[Ccpg] In Soil We Trust by Woody Tasch Slow Money

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

In Soil We Trust

Woody Tasch
http://www.realitysandwich.com/soil_we_trust

"The innate value of this kind of investing is so obvious to me," 
stated a woman from Ashland, OR during a Slow Money workshop, "that I 
don't care how much money I make."

That's a stopper.  No way around it.   An unhittable knuckleball in 
the fast-pitch world of Buy Low/Sell High.   

Innate value?  Not caring about how much money we make?  What in the 
world does this mean?

In the case of the woman who said it, it means that that the benefits 
to her and to her community -- more organic farms, more organic food 
available locally, a more robust local economy -- are so tangible and 
so direct that she doesn't need a new benchmark or a new asset class 
or a fiduciary to explain them.   

The word "innate" struck me, when I heard it in this context, as 
beautiful.  Investors talk about the intrinsic value of a company, as 
distinct from its market cap.  But innate value?  When I made it to 
the dictionary, the idea only became more beautiful, rich with 
connotations of "nature" and "inner," suggesting a confluence of 
personal values and ecological awareness.

The word "innate" pops up in another most interesting place: E.O. 
Wilson's term biophilia, which describes the "innate affection humans 
have for other living organisms."   Another of Wilson's terms, 
biodiversity, is now part of the vernacular.  Perhaps biophilia will 
never become as popular. 

Or perhaps the time has come to splice biophilia into the DNA of a 
new kind of fiduciary responsibility.  The kind of fiduciary 
responsibility that informs the emergence of nurture capital -- a new 
generation of intermediaries and financial products organized around 
principles of soil fertility, sense of place, economic, cultural and 
ecological diversity, and nonviolence.

The kind of fiduciary responsibility



A New Vision

Such talk of biophilia, nurture capital and fiduciary responsibility 
would have been rather far-fetched as recently as a few years ago. 
Today this is not the case.   It is right in front of us, as plain as 
day, as confusing as Goldman Sachs' billions made from ultra-fast 
trading and as tangible as a CSA.  We are moving away from hundreds 
of trillion of dollars of derivatives towards a new way of thinking 
about money that integrates social capital, natural capital and 
financial capital as simply as a CSA.  How "innately beautiful," the 
prospect of investors connecting more easily with one another and 
with enterprises near where they live, with fewer layers of 
intermediation and less financial razzmatazz. 

This is the work of Slow Money, a non-governmental organization now 
nearing the end of its second year, 1,200 members strong, 12,000 
signatories strong, more than a half dozen regional slow money 
initiatives strong, with millions of dollars beginning to flow into 
dozens of small food enterprises.  What we have found during our 
launch is that people are ready, remarkably eager, in fact, to engage 
in a new conversation about money, culture and the soil.

"Slow Money is one of the most remarkable initiatives I've seen in 
decades," says Tom Miller, former head of Program Related Investments 
at the Ford Foundation, and an early funder of Grameen Bank.  "It is 
the basis for a fundamental revision of our concepts of fiduciary 
responsibility."

Food and the soil are the entry point for the discussion, but at its 
heart it is about a new vision of restorative economics, about what 
comes after industrial finance and industrial philanthropy and 
industrial agriculture, about what it means to be an investor in the 
21st century. 

The energy that people are bringing to these concerns is nothing 
short of remarkable.  In March, 2009, when Slow Money had 40 members, 
NPR called this a "movement." In November, when there were 400 
members, ACRES USA called it a "revolution." In December, Business 
Week reporter John Tozzi cited Slow Money as "one of the big ideas 
for 2010."

"Slow Money gets right to heart of everything that's wrong with our 
economy and our culture," wrote Kerry Trueman in the Huffington Post. 
"It offers a new kind of capitalism in which both farmers markets and 
stock markets can flourish."

The strength of this response reflects a number of fundamental 
trends: concern about the volatility of global financial markets and 
the self-promotion of Wall Street is widespread; frustration with 
government policies and programs is equally widespread; awareness of 
problems in the food system is growing; the organic sector is 
growing; the localization movement is emerging; and, the amount of 
philanthropic and investment capital going to sustainable agriculture 
and small food enterprises remains calculated in fractions of a 
percent.

The task of rebuilding local food systems and local economies is 
beyond the capacity of venture capital and philanthropy. The vast 
majority of small food enterprises lack the proprietary technology or 
scalability that venture capitalists require.  Philanthropy is 
insufficient as well, because farms and processing plants and 
distribution businesses and restaurants and seed companies and niche 
organic brands need investment capital.  The billions of dollars a 
year that are needed to rebuild local food systems and local 
economies, and to restore fertility in the soil of the economy, are 
going to have to come from somewhere else.



Slow Money

That somewhere else is you and me -- millions of individuals who 
sense that every time we move in and out of the stock market we are 
complicit in an economy that is based on a nineteenth-century view of 
the world and the economy, a view that equates progress and 
well-being with maximum consumption and which recognizes no 
ecological limits to growth, a view developed a century or so before 
we saw the earth rising over the moon and so felt in our bones for 
the first time that there is no away to which we can throw our waste. 
Now, it is time for us to rediscover here with our investment 
capital.  To consider the places where we live, and our land, itself, 
as much as we consider sectors and distant markets and asset classes 
when we make our investment decisions.

To catalyze this process, Slow Money is building a national network 
and local networks, developing a family of new investment products, 
and creating the Soil Trust, an innovative non-profit fund.



National Network

We start with social capital, so that our transactions will be 
disciplined by relationships -- farmers, food entrepreneurs, donors, 
NGO leaders and investors all working together to nurture 
co-investment relationships, develop deal flow and build shared 
vision.  Slow Money's inaugural national gathering, in September, 
2009 in Santa Fe, NM, hosted over 400 attendees from 34 states and 
six countries.  $260,000 was invested in four of 26 presenting small 
food enterprises.  Our second national gathering was held in June, 
2010 in Shelburne Farms, VT, drawing 600 people and facilitating the 
flow of more than $3 million into eight presenting enterprises (as of 
early October), with more expected.  24 entrepreneur presentations 
from this event can be viewed here.    



Local Networks

Slow Money groups are meeting regularly in many regions. In 
Pittsboro, NC, small loans are being made to food enterprises with 
help from a family foundation.  In Austin, TX a steering committee 
meets weekly and has hosted one public meeting that was attended by 
more than 150 people.  In Madison, WI, a series of workshops are 
leading to the design of a local fund.  Members of Slow Money Maine 
have collaborated to make a few small loans.  Slow Money Northwest is 
organizing a Microloan Development Fund and hosted its first meeting 
for angel investors and entrepreneurs this past fall. 



Slow Money Investment Products

Slow Money is exploring with Portfolio 21, RSF Social Finance, 
Calvert, Mission Markets and BSW Wealth Advisors the creation of 
for-profit Slow Money products for non-accredited investors, opening 
the playing field to everyday citizens who want to make sustainable 
food investments.   Investments in these vehicles will promote Slow 
Money's mission in two ways:  first, the portfolios themselves will 
be as proactively targeted at organic food and soil fertility as 
possible; and, second, the buying and selling of these securities 
will have structured into them small contributions to the Soil Trust 
(described below).  Feasibility work is underway on "Slow Munis" 
(bonds dedicated to local food investing), in collaboration with 
leading investors and land trust professionals.  A number of Slow 
Money Alliance founding members are launching funds, including 
Farmland L.P. and the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.



The Soil Trust

The Soil Trust, a non-profit fund currently in formation, will pool a 
large number of small donations to create a permanent, philanthropic 
investment fund dedicated to small food enterprises and soil 
fertility.  The Trust will provide guarantees, co-investment capital 
and seed capital to local slow money investors.

Why the Soil Trust?

Because our goal is not only to catalyze the flow of capital to small 
food enterprises and  local economies, but to do so in way that "puts 
back into the soil what we take out."  These were Paul Newman's 
words.  We take them to heart.   They are integral to the Slow Money 
Principles, which you can see and sign here.

The Soil Trust is a vehicle through which individual buy/sell 
decisions in Slow Money investment products, as well as small 
individual donations, will be aggregated slowly, over a generation, 
building a substantial pool of investment capital that is permanently 
dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the soil. Donations 
in, investments out.  Returns stay in the fund and are reinvested. 
"Putting back into the soil what we take out" at work.  In foundation 
lingo, a "100% mission aligned foundation."  Put another way, a 
foundation whose primary purpose is investing, not grantmaking.

The prospects for such a structural innovation are exciting. "Slow 
Money is not only planting inspiring seeds, but also creating the 
conditions and the relationships for fundamental change and lasting 
impact," stated Barry Hollister, of Pittsfield, MA.  "I was, and am, 
therefore, extraordinarily pleased to have been able to make the 
first contribution, right there on the spot in that tent in Shelburne 
Farms that was brimming with so many wonderful and talented folks, to 
the Soil Trust.  In Soil We Trust."



The Slow Money Principles

In order to enhance food security, food safety and food access; 
improve nutrition and health; promote cultural, ecological and 
economic diversity; and accelerate the transition from an economy 
based on extraction and consumption to an economy based on 
preservation and restoration, we do hereby affirm the following 
Principles:

I. We must bring money back down to earth.

II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that 
are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our 
money down -- not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.

III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth 
Now/Philanthropy Later-what one venture capitalist called "the 
largest legal accumulation of wealth in history." The 21st Century 
will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of 
carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and 
non-violence.

IV. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. 
We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating 
vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food 
enterprises.

V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers 
and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making 
a Living.

VI. Paul Newman said, "I just happen to think that in life we need to 
be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes 
out." Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding 
our economy from the ground up, asking:

* What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets 
within 50 miles of where we live?
* What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% 
of their profits?
* What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?

To find out more, visit here.   http://www.slowmoney.org/
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