Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Intentional Communities & funding

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi,

> Cohousing is one form of intentional community.

I ditto Sharon on this.

> Since some people erroneously believe that  intentional community means 
> income (and sometimes partner) sharing, they prefer to see cohousing as a 
> separate entity.

In the FIC (Fellowship for Intentional Community, the nonprofit that 
publishes the big communities directory, Communities magazine, and runs the 
www.ic.org website) we usually use the word "commune" to refer to groups 
that share income.  "Intentional Community" is the umbrella term for any 
kind of cooperative living, including: ecovillages, student co-ops, 
monasteries, ashrams, urban co-op houses, communes, and yes, cohousing.

> I believe that this is to the detriment of cohousing since cohousing is a 
> very small part of the intentional community movement and would greatly 
> benefit from the achievements of the larger movement. For example, 
> cohousers talk of starting a "bank" that funds new communities. There is 
> already such an enterprise funding intentional communities - Sunrise 
> Credit Union.
>
> http://www.sunrisecreditunion.org
>
> There may be more but I just recently became aware of this one.

Having just spent much of my life energy the past year figuring out how my 
home community could get financed, i am unusually well-informed at present 
on community funding sources, so i thought i'd send out some info 
here.  Seeing this discussion on this list reminds me yet again that it's a 
shame that--as far as i know, at least--there is no email list for 
intentional communities in general that is comparable to Coho-L in terms of 
number of people, frequency of participation, and breadth of discussion.

I also offer a fervent ditto to the suggestion that further cooperation 
between cohousing and non-coho intentional communities would be of great 
mutual benefit.  There are key institutions in American society that are 
not meeting people's needs and are in desperate need of reform, 
replacement, or perhaps genuine competition.  The banks are one, but what 
about the insurance industry, what about the health care industry?

There is a big wide opening right now for someone(s) to come in and create 
alternatives that would actually serve the needs that are 
present.  Cohousers as a group have more capital and more of certain key 
skills (marketing, legal skills, accounting) than members of other 
intentional communities, on average, in my opinion.  FEC members have great 
values, dedication, and labor available.  FEC has a shared health risk fund 
(called PEACH, "Preservation of Equity Accessible for Community Health") 
for catastrophic care.  NASCO has property acquisition and managment 
experience.  Sunrise is, as Sharon said, the closest thing we've got to a 
bank right now.  Lately i've been asking myself and others how these 
various resources in the communities movement can be brought together to 
make a change.

Anyway, getting back to community funding sources specifically, it's true 
that Sunrise is a possibility, although it's also the case that as a 
relatively young credit union they are under close scrutiny by federal 
regulators which places a lot of restrictions on their operation.  Unlike 
any bank, Sunrise did offer my community a loan if we could find a 
qualified co-signer; if we had not succeeded in finding other loans which 
didn't require a co-signer, we'd probably have ended up taking them up on 
it.  They might be a good match for cohousing loans.

The other loan funds that i know of in the communities movement are as follows.

--------------------

FIC Loan Fund:  Earmarked for community businesses; secondary consideration 
will be given to non-community organizations with community 
connections.  It's a small fund, usual cap on any one loan is $5,000.

FEC Loan Fund (Federation of Egalitarian Communities):  Small fund, for 
FEC-affiliated communities only.  Historically the focus has been on groups 
needing start-up capital for community businesses; this is in the process 
of being reevaluated, with a possible shift to helping new communities in 
other ways.  (FEC is an association of communities that share a set of 
basic principles, the most unusual of which is sharing income; see 
www.thefec.org for more info.)

PEACH (the FEC's health care fund):  Any entity associated with the 
communities movement can apply, with preference given to communities in the 
PEACH program.  Largest loan as of 2001 was $50,000, i'm not sure about 
more recently.  Can be used for land acquisition, business loans, etc.

Institute for Community Economics (ICE):  Lends to community land trusts, 
limited equity cooperatives, and community-based nonprofit organizations 
that create permanently affordable housing.  They do construction loans, 
bridge loans, mortgage loans, and more.  Limit was $700,000 in 2001, i'm 
not sure if it's gone up since then.  Application process is extensive, 
involving much paperwork.

National Co-op Bank:  Very well-known, we kept getting referred to them by 
people, but not helpful for us at all; they told us that as a one-house 
co-op we were too small for them to consider getting involved with, i got 
the impression that they mainly do big apartment buildings in New York City 
or some such.  Cohousing communities are much bigger operations, so who knows?

Rudolph Steiner Foundation:  My impression is that this fund is pretty 
large; however, currently it's only available to Camphill 
communities.  (Camphill communities are based on the anthroposophical 
philosophy of Rudolph Steiner, and are home to people with disabilities who 
live with non-disabled "co-workers" who assist them.)

NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation):  This is the student co-op 
organization, but they will consider lending to other co-ops under the 
right circumstances.

Madison Community Co-ops (Madison, WI):  Mainly lends to their own co-ops, 
but would consider lending to other co-ops under the right circumstances.

Permaculture Credit Union:  Too small to be of much use when we asked 
(second mortgages up to $30,000 and not even approved to lend in Oregon), 
but years down the road they might be a great resource.

---------------------

That's all i can think of for now with regard to national sources.  There 
are many other resources that are only available to people in particular 
regions.

Cheers,

--Tree



-----------------------------------------------

Tree Bressen
1680 Walnut St.
Eugene, OR 97403
(541) 484-1156
tree [at] ic.org
http://www.treegroup.info

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