Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Loans or venture capital?

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi,

> Apologies if this has been discussed before...are
> there recognized sources for venture capital that will
> support fledgling cohousing communities in their most
> vulnerable stages, such as ours, when we may be close
> to a point where we have found a site but without the
> financial resources to tie up the land?
>
> If there are not, perhaps the Cohousing Association of
> the U.S. and other countries could start compiling a
> list of potential investors or begin soliciting such
> entities.
>
> Ideally, there would be a revolving fund established
> that would be continually replenished by loans being
> repaid plus interest.  I assume that would be set up
> as a nonprofit.

Yes yes yes!  There is so much money within our movement, i *really* hope 
someone out there with the combination of community values and business 
sense will get inspired to put something like this together.

In the meantime, another resource is the PEACH loan fund, which is the 
accumulated capital of the FEC (Federation of Egalitarian Communities, the 
income-sharing secular communes, not to be confused with FIC) catastrophic 
health care fund.  See http://thefec.org/projects/community-loan-fund/ for 
more info.

Cheers,

--Tree



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