Cooperative Economics | "Impact-First" Investing | Transformative Leadership

How Investor Misunderstanding Prevents Us from Getting the Economy We Seek

Impact entrepreneurs could achieve a lot more — in terms of systems change — if investors did more thinking about power and the world they most want themselves and their grand children. My thesis: capital reciprocity can help investors achieve their impact goals. Without a shift from capital supremacy to capital reciprocity, the conventional power […]

Help a Compost Company Become a Co-op

I just interviewed Michael Robinson, co-founder of Rust Belt Riders — who I met through a good friend Jonathan in Cleveland. Michael is in the process of raising capital to formally re-structure their business into a worker-owned cooperative. The good news is — they’ve already been operating with financial transparency, democratic decision-making — so the […]

Comparte: Meet our sister Francesco Economy Network in Latin America

Emilio Travieso, SJ begins and ends with an image of an altar from his time with Mayan communities (Tseltal) in Chiapas, Mexico. As part of his dissertation research, Emilio was studying their cooperative business — Yomol A’tel — that’s grown to $2 million in revenue — as part of a larger Comparte network across Latin […]

Can we build together at scale? A Co-op Capital Vision

Co-op Landscape

Later today, I give a presentation to a group of Cooperative Business leaders (3 largest U.S. co-op banks (NCB, CoBank and CFC), 5 co-op capital entrepreneurs, 6 co-op loan fund/CDFIs, 2 mutual insurance cos., and 6 associations). My question is: Can we imagine and build together — across credit unions, electric co-ops and emerging co-op […]

The U.S. Shared Ownership Landscape:14 Cooperative Funds You Can Invest In

Pioneering Alternative Ownership Fund Mangers

In the next few weeks, Elizabeth Garlow and I will be releasing our first report under our new Francesco Collaborative banner. The report distills the insights from our Livable Future Investing workshop we facilitated a few months ago with 25 leading Catholic asset holders. For me, the release of this report marks the beginning of […]

Investing Peer Group: You’re Invited

I’m excited to be gathering a group of friends and colleagues this Friday, Dec. 4th — to help transform our relationship with money. I have a number of conversations with friends that are just starting out on their values-aligned investing journey — and some that are more my mentors and teachers. I am excited to […]

My Money Transformation in 8 Steps

I was inspired by this Money Transforms website to share my own story.   The reason I want you to transform your relationship with your money is two fold:  Your own liberation. For too long, I’ve been trapped by my relationship with my money. I’ve felt so inadequate because I didn’t have enough. Then when I’ve […]

Cooperative Capital: Re-launching

Cooperative Capital: Re-launching

One of the things I’ve been most interested in supporting is more local direct investment opportunities… especially ones that are open to non-Accredited investors. Cooperative Capital has an approach to make it work (however they were blocked by the state of Michigan…). The challenges they’ve come up against and the ways regulators have thwarted their […]