotas get filled up year after year. That's a shame, because there's so much potential for change just waiting to be unleashed behind those quota walls.
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5 Things Social Enterprises Should Learn About Scale From Big Companies

5 Things Social Enterprises Should Learn About Scale From Big Companies

fastcoexist.com — If McDonald's can empower millions of franchise employees to make millions of perfect Big Macs a week, can a social enterprise empower hundreds of thousands to provide basic health care or education to their communities? Of course Big Macs aren't the same as education or health care, but here are five practices from big companies that social enterprises or NGOs more broadly could adopt to deliver the same quality of goods or services to a huge number of people in a vast array of different contexts: Sometimes to scale up, you first have to scale your product or service down to what you can procure locally or what you can expect local staff and volunteers to provide consistently.
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The Smallest Nonprofits Should Have The Most Powerful Brands

The Smallest Nonprofits Should Have The Most Powerful Brands

fastcoexist.com — (Product) Red. Charity:Water. Toms Shoes. These are just a few of the big brands that engage millions in efforts to address some aspect of poverty at the global level. But at the local level, a lack of strong branding means small grassroots groups don't get the credit they deserve for being the world's frontline soldiers in the struggle against poverty. There's plenty of discussion and research about the growing role of branding for large nonprofits based in wealthy countries-see Harvard's Hauser Center for the Study of Nonprofits or a long article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review from spring of 2012.
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Can The World Handle Complexity?

Can The World Handle Complexity?

fastcoexist.com — Like romance, complexity is tough to explain. Aid is complex, so aid organizations often resort to courting donations and support by using their equivalent of romance's cheaper, cruder, cash-cow cousin: poverty porn. But in an era when information has never been easier and quicker to share and discover globally, are people's tastes for the romance of aid and development becoming more sophisticated? Quick Kony 2012 review: The film, made by a social activist group known as Invisible Children, focuses on Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army, reportedly responsible for many atrocities in the region.
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The Financial Crimes That Are Destroying The Economy Of The Developing World

The Financial Crimes That Are Destroying The Economy Of The Developing World

fastcoexist.com — Let's say I'm a South Africa-based factory owner and you're a solar panel salesperson from New York City. I want some solar panels to make my factory more self-sufficient, and we agree I'll pay you $1 million for them. But I ask you a favor: Could you invoice me for $1.2 million and then deposit the extra $200,000 that I just gave you into another company's bank account in New York City. You're eager to close a big sale, so we agree to the deal. You might know false invoicing is illegal, you might not, but it's very unlikely either of us gets caught anyway.
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How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming The Global Economy

How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming The Global Economy

fastcoexist.com — Imagine sometime in the foreseeable future, a Fortune 500 CEO gets up in front of the graduating class from her alma mater to give the greatest and shortest commencement speech of all time: "Put my company out of business. I dare you." That world-one in which established companies do not fear the disruption to come, and in fact challenge the next generation to bring it on-is one conjured by Philip Auerswald's The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs are Transforming the Global Economy . An economist and professor at George Mason University's School of Public Policy, Auerswald also co-founded and edits the journal Innovations , which provided much of the inspiration for his book.
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Creating A Moneyball Approach To Impact Investing

Creating A Moneyball Approach To Impact Investing

fastcoexist.com — For every championship team or hall of fame athlete, there are thousands of teams that didn't go all the way and millions of dedicated but not-so-talented athletes that never got past high school. Despite all that failure, professional sports teams continue to convince fans to buy ever-higher-priced tickets and the sports world continues to discover future hall-of-famers. Venture capitalists have long accepted that they too must deal with such high failure rates. As the first generation of impact investments reaches maturity over the coming decade, I wonder if impact investors are prepared to admit 50% or more of their portfolios are likely to fail before ever reaching the big leagues.
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Global Giving Turns Evaluating Aid Into A Game

Global Giving Turns Evaluating Aid Into A Game

fastcoexist.com — Working in communications for an international NGO, I wonder about our reputation. Are people talking about us in communities around the world where our work has impact? If they do or if they did, I wonder if they have good things to say about our work, including when we're not around. Even given positive, verified impact on income, access to water, health and education, political empowerment or other areas, if target communities still feel like international or even local NGOs add no value to their communities, or worse take value away, it makes me rethink the meaning of impact.
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