b'Over and over again, Ive seen the intention of social enterprises (also known as mission-driven companies) become diluted as ventures grow, as they dance with investors, as ownership changes, as founding visions are compromised by the imperatives of the marketplace or get lost in a haze of entrepreneurial zeal, wealth creation and absentee ownership. This is a story that has played itself out thousands of times. Millions of times. Its a bit too much like salmon swimming out to the sea of absentee and public ownership, never to find their way back home.We talk of nutrient-dense food. Perhaps we should also talk about intention-dense entrepreneurship. A small, diversified organic farm is the most intention-dense of enterprises. The idea that a whole new sector of finance could emerge to respect the intention-density of small, local businesses, starting with food and farming, is an idea worth mulling.Bill Donaldson, former chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, once said during a conversation, A portfolio is a portfolio is a portfolio. However strong the intention to splice social and environ-mental mission into the investment decision-making of a fund manager, the arithmetic of financial risk and return governs. How do we steer money not only in a new direction, but in a way that allows us to hold intention?Intention applied through the abstraction of an institutional investment portfolio doesnt get very far. Intention applied locally, in the places where 18'