Joining with others to provide capital for new or established local businesses is a great way to meet entrepreneurs in your community, strengthen relationships among friends, and bring more vitality to your local economy.
Take action
- How to Invest Local by Locavesting (US) offers extended guidance on a dozen models for local investment groups. Most of these are applicable worldwide.
- Join or start a Slow Money group. These groups provide interest-free loans to local food and farming enterprises. Most existing groups are in the US, but there are also chapters in Canada, Australia and France. Find a group near you, or start one of your own.
Get inspired
- Through their Local Investing Opportunities Network, residents of Port Townsend (Washington state, US) have provided more than $7 million to local businesses through a peer-to-peer lending program mediated by the town government.
- The US state of Vermont is home to at least two innovative investment clubs. The White River Investment Club provides financing to small businesses that contribute to a stronger local economy, while the Vermont Solidarity Investing Club invests only in cooperative businesses.
- The members of FarmWorks, in Nova Scotia, Canada, annually purchase shares in a diverse portfolio of local food and farming businesses, bringing almost CAD$3 million to 95 local enterprises.
- Slow Money chapters worldwide have shifted $79 million towards food and farming enterprises since 2010.