Whether your food business is a for-profit, a co-op, or nonprofit, chances are good it’s way underfunded…or worse. Banks won’t extend loans. Wealthy “accredited” investors prefer big companies. Foundations like the idea of PRIs better than the practice. Where else can you turn? Well…there’s the other 99% of the public that’s “unaccredited” and historically regarded as off-limits to local business…
Drawing from his new book, “Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street,” Michael Shuman will explain a dozen, low-cost strategies local businesses are using to secure new capital from the general public. He will talk about specialized bank CD programs, prepurchase deals, new-generation cooperatives, internet sponsorship sites (like Kickstarter), P2P lenders (like Prosper and Kiva), community lending circles, investment clubs, municipal bond schemes, local revolving loan funds, direct public offerings, and local stock exchanges. He also will report on the latest news of a crowdfunding reform bill – sponsored by Tea-Party Republicans but endorsed by the Obama Administration – that is working its way through Congress and could literally make trillions of dollars of new capital available to local business.
