Helping Donors Become More Powerful Givers
Author: Kevin Jones Issue: 2024-03-06
Helping Donors Become More Powerful Givers
by Kevin Jones (4 March 2024)
I’ve been asked to talk to the journeyman level farmers at the Organic Growers School tomorrow about our zero interest slow money loans to BIPOC farmers and biomedicinal farmers in our economic bioregion.
It’s a “giving to invest” fund on a new combined platform that lets people set up a sub account at a huge DAF (donor-advised fund) platform, impact assets, and then, using a local community development corp, invest out as low as $5k.
We are targeting local justice-focused nonprofits who have an existing donor base and who do good work. We can help their donors become more powerful givers in a way they feel and that keeps them engaged with the organization that got their philanthropic investment.
We want to do this model small and everywhere, teaching people how to give to invest, and discover that you have become a more powerful giver when the gift comes back, to be given again, without the nonprofit asking you for more money.
We want people to get the feeling of being effortlessly more powerful in their positive impact in the world. To get a boost they didn’t pay for. This is philanthropic investing designed as a luxury level experience for the donor.
Giving as a luxury good is the antithesis of investments that commodify people affected by your fund; relational funds are higher margin and people want to be around them more. They give an experience of connection when the money comes back, either to be kept and used for something special, or given out again to be recycled. These are dollars drenched in the social capital of reciprocity.
From our presentation:
The Watershed Fund is a zero interest loan fund Our two pronged focus is
- invest in BIPOC farmers across the state
- invest in local biomedicinal producers, using Warren Wilson's Guaranteed from Seed propagation platform as one criteria for investment; no wild harvested biomedicinals. - The fund is a philanthropic investment fund; people give, get a tax deduction, and then that gift is invested in the farmers' businesses. When it is repaid the donor has become a more powerful giver.Our two platform partners - We are working with $3.2 billion donor advised fund Impact Assets which has come out with a platform that lets people have a sub account, from which they can give to invest for as little as $250. - We add on to that the capability of Eagle Market Streets Community Development Corporation, here in Buncombe County that lets a group of people who care about something, a group who already gives, to give as little as $5,000, for a group to give to invest. - When the gift comes back, the giver has become a more powerful giver, with no additional effort and no more money contributed. When they give to invest in a farmer, the gift comes back to be given again.To sum up - We have a platform that lets people give to invest for as little as $5,000. Those philanthropic investments can go to the Watershed Fund which invests in BIPOC farmers around the state and herb and plant medicine producers in the greater Asheville economic bioregion. - Our ultimate goal is to see widespread adoption of give to invest,as a modality, while at the same time making local farmers more resilient through low cost capital. - Thanks [Kevindoylejones1@gmail. com](mailto:Kevindoylejones1@gmail. com)
Related:
- Kevin Jones (author)
- 2024 (year)
- Topics: Community Building, Bioregionalism and Place-Based Practice