Sustainable Economies Law Center - Community Supported Enterprise Program

SELC's Community-Supported Entrepreneurship (CSE) Program focuses on developing resources and policies that enable local community ownership of enterprises and assets. Traditional community economic development models focus on attracting business and real estate investment from outside of a community. In addition, compliance requirements and legal barriers make it enormously difficult for the average small business to raise capital. Through resource development and advocacy, SELC is working to develop pathways that overcome these barriers, and make it possible for local capital to fund local projects and enterprises. In a more sustainable economy, entrepreneurs would be able to raise capital from local community members' equity investments, micro-investments, crowd-funding, community-supported business models, and other creative means.

Current CSE Projects:

• Resource Development: Create a legal handbook for small enterprises wishing to obtain microloans and micro-investments from members of their local community. Compile detailed legal information on compliance issues for community asset ownership. Examine current models of community asset ownership, including: Market Creek Plaza in San Diego, Powell Mercantile in Wyoming, and Real Goods (Direct Public Offering).
• Advocacy: SELC has drafted a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting a rule change that would enable the growth of community-owned and cooperatively-owned enterprises. Specifically, SELC has asked the SEC to grant a securities compliance exemption for investments under $100. This would allow anyone to advertise and seek investments of under $100 for an enterprise or project, which is currently next to impossible for the average person to do (due to overly complicated securities laws).