NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth creation, based on equality, diversity and economic stability".[2]
The foundation has 50 staff in London and is active at a range of different levels. Its programmes include work on well-being, its own kinds of measurement and evaluation, sustainable local regeneration, its own forms of finance and business models, sustainable public services, and the economics of climate change.
Work
NEF supported the National Programme for Third Sector Commissioning with research and reporting on "how best the Third Sector could evidence its wider impact on public services and their delivery", which underpinned the Office of the Third Sector's work programme on third sector commissioning from 2009.[3]
The Jubilee 2000 campaign, strategised for and run by NEF,[4] collected 24 million signatures for its worldwide petition on development and poverty.[5]
The organisation's current projects include work on community-based housing, worker organising in the digital economy, restoring local banking and challenging xenophobia and racism in the Brexit debate. It is also active in community economic regeneration. The Foundation's BizFizz programme, an entrepreneurship development programme, has created more than 900 new businesses in deprived areas. The organisation has now taken this and Local Alchemy to six other countries through its international programme.
The Foundation's public events attract well-known speakers. Its clone town campaign in favour of local economic diversity was covered two years running by every major national newspaper and TV news station and it was taken up in the Save Our Small Shops Campaign in the Evening Standard.
Funding
The New Economics Foundation has been rated as 'broadly transparent' in its funding by Transparify[13] and has been given an A grade for funding transparency by Who Funds You?[14]
