Economy: Transition Your Money
The Transition Your Money group (TYM) works to organize individual/family investment in the vitality, sustainability, and diversity of Saint Paul and Minneapolis — starting from the St. Anthony Park neighborhood and working outwards — rather than in the stock market or other distant purposes. We're creating spinoff groups and projects, too.
With community support, enterprises of all types and sizes are more likely to thrive.
We meet monthly: third Wednesdays each month on Zoom, 7:00–8:00 p.m. For the link or to join the email list for monthly notices, email info@TransitionASAP.org.
TYM works with these guiding principles:
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We work to offer options for people at different stages of life and levels of wealth and income
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We invest in this immediate geographic area and in a low-carbon future everywhere
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Our goal is patient capital
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We emphasize safeguarding of principal
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We share experience and expertise among ourselves and with others
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We partner with compatible community institutions
Join us and have a say in what we do! We've explored self-directed IRAs, solo 401Ks, and creating a real estate investment co-ops (such as the recently launched Taproot Investment Co-op in South St. Anthony Park and Midway Investment Co-op), land trusts and land banks, and community development corporations. In 2018 we helped launch a local investment club, Local Dough.
Sustainable agriculture interests many of us. We met with the Northfield-based nonprofit Sharing Our Roots, which is restoring land with poultry-based agroforestry. Read our Park Bugle article about it.
Investing for the Next Economy
This September 2023 panel was held at the Saint Anthony Park library. The speakers and Q&A that follows provide:
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a framework for thinking about local and sustainable investing
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ways to invest in renewable energy, and recent changes that make it more possible
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new efforts to foster cooperatively owned real estate in Saint Paul
(We suggest you turn on closed captioning for best results, since one of the speakers has a quiet voice.)
About the panelists
Rebecca Blumenshine is the creator of Both/And Finance, which provides education on the intersection of personal and community finance. She has held jobs in corporate finance, grassroots nonprofit fundraising, and public policy analysis and has master’s degrees in Public Policy and Business Administration.
Jeremy Kalin is lead attorney in the Impact Counsel practice at Avisen Law. He helps leverage the federal Inflation Reduction Act and was recently involved in passing the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority (our state's version of a Green Bank). He chaired a White House task force on clean energy, climate policy and investment, founded a clean energy financing business, and served in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
Nkuli Shongwe is director of community wealth building at Nexus Community Partners and board vice chair for Taproot Investment Cooperative, which works for community ownership of commercial real estate in the Creative Enterprise Zone: South St. Anthony Park and the west edge of Midway. At Nexus, she supports creation of cooperatively owned BIPOC businesses.
Our most recent spinoff:
Let's launch a LION
Next meetup Sat. Nov. 11: Details coming soon
Have you had enough of bulls and bears... and sharks? Do you want to support Main Street, not Wall Street? To help grow an economy with opportunity for all, we're thinking LION: that's a Local Investing Opportunity Network.
Whether you're an entrepreneur, potential investor, or curious community member, join us at next quarterly gathering. We often meet at a social venue, sometimes with a local presenter sparking the conversation.
You don't need lots of money to invest in local enterprises. Be a customer or offer creative support: an in-kind gift, your own expertise, or an exchange of services. We're not all lions, either! It takes all kinds: leaders and followers, idea people and detail people... and the serendipity of community.
As a model, we're looking to a LION based in Washington State. Another resource is the UK-based REconomy Project, linking localization efforts around the globe to share what's working where.
For details, email lion@TransitionASAP.org.
Local Dough
investment club
This spinoff group shares TYM's values. Local Dough members make monthly contributions, meet quarterly, and share knowledge and research to invest in co-ops and other generative enterprises. Read more in the Nov. 2021 Minnesota Women's Press: "Local Dough: A Values-Based Investment Club."
Contact Local Dough by email at
local-dough[at]googlegroups.com.
More Resources
Community investment funds: Funds that collect money from investors and use it to invest to improve the community. When sponsored by a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, such a fund can borrow money from non-accredited investors and invest it to further the nonprofit purposes, as stated in its tax exemption letter. Example: Our Katahdin investments, okinvestments.org.
Local investment networks: Groups organized to learn about local entrepreneurs that need investment capital. By establishing a relationship with a local business through the Network, individuals can make investments directly in that business without being an accredited investor. Example: Fund Milwaukee, fundmilwaukee.com.
C Notes: Small dollar bond-like investments: mycnote.com.
Ours to Own: Small-dollar bond-like investments:
Prepare and Prosper: Twin Cities group that works with low-income people on building emergency funds and financial planning, as well as free tax prep: prepareandprosper.org.