# The BioFi Project

> The BioFi Project is a think-and-do tank partnering with visionary communities to build place-based economies that regenerate – rather than deplete – the ecological and social systems they are embedded in. BioFi works at three levels: helping bioregions strategically organize capital through Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs), changing the economic game through transition strategy and research, and equipping practitioners and funders to learn, connect, and move together.

Key facts:
- A Bioregional Financing Facility (BFF) is a place-based institution that mobilizes and directs capital toward the regeneration of a bioregion. It brings grants, public funding, and investment together behind a bioregion's vision for a regenerative economy, and its strategy for getting there.
- A bioregion is a territory defined by its ecology and culture rather than by political borders: its watersheds, soils, and living systems, and the human cultures that have adapted to them.
- BioFi works by invitation with community-led, Indigenous-led, and governmental initiatives across the Americas.
- BioFi is a nonprofit, fiscally sponsored by the Buckminster Fuller Institute (a 501(c)(3)). Contributions are tax-deductible.
- Its Community of Practice connects nearly 1,000 practitioners across six continents, with a monthly Deep Dive call.
- Contact: hello@biofi.earth

## Pages

- [Home](https://www.biofi.earth/): Overview of BioFi's work, design partnerships, resources, map of initiatives, and community.
- [About](https://www.biofi.earth/about/): Theory of change, the three levels of work, how BioFi works, team and advisors.
- [What is a Bioregional Financing Facility?](https://www.biofi.earth/what-is-a-bff/): Definition, why bioregions, what BFFs are for, the four templates and twelve attributes.
- [Partnerships](https://www.biofi.earth/partners/): BioFi's active BFF Design Partnerships.
- [Resource Library](https://www.biofi.earth/resources/): Free guides, case studies, tools and recordings.
- [Activation Guide for Bioregional Organizing Teams](https://www.biofi.earth/activation-guide/): How organizing teams build the enabling conditions for a BFF, then design and implement one.
- [BioFi Design Principles](https://www.biofi.earth/design-principles/): Sixteen principles for designing BFFs and other BioFi mechanisms.
- [The BioFi Glossary](https://www.biofi.earth/glossary/): Definitions of 65 key terms for bioregional finance.
- [Economic resilience and opportunity assessments](https://www.biofi.earth/resilience-assessments/): A service mapping a bioregion's energy, material and financial flows.

## Design Partnerships

- [Hudson Valley / Berkshires](https://www.biofi.earth/partners/hudson-valley-berkshires/) (NY & MA), with Rising Tide Capital, the Schumacher Center for New Economics, and allies: Supporting the design and implementation of a bioregional fund that will serve regenerative enterprises, local governments, and commons stewardship.
- [Salmon Nation / Cascadia](https://www.biofi.earth/partners/salmon-nation/) (US & Canada), with Salmon Returns: Advising on strategy, fund structure, design of the Salmon Biocultural Stewardship Credit, and portfolio composition.
- [Amazon Sacred Headwaters](https://www.biofi.earth/partners/amazon-sacred-headwaters/) (Ecuador & Peru), with Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance: Strengthening organizational capacity and advising on the implementation of the Headwaters Bioregional Fund, developed over two years of co-design.
- [Southern Blue Ridge](https://www.biofi.earth/partners/southern-blue-ridge/) (NC & TN), with Blue Ridge Foodshed Commons: Our core team members’ home bioregion. Supporting strategy, financial infrastructure design, and regional coordination.

## What BioFi offers

- Economic Resilience & Opportunity Assessments (https://www.biofi.earth/resilience-assessments/): We map how energy, materials, and money move through your bioregion alongside its ecological limits and risks, then work with regional partners to prioritize opportunities like circular resource use, import replacement, and stronger local supply chains.
- Bioregional Financing Facility design (https://www.biofi.earth/what-is-a-bff/): We help place-based leaders and coalitions define a facility's role and investment thesis, design its portfolio and capital blend, build governance that keeps wealth in service to place, and prepare to raise capital.
- Economic transition strategy support: We help bioregions turn analysis into strategy, by advising a core team directly or facilitating participatory processes with residents, businesses, local government, and funders to build trust and chart out economic transition pathways.
- Blended capital advisory: We support funders and investors to assess where and how their resources can best catalyze economic transformation in their focus bioregion(s).

## BFF templates

From the book *Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet* (2024, free in English and Spanish: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gkinsfIfQXyyskcnNNeeMkh1-HtfYaBA/view):

- Bioregional Trust: a catalytic grant fund that builds the foundation for bioregional action.
- Bioregional Venture Studio: incubates cohorts of early-stage enterprises designed to change a system together.
- Bioregional Investment Company: places investment and blended capital into portfolios of projects and businesses through funds and bonds.
- Bioregional Bank: provides loans, credit, and technical assistance, and keeps capital circulating within the bioregion.

## The twelve attributes of a BFF

1. Aligns with living-systems principles and Indigenous wisdom
2. Serves a shared regional regeneration strategy
3. Governs inclusively and represents the bioregion
4. Works to shift power imbalances
5. Is transparent and enables real participation
6. Uses an integrated capital structure
7. Treats growth and returns as a means, not an end
8. Raises capital from purpose-aligned funders and investors
9. Aggregates projects and matches them with capital
10. Takes an integrated approach to measuring and verifying impact
11. Invests in storytelling
12. Builds partnerships, local stewardship, and a community of practice

## Resources

- [Activation Guide for Bioregional Organizing Teams](https://www.biofi.earth/activation-guide/) (Guide, 2026): How to create the enabling conditions for BioFi, and then design and implement a Bioregional Financing Facility.
- [ASHA: Building an Indigenous-Governed Bioregional Fund](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ylzwgKo4fN-G02si71oSOfwgfeK61dru8Yj2VZuPRbg/) (Case study, 2026): An alliance of 28 Indigenous and civil-society organizations across Ecuador and Peru building a multi-jurisdiction fund with five investment windows under Indigenous governance.
- [Becoming Inhabitants](https://thebiofiproject.substack.com/p/becoming-inhabitants) (Essay, 2026): After seventeen years, the Turtle Island Bioregional Congress reconvenes.
- [Beneath Our Feet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOx7r8OyXzw) (Video, 2026): With Samantha Power, Austin Wade Smith, and Daniel Christian Wahl.
- [Blue Ridge Foodshed Commons: Building a Commons-Held Food Economy](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n-piHB4-7lh0K6aVwdDbsjgWloaD0wPyQFj6Ftwr5-w/) (Case study, 2026): A Western North Carolina design for food infrastructure held in a perpetual purpose trust, separating control, profit, and capital, starting with a farmer-designed creamery.
- [Bosque Fractal: Investing in the Infrastructure for Landscape Regeneration](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NVaAjkVnVbvx7Ku4O74D887ZCjPoWTy93itgwjz-R_g/) (Case study, 2026): A biohub in Colombia's Zaquencipá Valley using patient family capital for land, restoration, mapping, and relationships: the groundwork that comes before a fund or an investable pipeline.
- [Boston Ujima Project: Democratizing the Flow of Capital in a City Economy](https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ghLLJwnsNLhDI80C8zxyDPgHyAPoGpN8ZXode1o4jw/) (Case study, 2026): A community-governed fund where Boston residents set business standards and vote on investments, pairing professional underwriting with notes sized for every level of wealth.
- [Catalyzing Bioregional Economies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVg5C81oZyI) (Video, 2026): A session hosted by Ma Earth.
- [CEDPO: Turning Community Priorities into Investable Projects](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hwcdSAup5eGUqbEbno4JMQo03Ii5apmWJOy2vEeMOQ0/) (Case study, 2026): On Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula, a locally governed association develops small, community-nominated projects and channels right-sized grants to them through a participatory territorial council.
- [Donor Advised Funds](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I8PxmzMx5-vD68nT-DHAYeLcypiu80ne/view) (Guide, 2026): A practical guide for place-based organizations on how Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) can be used to source, channel, and govern capital for their work.
- [BioFi Community of Practice Deep Dive recordings](https://www.youtube.com/@BioFiProject/playlists) (Deep Dive, 2026): Recordings of the monthly Deep Dive calls, organized into playlists on the BioFi Project YouTube channel.
- [Ecotrust / Salmon Nation: Thirty-Five Years of Building Bioregional Financial Infrastructure](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p-05jfDZxUO7lijX1lC4HmM9ltQZI7En-Nzb1avpiBg/) (Case study, 2026): How philanthropy acted as venture capital for a network of institutions, from a bank and a CDFI to tax-credit and working-forest funds, financing a bioregional economy across Pacific North America.
- [Hawaiʻi Investment Ready: Coordinating Capital for an Island Economy](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WG2l03x1y2GUHvxkBbhaxPV1y_J2b6AMmLWxOE22Cek/) (Case study, 2026): A Native Hawaiian-led nonprofit that grew from a social-enterprise accelerator into capital-system coordination, funder cohorts, and a first-loss-backed patient debt fund.
- [Igiugig: Using Capital to Return Land and Build Tribal Wealth](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D76rXY2jU9cLYzisOCqDc932S6xo9xEdMS-jrEU9xDY/) (Case study, 2026): A Bristol Bay Tribe combining Landback acquisitions, a Tribally governed philanthropic fund, and a proposed salmon-business buyout to keep more of the salmon economy in Indigenous hands.
- [Relationship is the Strategy: Hawthorne Valley's Living Approach to Finance](https://thebiofiproject.substack.com/p/relationship-is-the-strategy) (Case study, 2026): How Hawthorne Valley in New York builds its finances on long-term relationships.
- [Returning to Place: Finding Meaning in a Chaotic World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0vrveNB73Y) (Video, 2026): Samantha Power in conversation with Katie Teague Films.
- [Salmon Returns: Building Bioregional Capital Flows](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gnxku8bdvzBeYaiFHlJRvPhlutBGQD5hTb34MfK0esM/) (Case study, 2026): A cross-border platform across Salmon Nation that treats the bioregion as the portfolio, braiding grants, patient loans and investment capital around regional priorities set by Indigenous Nations and local leaders.
- [Sinal do Vale: Financing a Regenerative Bioeconomy](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ECUspy7DIM9NZa85iHwK41ApceKV9wqiLC5JRwGjKuo/) (Case study, 2026): A 15-year place-based lab in Brazil's Atlantic Forest moving from restoration, supply chains, and regenerative hospitality toward a blended bioregional finance architecture.
- [Spruce Root: Building a Regional Financial Ecosystem](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DLS3t81MqaO1vCqvt7Jw_gchOoi6w2MV-dFpwPfW45g/) (Case study, 2026): An Indigenous-led CDFI in Southeast Alaska that has layered small-business lending, a $30M permanent trust for regional coordination, and a clean-energy bank into one place-based financial system.
- [Turtle Island Community Capital: Native-Led Financial Infrastructure from the Ground Up](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lgb3gCcXNzN1M2698Kat7elU0ONAsgTyY2HhB0_np-g/) (Case study, 2026): An emerging Native CDFI in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic US pairing relational lending with technical assistance and community convening, and raising an $11.2M Watershed Fund.
- [What the Trade Routes Remember](https://thebiofiproject.substack.com/p/what-the-trade-routes-remember) (Essay, 2026): Revitalizing Indigenous economies through bioregional coalition-building.
- [Bioregional Financing Facilities: Connecting Financial Resources to Regeneration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyI0Y4omCi0) (Podcast, 2025): Episode 11 of the Capital Institute series.
- [A Guide to Bioregional Mapping & Planning](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/bioregional-mapping-and-planning-guide.pdf) (Guide, 2025): Ecological Design for Place-Based Regeneration. A method for mapping a region's assets, actors, and flows before designing a facility.
- [Bioregioning 101](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e08dWgk-TRo) (Video, 2025): Reality Roundtable #14, hosted by Nate Hagens.
- [Brandon Letsinger and Michelle Lee on Bioregional Finance in Cascadia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Ee83pQDao) (Talk, 2025): Recorded at the Cascadia BioFi Conference.
- [Connecting the Flows of Capital to the Flows of Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj3rAspo44o) (Video, 2025): The BioFi Project in conversation with Jeremy Lent.
- [BioFi Design Principles](https://www.biofi.earth/design-principles/) (Guide, 2025): Sixteen principles for designing BFFs, eco-credits, complementary currencies, and other BioFi mechanisms.
- [A Transformative Conversation on Moral Economies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcXlJbCEkzg) (Video, 2025): A conversation hosted by the Garrison Institute.
- [Reimagining Finance to Regenerate the Planet](https://conservation-strategy.org/news/reimagining-finance-regenerate-planet-samantha-power) (Interview, 2025): Samantha Power interviewed by Conservation Strategy Fund.
- [The Promise of Bioregional Economies](https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/the-promise-of-bioregional-economies/) (Lecture, 2025): The 45th Annual E.F. Schumacher Lecture, with Samantha Power and Tyler Wakefield.
- [A Self-Assessment Framework for Bioregional Organizers](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gEHUcWK7wnYlBLBwKU82pFrakRIVJfN52aCU6UQXSEk/copy) (Tool, 2025): Thinking about designing a BFF? This spreadsheet helps you see your initiative's strengths, areas for growth, and next steps. Also available in Spanish.
- [Urban Futures: Reimagining Finance for Regenerative Cities](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr-MsbovQfE) (Video, 2025): Samantha Power of the BioFi Project with Regen City.
- [The Bioregional Weaving Lab in South East Ireland](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-weaving-lab-ireland.pdf) (Case study, 2025): An example of a multi-stakeholder process for bioregional regeneration.
- [Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCMq-8sfK5Y) (Talk, 2024): Samantha Power presents the ideas behind the book.
- [Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gkinsfIfQXyyskcnNNeeMkh1-HtfYaBA/view) (Book, 2024): The rationale and templates for a critical layer of place-based financial institutions.
- [Bioregional Funds for Nature](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy6eZlLDaKw) (Talk, 2024): Samantha Power at Finance for Gaia.
- [Presentation to the COBALT Community on the BioFi Project](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNnmn_AAg1k) (Talk, 2024): An introduction to the BioFi Project for the COBALT bioregional learning community.
- [Creating Bioregional Funding Ecosystems, Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCMUxRv0dkE) (Video, 2024): Joe Brewer and Samantha Power in conversation with the Legacy Project.
- [Earth Commons: Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8ohNSVJa2Y) (Talk, 2024): A session on BFFs hosted by Ma Earth.
- [The Edge Prize](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-edge-prize.pdf) (Case study, 2024): Scaling what's possible by supporting and connecting regenerative innovators.
- [BioFi Pathfinders Gitcoin Round Overview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4niYA2LzQE) (Video, 2024): An overview of the BioFi Pathfinders round on Gitcoin Grants.
- [The BioFi Glossary](https://www.biofi.earth/glossary/) (Glossary, 2024): Our perspective on 65 key terms and ideas for the BioFi movement, from anti-fragility to worldview.
- [Golden Bay and the Wellbeing Protocol](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-golden-bay-wellbeing-protocol.pdf) (Case study, 2024): Participatory grant-making through quadratic and conviction voting in practice.
- [Growing New Ways of Seeing and Being in Place Through Bioregional Finance](https://www.culturehack.io/issues/issue-07-beyond-the-carbon-fixation-pathways-to-regenerative-futures/growing-new-ways-of-seeing-and-being-in-place-through-bioregional-finance/) (Essay, 2024): Published in Culture Hack, Issue 7: Beyond the Carbon Fixation.
- [Hylo](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-hylo.pdf) (Case study, 2024): A coordination platform for the future of bioregional organizing.
- [The Bioregional Learning Center in South Devon](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-learning-center-south-devon.pdf) (Case study, 2024): Modeling bioregional hubs.
- [Nature States, Nation States](https://medium.com/@samanthapower/nature-states-nation-states-2dfe1fa03180) (Essay, 2024): An essay by Samantha Power.
- [Open Conversations: Samantha Power](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GapTmjuLJaM) (Video, 2024): Samantha Power in conversation with Earth Commons.
- [ReCommon](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-recommon.pdf) (Case study, 2024): Regenerative common land trusts.
- [Bioregional Finance with Samantha Power](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd2LAykkFl4) (Podcast, 2024): Season 4, Episode 1 of Regeneration Nexus from ReFi DAO.
- [Regen Network and Eco-Credits](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-regen-network-eco-credits.pdf) (Case study, 2024): A novel funding mechanism for regeneration.
- [Regenerate Cascadia](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-regenerate-cascadia.pdf) (Case study, 2024): Coordinated and coherent bioregional organizing.
- [Regenerosity](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-regenerosity.pdf) (Case study, 2024): Flowing capital to grassroots regeneration by cultivating trust.
- [Salmon Nation: Envisioning a Nature State](https://www.biofi.earth/downloads/case-study-salmon-nation-nature-state.pdf) (Case study, 2024): How Salmon Nation is building toward a bioregional "nature state" across Pacific North America.
- [Weaving Bioregional Waves](https://vimeo.com/990486425) (Video, 2024): A recorded conversation on bioregional organizing and finance.

## Team

- Samantha Power, Director & Co-founder
- Tyler Wakefield, Co-founder & Co-steward
- Félix de Rosen, Research & Design
- Karla Lopez, Community Stewardship & Admin Support

## Optional

- [Sitemap](https://www.biofi.earth/sitemap-index.xml)