It has been an exciting fall for NC3 as our work on Community Investment Funds, the Local Investing Resource Center, and legislative advocacy continues. Even as the days grow shorter and colder, we are invigorated by the energy of our community. We hear plans for innovative community capital projects weekly and see that the renewed focus on building local, resilient economies spurred by COVID’s devastating impacts has not burned out. 

This month’s newsletter is full of resources and news about the latest innovations in community capital.

As the affordable housing crisis continues to harm communities and families, NC3 has been working to highlight the role of community capital in building affordable, livable cities. 

In this presentation for Housing North’s 2021 Summit, NC3 Board Members Brian Beckon and Chris Miller are joined by Kate Redman of Commongrounds Cooperative, a real estate cooperative in Traverse City, Michigan. The presentation explores how and why a developer should include community capital in their capital stack. Next, Kate provides a practical example with the details of Commonground’s crowdfunding raise. You can read more about the Commonground funding model in this article published by Next City.

NC3 Member Janice Shade is getting ready to release an exciting new course, Navigate the Money Map. It is based on a workshop she developed for ComCap2019 and is designed to help entrepreneurs, business owners, and financial advisors think "beyond banks and venture capital" to discover the opportunities of community capital. It will present a wide variety of traditional, alternative, and emerging sources of capital that are available—and more important, how to identify which are the best fit for businesses that are Built-to-Last (vs. Built-to-Grow-Fast-and-Be-Acquired). 
 
Participants who register by November 30, 2021, get a bonus 45-minute one-on-one consulting session with Janice to discuss their capital strategy and "money map" questions!

Heads up: NC3 will earn a small commission on course purchases using the links in this newsletter. We are grateful to partner with community capital practitioners to spread the word about their educational offerings while supporting the growth of our coalition. 

The NC3 membership has been busy contacting their legislators to oppose Sections 138312 and 138314 of the Build Back Better bill. These provisions threaten the use of self-directed IRAs in off-Wall Street and community capital raises. 

We are pleased to report that the current iteration of the legislation has removed the problematic sections relating to self-directed IRAs! Two provisions on IRAs remain—one that caps IRA contributions at $10 million and another that would close “backdoor Roth” tax loopholes for the rich. NC3 is in support of this version of the bill because it better addresses the concern that ultra-wealthy investors are using IRAs to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. 

While we do not anticipate that Sections 138312 and 138314 will be re-added to future drafts of the legislation, we will continue monitoring the situation. If you are in touch with elected officials, it is helpful to express your support of these revisions.

After the release of our Community Investment Fund (CIF) Toolkit, we heard interest from CIF practitioners in having a forum to remain connected with each other. To facilitate conversation and peer learning, we launched the CIF Practitioners Listserv. Members of the listserv can range from anyone interested in starting a CIF, to folks well on their way to managing a fund, to groups actively managing a CIF. It will be a space to ask questions, bounce ideas off one another, and network.

We were pleased to see that Green Money’s October issue was themed “Community Impact Investing”. Community capital and the movement for a democratic investing ecosystem is gaining momentum! We hope the field of impact investing continues to recognize the power of local investment while increasing their focus on the inclusion of non-accredited investors in these wealth-building opportunities.