Our mission is to catalyze the flow of capital to our local food system by developing a network of entrepreneurs, farmers and investors guided by new impact investment principles connected to place, rooted in relationships and respecting human dignity and environmental limits. 1. We must bring money back down to earth. 2. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down — not all of it, of course, but enough to matter. 3. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place, diversity and nonviolence. 4. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating healthy relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises. 5. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living. 6. Paul Newman said, “I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out.” Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking: · What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live? · What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits? · What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?