Designing Finance Around Place:
Explore four insights from Regen Labs project, co-designing a Community Investment Fund in regional SA
Summary
Insights from designing finance around place
This project by Regen Labs started with a simple but important question:
How might finance strengthen the communities, enterprises and relationships that create long-term regional prosperity?
Instead of starting with a financial product, we worked alongside enterprise leaders, community foundations, philanthropic funders, impact investors and government to co-design a place-based Community Investment Fund.
This article shares four insights that emerged through that process. While they directly informed the design of our proposed Fund, they also offer broader lessons for funders, investors and policymakers interested in financing community-led economic transition.
Four key take aways
What should Community Investment Funds invest in?
Enterprise ecosystems, collective projects (like hubs), capability, relationships and collaboration.
What does it take to establish and scale them?
Catalytic capital, institutional partnerships and market infrastructure.
How should capital be structured?
By intentionally aligning local and external investors while protecting community agency.
Who can steward investment over time?
Trusted, place-based institutions such as Community Foundations, Community Development Corporations, Community Investment Cooperatives.
Acknowledgements
Our thanks to Paul Ramsay Foundation and the other partners who supported Regen Labs in undertaking feasibility work for a place-based pilot Regen Community Investment Fund and enabled us to take a genuinely community-centric approach.
Firstly, we pay our respects to Peramangk, Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri peoples. Regen Labs acknowledges the custodians of the land we work and live on. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We thank our partners in this place for walking together in the co-design of a Regen Community Investment Fund for this place.
Thank you to Uncle Eric “Wally” Richards for Welcoming us onto Peramangk Country for the co-design workshop. And to Dave Booth, cultural representative for the Peramangk people, for guiding us and creating a message stick to help us carry forward conversations to catalyse the shift to a regenerative economy across Australia.
Secondly, thanks to our co-design partners and supporters in regional South Australia including Engage Change and Dave Booth, as well as those who enabled us to host the co-design workshop: Kitchen Farm, Burke Urban, Green Adelaide, Landscape Boards SA, and On the Ground We Walk On. Our appreciation also to The Wyatt Trust for catching the enthusiasm and co-hosting two Funder Roundtables, for further testing the feasibility and viability of the model with local investors. This step involved close collaboration with six local enterprises: feather&PECK, The Circular Initiative, Cool Road Collective, Top Soil Garden, and Rewild Creek.
Finally, thanks to members of our multi-sector co-inquiry group including philanthropy, catalytic investing, impact investing, and enterprise: Justin Medcalf - Impact Investing, Moragh Mackay - Mycelia Energy Collective, Andrea Lane - FLOAT, Dr Dominque Hes - Green Fleet Board, Emilie Ottervanger - PRF, Ian Bird - Community Foundations Australia, Luke Craven - NEXUS / PLACE, Liam Flanagan Gumatj, Galina Laurie - PRF, Rob Pekin Food Connect Shed.
Phil Freeman, Dimity Podger, and Reece Proudfoot
Regen Labs Team
This insights paper has been made possible through WEAVE Regen Economy Systems Lab, a 12-month place-based innovation collaboration learning community, led by Regen Labs and commissioned by Social Enterprise Australia, and funded by the Australian Government through the Social Enterprise Development Initiative.