Rachel Maxwell was a co-founder of Community Sourced Capital and is a People's Economy Lab Leader
Locally based financing helps local economies thrive by keeping dollars flowing in the local economy and maintaining aligned incentives for community value creation. Community Sourced Capital, a crowd-sourced zero-interest lending platform, developed a system of financing loans under $50,000 for neighborhood businesses. Businesses could access loans by reaching out to their own communities for finance.
In its three years of operation from 2013 to 2016, Community Sourced Capital deployed nearly $2M in 96 loans funded by over 6000 people. These zero interest loans, were a manifestation of people sharing their money with the businesses they valued in their communities. Community Sourced Capital loans are generous and reciprocal.
Below are slides that summarize the Community Sourced Capital experience in the hopes that other democratic models emerge from the groundwork we laid.
