Possible Uses for Funding¶

• purchase land outright to put into trust
• establish, seed loan fund
• assist with down payments
• operate trust
  • any administrative expenses
  • research (find donors) and outreach?
  • pay taxes on owned property
• seed other land trusts once operating well
• pay for/finance improvements and repairs to properties
• fund a full or part time position for a person to apply for grants and solicit donations of houses, land, money

Ideas¶

• Consider combining a number of different approaches. We might put some of our effort into creating one pool of money that is available in larger amounts for houses that need that last big push to help them/a land trust buy their house; and another pool of money available in small amounts for down payment assistance
• Use barter and skillshare to replace financial needs where possible, leaving more aside for where we have to use $
• Start our own land trust
• Increase tax benefit of donating land to trust by combining affordable housing mission with conservation easement.
  • Govt tax benefits exist for conservation easements.
  • what would this look like in urban housing setting? habitat creation/improvement, no toxics use, energy efficiency of home. would this be enforceable or work, legally?
• Social venture based on ethical work: acquire land; put it into trust; improve land through conservation, remediation, building work; sell lease to home or other use; use profit to acquire more land for trust

Types of Funding/funders¶

• monthly contributions by collective houses/members
• group savings, interest
• revolving loan fund
• credit unions
• pledges of money or labor
• social venture: profits from business activity given to trust
  • business operated by subsidiary of trust for the purpose of building the trust fund
• fund-raising events
• friends, family donations and loans
• solidarity loans from other housing collectives
• small, peer-to-peer loans from wide network: a la www.kiva.org
• land donation or grants from individuals
  • tax benefit land grants to trusts
  • idealistic benefactors
  • donor could be existing landlord
• grants from non-profits, foundations
• business/ business foundation grants
  • solidarity between cooperative businesses and collective land trusteeship?
• government grants

Existing Models¶

“Key Club” or revolving seed fund:
A group of collectives would pay into to fund one project at a time, rotating over time till all members are covered. could be for specific (e.g. downpayments) or general (e.g. collective emergency fund) purposes.¶

• Loan circle model from Grameen Bank / microfinance? Group decides who next receives funds, based on some agreed upon criteria: achievability of putting property into land trust, need-based criteria,…
  • Difference from microfinance loan circle model is that the amount of money involved is vastly larger.
    **

Dues-paying membership organization:
Could somebody who had an idea how this would be helpful chip in here?¶

Credit union¶

Zero-interest bank
There’s a model from Sweden—it’s called the JAK Members’ Bank. Basically, you must pay into the bank in zero interest savings the amount that you take out as zero interest loans, but over your lifetime as a member of the bank. Essentially, you are borrowing against your own future savings. Decisions about who gets loans is made on a system of points (you can borrow up to 15 times what you have saved, essentially; all but small loans are secured, against property or personal guarantor; the amount you can borrow is in part a product of how quickly you will repay it; most loans are made to refinance conventional bank loans for home purchases).
www.feasta.org/documents/review2/carrie... explains it pretty well.¶

Historic building preservation funds?
h2. LIHI (Low Income Housing Institute), CHIPS (Capitol Hill … ?), Plymouth housing group?
h2. the library might have someone to talk to about grants¶

Organizations / Types of Organizations¶

Institute for Community Economics¶

Has $11 million revolving loan fund and has loaned $44million to community land trusts, ltd. equity cooperatives, non-profits. Recently about $1.5 million/yr.

Existing Community Land Trusts¶

Cascadia revolving loan fund
They are now ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia, after a merger. It appears that they only serve coastal communities. www.sbpac.com¶

The social justice fund (previously A Territorial Resource): http://www.atrfoundation.org/
Mostly working in racial justice, immigrant rights, homelessness areas now.¶