Resources for a New Economy

[Judith Culver]

Post your local, regional and online resources here.  We want to be the "go-to" group for financial information.

[Judith Culver]

Green America (www.greenamerica.com) formerly Co-op America
Website has articles about breaking up with your bank and general community investing
Magazine Green American Spring 2009 issue theme is “From Greed to Green”-many articles

Yes! Magazine
Summer 2009 issue theme is “the New Economy Starts Here”-many articles

Green Money Journal since 1992 (www.greenmoney.com)
Emphasis on socially responsible investing
Extensive calendar of events; online archives back to 2000

www.socialinvest.org -a table of SRI (socially responsible investment) results

Move Your Money Campaign (www.moveyourmoney.info)

Slow Money Alliance (www.slowmoneyalliance.org)
founder Woody Tasch wrote Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money; chapter in Seattle; focus on food and ag; community development venture capital
Focus is to slow money down, reconnect it to the earth respect carrying capacity, the commons, sense of place and non-violence. “We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered."

Community Development Banks
ShoreBank Pacific – Portland, Ilwaco WA, Seattle
ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia – Seattle; not a bank; revolving loan fund; loans to people who are unable to access traditional sources of capital


RSF Social Investment Fund (Rsfsocialfinance.org)
Executive is Don Schaffer; Bay area; borrowers get loans from fund; investors loan money; Interest paid to investors is an agreement between reps of investors, borrowers, and staff; Borrowers include New Leaf Papers, Mary’s Gone Crackers, etc.
Based on work of Rudolph Steiner
Not currently available to Washington residents

Portfolio 21
Co-founder is Leslie Christian, Portland
SRI mutual fund; global fund with 32% US

[Laura J Sellens]

Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Step-by-step approach to gaining absolute control over your personal finances so you can live the life you want.

[Judith Culver]

Here's a great article from Yes! magazine about the barriers to local investing.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-new-economy/invest-locally-pu...

and two quick excerpts:

"Today these laws place huge restrictions on the investment choices of small, “unaccredited” investors—a category in Securities and Exchange Commission vernacular that includes all but the richest 2 percent of Americans. The regulations prohibit the average American from investing in any small business, unless the business is willing to spend $50,000 to $100,000 on lawyers to prepare private placement memoranda or public offerings—thick documents with microscopic, all-caps print that no human being has ever actually been observed reading." (my comment: unaccredited investors are people like us with less than a million in assets or $250,00 in annual income)

"Local stock exchanges. Let’s allow private companies to facilitate local trading of microbusiness stock electronically, like Prosper.com and Kiva.org do for microloans. (The SEC now bans small, electronic exchanges like these from trading equities.)"

Another resource is:

Here's where I read about the SEC and online person-to-person lending sites:http://shaula.massena.com/2010/01/20/notes-on-the-online-money-mark... It's a blog by a very knowledgeable advisor in Seattle.

"Notes on the online money marketplace
January 20, 2010 by Shaula

I’ve got a tab that’s due for update on the online money marketplace focused more on investing and lending. That field has evolved over time as we work out the question of what’s appropriate to offer to non-accredited investors. MicroPlace came out and registered as a broker to offer securities from the get-go. Prosper started out as peer-to-peer lending but was eventually pushed by the SEC to register to offer securities. Kiva has as-yet avoided registration and the key difference seems to be that they don’t pay a return – when you lend via Kiva you don’t earn interest, so it’s not an investment."

[Heather K]

Common Security Clubs (Coming together to prepare for economic change)
http://commonsecurityclub.org/


Two sites that rate banks & credit unions. (I'm not sure who is paying the business that does these ratings)

http://www.bankrate.com/rates/safe-sound/ssPromo.aspx

http://www.bauerfinancial.com/home.html

(Thanks to Judith for links)

[David MacLeod]

A good article by Michael Pilarski in his latest newsletter.

BUILDING THE NEW ECONOMIES:
SOME THOUGHTS AND RESOURCES
pdf of article here