In a world that is heating up and speeding up, is there anything more important than fixing things from the ground up? We don’t think so.
We believe that building robust local food systems acts as a seed of change, addressing our era's most daunting challenges—climate change, health, community resilience.
Our mission? To grow a grassroots, international movement supporting local food systems, connecting us to the places where we live and deepening our commitment diversity, from the ground up. The Slow Money Institute helps organize local groups which use a diversity of approaches: public meetings, on-farm events, pitch fests, peer-to-peer loans, investment clubs and, most recently, nonprofit clubs making 0% loans.
The Slow Money events I attended were so compelling, so inspiring, so empowering, and yet so down-to-earth that it was impossible to walk away unchanged. ‘Bringing money back down to earth’ is not just a catchy phrase, but a very real, practical and brilliant way to change the world—starting close to home."
“Slow Money is one of the keys to a healthy future.”
“The social and environmental crises of our time call for radically new economic vision. Who knew that poetry could seed it? Now we know.”
“There was a moment, seeing wonderful old codgers who have been farming for decades, sitting with young environmentalists, food entrepreneurs, and New York investment types. Wow. Talk about being the change we seek. It was a profoundly hopeful moment.”
“Connecting food, money and soil, really connecting them—this may just be a threshold moment in the history of agriculture.”
"Slow Money’s vision is doing more than catalyzing vital new capital flows to local food systems—it is seeding genuine cultural transformation."
“This is the path to an alternative future.”
“It brings tears to my eyes.”
“Slow Money provides the language, the vocabulary, and the framing—empowering us to connect our values to our investments and our investments to local food systems.”
“Every once in a while, an idea comes around that you immediately know is not only a good one, but in fact is an absolutely necessary one. Slow Money is such an idea."
Since our inaugural national gathering in 2009, Slow Money events have fueled change in communities across the nation.
Our events, engaging tens of thousands of attendees, have sparked the formation of scores of local groups and nurtured countless connections between funders, farmers and local food entrepreneurs.
The voices of local leaders, organic farmers, food entrepreneurs, thought leaders, donors, and investors.
September 14 • 3 min read
UpdatesI don’t know what a bitcoin is. I know how bitcoin is described in the media, that it is called a crypto-currency, that the Japanese programmer who created it is shrouded in secrecy, that it has been used by drug dealers, that venture capitalists are pouring billions of dollars into “mining” it.
Woody Tasch
Founder, Slow Money Institute
August 21 • 10 min read
UpdatesDaphne Miller, MD, (Brown University; Harvard Medical School), is a practicing family physician, author, and associate clinical professor at the University of California San Francisco. For the past 15 years, her leadership, advocacy, and writing have focused on aligning all aspects of food production and agriculture with human health. Daphne is the author of two<a href="https://slowmoney.org/blog/a-conversation-with-dr-daphne-miller/">Continue reading <span class="sr-only">"A Conversation With Dr. Daphne Miller"</span></a>
Woody Tasch
Founder, Slow Money Institute
July 11 • 4 min read
UpdatesZephyros Farm and Garden has always sought diversity and quality in its organic production. When Daphne and I started this farm 13 years ago, like many young couples starting out, we wanted it all; every vegetable under the sun, flowers, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, children, worms, compost, and a life for ourselves. After many years<a href="https://slowmoney.org/blog/how-a-zero-percent-loan-is-helping-this-colorado-farm/">Continue reading <span class="sr-only">"How a Zero-Percent Loan is Helping This Colorado Farm"</span></a>
Don Lareau
Co-Owner and Operator, Zephyros Farm
