BALLE Webinar Series: Accelerating Community Capital

 

Next Webinar: Tuesday, June 12

Stay tuned for details and registration!

All webinars are open to the public and take place every second Tuesday of each month at 10am PT.

Special thanks to our advisory committee and our sponsors at RSF Social Finance, Portfolio21 Investments, Main Street Resources, and Solidago Foundation.

 

Find out what is working on the ground across North America 
to connect regional investors with regional businesses.
 
Series Overview  |  2012 Series Line Up  |  2012 ACC Workshop
Who Should Attend?  |  Pricing  |  Webinar Best Practices  
Rave Reviews  |  Advisory Committee  |  Our 2011 Series
 

SERIES OVERVIEW

For the first time, a growing number of investors are considering local options. With a new generation of local investment institutions and supportive public policies, literally trillions of dollars could move from Wall Street to Main Street, creating millions of new jobs and helping to build vibrant local economies.

What are the most promising new models to connect your local businesses with local lenders, investors, and donors? How can you earn “a living rate of return” while supporting your favorite businesses that support local food, renewable energy, and independent retailers? What are the potential benefits for investing in your home, your own energy efficiency, and your family?

Back by popular demand from our year-long series in 2011, our 2012 monthly webinars and all-day workshop in May will review pioneering efforts around the country with respect to local banking, credit unions, slow-money investing, cooperatives, self-directed IRAs, local investing clubs, and local stock exchanges.

 

2012 WEBINAR SERIES

January 10, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
Call topic: Co-op Power: A Model for Local Investment, New Business Development and Job Creation with Lynn Benander of Co-op Power and Northeast Biodiesel

About the topic: It's common for cooperatives to use their shared ownership structure and member fees to capitalize the cooperative itself. Beyond member fees, some cooperatives solicit loans from members to do additional great work. But Co-op Power -- a consumer-owned energy cooperative with 420 members and 7000 supporters serving southern New England and eastern New York -- is stretching the bounds of the cooperative structure and is yielding amazing community capital returns in the process. Learn more.

February 14, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
Call topic: Lending Circles with Daniel Lau, Program Manager at Mission Assets Fund

About the topic: By bringing together neighbors, the lending circle model builds community while also improving the credit scores and loan potential for individuals and small businesses. Find out how Mission Asset Funds helps to set up, guide, and support lending circles; the results this has created for participants and businesses; and how you can create and support similar lending circles in your community. Learn more.

March 13, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
Call topic: Community Supported Enterprise: A Model for Accessing Multiple Community Investment Streams with Linda Ramsdell of Claires Restaurant and Bar
 
About the topic: Claire's Restaurant in Hardwick, Vermonth has pioneered a community supported restaurant model that brings together dozens of local investors and employs unique and creative ways for the community to invest. These community members have collaboratively contributed to the enterprise, from collective investing in the restaurant's space and equipment, to pre-sales of restaurant "subscriptions," to community loans for start-up capital. Learn more.
 
April 10, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
Call topic: Financing our Foodshed: Models for Group and One-on-One Loans from Slow Money NC
 
About the topic:  Many communities are looking for mechanisms for connecting multiple investors with deserving local businesses in need of capitalization. Slow Money North Carolina pioneered a new approach in 2011 when they helped a well-regarded community business -- Chatham Marketplace, the local cooperative grocery store -- refinance their loan through a mix of group loans as well as 16 individual investors. Learn more.
 
Our series will continue after our 2012 BALLE Business Conference in Grand Rapids, May 15-19.  Don't miss our preconference, day-long Accelerating Community Capital workshop on March 16 in Grand Rapids. See details below.

2012 WORKSHOP

May: Accelerating Community Capital Full-Day Workshop

Back by popular demand! Our hands-on preconference workshop uses place as the lens to understand how to meet regional needs with regional resources, and identify the kinds of capital needed to get there. The day will feature promising pilot projects and innovators developing models that connect local businesses with local lenders, investors and donors. Registration includes breakfast and lunch. Learn more about this 2012 workshop!
 
Speakers: Varied (visit our webpage about the speakers who are participating in this event)
Date and Time: May 16, 2012 in Grand Rapid, Michigan from 8:30am to 5:15pm; breakfast and sign-in starting at 8:00am  (opening day of the BALLE Business Conference)
 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

This series is aimed at community investors, instigators, organizers, foundations, innovative bankers, businesses looking for capital, and anyone committed to unleashing local money to build local living economies.

Participants in this series will learn about innovative strategies to:

• Connect local businesses with local lenders, investors and donors,
• Earn a "living rate of return" while supporting the local economy, and
• Create jobs by strengthening family farms, local manufacturing,
  and independent business.
 

PRICING

  • Staff, board and business members of BALLE networks: Free
  • General public: $25
  • When available, check for special discounts when you register in bundle

BEST PRACTICES!

Gather with others from your area to participate in a "viewing party" for each Accelerating Community Capital webinar. Hold a discussion group afterward to investigate how your community can apply what you learn. Groups can participate using just one member's registration!

Hear firsthand about the best models working right now that you can replicate where you live. Ask the presenters the questions you need to build local investing in your area. Learn more.

Here is how a community in Calgary is taking advantage of the series:

REAP and its Partners - First Calgary Financial, Thrive, Make it Good, and Conscious Brands – have started a monthly meetup, the Community Capital Network, to see this idea take root in Calgary. Meetings take place on the first Tuesday of each month when Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), the network of independent business networks to which REAP belongs, hosts its monthly webinars to connect resources on this topic. Participants settle in and dial-in to the webinar. Lunch, networking and discussion about how they can collaborate on opportunities in Calgary follows.

RAVE REVIEWS FOR THE SERIES!

Sustainable Local Investment Partners (SLIP) formed in 2005 around the desire to create a way for local non-wealthy people to put their money to work at home to grow the businesses and the jobs we need locally.  From there we ran headlong into the SEC restrictions and floundered for 6 years until now.  Thanks to BALLE’s Accelerating Community Capital webinar series, we are finally learning about the best practices and models we might be able to replicate in Spokane.  Now that we have content to work with, our local investing committee meets twice a month because there’s so much new information to digest.  You’re making a difference!  Thanks for making it seem possible, finally!  This IS our local stimulus program!      
- Susanne Croft,SLIP
 
I want you to know that the webinars have been a very important factor in the formation of a working group looking at the possibility for setting up a community-based investment fund for farms that sell food that’s been grown locally and sustainably and other related food-based enterprises...restaurants, etc. Thank you! 
- Mary Maller, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

 

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Our advisory committee helps us shape our Accelerating Community Capital series, including our pre-conference workshop, main conference content, and our year-long webinar series. Many thanks to:

Grant Abert, Director of the Kailo Fund and Cofounder of Slow Money Wisconsin
Alissa Barron, Managing Director, BALLE
Leslie Christian, Chair, Upstream 21
Michelle Long, Executive Director, BALLE
Esther Park, Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at RSF Social Finance
Don Shaffer, CEO at RSF Social Finance
Michael Shuman, BALLE Fellow and Director of Research at Cutting Edge Capital
Elizabeth U, Executive Director at Finance for Food

 

 

OUR 2011 WEBINAR SERIES

Special thanks to our 2011 ACC series cohosts:
RSF Social Finance and Slow Money
 
and to our series partners:
Investors Circle, AEO and Portfolio 21
 
February: Introduction to Community Capital Strategies and Solutions
Speakers: Michael Shuman, BALLE Research & Economic Development Director and Don Shaffer, President & CEO of RSF Social Finance.
Date and Time: February 1, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
March: Local Investment Opportunity Networks
Speaker: James Frazier, Lion Investing (LionInvesting.com)
Date and Time: March 1, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
April: Success Business Financing via Small Investors
Speaker: Ari Derfel, Slow Money (www.slowmoney.org) and Gather Restaurant (www.gatherrestaurant.com)
Date and Time: April 5, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
May: Cooperative Grassroots Investing
Speaker:  Robin Seydel, Membership and Community Development Coordinator, La Montañita Co-op in Albuquerque, New Mexico (La Montañita Fund)
Date and Time: May 3, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
July: Food Deserts and Access to Healthy Food : TRF's Community Reinvestment and Neighborhood Revitalization
Speaker: Don HInkle-Brown, The Reinvestment Fund in Philadelphia, PA (www.trfund.com)
Date and Time: July 5, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
August: Flexible Capital for Sustainable Businesses
Speaker: Janice St. Onge, Deputy Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund and President of the VSJF Flexible Capital Fund, L3C
Date and Time: August 2, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
September: Local Investment Clubs: A Replicable Example from Slow Money Maine
Speakers: Eleanor Kinney and Christopher Hallweaver, founders of the No Small Potatoes Investment Club, an initiative of Slow Money Maine
Date and Time: September 6, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
October: The "Soup" Model: Supporting Small Businesses through Local Crowdfunding and Community Engagement
Speaker: Jon Koller, President of Friends of Spaulding Court, Founder of Soup at Spaulding
Date and Time: October 4, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
November: Using Targeted CDs to Finance Local Business: An Example from Equal Exchange
Speaker: Daniel Fireside, Capital Coordinator, Equal Exchange
Date and Time: Tuesday, November 1, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 
December: Move Your Money, Then Make it Work for Your Community: Partnering with Local Banks and Credit Unions
Speaker: Leslie Ackerman, Director of Business CENTS, Alternatives Federal Credit Union; and from One PacificCoast, Kat Taylor, Founder, Dick Fletcher, Chief Lending Officer, and Erin Kilmer-Neel, Program Officer at One PacificCoast Foundation (a partner of One PacificCoast Bank)
Date and Time: Tuesday, December 6, 10 am - 11 am Pacific Time
 

2011 WORKSHOP

June: Accelerating Community Capital Full-Day Workshop

Speakers: Varied (visit our webpage about the speakers who participated in this event)
Date and Time: June 14 in Bellingham, Washington (opening day of the BALLE Business Conference)