Capital at the Threshold: Growing the Infrastructure for Community-Rooted Investment

​For our third session in the Common Infrastructure for Collective Action series, Salon 3 invites funders, intermediaries, practitioners, and community leaders to examine a persistent structural problem: the capital gap.

The most promising regenerative and community-rooted work is emerging from cooperatives, Indigenous-led initiatives, and place-based enterprises. Many get labeled uninvestable — not because they lack viability, but because existing financial models don't fit them.

Projects rarely stall for lack of a single investment. They stall because essential early work goes un- or under-funded: governance, legal structure, financial modeling, and documentation. And because the project, the allocator, and the investor are rarely moving at the same pace or speaking the same language. That coordination failure is where many capital pathways collapse.

This salon examines what it takes to change that — through concrete examples of predevelopment capital, community-controlled investment structures, and coordinating infrastructure that helps capital meet projects where they are. The session will include presentations from those modeling accessible resourcing for community rooted efforts, as well a participatory discussion on what shifts in practice would be required for this to become the norm.

Confirmed presenters include;

• ​Lauren Manning, Food System 6

• ​Margarita Mora, Nia Tero

• ​Mauricio Miller, Center for Peer Driven Change

• ​Rose Vervenne, Mayma

• ​Sarah Ortner, Milken Institute

• ​Seanicaa Edwards Herron, Freedmen Heirs Foundation

​Please join us as we continue building the shared foundations needed for community-rooted capital to move at the speed of trust.