In the spring of 2019 the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development and Free Hearts, an organization led by formerly incarcerated women, providing support, education, and advocacy to families impacted by incarceration as it pursues opportunities to create jobs, training and financial support for individuals reentering, formed an alliance to create a local non-extractive loan fund to support minority worker cooperatives start-ups and conversions.
This loan fund, the New Economy of Tennessee Fund (NET Fund), is part of Seed Commons, a community wealth cooperative that shares capital and resources to support local cooperative businesses create jobs, build collective economic power, and wealth for people of color, formerly incarcerated individuals, immigrants, and others who must overcome great barriers to participate in the economy.
The unique aspect of a non-extractive loan fund is that the returns to the lender never exceed the wealth created by the borrower.
Read the rest at Southeast Center for Cooperative Development
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