A Call to Farms

October 28, 2024 – John Abrams

I know. We’re all thinking about the election. As we should be. But life goes on, too. My friend Woody Tasch recently moved from Boulder, CO to Providence to be close to his grandchildren.

Woody’s decades-long involvement in impact investing has evolved into his concept of Slow Money, which has become a movement. In the 1990s, as the CEO of an angel network called Investors’ Circle, Woody was exploring the notion of patient capital. Then, in 2000, he visited the birthplace of “slow food” in Italy and realized: “Oh my God. Patient capital—it’s really slow money.”

Michael Shuman, writing in his Main Street Journal, the best source I know for top notch information about the importance of local economies and local investing, says:

Slow Money was an idea, then a book, then a massive movement. Just as Slow Food encouraged great local eating as an opportunity for relationship building, Slow Money invites us to know—and love—the people, projects, and businesses in which we invest.  One of the most influential books launching the local investment movement was Woody’s Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money (Chelsea Green, 2009). Readers were not just enthusiastic about the book; they became evangelists. Woody created a national organization called the Slow Money Institute.

Next month, Slow Money will have a gathering in Providence—A Call to Farms—to keep bringing money back to earth—to heal food systems and build resilient local economies. This event may interest some of you.

You can read Shuman’s interview with Woody here. I think you’ll find it inspiring, and it might lure you to Providence (one of the most vital resurgent small cities in New England) in mid-November. Could be an uplifting place to spend two days just after the election dust has (hopefully) settled.