Sustainable Agriculture

Healthy Food Systems

Vibrant Communities

Brightseed Strategies helps people and organizations access capital and community resources, cultivate their own power to transform the way they work, and build economically vibrant, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable food systems that benefit agricultural producers, healthy food enterprises, and consumers.

Farmers’ Market Promotion Program Request for Proposals Announced — May 21st Deadline!

The USDA Agriculture Marketing Service announced is Request for Proposals for the FMPP program on Friday, April 6th. Up to $10 million will be awarded. The preference for projects that help increase healthy food options in low-income communities remains this year, as does a 10% set-aside for projects that implement new Electronic Benefit Transfer systems [...]

Read the full article → April 10, 2012

Wallace Center Webinar — Harvesting Investment Dollars from the 99%: Cutting Edge Ways to Fund Your Food Business

Last week Wallace Center, a research, policy analysis and education organization dedicated to fostering a more sustainable food and agriculture system in the U.S., hosted a very worthwhile Webinar titled “Harvesting Investment Dollars from the 99%: Cutting Edge Ways to Fund Your Food Business.” The Webinar is now archived here: http://ngfn.org/resources/ngfn-cluster-calls/harvesting-investment-dollars-from-the-99.  It is over an hour [...]

Read the full article → March 19, 2012

PR Newswire: California FreshWorks Fund Awards First Grant to Help Bring First Full-Service Grocery Store to West Oakland Community

As you read the PR Newswire article below, recall that California Freshworks is administered by NCB Capital Impact, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that received a $3 million Healthy Food Financial Initiative award from the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund  in FY2011.  NCB Capital Impact has stated that it intends to use its award to [...]

Read the full article → March 8, 2012

New Market Tax Credits and Healthy Food Finance: A Brief Analysis

What is the New Markets Tax Credit Program? The program is run by the U.S. Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund, and aims to spur investments in operating businesses and real estate projects located in low-income communities. The NMTC Program attracts investment capital to low-income communities by permitting individual and corporate investors to receive a tax credit [...]

Read the full article → March 7, 2012

More for Private Investors Looking to Bring Local and Regional Food to Scale

Green Acres March 02, 2012 By Ellie Winninghoff Looking to invest in ways that help scale the supply of fresh local food and build regional food systems? The Carrot Project, a Somerville, Mass.-based nonprofit that specializes in small farm finance, has developed three loan funds in partnership with different financial institutions that offer operating capital [...]

Read the full article → March 6, 2012

Impact Investors: Their Role in Building Local and Regional Food Systems

Check out this March 2012 article by Ellie Winninghoff in a magazine called FA Green (fa-mag.com/green). In it she explains how impact investors (investors who assess the social and environmental effects of their investments as well as the economic returns) can work to scale up the supply of fresh, local food and build local and [...]

Read the full article → March 5, 2012

Insights into Financing “Food Hubs” from Wholesome Wave

The re-posted blog below from Wholesome Wave does a great job pointing out how financing for food enterprises with a focus on developing local food systems may differ from financing other types of enterprises. In particular, it points out that many “Food Hubs” — aggregator/distributors of local food — approach their businesses primarily from a nonprofit/social good [...]

Read the full article → February 28, 2012

Treasury Announces $3.6 Billion in New Market Tax Credit Awards — HFFI Analysis to Come

I will provide a short analysis of what the NMTC award round means for HFFI next week. For now, be happy that four CDFIs who received HFFI awards ALSO received NMTC awards (CEI, IFF, LIIF, and TRF). Perhaps these four have an interest in using their tax credits to leverage their HFFI loans… You can [...]

Read the full article → February 24, 2012

New Report: U.S. Counties With Thriving Small Businesses Have Healthier Residents

A new report provides data that addresses the basic question: why should a Community Development Financial Institution care about financing locally-owned healthy food enterprises.  For stakeholders and food business owners — here’s a great piece to take with you when you make that appointment to introduce yourself to your local CDFI (which can be located [...]

Read the full article → February 24, 2012

New Ally for Sustainable Agriculture in the Finance Department

February 15th, 2012 Non-profit, community lenders get involved in healthy food supply chain by guest bloggers Nessa Richman, Brightseed Strategies and Patty Cantrell, Regional Food Solutions Reprinted from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition Blog Loan funds, credit unions, community development corporations—these mission-driven organizations traditionally provide credit and financial services to poor and underserved urban and [...]

Read the full article → February 22, 2012

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