Money Money Money

The topic of money has been everywhere for me lately. As CSI explores funding options and opportunites for the purchase of the new building, everyone here is chatting about how CSI will raise the necessary dollars. People are always chatting about funding for social innovators. And, in my personal life too, friends and I have been chatting about venture capital: what it is and what life would be like as a venture capitalist (!!), how do you get to that point. The key component to all of these conversations, though, is how does "good" relate to "venture" and to "capital."

Then, wouldn't you know it, my colleague Eli sends me a great blogpost by Dev Aujla, founder of DreamNow, on Kim Scheinberg's new model for Angel Investing. Or, as Dev describes it, a new venture fund that institutionalize's the idea of paying it forward.

Kim's funding model, called Presumed Abundance, and works like this (thanks to Dev for laying it out):

Someone has an idea, they find Kim's fund, pitch her their idea, pick a value, give a percentage and get cash. THEN, if you sell the company, the percentage you gave is no longer just by the investor, but by both of you. AND, the two of you together decide on a company to reinvest the money in that is also doing great stuff in this world.

One day you're receiving funds from an angel investor, the next day you're an angel investor yourself.

The fund is initially capitalized at $250,000 and is set to fund 10 to 20 new businesses with investments between $5,000 and $25,000 over the next two years.

Check out Dev's post. Check out Kim's site.

What do you think?