This is the fifth and final post in a series by John Bloom on money (global) and land-based (local) economic systems. While we are largely accustomed to the former, this historical analysis makes the argument for a new kind of economy, one which raises the profile of land-based systems to benefit and balance the global economy as we know it.
In my last post, I described the distinct differences between money and land-based economies.
We need both facets of the economy, but with a renewed awareness of land. By and large the land economy has been adumbrated by the money economy. Everything, it seems, has been monetized. What the Relocalization Movement, Transition Towns, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, TimeBanks, BerkShares, Buy Fresh Buy Local, and Community Supported Agriculture, along with numerous other groups are doing, each in its own way, is trying to reawaken the local-regional economy consciousness with the rebuilding of community and resilience at the core of all initiative. In essence they are encouraging communities and individuals to take back authority as much as possible for the development of economic life out of a sense of interdependence. In some cases these groups are creating their own innovative means of exchange in order to complement the conventional money system. And the new tools are more in alignment with the values they are cultivating. The money economy has set us in competition with one another, atomized us and left some of us in a state of fear of not having enough to take care of ourselves—all on the assumption that the only way to meet one’s needs is through money. Since we are so busy trying to make money, and do not have time to do anything else, we are left with paying someone else to take care of matters. The extreme of the money economy is that we work so hard at our livelihood that we end up outsourcing our life.
The conclusion of all this economic history and analysis is to say that we need a new kind of economy, which raises the local-regional land-based on equal ground with the global, recognizes the value and role each play, and manages capital in a way that supports the interplay between them. This management component would raise community self-determination to a new level beyond politics, recognize the importance of multi-stakeholder participation and at the same time steward the intersections between local and global via larger scale associations of stakeholders. A picture that says only one system is the answer for all, that to be economically viable and profitable, for example, everything must be built out to large-scale efficiencies, no longer works.
Both the money system, though overstretched and fraying at the edges, and land-based systems are already working, even if the latter is still surviving only in the background. However, in many cases the local or regional land-based solution is going to be far more resilient in the future because those who create it usually feel responsible and accountable for what they have co-created and accomplished. To change our economic being will require a radical reconsideration of ownership—how we own, why we own—and a major disruption of the myth of self-interest. The reality of our interdependence in economic life will have a new story that also celebrates the importance of community-interest, both local and global.
What we seriously lack in order to move toward this new level of economic system consciousness is an educational infrastructure that seriously challenges the current economic and money paradigm while researching and experimenting far more broadly the methodologies and benefits of the land-based economy. But nothing will happen in this direction unless each of us steps out of consumer consciousness—one endgame of the money economy—and finds a way to really reconnect with land, not as real estate, but as the source of all economic life.
John Bloom is Senior Director, Organizational Culture at RSF Social Finance.
This is the fourth post in a series by John Bloom on money (global) and land-based (local) economic systems. While we are largely accustomed to the former, this historical analysis makes the argument for a new kind of economy, one which raises the profile of land-based systems to benefit and balance the global economy as we know it.
In my last post, I described the rise of various visionary economic thinkers who viewed the economy as a whole system in contrast to the limited money-based view.
The money economy is global. It allows for trade and the movement of manufactured goods across political boundaries, and money can move around the world at electronic speed. It supports scale and efficiency and has made the accumulation of wealth a bedfellow of unparalleled poverty. Much of that wealth is a result of enclosing and owning natural resources and newer technological infrastructure that could more rightly be considered in the commons. It was this disparity and the injustice that accompanies it which led Henry George to seek a remedy. It is not hard to see both the genius and shadows of the money economy; many of us benefit and suffer from it. It has, unfortunately, pervaded all aspects of economic life to the exclusion of other ways of being economic.
A land-based economy is by definition rooted in place, animated by its inhabitants, and conditioned by the natural resources that make up the span of its geography, however that is defined—one day’s horse ride, river or mountain boundaries. Agriculture, for example, cannot be anything other than land based. In many ways, I would venture that most economies prior to the modern era and certainly prior to the ascent of the money economy worked that way. Such an economy understands and depends upon a social ethos in order to function, and every community member is valued though each has different capacities. In its ideal, it is a kind of gift economy. The Sarvodaya Movement in Sri Lanka founded by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne is a living example. There are now some 15,000 villages practicing economic self-reliance based upon the land. Everyone is cared for, and everyone has meaningful work to contribute to the community regardless of age. They never talk about full employment as we do in Western culture. Instead they speak of full engagement. The beauty of such an economy is that the quality of community life is lifted and with it each individual. While a land-based economy may not generate such enormous wealth for individuals, it is, as in the case of Sarvodaya villages, more likely to foster a more fair economy that produces sufficiency. Of course, the risk involved in working this way is a shadow, a closed community that oppresses the life of the individual.
An example of the transformation of a land-based economy to a money-based one might help illustrate the distinction between the two. In Indonesia, prior to its independence following World War II, village life was very strong. The staple food crop was an indigenous variety of red rice, which provided a wide range of nutrients and supported people’s wellbeing; there was little disease or starvation. Following upon independence, the new government wished to participate in the emerging global economy and essentially directed rice growers to cultivate white rice that could be exported to hungry markets. The government provided the necessary subsidies and support. Shortly thereafter, with a shortage of red rice for nutrition and white rice transported out of the community to the marketplace, there was a rise in disease, malnutrition, and poverty. At the same time, wealth accrued to those who controlled the marketplace, who did not live in the villages, but rather in the ports and centers of capital. This portrayal is oversimplified to make the point, but the facts remain and the circumstances are nonetheless true—and, sadly, it is not an isolated case.
In the land economy, people are connected to the food they eat, the people that grow it, and the soil in which it is grown. Land based enterprise might include food processing, crafts and manufacture from regional materials, localized energy production through wind or solar, and the list I am sure can be much longer. The point here is that the economy emerges from working on the land. This framework does not in any way limit exchange between communities because the exchange remains between people who have their own connection to the land. Because the land held in common is a source of production, and not economic in and of itself, the land economy is much less likely to have externalized costs. And, there will be more ecological consciousness as the community has to live with the consequences of its own activities. In a land economy, transparency means that a product can be traced to its sources and makers.
On the other hand, the money economy makes it possible to manufacture on a scale and with efficiency not possible at a regional level. It would be absurd, for example, to think that each region has to make its own mass transportation vehicles. One question would be whether externalized costs and other less visible human and environmental consequences of manufacturing can be accounted and paid for, and mitigated in a restorative manner.
John Bloom is Senior Director, Organizational Culture at RSF Social Finance.
When Tatiana Garcia-Granados and her husband, Haile Johnston, moved to North Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood in 2002, they found themselves in a fresh-food desert.
“Most of our neighbors were getting their food from corner stores. You walk into these stores and there’ll be all these different flavors of potato chips and Twinkies, but no fruits or vegetables,” says Garcia-Granados. The couple started working to bring a farmers market to the neighborhood and discovered a much bigger problem. “It wasn’t just neighborhoods like ours that didn’t have a link to the farmers right around us; it was also hospitals, universities and schools.”
Working with other local farm and food advocates, they created Common Market in 2008 to forge a distribution link between threatened farms and fresh food-deprived urban communities. Today, with a crucial assist from the RSF PRI Fund, Common Market supplies about 200 customers—institutional kitchens, retailers, restaurants and buying clubs—with produce, dairy and meat from about 100 sustainably run regional farms.
INSPIRATION
“Fifty years ago there were deep connections between the farmland right around Philadelphia and city residents,” notes Garcia-Granados. “With the rise of global commodity agriculture, that has changed—we’re more likely to find peaches from California than peaches from New Jersey.”
“When we started planning this, the distribution void was not on people’s radar,” she says. “We got blank looks when we talked about what we were working on. People didn’t realize this was a problem.”
What drove them forward was making the connection between health problems in the city and the loss of farmland. “We were seeing the health disparities that exist in our neighborhood and realizing what a huge role food plays in people’s lives and their ability to pursue opportunity. And every time we went to Lancaster County we would see more farmland being turned into housing developments.”
INNOVATION
Common Market’s key insight—the big step forward in solving the farm-to-city problem—was the value of cultivating institutional customers.
“With the amount of food an institution like a hospital is purchasing, we could have an immediate impact on the farms,” says Garcia-Granados. “We also targeted institutions that serve a cross-section of the population. That allows us to reach people who didn’t already have access to fresh food through farmers’ markets and high-end retail.”
Common Market had ready suppliers and buyers; the big challenge was cash flow—institutions are used to paying in 60-100 days. “But supporting farmers requires paying them quickly, as close to 15 days as possible,” says Garcia-Granados. “As we grew we realized we were facing a huge cash flow gap. That’s where RSF came in.”
The founders made the rounds of commercial banks and state and municipal development lenders, “but no one understood our business model or the sustainable agriculture piece and why what we were doing was meaningful,” says Garcia-Granados. “Common Market is a nonprofit social enterprise—it runs like a business but will invest any profits in expanding access to markets for farmers and to fresh food for urban communities. “The people at RSF were the only ones who understood.”
In 2010 RSF provided a $150,000 credit line (it’s now $350,000) through the RSF PRI Fund, which supports non-profit and for-profit social enterprises addressing key issues in food production, food access, value-added processing, distribution, retail and waste management.
“We had the customers and the infrastructure, but it was that access capital that allowed us to increase our sales and have an impact,” says Garcia-Granados.
IMPACT
Common Market nearly doubled its sales from 2010 to 2011 and its customers include more than 50 public and charter schools in Philadelphia and New Jersey. That’s a key audience given the enterprise’s big goal: changing what people eat and how they get their food.
Achieving that goal will require many more Common Markets, and the enterprise increasingly serves as a model. “Every other week we get a call from an enterprise or development agency,” says Garcia-Granados. “We share our business plan and feasibility study widely and invite people to come see our operation.”
The benefits accrue widely, she says. “For our farmers it’s giving them the ability to differentiate their product and take it out of the global commodity chain. For entrepreneurs, it’s allowing them to serve and sell local produce. For people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to local produce, it’s changing the food they are eating.”
VITALS
Company name Common Market Philadelphia Impact area Food & Agriculture RSF relationship PRI Fund HQ Philadelphia Revenue $1.6 million in 2012 (projected) Employees 12 Community served Delaware Valley (New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware)
At its core, localization is about shortening the distances between production and consumption, while also encouraging smaller scale and more diversified production – particularly in food, farming, forestry, and fisheries. All forms of primary production are expressions of a society’s environmental stewardship or lack thereof. Yet, it is the way we produce food that provides an ideal example of the differences between global and local economies.
The global food system is extremely energy-intensive and inefficient, wasting precious fossil fuels to needlessly ship identical products around the globe. It has systematically driven people from the land, increasing both unemployment and urbanization in North and South alike. With the absurd distribution of food, we see starvation in one part of the world and obesity in another. Because the global food system is homogenizing diets and food production worldwide, biodiversity is under assault and food security is increasingly at risk.
The continued expansion of the global economy means that local food rarely accounts for more than 10 percent of total consumption. This is a dangerous position to be in: it is estimated that with any major breakdown in infrastructure or supplies of transport fuel, people in most parts of the world will be scrambling for food within three days. For environmental, economic, and survival reasons, we should be aiming to meet 60-90 percent of our food needs locally or regionally, depending, of course, on the agricultural capacities of the local area. This shift won’t happen overnight, but the localization movement is putting even big cities on the right track.
As we argued in our 1999 report (‘Bringing the Food Economy Home’), the local food movement demonstrates that shortening the distance between farmers and consumers provides huge benefits for both communities and the environment. A more recent report co-authored by Michael Shuman, an economist with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), looked at examples of locally-owned food initiatives around the world. Community food enterprises not only helped build local skills and economic networks, but provided tastier, fresher food and cheaper delivery costs. As just one example, the study found that a $470 share from a Community Supported Agriculture scheme provided the equivalent of $700 of produce bought at a store. Further benefits of these projects included a closer relationship between producer and consumer, and incentives for the farmer to diversify production to meet consumer demands.
Diversified systems help to sustain the numerous crop varieties that ensure long-term food security. They also lend themselves better to organic methods, which translates into greater biological diversity on the farm and in the surrounding environment. They provide more job opportunities, with people power replacing the use of chemicals and gas-guzzling machinery. Finally, small, diversified farms can actually produce more food per acre and unit of water and energy than large, industrialized monocultures. Thus it is clear that local food is one of the most vital links between healthy communities and ecological stewardship.
Going local
There is a heartening movement now of young people choosing to grow food. They are debunking the myth that farming is drudgery and non-stop, backbreaking labor. When farms are smaller scale and more diversified, the work can be far more rewarding, healthy, and enjoyable than sitting at a computer all day.
There are numerous other examples of localization in action: local business alliances, local investment and finance strategies, Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), co-operatives, locally-run farmers markets, credit unions, and municipal bonds. However, many widespread assumptions – often cultivated by vested interests – continue to undermine the localization movement. They include charges of isolationism, elitism, and NIMBYism. There is a great need to counter these reactionary ideas and to debunk a pervasive myth that undermines localization in both North and South: that poverty in developing countries will be reduced through ever more global trade.
After years of colonialism and debt enslavement, it would make more sense to allow people to use their labor and precious natural resources to provide for their own needs as a first priority. To pretend otherwise merely serves the interests of those who stand to profit from exploiting the cheap labor and resources of the global South. Communities that embrace localisation are not turning their backs on the poor; rather, they are giving themselves and others the opportunity to become community-reliant rather than dependent on distant bureaucracies and corporations.
Throughout the cities of the western world, the movement to go local is gaining momentum. People are beginning to realize that it’s possible to increase the number of jobs and productivity on the land while reducing pollution and waste. It’s becoming clear that there is no fundamental trade off between ecological and human needs.
Once we acknowledge what we lost when we abandoned community life and more diversified economies, it’s easier to see how to redesign our societies, to create a more human scale and human pace of life. This is not about going backwards, it’s about embracing our ecological roots and our common humanity to move toward a lasting economics of happiness.
Author and filmmaker Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture. She is a pioneer of the “new economy” movement, and has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than thirty years. Trained in linguistics, she has given public lectures in seven languages, and has appeared on broadcast, print, and online media worldwide, including MSNBC, The London Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian. Her ground-breaking work in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”, earned her the Right Livelihood Award, or “Alternative Nobel Prize” and her book, Ancient Futures, along with a film of the same title, has been translated into more than 40 languages.
Originally published in the Summer 2012 RSF Quarterly
For most of human history our survival has depended on intimate and enduring bonds of interdependence with one another and with the Earth. We evolved in large extended families, with strong communities and a deep connection to the plants, the animals – the living world – around us. But today: we’re isolated from one another, and the natural environment has ended up primarily a resource to sustain consumer lifestyles.
In order to shift direction from the destructive path we’re on, it’s essential that we look closely at the economy. The way we organize the economy largely determines our interactions with other species, natural resources, and the wider environment, and has a profound impact on community – the mainstay of human well-being.
The very structure of today’s global economy is causing instability, artificial scarcity and competition, tearing apart the fabric of community, and causing ecological destruction on a massive scale. On the other hand, diverse, smaller-scale, locally-based economic structures tend to support community, thus furthering both ecological sustainability and quality of life.
Culture, community, environment
Like most Westerners, I grew up under the impression that economic growth meant progress, and that the environmental costs of growth were unfortunate but necessary. After the Second World War, the government of my native country, Sweden – as well as almost every other industrialized nation – dismantled smaller-scale, diversified food production in favor of large-scale agriculture and rapid urbanization.
As people found themselves living alone in high-rise urban apartments, the result was a weakening of the deep ties to family, community, and the natural world. Another result was diminished biological diversity on the land. By the 1980s more than half of the dwellings in Stockholm were inhabited by one person living alone and, at the same time, the rates of depression, alcoholism and suicide were increasing.
I might not have seen these links between the economy, community and the environment had I not had the privilege, as a young woman, of living in relatively intact local economies in rural Spain, Bhutan, and Ladakh (or Little Tibet).
In Ladakh, I learned to speak the language fluently and lived among the indigenous population. At that time, the Ladakhis still lived in large, extended families. I witnessed how they nurtured children in ways that led them to feel appreciated, seen and heard; this, in turn, led to a positive, relaxed sense of self. Intergenerational care and exchange was part of daily life, and there was much less fear of growing old than in the modern western world. Because of the intricate webs of mutual support there was also less strain on individual relationships; there was more peace and collaboration, less strife and conflict.
I also observed how the benefits of being able to depend on one another within a community dramatically increase when you have real economic interdependence. Economic exchanges provide a structural relationship of give-and-take that binds people together in ways that provide material, as well as, psychological security. We often use the term ‘self -reliance’, but what I witnessed was ‘community reliance’.
In Ladakh, as in other traditional cultures, people were not only linked to one another, but also to the land which they depended on for their basic needs – their food, clothing and shelter. Their interdependence with nature was deep and spiritual- something that contributed to an expanded sense of self.
The social and ecological costs of globalization
In the 35 years since I first arrived in Ladakh, I have seen the culture and environment eroded in a multitude of ways. A range of serious problems have emerged that were virtually unknown in the traditional culture: unemployment, pollution, resource shortages, a widening gulf between rich and poor, and violent ethnic conflict. What was the cause of these problems? They were clearly the result of outside economic pressures over which the Ladakhis had little or no control.
In the modern world today, it is now increasingly recognized that a global casino of banks and corporations is threatening the viability of whole nation states. But the structures behind this irrational system have gone largely unnoticed.
Our tax monies have been used to industrialize and corporatize production in ways that have concentrated profits in the hands of giant corporations like Coca Cola and Monsanto, and big banks like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. To increase global trade, transport and energy infrastructures were built up to serve megacities and sprawling metropolises, while neglecting smaller cities, towns and rural areas. At the same time, governments from both the right and left signed on to trade treaties that opened their economies to outside investment, while scrapping laws and regulations designed to protect national and local businesses, jobs, and resources. In the process, national sovereignty has been relinquished to giant transnational corporations and undemocratic supranational bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). In the name of growth through increased trade and comparative advantage, governments have blindly hollowed out their own economies.
The connection between centralized power, industrial production, and urbanization needs to be examined if we want to turn away from the global system that today threatens all life on Earth. Whether it’s CO2 emissions, plastic islands in the Pacific, extinction of species, clear-cutting of rainforests, or the growth of poverty and social breakdown, the roots of our problems lie in the destruction of more diversified, community-reliant and productive local and national economies. The realization is dawning that we need fundamental change, and the growing localization movement is beginning to provide some solutions.
Stay tuned for Part II of this essay where Helena discusses the power of localization.
‘Tis the season for conferences, gatherings and events inspired by the desire to improve our communities, our country, and the world through better business practices and meaningful investment opportunities. Social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and local food advocates all take stage this time of year and RSF is geared up for the festivities. We’re hosting, sponsoring and participating in over a dozen events this fall. The following highlights some of the upcoming gatherings. Visit our Where We’ll Be page for the full list of what we’re up to in the coming months.
SOCAP11 kicked-off on Tuesday, Sept 6 and is happening at Fort Mason in San Francisco until Friday evening. SOCAP is a multi-platform organization dedicated to the flow of capital towards social good. It’s an obvious fit for RSF and we’re proud to sponsor the conference. Don Shaffer and Leslie Christian, CEO of Portfolio 21 Investments, are leading a SOCAP Special Session to announce and present a new white paper, A New Foundation for Portfolio Management. Don and Leslie will also be speaking about the paper at a B Lab webinar on September 29.
On Sunday, September 25, RSF is celebrating the life and legacy of Rudolf Steiner at a festival in Golden Gate Club in the Presidio. If you’re in the San Francisco area, join us from 11am – 4pm for organic & biodynamic food & wine, a Marionette show, gardening activities, Dr. Hauschka skin care treatments, a talk with Paul Dolan and so much more. Check out our event page for more information.
In early October we’ll be in New Orleans for SRI in the Rockies (no longer only in the Rockies). 2011 marks the 22nd year SRI in the Rockies has been bringing investors and investment professionals together who are working to direct the flow of investment capital in more positive, healthy, and transformative ways. RSF has been a long time sponsor and participant and thrilled to be involved again. Don Shaffer is moderating a panel titled Innovation and Impact: Investing for a Truly Sustainable Future. If you’re planning to attend the conference Oct 2-5, be sure to check out the discussion!
October 12 -14, we’ll be back at Fort Mason sponsoring Slow Money. The Slow Money National Gathering brings together people who are rebuilding local food systems across the U.S. and around the world. More than 1,000 people attended the first two national gatherings—resulting in more than $4.25 million invested in 16 small food enterprises! Don Shaffer will be joined by Joel Solomon, RSF Entrepreneur in Residence and Leslie Christian, Portfolio21 Investments CEO to discuss place-based strategies and the future of social investing. And Taryn Goodman is on a panel titled Mission-Related Investing: Strategies for foundations to invest in small food enterprises. Find out more and register today.
Later in October we’ll be in Philadelphia for back to back to back events. First, the B Corps Champions Retreat starts October 25. The retreat is for B Corp leaders and includes an annual awards dinner. Last year Don was MVP! Second, Investors’ Circle Fall Venture Fair kicks off on October 26. RSF is again sponsoring Investors’ Circle, an organization committed to catalyzing the flow of capital to early stage companies that address major social and environmental problems. Lastly, the Social Network Venture is hosting Movers, Shakers & Changemakers, their annual fall conference. The conference, being held Oct 27-30, will bring together an influential and diverse network of social entrepreneurs from around the world to explore, inspire and create innovative ways to build a just and sustainable economy.
November 3-5, RSF is excited to sponsor Making Money Make Change. The gathering is hosted by Resource Generation and is for young people with wealth who believe in social change. Resource Generation organizes to transform philanthropy, policy, and institutions, and leverage collective power to make lasting structural change. If you know of a young person with wealth, encourage them to get involved!
Melinda Cheel is Senior Associate, Partnerships and Communications
RSF provided six Community Capital Scholarships for the recent BALLE ‘Place Matters’ Conference held June 14-17 in Bellingham, WA. This is the second year RSF has worked with BALLE to offer scholarships for individuals who are transforming the way their communities work with money. We were again thrilled to assist in making the conference more accessible to people doing exceptional work. Catherine Covington, RSF’s Philanthropic Services Program Associate met with five of the six recipients at the conference to hear more about their projects, passions and what’s ahead. Check out the videos below.
Pam Curry is the CEO of Center for Economic Options and working to create sustainable business opportunities and wealth in rural areas of West Virginia.
Listen in to hear why Bob Leighty from the Economic and Community Development Institute in Ohio is so ecstatic about attending his first BALLE conference.
Learn how Kati Mayfield from the Oregon based Adelante Mujeres is empowering immigrant Latino families in her community.
Joel Moyer from New Hampshire is a recent graduate from Antioch University New England’s MBA in Sustainability program and an RSF Fellow.
Caitlin Quigley is a Bellingham, WA local and works with the Whatcom Investing Network. (Fun fact: At the close of the BALLE conference, Caitlin was announced the winner of the Back-of-the-Napkin Business Plan Competition for her Poo-Op, a worker cooperative offering composting portable toilets for public events. Nice work, Caitlin!)
Melinda Cheel is Senior Associate, Partnerships & Communications at RSF Social Finance.
RSF is dedicated to exploring new economic models that support sustainable food and agriculture. We seek projects and partners who value diversification, region-first approaches, social justice and ecological stewardship.
One such partner is Slow Money, an organization committed to investing in building an economy based on principles of soil fertility, sense of place, care of the commons, and economic, cultural and biological diversity.
We’re proud to sponsor Slow Money Northern California’s Entrepreneur Showcase on June 12, 2011. The Showcase will bring together 200+ investors, sustainable food entrepreneurs and leaders working to rebuild our local food system.
Over the past two years, several million dollars have been invested in small food enterprises who presented at Slow Money showcases. Now is your chance to invest close to home. Join us at Fort Mason in San Francisco to learn about investment opportunities and how you can participate in rebuilding local economies.
Twelve finalists seeking investment in their small food enterprises will present. These enterprises include new businesses seeking start-up capital, existing businesses seeking growth capital, and non-profits seeking philanthropic capital.
You’ll also have the opportunity to network with a variety of active investors, organizational leaders and visionaries in local food and progressive finance. Featured speakers include Woody Tasch, Slow Money founder and Author, and Ari Derfel, Executive Director of the national Slow Money organization.
Call for Submissions! Deadline is this Friday, April 8th
What if we invested 50% of our money within 50 miles of home?
At RSF Social Finance we know that people develop a sense of shared responsibility when spending time face-to-face in an effort to care for each other and the places where they live. We view the power of place as essential to a thriving economy. In support of our belief in the power of local economies, we are proud to sponsor Slow Money Northern California’s Entrepreneur Showcase, scheduled for Sunday, June 12 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Slow Money grows investments in local food systems. It is a relatively new non-profit organization dedicated to building local and national networks and catalyzing investment in small-scale food and farming enterprises and local food systems, connecting investors to their local economies, and building the nurture capital industry.
Slow Money Northern California seeks ten food or farming entrepreneurs to present business plans to a wide range of attendees including potential funders and investors, sustainable food and farming organizations, and business development organizations. The Showcase will spark a range of investment conversations, helping to develop funding channels for local and sustainable food enterprises.
Who should apply? Food and farming businesses seeking varied amounts of funding from start-ups to expansions: farms, processors, distributors, marketers, retailers, caterers, composters and support resources.
Slow Money will be hosting another regional showcase in New York on May 16th. Slow Money NYC will be accepting submissions for entrepreneurs in the NY foodshed until April 15th, 2011. Click here to learn more.
Melinda Cheel is Events Coordinator at RSF Social Finance.
Every day working here at RSF I ponder what it really means to “transform the way the world works with money”? What is it that is broken within our current financial system and how does our work at RSF contribute to finding solutions? Thoughtful inquiry and dialogue are critical in answering these types of questions and RSF President & CEO Don Shaffer recently accepted a fantastic opportunity to participate in an interview series doing just that. The Healthy Money Summit is a free live talking series featuring 25 leaders exploring ways in which to create healthier, happier, and more productive relationships with money.
About the Healthy Money Summit
With so much fear and confusion about the economy now and high unemployment across the U.S., we truly need to create a new relationship with money and new stories of hope for our communities.
Join the Healthy Money Summit, where you’ll learn to shift to a healthier, happier, more productive relationship with money. From the personal to the collective, you’ll learn all about:
New ways of earning and spending that liberate your time and passion for your real life’s work
New investment strategies that favor the triple bottom line and sustainable business practices
New psychologies that favor generosity and sharing over hunkering down
New currencies that favor connection and community over hoarding and lack
New economies that favor Main Street over Wall Street, and prioritize community well-being as the new bottom line
And a new money spirit of “enough for all,” rather than “winner takes all”
A healthy economy, healthy habits and healthy attitudes toward money are possible; and the speakers in this series will reveal their latest insights and wisdom on how it’s possible. Nothing could be more important than awakening people from the old economy, liberating hope and igniting the courage to change both ourselves and the rules of the game.
Hosted by bestselling author Vicki Robin and The Shift Network CEO Stephen Dinan, these talks bring together the top leaders and pioneers in transforming our relationship with money. Join the growing number of people all over the world that are tuning into these important issues that affect us both personally and globally.
Click here to download Don’s half hour discussion with The Shift Network CEO Stephan Dinan.
To learn more about the Healthy Summit and to access the full library of interviews please visit http://healthymoneysummit.com/.
Originally published in the Summer 2012 
