About Us
The first of its kind, the Institute for Community Economists is 21st Century community economic analysis made easy for everyday people. Believe it or not, the most widely cited guide for community economic analysis was written nearly 30 years ago and explicitly states that it is not intended for everyday people, but rather for economic development “professionals.”
Our Mission: To transform everyday citizens into community economists
Created and intended for everyday people just like you, our courses will equip you with:
- A basic understanding of your community’s economy and how it works;
- Knowledge for better decision-making/action-taking, which can deliver innovative, sustainable, and systemic change in your community;
- A set of user-friendly tools for analyzing and transforming data into useful information to be used in telling your community’s economic story;
- A common framework, language, and vocabulary for communication, cooperation, negotiation, and deliberation
Our Founder
Dr. Gloria Bromell Tinubu
- CEO, GBT Associates LLC
- PhD, Applied Economics, Clemson University
- MS, Agricultural Economics, Clemson University
- Bachelor of Fine Arts, Howard University
Applied economist, agricultural economist, educator, and former public official, with over 40 years of experience in community economics in both rural and urban areas, Dr. Tinubu founded the Institute for Community Economists to transform everyday citizens into community economists. She is Senior Community Economist for Tuskegee University’s Carver Integrative Sustainability Center (CISC) in the College of Agriculture, Environment, and Nutrition Sciences. She is also CEO of GBT Associates, an economic, education and engineering consulting firm, and formerly held the position of Director of Economic Development for the City of Georgetown, South Carolina.
Dr. Tinubu has more than 25 years experience in higher education serving as a tenured professor and chair of the Economics Department at Spelman College, former president of Barber-Scotia College, and teaching associate at Coastal Carolina University. A former public official, she served in the Georgia General Assembly, the Georgia Board of Education, and the Atlanta City Council. She earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University and her master’s and doctorate degrees from Clemson University. Dr. Tinubu, married to Soji Tinubu since 1976, has four adult children and seven grandchildren.
My Story: How I Became Interested in Community Economics
As a teenager growing up in rural Plantersville, South Carolina, the seventh of 8 children born to the late Beatrice and Charlie Bromell, I learned that our 10-acre family farm was heirs property and part of a larger 60-acre tract that was originally purchased by my great grandparents, Eliza and John Bromell in 1883. Heirs property is land that is held in common by one or more heirs of persons who died without a will and whose estate was not probated, hence rendering the title clouded or unclear. It appeared that a lot of the conditions I saw in my community were connected to heirs property, so I decided to learn more about it.
Since I was naturally good at acting, directing, and playwriting, I decided, as the first in my family to go off to college, that I would major in theater, come back home and establish a community theater as a means of organizing the community around economic and political issues like heirs property. I graduated from Howard University with honors, and received awards for best actress and children’s theater. I returned home where I taught at my former school, Choppee High, and established a theater troupe with some of my students.
I soon realized that while I knew a lot about theater, I knew very little about community economics. However, I was now in my early twenties and was better able to see the impact of heirs property on our community. Our farms were barely operational and many community members lived in poverty and in substandard housing. In other words, my community was woefully underdeveloped.
I decided then to study the role that heirs property played in the underdevelopment of communities like mine, so I applied to Clemson University’s Masters of Science in Agricultural Economics with a concentration in Rural Community Development. In 1977, I was the first African American woman to earn this degree from Clemson, and completed the first scientific study on heirs property (I would later become the first African American to earn a PHD in applied economics from Clemson). The findings were published in Progressive Farmer magazine and in newspapers all across the state, as well as presented to the South Carolina Legislature and at the 1978 annual meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association. My thesis research showed that the magnitude and nature of the heirs property problem required public attention:
With several hundred millions of dollars worth of property essentially withdrawn from economic activity as a result of intestacy [heirs property] a substantial quantity of the state’s resources is not being effectively used to produce wealth for the households involved. The relatively large holdings and the number of persons having claim to these holdings suggest that the intestate real properties are potentially productive farm units that are kept out of the production process because of management complications and inability to obtain clear title to land…(p. 23).
Source: Tinubu, Gloria Bromell (1977). Intestate Tenure and Rural Land Uses in Selected Areas of South Carolina (Unpublished Master’s Thesis), Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina. Also see: Tinubu, Gloria B. and James C. Hite (1978). Intestate Holding of Rural Land in South Carolina: Empirical Evaluation of the Dimensions of the Heirs Property Problem, South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina and Tinubu, Gloria Bromell and James C. Hite (1978). “Heirs’ Property and Rural Development: An Exploratory Empirical Assessment,” (Volume 60, Number 5: American Journal of Agricultural Economics, pp. 1066 – 1067.
Forty plus years later, after working as a professor of economics at Spelman College for nearly 19 years, serving on the Atlanta City Council, and in the Georgia General Assembly, I created the Institute for Community Economists for people like you who care about their community.
Like me, you really want to make a difference and are willing to get the training needed. You want to see improvement in your local economy, but you just don’t know what to do. You don’t know how your local economy works. You are unfamiliar with the vocabulary and tools of the trade.
Whether you live in a rural community, a small town, or a big city, you have seen millions, if not billions, of dollars being spent, year after year or even decade after decade without meaningful improvement in your community’s economy or in the lives of its people. You rightfully question the ability of certain institutions and systems to successfully address the lingering economic issues that you care about, like:
- Persistent poverty & non-living wages
- Homelessness & affordable housing
- Wealth and income inequality
- Climate change
- Environmental justice
- Health & education disparities
- Food insecurity & hunger
- Unemployment & underemployment
- Unequal access to business capital
- Blighted areas & dilapidated structures
As an applied economist, an educator, and a former public official, I understand your problem. So, I decided to use my first hand knowledge and experience to create the Institute for Community Economists to transform everyday people, like you, into community economists who can take a leadership role in transforming their community’s economy.
Our Teaching Approach
So, what is community economics and what is a community economist?
I define community economics, which is short for community economic development, much in the way Aristotle intended when he coined the phrase economics as Oikonomia some 2,000 years ago! Community economics is the stewardship or management of a community’s capitals or assets for the long-term benefit of all of its members. This is in contrast to Chrematistics, which is the manipulation of property or assets for the short-term benefit of a few owners. Therefore, a community economist is “someone who understands how their local economy works, knows how to use the basic tools of community economic analysis, and is committed to taking action to make their community economy work for all of its members.”
What is community economic analysis?
Traditional or 20th Century community economic analysis is an examination of the types of goods and services a community provides and the kinds of jobs and income that can be generated for its residents, current and future. Today’s most widely cited guide for 20th Century community economic analysis was written nearly 30 years ago and explicitly states that it is NOT intended for everyday people, but rather for economic development professionals (I recommend it to you as good background reading).
However, we live in the 21st Century which requires the kind of community economic analysis that focuses on wealth-building, equity and environmental justice, in addition to jobs and incomes. Community economic analysis today must examine the community’s capacity to build wealth (increase quantity and quality of its wealth), increase the ownership and control of its wealth, and use its wealth to increase livelihoods (create jobs and increase incomes) of current and future residents, all the while causing no harm and always including those at the economic margins.
At the Institute for Community Economists, our approach to teaching community economics enables you to move up what is called the Creative Pyramid:
Starting at the base of the pyramid and working your way up, you have:
- Theory of Change: illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen
- Data: primary and secondary sources
- Information: making sense of the data using the tools of community economic analysis
- Knowledge: interpreting and understanding the information, and finally
- Innovation or Change: the result of using the knowledge to make better decisions and take policy actions
The process of moving up the pyramid enables you to effectively understand your local economy and tell your community’s economic story. Once understood, the story of your local economy will not only inform decision-making regarding the best policy actions or investment decisions, but can be used as an effective communications tool and the basis for various collaborative efforts.
After you’ve moved up the pyramid and acquired knowledge about your local economy, our job is done! We’ve prepared you for change and/or innovation by equipping you with the language, the vocabulary, and the tools of community economic analysis you will need for better decision-making and action-taking.
Let’s get started!
Gloria
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