b'say, Please scrutinize all the risks of playing blackjack before you put your money on the table. That never happens either. There is one universe of local activity called gambling, where you can lose everything in no time, and thats allowed. And theres another universe called small-business securities, where, if we put a small bit of money into businesses without wasting thousands of dollars on lawyers, well go to jail. We ultimately must resolve this contradiction. (On a separate but related front, how about an exchange for trading shares of A. Corpora-tions and the nonvoting shares of Purpose Trusts?)Slow Money. The slow money movement catalyzes a variety of local food and farming funding initiatives, from networking events to investment clubs to philanthropic funds. Discussion. Slow money is a grassroots family of local funding networks. While most of the $75 million of slow money funding to date has flowed informally, a few small intermediary schemes have been explored. No Small Potatoes Investment Club of Maine, a for-profit LLC, has 18 members and has made 49 loans (at 45% interest) totaling $311,000 to 33 food and farm enterprises. In Massachusetts, the nonprofit Berkshire Agricultural Ventures has given $888,000 of loans and grants, along with technical assistance, to 75 farms and food businesses, with capital donated from a local community foundation, family foundations, family offices and some individuals. In Colorado and Virginia, five SOIL groups 13have received a total of $1.25 million from 304 donor/members and made sixty, 0% loans totaling almost $800,000;the Slow Money Institute is currently studying this models potential for broad replicability. There are more than 1,500 land trusts and community land trusts across the country, preserving open space and farmland (land trusts) 13 SOIL stands for Slow Opportunities for Investing Locally. As discussed previously, SOIL groups aggregate charitable donations from their members and make 0% loans to local organic farms and food businesses, by majority vote, one member/one vote, no matter the size of a members donation. Donations range from $250 to $50,000 thus far. Farmers join for $25. To date, there are five SOIL groupsfour in Colorado and one in Virginia.28'