Global Ecovillage Network/Solution Library/Finances ­ money & resources

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How to think about money, how to attract it and make it flow.

Money is the blood in the organism of your business. If your business is healthy, money flows.

— ANON

Money and how we use it is currently an essential element within the social fabric of our world. So, the first step to accessing it is to think about money and research some theories about what it is. The second step is to know how much money you need to set up your business and then to make it flow. The third step is to know where to get money from where are the various sources? The fourth step is to know how to attract it and keep it flowing.

One core idea that is at the heart of one partner’s perspective on money is that the dominant economic system, the Western system, currently aims to maximise profit for the few in the short term. If we instead aim to optimise the value for the whole in the long term​, we think, feel and act in very different ways. As a social entrepreneur, if your focus is on the latter, then you will not only be thinking about the generations to come when you make your decisions, but also you will incorporate more information into your decision making processes.

You will consider the environment, the history of a place, Nature, the spiritual aspects, the health aspects, and so on.

• Social Entrepreneurship.

• Books: What is Money? A Discussion, with Joseph Beuys Sacred Economics, Charles Eisenstein The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Niall Ferguson Reinventing Organisations, Frederic Laloux
• The Moneyless Manifesto.
• Top Ten Crowdfunding sites.
• Submitted by W Graham Stewart, Still Consulting / Wind Harvest International