Just attended a very useful workshop on Community Supported Enterprises, a model for investments for local businesses.I’ll leave my questions to the end after I give you some details…
3 examples were profiled:
Claire’s Restaurant, Hardwick Vermont is a LLC (actually 2 LLCs) that has 3 groups involved: investors in the real estate group, owner/managers (3 people) and 50 subscribers/lenders.
The one owner raised money by knocking on doors and reaching out to her network, since she was the only long-time Vermonter among the (3) owners.
She found investors who invested in the real estate group which owns the lease (and subleases to the restaurant) and the equipment. Their investment is very long-term and they were told that at the beginning. If the restaurant fails, they can get someone to take over the new lease.
The subscribers/lenders gave 1000.00 each to the restaurant itself and get their money back in increments of 25.00 in 10 months of the year over 4 years at the restaurant. The subscribers can transfer ownership of their subscription and family can use the subscription. There is no cash out provision. Since the restaurant does not own the equipment, it does not have major debt.
The Community Store, Saranac Lake NY
Is a C-corporation and has a board of directors of 7 and 3 full-time staff. Issued stock at 100 each to NY residents, goal was to raise 500,000, which took 5 years to do.
Shares can be transferred to out of state holders after 9 months. Since there is no majority stockholder, there is little chance for formal financing.
They ended the offer with 750 investors, mostly by asking their early shareholders to host “share” parties where board members could sell stock. Did constant events to keep their name and idea in front of people throughout the 5 years. Got the last 42,000 because of an in-depth New York Times story on cover of Sunday edition.
Co-op Power
Massachusetts, Southern Vermont
Classic member cooperative, different levels of membership:
Standard: 975.00 over 2 years
Farmer: 750.00 over 2 years
Limited Resource: 500.00 over 2 years
Buying Group: 250.00 over 2 years
Green Worker: 50.00 plus 6 months of work at Co-op Power
They also raise money through project loans for specific projects:
Biodiesel Project: 500.00 min, 5 years, 650k raised
Energy Efficiency Project: 500.00 min, 2-5 %, 5 years, 90k raised.
Here are the questions that occurred to me:
So, why haven’t farmers markets taken this model to find their start up?
And why don’t we see more cooperatives at market management level?,’
And why not project loans among the shoppers and farmers for short-term projects to create merchandise or an earned income stream for the market or for a farmer?
Amazing presentation and exhortation at the 2012 BALLE conference from author and activist Maggie Anderson, author of “Our Black Year” a year long experiment in buying only from black-owned businesses. Her presentation was inspiring, troubling, uplifting, poignant and above all, a challenge to us “localists” to get past concepts and really place our buying power in the arena of a true power shift.
I cheered, cried and nodded throughout thinking of my own city of New Orleans and the tragedy of the lost African-American owned businesses and leaders that I have seen disappear from downtown since my childhood. Since Hurricane Katrina, that loss has been accelerated tremendously.
I heard her and committed to picking up the challenge in my own life, within the farmers market movement and on my neighborhood corridors.
Please read and listen to her amazing story and ideas so you can fashion your own plan to reduce African-American unemployment by shopping at and encouraging the number one employer of African-Americans – African-American owned businesses.
Seems like a well done economic impact report from Farmers Market Canada for the 2008 season.
Connie Evans of the Association of Enterprise Opportunity is interviewed about her non-profit’s work to encourage microenterprises. Facinating data about the definition of microenterprises, how they get started and how lenders support these businesses.
Small Things Really Matter: The Important Role of Microenterprise in Job Creation
Economic measurement is the first ruler we need to apply to the world of food systems, and specifically to our farmers markets. In many ways, Mardi Gras has a lot of similarities to the alternative food system- it’s informal, held mostly within the public space and all about entrepreneurs. This report shows how spring Carnival season adds value to the GNO region. This type of evaluation wis possible for markets to have for their own by using marketumbrella.org’s SEED tool which shows the impact a farmers market has on its own region.
Economic Gardening is a lovely expression of true local investment. So, as the article explains: “Economic gardening programs tend to focus their efforts on nurturing second stage companies: local enterprises already supporting between 10 and 99 employees that have moved beyond the stress of daily survival.”
That concept fits in beautifully with the worker cooperative movement and should be an area that farmers markets put some effort in the next few years-working with their existing vendors and potential ones to build on the ingenuity in products while using cooperative principles to add owners to food and agricultural companies.
Shareable: A Perfect Match: Economic Gardening & Worker Co-ops.
New book on financing food-based businesses seeks your capital raising stories.
Another example of a farmers market manager being recognized for community engagement. Diane has been tireless in her work to create healthy activities along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, even as she rebuilt her own life after Hurricane Katrina took her house. Diane (and her business partner at Real Food Gulf Coast, Dita McCarthy) show the level of partnership that is possible with city governments and business communities that want markets.
Ocean Spring MS-The prestigious HOSA Bob & Virginia Meyer Award for 2011 was awarded to Ocean Springs Fresh Market organizer Diane Claughton on Saturday evening, December 3rd at the HO HO HOSA event in the Ocean Springs Community Center. The stunned Claughton received a huge ovation by the large crowd of nearly 200 attending the annual event. The award comes with a bronze plaque and a $5,000 cash award.
When announcing Claughton as the Meyer Award, HOSA President Melanie Allen said the Committee who made the choice for the 2011 Meyer Award was unanimous in selecting Claughton as the recipient. “We all recognize that Diane was instrumental in creating this successful Fresh Market event that is now a regular part of Saturday mornings for many people & families, said Allen “By being at the Depot location, she has created an event that brings shoppers downtown who buy from the local growers & vendors at the Fresh Market, and then these same people also eat breakfast at one of the restaurants downtown and then buy gifts at our specialty shops as they stroll our streets. The value of the Fresh Market has real economic impact for the City. It also teaches us the value of eating local fresh foods as they grow and become available season to season. Diane has a regular schedule of cooking events and interesting classes that provide free community education at the Fresh Market as well.”
Diane Claughton started Ocean Springs Fresh Market in 2004. A former librarian and chef, Diane started the Fresh Market to help supply consumers with quality, locally grown or prepared food products, to support local sustainable agriculture and to educate consumers about the health and social benefits of locally grown or prepared food. She is also co-founder of Real Food Gulf Coast.
HOSA: the Historic Ocean Springs Association is an active community organization whose mission is to make public improvements using donated funds. The HOSA Bob & Virginia Meyer Award is presented annually by HOSA. The cash award presented is income on funds that the Meyer’s donated to HOSA for the purpose of giving an annual award for “any endeavor that helps or improves the ambiance of Historic Ocean Springs” as the selection committee guidelines state.
Though she confessed to being “Gobsmacked” when she was announced as the Meyer Award winner, Diane said she “would like to thank HOSA for the award, which I feel is also an award to the vendors, past and present, of the Fresh Market. I would also like to thank the Ocean Springs Chamber of Commerce for allowing the Fresh Market to take place in their parking lot, and the City of Ocean Springs for the wonderful redevelopment of the Chamber parking lot. I thank the HOSA organization on behalf of everyone involved with the Fresh Market for recognizing what our little Saturday market brings to Ocean Springs.”
The 2011 winner of the HOSA Bob & Virginia Meyer Award Diane Claughton is presented the HOSA check for $5,000 as part of her honor by HOSA president Melanie Allen.
We all seek to make our capital work effectively for our home communities, and moving our money is an important step. But after we move our money, what happens to it? And how can we influence what that money does in our communities?
In this timely webinar, we’ll hear straight from the source:
What motivates these institutions to actively advance community capital;
What the differences are between credit unions and local banks, and their respective motivations and strengths;
What services each uses to build more equitable and sustainable local economies;
How businesses and network leaders can partner more deeply with these institutions to support the development of local living economies;
And how communities can replicate some of their successful programs and community partnerships.
Come learn how to make your money work for your community by partnering with local banks and credit unions.
more on topic and registration here
As a market organizer that created and ran a fair trade market in New Orleans for 5 years, I researched the idea heavily, many times while sitting at my neighborhood fair trade coffeehouse, Fair Grinds. I did find the fair trade argument thin in places, as it seemed to be more about a fuzzy mostly environmental rating on a bag and less about the part that a market organizer would focus on: that it offers more direct relationships with farmers and allows for a fairer accounting of labor and resource use. The painstaking knowledge of what it takes to farm and to survive in colonial regions is often reduced to a sepia toned photo of a farmer and a name on a sign. What is also interesting is that fair trade has not spread past commodities such as coffee and chocolate. Where is the fair trade wheat or sugar for example? And as more and more distributors enter the game, everyone it seems has at least 1 fair trade coffee on the shelf, often with very little paperwork or knowledge to support it. So, it seems to me to be have developed as more of a brand for consumers than a new values-based set of relationships. I will say, I continue to support my fair trade coffeehouse and purchase it when I can find it.
This article explains some of the weaknesses that it has as a movement, but I will say, their argument that it lacks a “single issue” focus is, in my mind not one of them. In any case, I appreciate the article and the magazine that published it.
Briarpatch
Another worthy person that Utne picked for 2011. Those of us involved in the conversation around living economies are lucky enough to listen in on this. What is money but a proxy for labor and resources? And how should we define wealth generation in our world? David Korten et al are bravely following these threads:
“Imagine an economy in which life is valued more than money and power resides with ordinary people who care about one another, their community, and their natural environment. It is possible. It is happening. Millions of people are living it into being. Our common future hangs in the balance”
The latest newsletter from the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) came out last Wednesday and it strikes a whole bunch of the same notes as the orchestration being played by hundreds of thousands of individuals in Zuccotti Park and many other public spaces around the world these days.
FMC points out that economy of scale arguments (“Get Big or Get out” for those who know their post WW agriculture history) and words like efficiency and scale have (for years) been used against those of us who prefer to work towards diversity, shared wealth, sufficiency and innovation in our movement. And that human-scaled movements that work are messy and hard to quantify or even to see, but there they are, in booking places to stay or quietly sharing knowledge…
FMC inspired me and probably lots of you too while they reminded us to take the time to measure success in our world in accordance with the values we fight for and, as importantly, to keep at it. Sometimes those words are necessary even for zealots like food organizers…
FMC Newsletter
(For subscribers of the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development and/or as a member of AgDevONLINE):
The local food movement is growing dramatically, and with it is emerging new lingo and jargon. The Food System Wiki — a collaboration of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin Madison and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development — is designed as a user-friendly and evolving repository of food system lexicon. This is a place where you can contribute new words and definitions, show how the terms are used, and fine-tune those of existing words.
There are several dozen agripedians contributing currently to the Food System Wiki. We would like to see greater participation from nutritionists, community development professionals, Extension agents, faculty, students, public officials, agency representatives, and, of course, farmers and food entrepreneurs.
Please join in the project! SIGNING UP to use the Food System Wiki is easy. After approval, follow the simple instructions to get started. Start by being a member of JAFSCD:
agdevjournal
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 