Gatheround enables every person to invest in local food businesses, help make decisions and track progress.

Slow Money

May 2, 2013

2 Min Read
Slow Money unveils next-gen crowdfunding platform

Slow Money is taking enormous strides forward with the announcement of Gatheround, a next-generation crowdfunding platform. Gatheround will catalyze the flow of capital into small businesses vital to healthy local economies and a more resilient food system. Slow Money announced Gatheround to an intimate audience of 725 at its fourth Slow Money National Gathering held this week in Boulder, Colo. Gatheround works by allowing everyday people, not just accredited investors, to contribute small tax-deductible donations to the Gatheround nonprofit fund. This money is then invested as a zero percent loan into selected emerging businesses. As each business pays back the principle amount of the loan, that money is put back into Gatheround, to be redistributed to other businesses in need.

“A ‘good financier’ says no most of the time,” says Woody Tasch, founder and chairman of Slow Money. “Gatheround is a way for many individuals to say yes to small food enterprises around the country. Money is compost. We want to nurture entrepreneurs from the ground up.”

Slow Money encourages investing in local food enterprises as a way to repair the fragile economy. Food production serves as the nexus between people, places and finance, and is thus the path to a more grounded, stable economy. Potential businesses funded through Gatheround are innovative private enterprises that are building the local, organic food systems of the future. Some examples of these enterprises might include: local farms, restaurants, grain mills, vegetable processors, local distributors, compost companies, grass fed beef operations, fruit producers, hog farmers, non-antibiotic therapies for dairy cattle or inner city food markets and others.

Gatheround’s success is rooted within the extensive groundwork already laid by a network of Slow Money Chapters through the US. These chapters have invested $25 million into local food-related business ventures to date. Gatheround is more than just a funding mechanism; it includes community gatherings, outreach and capacity building. Gatheround connects the ease of online crowdfunding, the knowledge of Slow Money’s established investor network and the power of in-person gatherings to create a new source of growth for small food enterprises.

Slow Money unveiled Gatheround during its successful fourth Slow Money National Gathering that attracted investors, farmers, food entrepreneurs and luminaries. The fourth Slow Money National Gathering was held this week in Boulder, Colo. Gatheround’s first donation was made to Revision International, a nonprofit food enterprise based in Denver, Colo., the winner of the Mamma Chia Entrepreneur of the Year award. Mamma Chia, a company that only three years ago was nurtured with Slow Money investment, donated $25,000. This capital was matched by Slow Money’s new funding tool Gatheround, creating a total prize of $50,000. Mamma Chia also matched $4,100 donated to Gatheround for a People’s Choice award which totalled $8,200, given to Hayden Flour Mills, a company based in Phoenix.

 

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About the Author(s)

Slow  Money

What is Slow Money? 

 

The Slow Money Alliance is bringing people together around a new conversation about money that is too fast, about finance that is disconnected from people and place, about how we can begin fixing our economy from the ground up... starting with food.

 

The National Gathering 

Register for this year's National Gathering, which will take place April 29 and 30 in Boulder, Colorado. Register here for this event.  

  • Watch pioneering investment presentations

  • Participate in break-out sessions such as New Visions of Corporate Philanthropyand Exploring Seeds and Biodiversity to Impact Investing. 

  • Connect with investors, advocates and more to learn about a new kind of social investing. 

  • Listen to speakers including Carlo Petrini, international founder, Slow Food; Wes Jackson, founder, The Land Institute; and Janie Hoffman, founder, Mamma Chia

 

Sign 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 Slow Money 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. 

I

II. 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?


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