Slow Money is a concept inspired by Slow Food, an international movement started in 1986 in reaction to fast food. Slow Food encourages people to enjoy local and traditional foods, and has much in common with what I call SLO agriculture (sustainable, local or organic agriculture). The purpose of Slow Money is to finance Slow Food.Woody Tasch launched the idea of Slow Money in 2008 with the publication of his book Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered.
The first annual Slow Money National Gathering was held last year in Santa Fe, NM, near where Woody Tasch lives. The second annual Slow Money National Gathering was held in Vermont in recognition of the significant amount of "SLO agriculture" in Vermont, such as the Hardwick Agricultural Revolution. The entrance to the Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms was flanked by large posters of Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm in Westfield, VT and Tom Stearns of High Mowing Organic Seeds in Wolcott, VT:
From the web site: "[Slow Money] is a new way of connecting investors to local food systems, catalyzing new forms of social investing and philanthropy for the 21st century." The conference was attended by a "network of investors, donors, entrepreneurs, farmers, and activists who are giving birth to the nurture capital industry." (Nurture capital is intended to be contrasted with venture capital.)Conference speakers included: Woody Tasch; Bill McKibben of Middlebury College; and Robert Zevin, one of the founders of socially responsible investing.
