3c hapter - Index of

Community Capital 117
investment is fairly illiquid. But if successful, like the Powell Merc,
the Saranac Lake store could generate healthy dividends someday.
More importantly, the more than 600 investors who have chipped
in an average $800 each will have the satisfaction of knowing that
they will never be at the mercy of a remotely owned corporation
that can pull out on a whim. Money spent at the store, meanwhile,
will circulate within the community, rather than fl ying right back
out to a distant, faceless headquarters.
A Community Revitalization Project Masquerading
as a Diner
There are now community- owned energy utilities, forests, theatres,
sports teams (hello Green Bay Packers)—you name it. And
it’s a global phenomenon. Small- scale, community- owned wind
power is commonplace in Denmark and Germany. In England,
where 400 pubs and shops closed in rural villages in 2009, victims
of modern- day urbanization and an economic slowdown,
community- owned shops are fl ourishing. In the past 25 years,
254 community- owned shops have opened, including 40 in 2010
alone, according to the Plunkett Foundation, an organization that
helps set up such shops. In all that time, the foundation notes,
only eight of the community- owned stores have closed. 10 Saving
the local shop with a community- owned store even fi gured in the
plot line of a popular British radio soap opera, The Archers, about
the fi ctional village of Ambridge.
In the United States, many community capital initiatives are
an outgrowth of the locavore movement. Community- supported
agriculture, in which customers prepay for vegetables and other
produce, provides farmers with capital they need to operate until
they are ready to harvest. The idea of preselling as a way to manage
cash fl ow has spread to fi sheries, restaurants, and dairies.
Taking that a step further, some food entrepreneurs are inviting
their future customers to invest in the business up front, as lenders
or equity owners.
Community- supported and fi nanced restaurants, for example,
are a growing trend. One of the pioneers is Tod Murphy, a