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Last week Margot Seigle and I attended Confluence Philanthropy’s Democracy and Finance conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We were honored and delighted to be moderating a panel on Regenerative Finance. Panelists explored how investors can directly support community-controlled economic development through non-extractive finance.

Ed Whitfield, of Fund for Democratic Communities, talked about the history of wealth accumulation in this country and what reparations could look like.  Aaron Tanaka, of Center for Economic Democracy and Boston Impact Initiative, spoke about concrete examples of non-extractive finance and how participatory budgeting can democratize local government spending.  (Video and audio coming soon!)

Margot Seigle shared her own experiences as a regenerative investor redistributing her wealth. She also stood up in the community forum to question the dominant discourse of wealth accumulation. Chris Lindstrom spoke about the philosophical need to see ourselves as a part of the collective rather than just as individuals, and shift wealth accordingly.

Attending the conference was a wonderful learning experience for Margot and I–we met really interesting folks doing all kinds of impact investing all across the spectrum. There were a lot of keynotes and panels talking about maximizing your impact  while maintaining market-rate returns. The panel on Regenerative Finance was a break from that framework, where we were able to reconsider where wealth comes from and how wealth can be returned to the communities it has been historically extracted from. Margot and I also asked lots of questions and were able to connect with dozens of powerful organizations working with institutions and wealth individuals to invest in a just transition and redistribute wealth to communities fighting for racial and economic justice.

As I said at the end of this comic–our experience at this impact investing conference is making me excited to build community and start cohorts of folks interested in organizing for wealth redistribution and radical investing in impact investing and socially-responsible investing spaces. Want to join us? Email kate@regenerativefinance.org.

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