Local Investment Opportunities Networks

You know it's important to "buy local." What if you could also invest local?

As the Slow Money investment movement grows, Local Investment Opportunity Networks, or LIONs are springing up across the country in places as diverse as: Port Townsend, WA, Portland, OR, Ithaca, NY, New York City, and Madison, WI. A LION is simply a way to connect local investors with local businesses that need loans. It’s a potent alternative to Wall Street.

A LION is a group of local citizens who create opportunities for local businesses, individuals, and local investors to network. A LION is not a loan or investment fund, and it does not make collective investment decisions.

LION membership consists of local citizens who want to invest their money locally, thereby putting their investing money to work within our community. Keeping funds local facilitates greater economic self-sufficiency, job growth, economic development, and a dollar-multiplier effect whereby a dollar kept within the community can be spent many times over for a far greater benefit than a dollar invested away from our community.

Examples of opportunities that could receive local investor support (via loans or equity shares) are: business start-ups, a business expansion or line-of-credit, non-profits, cooperatives and conservation financing.

Investors get their agreed-upon return. Businesses get competitive loans from supporters. And the economy gets a good in jobs, income, wealth and tax revenues.