In Less than a Week You Can Launch FI in Your Town

Does your area need a Foodshed Investors? Are there quality businesses with great potential, but difficulty getting funding? Are there values-based investors that would love to smartly support neighboring entrepreneurs, but lack the structure and tools to do that? Are you involved in a volunteer-based investing club or organization that finds it difficult to keep on top of deal flow, or has trouble driving deals to a close?

We can help. We designed Foodshed Investors to operate anywhere, with a minimum of work on behalf of our local champions.

​We provide a roadmap, a process, a suite of web and mobile software applications, customizable marketing communication vehicles, deal terms templates, and training for you.
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You recruit entrepreneurs, run them though our system, tap into your local foodshed and entrepreneurial support ecosystems, and help increase the supply of good, clean, fair, local food.

Business Consultants

Add "Funding Readiness" to your existing service offering. We'll provide content and tools for you to succeed from the get-go. And new business leads.

Food System Activists​

Add a pop-up angel network to your community with funding for the local food and ag entrepreneurs driving positive change.
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Incubator Mentors

Leverage your & your colleagues' skills, relationships, and dollars to add red-zone discipline to funding  main street & rural businesses.
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Investment Clubs

Leverage our investor management and due diligence tools, outsource deal management, increase deal quality and quantify.
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How Does Starting FI in My Area Work?

Features & Benefits

By joining the FI network, you'll receive:

Pop-Up Angel Network

• An established mechanism to facilitate impact investing in your community
• Consulting introductions to fundraising companies needing help with strategy, planning, operations, and fundraising
• Instant traction and credibility from Foodshed Investors history, track record, and branding
• Technology-driven, structured process to manage deals from introduction through funding
• FI's "Roadmap to Local Sustainable Food Investment Success" guide
• Deal flow and deal management is actually handled by FI: you participate only as much as you'd like. We respond to incoming inquiries, we contract with fundraising entrepreneurs, we guide the deal through the process. You're involved only as much as you'd like to participate, as, say, Engagement Lead, Lead Investor, Mentor, Expert
• "Office" page on the FI website and yourtown.foodshedinvestors.com URL

Tools & Support

• Local Leader FI Toolset
• Company-Facing Toolset
• ​Ready-to-localize marketing communications
• Term Sheet and Definitive Agreement Templates
• Best Practices training on fundraising readiness, deal structuring, and entrepreneur / investor communications and relationships
• Servicing for deals that involve periodic payments
• User access to the various Software-as-a-Service tools

Deal Flow

• First look at incoming investment opportunities
• Ability to participate in investments as member of the FI Investor Network

Relationships

• Peer networking with other FI Local Leaders
• Access to the national FI network of Experts and Mentors
• Innovative concept to bring to new local relationships

Income Potential

• Ability to generate income from consulting, sponsorships, and grants

You Choose Your Level of Activity

We've structured the relationship between Local Leaders and FI HQ so you can choose how active you'd like to be. At the simplest, we'd ask that you agree to a couple things and then refer potential new entrepreneurs and potential new investors to FI. At the other extreme, you could build an entire business facilitating impact investing network, as we've done in Austin.

Requirements

• Submit a completed "FI in Your Town" Interest Form;
• Participate with us in an exercise to ensure mutual goal alignment, discuss securities law compliance, and get an overview of the FI process and tools;
• Sign a contract and pay the Start-Up Fee;
• Refer potential entrepreneurs, investors, and experts to the FI website. There are no quotas, no goals, no commitments. Just do the best you're able.

Optional: at your discretion, you could also:

• Participate in FI group chats with other local leaders;
• Start a new line of business around "fundraising readiness" consulting;
• Receive training from FI on best practices for leading deals;
• ​Share local contact lists to allow FI to email market to foodshed ecosystem members in your community;
• Start YourTown Foodshed Investors social media feeds on Twitter, or Facebook, or Instragram, or LinkedIn;
• Get and carry YourTown Foodshed Investors business cards;
• Host a YourTown Foodshed Investors launch event;
• Host other events around local sustainable food, finance, and social good like potlucks, or happy hours, or pitch-fests;
• Blog on the FI website;
• Receive national level email newsletter content from FI and customize or augment it for your local area;
• Participate in local foodshed ecosystem activities, organizations, and events;
• Be a Deal Lead, or Lead Investor, Expert, or Board Member on one or more engagements;
• Something else you think would be cool and fun? Let's talk!

​Each of these items is optional. If you'd like to do them, great. If not, don't. Or start, then stop. Then start again. We've found the more one participates the more rewarding it is, but we also realize people have jobs and lives and other commitments. We're trying to make this as easy as possible for you to agree to try, then to do!

Economics

Revenue You Generate and Keep

• Consulting revenue for any client you source
• Sponsorship revenue for any sponsor you source
• Event profit for any events you hold
• Grant revenue for any grant you win (less FI participation below)

Fees from FI to You

• Commission on consulting revenue for any client you refer to FI
• Commission on sponsorship revenue for any sponsor you refer to FI
• Participation in any grant we win whose win is predicated on your branding or participation

Fees from You to FI

• Start-Up: $5,000, of which 1/2 is due up front and 1/2 is due at the end of our first year together
• Travel expenses for FI to visit your community, help you get started, as mutually agreeable
• Commission on consulting revenue for any client FI refers to you
• Commission on sponsorship revenue for any sponsor FI refers to you
• Participation in any grant you win whose win is predicated on FI branding or participation

​Revenue FI Generates and Keeps

• Consulting revenue for any client we source
• Event profit for any events we hold
• Grant revenue for any grant we win (less your participation above)
• Crowdfunding commission
• Servicing fees

Third-Party Fees

• Fundraising typically involves a variety of other third party fees.

Local Leader Toolset

Local Office Tools

• Local office "workspace" including task management, calendaring, user access control
• X.FI: app to manage the start-up process and activities for a new YourTown Foodshed Investors
• Priorities: assigning, accepting, and collaborating on projects and to-do's
• Discuss: group discussions
• Events: event manager
• EdCal: editorial calendar manager
• Time & Rates: if you're tracking time, for billable hours as an example
• Sponsors: sales management tool to target and track potential sponsors
• Bugs: submit system bugs and requests for changed or additional functionality or content
• Help: documentation on successfully running a FI office
• Investables: other impact investing opportunities

Deal Management Tools
Secure online collaboration, document management, and workflow tools to manage deal flow:

• Orgs: companies and organization
• Contacts: people
• Requests: incoming leads for Advisory Services
• Applications: incoming leads for Funding Deals
• Deals: deal process management on deal-by-deal basis
• Investors: investor contact and preference data
• Experts: mentors, technical assistance providers, domain experts
• Interest: intersection of "deals" and "investors" to track interest and potential participation levels
• Programs: grants and other non-investment assistance programs available to local sustainable food and farm companies
• Capital: other capital providers
• Greenhouse: resource library

Marketing Communications Tools
FI provides the following marketing communication tools:

• Local content ready monthly Newsletter: Constant Contact email newsletter pre-loaded with national FI, food & ag, finance, impact investing, social good content, ready for local market ready content
• Sustainable Food Investor: dealflow and portfolio news

Example

Here's how the YourTown page could look on the Foodshed Investors website.

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Tell Us a Little About Yourself...

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