This week a grassroots movement is sprouting. It’s about fixing America’s economy from the ground up… starting with food.
Check it out at Friends of Slow Money.
If we’ve been in touch recently, you may be aware that I’m a founding member of the Slow Money Alliance, and that I’ve been in and out of town lately networking with folks supporting this powerful movement. Please consider a $5 contribution through the above link to show your support. Let’s make a statement about our priorities of creating sustainable communities and sustainable economies. It all begins with us – take action by clicking on the above link or read more below. This Time Magazine article describes our first national organizational meeting held last month.
Woody Tasch, founder of the Slow Money Alliance, has been Chairman Emeritus of Investors’ Circle, a nonprofit network of angel investors, venture capitalists, foundations, and family offices that, since 1992, has facilitated the flow of $130 million to 200 early-stage companies and venture funds dedicated to sustainability. He is president of the newly formed NGO Slow Money. Woody was formerly treasurer of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. He is an experienced venture capital investor and entrepreneur and has served on numerous for-profit and nonprofit boards. He was founding chairman of the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, which supports venture investing in economically disadvantaged regions.
From the Time article:
Could the trouble with money be that it’s…too fast? Sure, you may think, it leaves your pocket too fast. But Woody Tasch, a longtime investment professional and founder of the Slow Money Alliance, is talking not about anyone’s spending habits but money as a system: as money increasingly functions as electronic blips shuttling from screen to screen in speculative transfers, it becomes divorced from its effects in the real world and less reflective of actual wealth. The result, he says, has been bad for our economy, the planet and the individual investor. The antidote, according to Tasch, is expressed in the subtitle of his book, Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Farms, Food, and Fertility Matter….
The individual businesses he’s zeroing in on may be small, but Tasch is thinking big: “We’re setting out to build an organization of one million Americans to invest in food systems around the U.S.” He envisions “catalyzing investments of $25 million a year or more as a first step.” Though he is only now starting to raise money, Tasch says the response to his model has been “extremely heartening.”
And continue to watch this space to explore with me how concepts of slow money and restorative economies impact our urban areas, too!
