Could there ever be an alternative stock exchange dedicated to slow, small, and local? Could a million American families get their food from CSAs? What if you had to invest 50 percent of your assets within 50 miles of where you live?Such questions-at the heart of slow money-represent the first steps on our path to a new economy. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money presents an essential new strategy for investing in local food systems and introduces a group of fiduciary activists who are exploring what should come after industrial finance and industrial agriculture. Theirs is a vision for investing that puts soil fertility into return-on-investment calculations and serves people and place as much at it serves industry sectors and markets. Leading the charge is Woody Tasch-whose decades of work as a venture capitalist, foundation treasurer, and entrepreneur now shed new light on a truer, more beautiful, more prudent kind of fiduciary responsibility. He offers an alternative vision to the dusty old industrial concepts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when dollars, and the businesses they financed, lost their connection to place; slow money, on the other hand, is firmly rooted in the new economic, social, and environmental realities of the 21st century. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money is a call to action for designing capital markets built around not extraction and consumption but preservation and restoration. Is it a movement or is it an investment strategy? Yes.

Local Dollars, Local Sense is a guide to creating Community Resilience. Americans' long-term savings in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, pension funds, and life insurance funds total about $30 trillion. But not even 1 percent of these savings touch local small business-even though roughly half the jobs and the output in the private economy come from them. So, how can people increasingly concerned with the poor returns from Wall Street and the devastating impact of global companies on their communities invest in Main Street? In Local Dollars, Local Sense, local economy pioneer Michael Shuman shows investors, including the nearly 99% who are unaccredited, how to put their money into building local businesses and resilient regional economies-and profit in the process. A revolutionary toolbox for social change, written with compelling personal stories, the book delivers the most thorough overview available of local investment options, explains the obstacles, and profiles investors who have paved the way. Shuman demystifies the growing realm of local investment choices-from institutional lending to investment clubs and networks, local investment funds, community ownership, direct public offerings, local stock exchanges, crowdfunding, and more. He also guides readers through the lucrative opportunities to invest locally in their homes, energy efficiency, and themselves. A rich resource for both investors and the entrepreneurs they want to support, Local Dollars, Local Sense eloquently shows how to truly protect your financial future--and your community's.

Increasingly, food-based businesses are seen as key solutions to solve our social and environmental problems, and yet entrepreneurs report a surprising lack of access to money to help them get started or grow. Raising Dough is an unprecedented guide that provides social entrepreneurs - as well as their potential supporters - the tools necessary to enable more of these businesses to launch and thrive. Through a mix of case studies and her own personal expertise, social-finance expert Elizabeth U explains what every budding entrepreneur should do even before they begin asking for money, including choosing an appropriate ownership model. She covers a wide range of possible funding sources, from traditional public and institutional grant and loan programs to cutting-edge, community crowdfunding models. Written primarily for people managing socially responsible food businesses, Raising Dough includes resources, strategies, and lessons that can benefit any socially minded entrepreneur and those who would support them, including investors.--COVER.

The Great Recession not only shook Americans’ economic faith but also prompted powerful critiques of economic institutions. This timely book explores three movements that gathered force after 2008: the rise of the benefit corporation, which requires social responsibility and eschews share price as the best metric for success; the emergence of a new group, Slow Money, that fosters peer-to-peer investing; and the 2011 Wisconsin protests against a bill restricting the union rights of state workers. Each case shows how the concrete actions of a group of citizens can prompt us to reflect on what is needed for a just and sustainable economic system. In one case, activists raised questions about the responsibilities of business, in the second about the significance of local economies, and in the third about the contributions of the public sector. Through these movements, Jane L. Collins maps a set of cultural conversations about the types of investments and activities that contribute to the health of the economy. Compelling and persuasive, The Politics of Value offers a new framework for viewing economic value, one grounded in thoughtful assessment of the social division of labor and the relationship of the state and the market to civil society.

The integration of technology into entrepreneurial initiatives has led to the use of online communities to raise funds for projects and ventures. Through the use of social media platforms and the social web, crowdfunding has provided an innovative, large-scale fundraising solution for both personal and professional initiatives. Strategic Approaches to Successful Crowdfunding brings together a collection of research-based chapters relating to the use of the social web to raise funds and provide financial support for start-up companies, individual pursuits, and philanthropic endeavors. Focusing on a diverse set of topics relating to e-commerce, capital investment, peer-to-peer lending, digital philanthropy, and virtual communities, this timely publication is an essential reference source for academicians, researchers, professionals, and graduate students interested in understanding the dynamics, best practices, and managerial solutions for drawing funds and financial support from online communities.