Encouraging signs: moving money toward values

The resonance of the Occupy Wall Street movement is resounding.  All over the world people are gathering in cities and towns objecting to the corporate power and greed that has been the hallmark of the past years.

While the protesters were gaining strength and numbers this last week, it was the 3rd annual national gathering for Slow Money an organization founded several years ago to bring money together with values. As they say on their website: "the Slow Money Alliance is bringing people together around a new conversation about money that is too fast, about finance that is disconnected from people and place, about how we can begin fixing our economy from the ground up... starting with food.." Their annual gathering took place in San Francisco and hundreds of people came together to work to change the way that capital flows, bringing money to farms and producers and encouraging a "new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living."  Slow money is creating a network of members and investors who believe that we must "bring money back to earth."

Sign on to their network here: http://slowmoney.org/

MarketWatch wrote a piece about the gathering: Slow Money Offers Investing Alternative to Wall Street Protests.  With the Occupy Wall Street movement gaining steam, Slow Money offers one network of people committed to making real change in the financial system.

David Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy, is an outspoken proponent of aligning our economy with our values.  He says, "The old economy of greed and dominion is dying.  A new economy of life and partnership is struggling to be born. The outcome is ours to choose." He recently wrote a great piece for Yes! Magazine, Why I'm in Solidarity with #OccupyWallStreet.

Sustainable Industries latest issue, Down on Main Street, suggests that Small Business could save the economy. Their article, Crackin' Piggy Banks talks about the latest trends in Micro Lending, Peer to Peer  Lending and Crowdfunding.