Let’s fix the economy from the ground up, starting with food.
Many of us have a variety of investments which travel the globe at the speed of light and have no relationship to us, or to the products we use, or to our local communities.
We felt we needed to change that.
So we created a way our money could stay here in our communities where it can do a great deal of good, and bring it back down to earth. We reconnected with a portion of the money that was usually entrusted to strangers in faraway places and, instead, helped build a more local, durable economy from the soil up!
We knew that if we each invested just 1% of our portfolios in enhancing our local food systems, the change would be extraordinary. Our money could quickly go to work enriching our lives, instead of the lives of faraway bankers and businesses. When thousands of people do something, even something small, it can make a very big difference. If you include “meaning” in your investment metric, you will find making these loans offers insanely wonderful returns.
By making personal, peer-to-peer low interest loans to local food businesses we enhance our local food shed and enrich our community. The personal rewards are greater than the financial ones.
From 2010 to 2002 about 250+ folks in North Carolina who wanted to build resilience in their local food economy made more than 300 low-interest loans – totaling nearly $5 million – supporting 140+ sustainable farmers and local food enterprises throughout the state!
While Slow Money NC still works with the existing loans, we are no longer actively seeking lenders and borrowers at this time. (September 2022.)
But we are happy to walk you through the steps to do this yourself! You can reach us at slowmoneync@gmail.com.
A Taste of Tasch
“This enterprise that we are a part of, with its new organic farmers and the host of small food enterprises that are emerging to bring their produce to market, is about an economy that does less harm…. It’s about pulling some of our money out of ever-accelerating financial markets and its myriad abstractions — called, with more than a little irony, securities — and putting it to work near where we live, in things that we understand, starting with food — creating a more immediate and tangible kind of security.”
from Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money, by Woody Tasch