Our partnerships

After 20 years in the local economies movement at Rising Tide Capital, I’ve come to believe that bioregional frameworks will be the defining lens for our movement in the years ahead. We need a vision that grounds economics in right relationship with the living world, and we know traditional finance can’t get us there.

Working with the BioFi Project to launch our bioregional investment fund has been an absolute game changer. What started as an idea is now a vibrant community of stakeholders working together to bring this vision to life. Along the way, BioFi guided us through a customized process: meeting some of the brightest minds in the field, learning from other groups, holding our own convenings, sifting through the existing research, and clarifying our priorities. As a result, we can present our strategy to funders and investors as a best-in-class example of rigorous financial modeling and collaborative, community-driven planning. A rare combination!

As we launch our fund, I’m deeply grateful to the BioFi team for their expertise and guidance. I’d highly recommend them to any group exploring the role it can play in this crucial work, whether as a philanthropist, impact investor, or practitioner. May we all find our way!

Developing financing facilities for place-based work is a relatively new thing, and it’s not an easy thing. It isn’t traditionally supported by philanthropy. For Salmon Returns, the BioFi Project’s sense-making work has saved us time and helped us understand what is and isn’t working. They identify the patterns across BFFs, codify them, and share them with the world. The case studies have been valuable. The DAF Guide has been hugely helpful in showing us and our partners how to tap into donor-advised funds, a sector that may eventually overshadow foundations as a source of capital.

Going through the Cultivator program was super beneficial. We learned how other BFFs were organizing, articulating, and structuring their work. The attention the BioFi book received also brought attention to Salmon Returns as an example of a bioregional financing facility.

BioFi has connected us with its vast network, matchmaking us with people interested in our work, potential funders, service providers, and others we could support. This work is grounded in and made possible by relationships. Having BioFi as a relationship intermediary has been hugely important for us.

We simply would not be here, as far along as we are, without the devoted support of the BioFi Project.

I appreciate the BioFi team’s integrity and devotion to the life-aligned, whole-systems approach they bring to every touchpoint. Through the Cultivator, and their continued relational weaving, I have been connected to highly aligned leaders in the regenerative space.