Slow Money, is a non-profit organization based in Boulder, CO, that has the mission of "catalyzing the flow of capital to local food systems, connecting investors to the places where they live and promoting new principles of fiduciary responsibility that 'bring money back down to earth.'"
History
Slow Money was started by Woody Tasch, former chairman of Investors' Circle - a nonprofit network of over 200 angel investors, professional venture capitalists, foundations, family offices and others. The idea to initiate the Slow Money movement came to Tasch while he was writing his book Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money - Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered. The non-profit, Slow Money, was founded in November of 2008, following the publication of Tasch's book. The movement gained significant momentum from a number of local and regional meetings, and press coverage during the first half of 2009 leading to an inaugural national gathering.
National gatherings
The inaugural national gathering of Slow Money took place in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Farmer's Market in September 2009. 450 entrepreneurs, farmers, investors, and interested people traveled from over 34 states and 6 countries to attend. A second national gathering, attended by about 600 people, was held at Shelburne Farms in Vermont, June 9-11, 2010. Slow Money's fourth national gathering took place April 29-30, 2013 in Boulder, Colorado, and attracted 650 people from 37 states. Slow Money 2014 in Louisville, KY, the fifth Slow Money national gathering, was the largest such event yet, attracting over 850 people from 46 states.
As of early 2015, more than $7 million has been directly invested in 35 small food enterprises that have attended Slow Money national gatherings.
Local networks
The initial national gathering has resulted in people starting local and regional networks of Slow Money. As of early 2015, 24 local Slow Money networks have formed. In addition, six investment clubs have formed. "No Small Potatoes" (initiated by local participants in the Maine network) was the first local investment club to form. It has 19 members who have committed $5,000 each and has made 29 loans totaling $140,000 dollars. Members of five other Slow Money networks were inspired by this model to follow suit. No Small Potatoes has published all of its formational documents, to make this process easier for others interested in local investing alongside their peers.
Principles
In September 2009, a campaign was launched to get one million people to sign the Slow Money Principles that advocate for cultural, ecological and economic diversity in an economy based on healthy people in healthy places. As of early 2015, over 30,000 people have signed the Slow Money Principles.
Incubating new intermediaries
Slow Money's long-term objective is for one million people to commit 1% of their assets to local food systems. Slow Money is incubating new intermediaries. The first of these is the Beetcoin, an online platform which lets individuals contribute as little as $25 to help local and organic food enterprises reach funding goals. All loans are deployed at 0% interest, and every dollar that gets repaid is recycled to future entrepreneurs.
In addition to the Beetcoin, there is a new service for small food enterprises, homegrown in the Slow Money family, called Credibles, standing for edible credits. It allows communities to come together and support their local shops by pre-purchasing food. In this way, it expands the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model to other local food enterprises in addition to farms.
Concepts to be developed
Early on, Slow Money founder Woody Tasch also proposed the need for a new class of foundations acting as "I-Funds" with "I" standing for "integral", in which a new foundation charter mandates investment of assets that are consistent with charitable purposes. Another strategy is Slow Munis or tax-exempt municipal bonds dedicated to local food systems. New funds dedicated to organic farmland are being organized. Food funds and "clubs" are being developed locally in many regions. The Slow Money book outlines the need for rebuilding local stock exchanges alongside rebuilding local food systems, asking questions like: "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?"
History
Slow Money was started by Woody Tasch, former chairman of Investors' Circle - a nonprofit network of over 200 angel investors, professional venture capitalists, foundations, family offices and others. The idea to initiate the Slow Money movement came to Tasch while he was writing his book Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money - Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered. The non-profit, Slow Money, was founded in November of 2008, following the publication of Tasch's book. The movement gained significant momentum from a number of local and regional meetings, and press coverage during the first half of 2009 leading to an inaugural national gathering.
National gatherings
The inaugural national gathering of Slow Money took place in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Farmer's Market in September 2009. 450 entrepreneurs, farmers, investors, and interested people traveled from over 34 states and 6 countries to attend. A second national gathering, attended by about 600 people, was held at Shelburne Farms in Vermont, June 9-11, 2010. Slow Money's fourth national gathering took place April 29-30, 2013 in Boulder, Colorado, and attracted 650 people from 37 states. Slow Money 2014 in Louisville, KY, the fifth Slow Money national gathering, was the largest such event yet, attracting over 850 people from 46 states.
As of early 2015, more than $7 million has been directly invested in 35 small food enterprises that have attended Slow Money national gatherings.
Local networks
The initial national gathering has resulted in people starting local and regional networks of Slow Money. As of early 2015, 24 local Slow Money networks have formed. In addition, six investment clubs have formed. "No Small Potatoes" (initiated by local participants in the Maine network) was the first local investment club to form. It has 19 members who have committed $5,000 each and has made 29 loans totaling $140,000 dollars. Members of five other Slow Money networks were inspired by this model to follow suit. No Small Potatoes has published all of its formational documents, to make this process easier for others interested in local investing alongside their peers.
Principles
In September 2009, a campaign was launched to get one million people to sign the Slow Money Principles that advocate for cultural, ecological and economic diversity in an economy based on healthy people in healthy places. As of early 2015, over 30,000 people have signed the Slow Money Principles.
Incubating new intermediaries
Slow Money's long-term objective is for one million people to commit 1% of their assets to local food systems. Slow Money is incubating new intermediaries. The first of these is the Beetcoin, an online platform which lets individuals contribute as little as $25 to help local and organic food enterprises reach funding goals. All loans are deployed at 0% interest, and every dollar that gets repaid is recycled to future entrepreneurs.
In addition to the Beetcoin, there is a new service for small food enterprises, homegrown in the Slow Money family, called Credibles, standing for edible credits. It allows communities to come together and support their local shops by pre-purchasing food. In this way, it expands the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model to other local food enterprises in addition to farms.
Concepts to be developed
Early on, Slow Money founder Woody Tasch also proposed the need for a new class of foundations acting as "I-Funds" with "I" standing for "integral", in which a new foundation charter mandates investment of assets that are consistent with charitable purposes. Another strategy is Slow Munis or tax-exempt municipal bonds dedicated to local food systems. New funds dedicated to organic farmland are being organized. Food funds and "clubs" are being developed locally in many regions. The Slow Money book outlines the need for rebuilding local stock exchanges alongside rebuilding local food systems, asking questions like: "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?"
African Honey Bee is a social-franchise beekeeping micro-business incubator established in 2007. Its purpose is to alleviate poverty through sustainable beekeeping, by enabling rural families to benefit from the unpolluted prime honey producing vegetation around them.
History
African Honey Bee was set up by Guy Stubbs, a Christian Social Entrepreneur, who has expertise in developmental beekeeping. Andrew Weeks and Kobus Visser also contributed to the project.
African Honey Bee supports viable micro-beekeeping businesses in southern Africa by developing a network of interlinked beekeeping incubator farms and consumables, appropriate technology, and access to markets. The organization also promotes the benefits of locally-produced honey to consumers.
Beekeepers that partner with African Honey Bee are provided with training, mentoring and support, low-cost infrastructure, equipment, consumables and logistics, and off-take agreements/partnerships with large retailers.
African Honey Bee requires its beekeepers to manage their bees according to its Afri-hive organic beekeeping system, its Nektar management and traceability technology, and its quality standards. Its beekeepers are also managed and mentored by an African Honey Bee senior beekeeper.
Prospective beekeepers from rural areas are generally between the ages of 18 - 26 and spend 18 months in an incubation program. During this time, they are officially employed by the incubator as salaried working interns. During their incubation, the interns complete an African Honey Bee developed program in beekeeping. They work under the guidance of senior beekeepers on an African Honey Bee commercial bee farm. The interns are also assisted to start their own beekeeping business on a small scale, with the view of increasing it once they complete the incubation process. At the end of their incubation, the beekeepers automatically become shareholders in African Honey Bee Kruger Park (Pty) Ltd, the main operating entity of the group, through a stakeholder Trust.
A beekeeper development Trust (that owns 10% of the equity in African Honey Bee Kruger Park Pty Ltd) raises grant funding to provide support to partner beekeepers in the form of mentorship, training, logistics, access to low cost equipment and consumables.
African Honey Bee's first incubator, Bushbuckridge, began operations in April 2013.
Honey harvested from the incubation farms and procured from partner beekeepers is then transported to a central processing plant where it is strained, bottled, labelled, packaged, and dispatched for distribution. African Honey Bee's Nektar management and traceability technology will allow consumers to trace their batch of honey back to the beekeeper that produced it and see on Google Earth where it comes from.
The African Beekeeper Trust (development trust) has been registered as an NPO and PBO, providing African Honey Bee with a vehicle to raise grant funding for, and manage beekeeper development.
History
African Honey Bee was set up by Guy Stubbs, a Christian Social Entrepreneur, who has expertise in developmental beekeeping. Andrew Weeks and Kobus Visser also contributed to the project.
African Honey Bee supports viable micro-beekeeping businesses in southern Africa by developing a network of interlinked beekeeping incubator farms and consumables, appropriate technology, and access to markets. The organization also promotes the benefits of locally-produced honey to consumers.
Beekeepers that partner with African Honey Bee are provided with training, mentoring and support, low-cost infrastructure, equipment, consumables and logistics, and off-take agreements/partnerships with large retailers.
African Honey Bee requires its beekeepers to manage their bees according to its Afri-hive organic beekeeping system, its Nektar management and traceability technology, and its quality standards. Its beekeepers are also managed and mentored by an African Honey Bee senior beekeeper.
Prospective beekeepers from rural areas are generally between the ages of 18 - 26 and spend 18 months in an incubation program. During this time, they are officially employed by the incubator as salaried working interns. During their incubation, the interns complete an African Honey Bee developed program in beekeeping. They work under the guidance of senior beekeepers on an African Honey Bee commercial bee farm. The interns are also assisted to start their own beekeeping business on a small scale, with the view of increasing it once they complete the incubation process. At the end of their incubation, the beekeepers automatically become shareholders in African Honey Bee Kruger Park (Pty) Ltd, the main operating entity of the group, through a stakeholder Trust.
A beekeeper development Trust (that owns 10% of the equity in African Honey Bee Kruger Park Pty Ltd) raises grant funding to provide support to partner beekeepers in the form of mentorship, training, logistics, access to low cost equipment and consumables.
African Honey Bee's first incubator, Bushbuckridge, began operations in April 2013.
Honey harvested from the incubation farms and procured from partner beekeepers is then transported to a central processing plant where it is strained, bottled, labelled, packaged, and dispatched for distribution. African Honey Bee's Nektar management and traceability technology will allow consumers to trace their batch of honey back to the beekeeper that produced it and see on Google Earth where it comes from.
The African Beekeeper Trust (development trust) has been registered as an NPO and PBO, providing African Honey Bee with a vehicle to raise grant funding for, and manage beekeeper development.
David Wearing is a British writer and researcher who is a Teaching Fellow in International Relations and a specialist on UK foreign relations in the Middle East at Royal Holloway, University of London. His articles on domestic and international politics have been published by The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, openDemocracy, ZNet, Liberal Conspiracy, and AlJazeera. He was also a founder and co-editor of the now defunct political website New Left Project.
Wearing was born in Dartford, Kent, and educated at Dartford Grammar School and Anglia Ruskin University, where he studied for a BA in European Philosophy and Literature. He later obtained an MSc in International Public Policy from University College London, where he undertook postgraduate research on British foreign policy in the Middle East. He completed a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, researching Britain's relationship with the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, under the supervision of Gilbert Achcar, before joining Royal Holloway in 2017 as a teaching fellow. Burhan Wazir in the New Statesman called the book "important research on the macro nature of Gulf finances in Britain". Owen Jones noted in the Guardian that the book highlights how "Britain’s colossal current account deficit... is being financed by Gulf petrodollars, including from Saudi Arabia."
Wearing was born in Dartford, Kent, and educated at Dartford Grammar School and Anglia Ruskin University, where he studied for a BA in European Philosophy and Literature. He later obtained an MSc in International Public Policy from University College London, where he undertook postgraduate research on British foreign policy in the Middle East. He completed a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, researching Britain's relationship with the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, under the supervision of Gilbert Achcar, before joining Royal Holloway in 2017 as a teaching fellow. Burhan Wazir in the New Statesman called the book "important research on the macro nature of Gulf finances in Britain". Owen Jones noted in the Guardian that the book highlights how "Britain’s colossal current account deficit... is being financed by Gulf petrodollars, including from Saudi Arabia."
Jacob Reider is an American physician and expert in health information technology policy.
Education
Reider holds a Bachelor of the Arts in cognitive science from Hampshire College, and a Doctor of Medicine from Albany Medical College.
Career
Reider served as CMIO of Allscripts, a developer of Electronic Health Records, Chief Strategy Officer and later CEO of healthcare analytics startup company Kyron, based in Palo Alto, CA. He operated as Medical Director of Clinical Systems at CapitalCare Medical Group and Associate Dean of Biomedical Informatics at Albany Medical College. Reider has authored several papers on primary care topics and health information technology.
Reider was Deputy National Coordinator and Chief Medical Officer of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, a staff division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services in the executive branch of the United States Government. Reider was named acting National Coordinator when Farzad Mostashari resigned in October 2013. Reider was recognized for leading the organization's work on clinical decision support, usability and health IT safety. During this time, Reider helped to create the regulatory framework for the United States' $30B of investments in health information technology. He was chair of the Health IT Standards Committee and led ONC's policy work on health IT certification and its relationship to the CMS EHR incentive programs.
As of 2022, Reider serves as General Manager of Circulo Health, and CEO of Circulo ACO. He was named as one of the "power 50" in the New York Capital Region for 2022. From 2016-2021, he served as CEO of The Alliance for Better Health, a New York State DSRIP PPS and remains co-founder (with Bryan Sivak) of RS Partners, a consulting firm specializing in health innovation. Reider also served as Chief Health Officer of Physera, a health innovation start-up company acquired by Omada in 2020, and was a member of the Board of Directors of Avhana Health, a Clinical Decision Support company that was acquired by AmalgamRX in 2021.
Personal life
Reider's father and paternal grandfather were both psychiatrists. Reider has been married to Albany Law School President and Dean Alicia Ouellette for 33 years, and the couple has two children. Reider lives in Albany, NY and speaks several languages, including Spanish.
Education
Reider holds a Bachelor of the Arts in cognitive science from Hampshire College, and a Doctor of Medicine from Albany Medical College.
Career
Reider served as CMIO of Allscripts, a developer of Electronic Health Records, Chief Strategy Officer and later CEO of healthcare analytics startup company Kyron, based in Palo Alto, CA. He operated as Medical Director of Clinical Systems at CapitalCare Medical Group and Associate Dean of Biomedical Informatics at Albany Medical College. Reider has authored several papers on primary care topics and health information technology.
Reider was Deputy National Coordinator and Chief Medical Officer of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, a staff division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services in the executive branch of the United States Government. Reider was named acting National Coordinator when Farzad Mostashari resigned in October 2013. Reider was recognized for leading the organization's work on clinical decision support, usability and health IT safety. During this time, Reider helped to create the regulatory framework for the United States' $30B of investments in health information technology. He was chair of the Health IT Standards Committee and led ONC's policy work on health IT certification and its relationship to the CMS EHR incentive programs.
As of 2022, Reider serves as General Manager of Circulo Health, and CEO of Circulo ACO. He was named as one of the "power 50" in the New York Capital Region for 2022. From 2016-2021, he served as CEO of The Alliance for Better Health, a New York State DSRIP PPS and remains co-founder (with Bryan Sivak) of RS Partners, a consulting firm specializing in health innovation. Reider also served as Chief Health Officer of Physera, a health innovation start-up company acquired by Omada in 2020, and was a member of the Board of Directors of Avhana Health, a Clinical Decision Support company that was acquired by AmalgamRX in 2021.
Personal life
Reider's father and paternal grandfather were both psychiatrists. Reider has been married to Albany Law School President and Dean Alicia Ouellette for 33 years, and the couple has two children. Reider lives in Albany, NY and speaks several languages, including Spanish.