Covestment with Community Currencies

= "Financing the future and creating economic resilience by weaving innovations in network currencies, crowdfunding and community microlending".

URL = http://www.seedstock.ca

Description

By Jordan Bober with y= Michael Linton:

In the post-2008 world of high unemployment, government austerity, constrained personal finances and restricted access to credit, it has become a matter of considerable challenge for new entrepreneurs to obtain the financing they need in order to create viable livelihoods for themselves and other community members while building the sustainable business ecology of the future. The old methods of financing business enterprises have not yet caught up with the business models and types of the emerging new economy. Meanwhile, “financing the future” has become a question of considerable urgency as threats posed by economic instability, climate change and peak oil demand that communities act quickly to adapt and build resilience.

This idea paper presents the outlines of a new concept that we are coining as “covestment”, an idea that we believe has the potential to transform the way sustainable enterprises and community projects are financed.

Covestment refers to a highly collaborative, convivial, and community-based approach to the financing of new community enterprises. It weaves together the most exciting innovations in business-backed, mutual credit-based community currencies, crowdfunding and community-based microlending. It is designed to be highly beneficial to all stakeholders in the community economic ecosystem, of very low financial risk, and resilient to external financial shocks. This is possible thanks to a community currency designed to capitalise on the surplus capacity of local businesses, part of which is used to create a community credit commons in partnership with local citizens and consumers."