Bonnie Rukin, Slow Money Maine, June 8, 2017

Slow Money Maine, Bonnie Rukin, of Camden, Maine.

Slow Money Maine provides Technical Assistance, Loans and Grants, Creative Financing. Website is slowmoneymaine.org. She is willing to meet with people to talk about the work, and they have regular meetings in Gardiner where people can network and learn more about the work going on around Maine and an annual event in Belfast.

Woodie Tash was an investment banker who sprouted the idea of Slow Money; taking money out of normal channels and investing it closer to home where soil and community matters.  Slow Food has to do with sustainable, local agriculture, and Slow Food is about building local, healthy food systems. 

In April 2010 a group of community leaders with an interest in local, agricultural, food. The local food sector was undercapitalized, and needed processing and distribution facilities. The initial focus was those infrastructure issues, involving organizations like Moo Milk and Coastal Farms and Foods, both of which failed. Another was FoodEX, which did Crown of Maine distributions. Despite these setbacks, they persisted, learning about the deeply held myths around nutrition and investing behavior. They are working to connect people who are interested in moving beyond those myths in devoting resources to address local, healthy food.  They work with food pantries, farmers and others to address food insecurity. They are involved in gleaning, and a gleaning network has began to take shape. 

They have moved $13M into Maine’s food economy, although some of it was lost in their initial investments around food infrastructure.  Relationships are what the organization focuses on, and providing technical assistance, including marketing, business planning, legal, facility design and so on. They have developed a mentorship program to help address these needs with a mentorship directory of over 25 people who can provide services on a pro bono or fee basis.

They provide loans and grants. They have a 10 member board, one paid staff person, Avery Larned of Camden.

One of their projects was Heiwah Tofu, which started in a garage in Camden, now on West Street in Rockport. He needed facility design and got that through a mentor.

No Small Potatoes is a group that started with $100,000 to give in loans,that began with micro loans, and now make loans of $12 to $15k. Maine Organic Lenders also makes loans, and Susan Dorr has been involved in that effort. The Sheepscot General Store has been a participant. The program's default rate is about 3%. Each loan is assigned a loan coordinator to work with the borrower.

NRCS loans that are provided by the federal government require bridge loans, and Maine Organic Lenders is making that possible. A farms in Stonington was mentioned as benefiting from that program. They are also working with the Somali Bantu farmers of New Roots and the Maine tribes.

Next week they are conducting a Funder’s Tour, to expose supporters to possible funding opportunities, like Northern Girl, a potato and fiddlehead processor in northern Maine.

They have developed fiscal intermediaries to funnel deductible charitable gifts from people to support grants to producers as another way of leveraging support from the community for local food.

Dooryard Farm was supported by Maine Farmland Trust and allowed a local farm to be saved, and is a partner in their work.

Buckets on the table are for the toilet paper project.