Building an interdependent economy
Walking away from the myth of the rugged individual
Mapping the capital to create neighborhood scale resilience
When we were planning the content for the entrepreneurship ecosystem focused Neighborhood Economics conference set for mid-November in Asheville, we already had set up what we were calling a capital showcase. This was to explain the existing and new funds looking to invest in entrepreneurs, startups, and resilient sole proprietors in Western North Carolina.
Now, after Hurricane Helene laid Asheville and Neighborhood Economics’ home office in the Swannanoa Community low, we are going to map out the philanthropic relief funds that are flooding into the area, most of which don’t know about each other or how to work together.
There were already new funds or funds new to the area that have not yet co-invested with the incumbents, pre-Helene. While making the prospects for the capital entrepreneurs need, the funds themselves need us to make the new landscape of capital clear. I wrote about that here a week before the floods that changed everything.
Now, that Hurricane Helene has devastated Asheville, and hit hardest in our own community, the blue collar, unincorporated community of Swannanoa, we have expanded that mapping effort to include relief funds, not just investment funds and made the research more grounded, with trusted partners. Pictures of our devastation were on the front pages of both the New York Times and the Washington Post on the same day last week, which speaks to the level of devastation.
We were already mapping the impact investment funds focused on small businesses and startups. Now, with an outpouring of federal and state funding, and relief funds from denominations, individual churches, and non-profits, we are making that research more formal, partnering with Tara Brown, community engagement leader for Self Help Credit Union, Stephanie Swepson Twitty of Eagle Market Streets CDC, Jeremiah Robinson of both Neighborhood Economics and Mountain Biz Works and Jack Igelman of the Warren Wilson College Economics Department.
Now we will be mapping the denominational, faith-based, and other non-profit funds, ad hoc church and local community foundation relief funds set up, etc. along with federal, state and county funds focused on relief for individuals, families, and businesses. We will then chart the ways that help entrepreneurs recover. There are scores of these new funding sources, and we want to look at how this new money to help our community get back on its feet could be combined or could collaborate on projects or specific parts of projects, and how it could connect to the existing impact funds. There are also grants for business interruption relief we will be tracking; but overall we are just at the early stages of scoping our research.
At this point in a research project, it’s tempting to imagine all that this foundational research can lead to, but there are veteran impact investors at the table to ground the project and scope out what’s a reasonable near-term goal and an overall roadmap.
We hope that by the time of the Neighborhood Economics conference in Asheville in the Spring, we will know what the landscape of money for good is in our community and have the beginnings of a roadmap on how it could be coordinated in a lightweight way that helps everybody reach their goals faster. We don’t have drinking water yet in Swannanoa, so setting the date for our event that far ahead will have to wait a bit, but we will get that date set absolutely as soon as possible.
As you can see, we are hard at work with our focus on getting funds into the hands of people who don’t normally get it and helping get funds organized and collaborating so that they can do the most good. I will keep you updated here as we progress, and we thank you in advance for your continued support of our efforts and of our rebuilding.