What Common River Does
Communities across the country are navigating economic transitions: coal plants closing, data centers being pushed on them arriving, federal funding drying up, neighborhoods changing. Opportunities exist, but so do traps.
Common River is an intelligence service for the people in the middle of it: organizers, community development practitioners, nonprofit leaders, local officials, and anyone trying to build an economy that doesn't extract from the people it's supposed to serve.
We do three things:
We find the opportunities. Every week, Resource Radar delivers curated funding, jobs, and contracts to your inbox: sourced from state agencies, foundations, and organizations working across climate, housing, policy, and community wealth building. Our readers have used these listings to land jobs, win contracts, and secure funding for their organizations.
We map the terrain. Bearings is our series of practitioner reference guides: the kind of honest, evidence-backed analysis you need before walking into a planning commission meeting, a funder conversation, or a negotiation with a developer. We name patterns across states and sectors so you don't have to discover them alone.
We connect the people. Tributaries brings you the voices and stories of practitioners doing this work on the ground. These are conversations about what's working, what's not, and what they wish they'd known sooner. Every conversation deepens a network that our readers can tap into.
Who This Is For
You might be a 65-year-old environmental justice organizer who's been fighting extractive industry for decades and needs the grant deadline before it passes. You might be an economic development director in a rural city trying to evaluate whether a tax incentive deal is worth it. You might be a planning student figuring out how to turn what you're learning into work that matters.
If you're trying to build something real in your community and you need better information (and encouragement) to do it, Common River is for you.
Why This Exists
This effort was born from a few specific frustrations. Resources are out there, but they weren't reaching the people closest to the work of transitioning our economy. The information is scattered across federal and state registries, foundation websites, and closed networks that most communities can't readily tap into.
More than that, the deals being offered to communities from data centers, industrial facilities, or other development projects often follow the same extractive playbook that fossil fuel companies have used for decades. Communities deserve better information, better frameworks, and better connections to the people who've been through it before. This is how we build sustainable, prosperous communities for all.
Common River exists to support leaders like you to close those gaps. 😤