 Hi, I'm Michelle. I'm with Bali. It's really nice to see you all and meet you all and to be with you I was very moved by Christopher. So thank you wherever you are. That was incredible And thanks to Joy and John So we are now three days past when Catherine Fulton of the Monitor Institute stood on the stage and said that our financial and economic system was broken in crisis headed down and that we were in the times between times and We're finding the same thing in communities everywhere You just don't go anywhere without people don't realizing that we are facing some serious challenges I didn't have one guy a couple years ago who told me Something different. He said I'll tell you one thing right now. Michelle. I'm not going to be a part of any ecosystem But that's pretty rare. You don't see that much anymore I am here representing this grassroots and on is as well this grassroots upwelling of Local businesses of manufacturers farmers retailers energy providers bankers who are all taking matters into their own hands stepping off this crazy Train and building real prosperity at home together They aren't Imagining that big business or big government or the guys in charge are going to come up with any top-down solutions that are actually going to Get us out of this mess. They are working to relocalize their industries to Collaborate so that they can bring down the cost of renewable energy by buying it together or rebuild local food distribution and processing or Unleash the power of the local community people to invest in their local businesses All of us in our network at Bali. We are now some 30,000 businesses Local business networks increasingly local economy funders. We welcome all of you to join us We all believe that a lot of the challenges we're facing come from a perilous separation of people from each other And from the natural world that we don't know where the food Comes from before it ends up on our plates. We don't know where the waste at the end of the meal goes We don't know where our money goes when it's off traveling in some mutual funds somewhere and what impact that's had so we aim to reconnect farmers and eaters and investors and entrepreneurs and businesses with their communities Move to a relationship economy and that is very much in opposition to what we have today Which I would classify a one-night stand economy Okay, so the businesses that we work with all across this in North America believe these things place matters Ownership matters nature matters opportunity matters We should measure what matters and relationships matter most I'd love to unpack all of that we can talk about some of that later today, but I'll just highlight a couple of things one place matters There is good evidence to show that when a complex system becomes corrupted of any sort a good science that backs us up whether it's a financial system and Economic system an ecosystem that it has almost an impossible time reimagining itself. It simply can't Reinvent itself. Holy it can do business as usual plus a little recycling But it can't Re-imagine itself fully, but what you can do is to find or to create a safe space Outside the dominant system where something wholly new can experiment and be grown. I would say Not to chide you guys, but there's a little bit that of that here I felt a little bit of this idea that we can just come up with a new asset class with different metrics That's still funnels wealth to the same people and somehow have something radically different It's not as if there's actually this big pool of high growth High-profit businesses that were environmentally and socially responsible that we just chose not to invest in until impact investing came along It's going to be hard. It's going to we got a lot of experimentation and it's in the particular. It's in place It's people like Sarah van Aken from Savak clothing, but Yeah, that's my dress. She made this dress in Philadelphia And she along with other apparel manufacturers have recognized that the average garment ends up on our back has traveled Some 16,000 miles around the globe before we wear it and they are now doing things like dirt to shirt 750 miles and she's it's all made locally in the Philadelphia region Creating lots of jobs, but it's not easy and she needs your support in particular around ownership mattering It matters primarily for three three reasons. One is the principle of subsidiarity. Who owns the businesses? It matters when we are closer to the impact of our decisions. We make better choices Ownership also matters because when more of us are in our vocation doing our purpose We're all better off and finally ownership matters because it means more wealth for more people The evidence is clearly in over the last decade from Harvard Business Review to the economic development quarterly Communities that have a higher density and diversity of local independently owned businesses have more wealth for more people More prosperity for more people and more jobs the the model of growing really big scaling large internationally Does do a good job of funneling wealth into very few hands, but doesn't actually create more wealth and more jobs for more people I'm gonna be super quick here. There's so much. I want to say I'm gonna also just point out of why measuring what matters. I'm so thrilled with this recent awareness around a Well-being and happiness so a decade ago We would all talk about the country of Bhutan's gross happiness factor instead of their tracking progress by a GDP These are GHF, but now this is coming in conversations at the UN level The UK is seriously considering the adoption of a genuine progress indicator instead of a GDP The state of Maryland is the first one in this country that has now adopted a genuine progress indicator And all of the depth of research over the last decade has shown that all of us conservative liberal tall short young old we all care pretty much about four things We are well when we are in our purpose We are well when we are generous when we share we feel happy when we share We are well when we are in relationship with our community and we are well when we're in relationship with the natural world That matters that we can Lintwist says what you appreciate appreciate so paying attention to that matters and then finally Relationships matter most this is how we scale at Bali through tens of thousands through hundreds of thousands of businesses working together And certainly big money can move better to big things But it can also move to hubs of networks and this is how nature also changes through emergence in networks I can tell you much more in our later sessions. This is the last thing. I'll say before dawn just shares the stage This is a painting that's on my wall in my kitchen See it's a little fish. He's riding a camel in a hot day in a desert and this is a quote from Hafiz mystic and writer from the 1300s and it says first the fish needs to say Something ain't right about this camel ride and I'm feeling so damn thirsty Like that's what we have going on here, right? We are not meant to be in service to our economy our economy was meant to be in service to us right and we And the purpose of business is not to make money the purpose of business is to create value money is a byproduct of Creating something of service Finance is not a business. It's a tool so To that end Well, that's gone. I'm trying to get to you Don, but I can't find my next slide. Okay, so this is what we have It's the opportunity of our lifetime to move from maturing as a species from this time of a reckless Adolescence self-centered adolescence to mature as a species and to what really matters so what we all share in common What we really care about the opportunity of our lifetime is to cultivate the emergence of a new economic system Gradually displacing failing structures and systems and redefining the purpose of finance in the economy Shifting from a mindset of every man for himself to the realization that real security comes from community From sharing not greed and partnership not domination. We all want it. All right, so come on Don You've got to say some words about that. I think I will My name is Don Schaefer I'm president and CEO of RSF social finance here in San Francisco I first want to thank Kevin and Penelope and Tim and everyone from Socap who put on this amazing amazing conference that really does span the The whole spectrum from systemic to individual personal change I want to ask you what imagine that you have a deposit account at Bank of America Can you do that for a moment? Does anyone here actually have a deposit account at Bank of America? I'm going to ask that that challenge statement because there are 7,000 community banks and 7,600 Credit unions in this country who would love to have love to have your deposits Well, imagine you have that that CD or their savings account at B of A are one of the other two big to fail banks and And you got a call from them tonight and they said we'd like you to come down to the branch next Wednesday and meet with us and With we'd like to introduce you to a number of the companies That are using your money and we'd like for you to get to know each other and give them a chance to see That there are real human beings whose money it is that they're that they're borrowing from Bank of America not only that but we'd like for you to have a fundamental voice in how we set your return on investment for your CD and That then will determine the base rate of interest that the borrowers were pay will pay and these are the borrowers that you're Sitting across the table from Can anyone imagine that that that will happen that you'll get that call tonight from from B of A That that will probably not happen But that's what we do at RSF one of the core things that we do at RSF social finances We operate a loan fund that's been around since 1984. We've put over 275 million dollars in loans out exclusively to social enterprises to organizations that have a very deep social and or environmental mission and And what we do each quarter because what we offer is a is a three month note. It's like a three month bank CD It pays well and the minimum is a thousand dollars. So the RSF social finance org You all could be could be part of it Each quarter we bring together representatives of the borrowers who borrow money from us representatives of our investors and and RSF and we sit down and we talk about each other's needs and intentions transparently and And the purpose is to get to know each other's stories For the investors to see where their money is going for the borrowers to see where their money has come from and Then we use a community-based pricing Methodology where we actually take all that input around everyone's needs and intentions and we develop our own Rate of interest that we call it RSF prime So three years ago we decoupled from LIBOR, which we're very glad we did because now this summer We found out that LIBOR was being systematically rigged by by big banks And essentially we've gone off the grid to create our own our own pricing mechanism And so I just bring this up as an example of Community in action in in finance in real-world transactions because our goal at RSF our purpose statement is to transform the way the world works with money and And we believe that we're currently this is not news to anyone here in the room But we're currently in a financial system that could be described as complex opaque and anonymous Based on short-term outcomes and where we want to get to Is a world where financial transactions are direct Transparent and personal based on long-term relationships. So this is a very concrete way for us to do this. How is it relevant to? to local economies and deep local We intend to be doing dozens of these quarterly meetings all around The United States where wherever we have a concentration of investors and borrowers in the years to come And I didn't interview earlier this this week with a woman from the Guardian in London and she was doing a story on this this type of activity in the in the finance world alternatives essentially And she asked me isn't this inefficient and and and how to how does this scale? And and the answer the first part is it is inefficient and that that is the point is that our financial system has become too Frictionless and and efficient And we need to get back to the relationships part as Michelle talked about And as far as the scale it this could be possible for any of the 7,000 community banks any of this over 7,600 credit unions In the United States to implement today and ultimately with technology With how things are accelerating now the bigger banks could could actually do this So so that I just encourage you is that it's something to think about We are going to be digging into these kinds of questions Later today, so at 12 noon, we're doing a panel that includes Michelle and I and also Leslie Christian and Kat Taylor Leslie Christian is a pioneer in finance in her own right and It's the former presidency of portfolio 21 also Published a paper last year that was released here at SoCAP called the new foundation for portfolio management I encourage you to Google that and find out get the paper from Leslie It's also on our website and then Kat Taylor is the the president of the one Pacific Coast Bank and Foundation And is another woman leader in finance the bonus question is you can ask Leslie and Kat to each talk about cattle ranching as I guess they have that in common, but Kat's a very dynamic leader in the space. So we're doing a panel At 12 noon and then at 1 30. We're doing a design session where we're going to take on a Number of key questions, which I'm just going to rattle through real quickly here in the finance area. We're looking at What kinds of equity funding or direct public offerings could be appropriate for for local living economies and and how does the money come back to investors if the Investments are don't intend to be liquid in a three to five year time frame or five to seven year time frame I'm looking at crowdfunding and the role of intermediaries in the crowdfunding area particularly as it applies to local or community-based Finance the role of community foundations, which are I think an underutilized form in this area and putting some challenges out there as well and then Technical assistance and and how we prepare entrepreneurs to succeed and get capital and make the best use of it and Where the deal flow comes from and actually I when I wrote that Last night the word deal flow. I thought that that actually is a term that kind of Commodities is everything that we're doing. I mean deal deal flow deals are like what a way someone at a poker table in Vegas does or You know at the used car lot What we're looking for is investment opportunities not not deal flow. So I encourage you in closing to Think about language in that respect. So thanks very much and look forward to seeing this afternoon