Regenerate Cascadia is very excited to join the upcoming Bioregional Finance (BioFi) Pathfinders Gitcoin round – a fundraising round led by a partnership between The BioFi Project, OpenCivics, Design School for Regenerating Earth, and Regen Coordination to support the most sophisticated Bioregional Organizing Teams around the world in developing, clarifying, and enhancing their BioFi vision, strategy, and capabilities.
This invite-only round is aimed at advanced teams that are already practicing or actively developing their approach to Bioregional Finance (BioFi), with a focus on building Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs) or bioregional funding ecosystems more broadly. This will be hosted on Gitcoin (as part of GG22) utilizing their innovative quadratic funding approach/tools. The more unique donors who contribute to a project, the more funds grantees can receive from the matching pool (read more about this in the BioFi book at www.biofi.earth)
We will be excited to use this funding to seed our place-based working groups directly. It is an exciting opportunity to bring further attention and coherence to the (e)merging of fields occurring across bioregionalism, regenerative economics, Regenerative Finance (ReFi), Web3, and traditional philanthropy and finance.
The round will be open for donations 📅 Oct 23rd – Nov 6th, during which we will be sharing resources on how to donate, in-depth profiles of the INCREDIBLE participating Bioregional Organizing Teams, and guidance on how to identify and support initiatives aligned with your values and the places that you love. Stay tuned for more exciting updates!
Core Design & Operations Team
- Tyler Wakefield and Samantha Power, The BioFi Project
- Benjamin Life, Open Civics
- Monty Merlin, CeloPG & ReFi DAO
- Joe Brewer, Design School for Regenerating Earth
Advisors and Supporting Collaborators:
- Scott Morris, FoxFire (Advisor)
- Matthew Monahan, Ma Earth (Advisor)
- Will Szal, Regen Foundation (Advisor)
- Edward West, The BioFi Project (Advisor)
- Andrea Farias, Diome (Mapping & Storytelling Support)
- Emily Rogers, The BioFi Project (Media and Communications Support)
Invitees
- Reconnecting Northland (Aotearoa – New Zealand)
- Recôncavo de Guanabara Fund (Guanabara Bay, Brazil)
- Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance (Ecuador/Peru)
- Re/Village Green Valley (West Sonoma, CA)
- CEDPO (Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica)
- Salmon Nation CoLabs (Salinas River, CA to Yukon River, AK)
- Regenerate Cascadia (Pacific Northwest of North America)
- Forests of the North East (Northeast of North America)
- Regenerate Barichara (Barichara, Colombia)
- Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (Greater Toronto Area, Canada)
- Tarn-et-Garnonne (France)
- Project Biome (South Africa)
- ReFi Costa Rica
- BioFi Mediterranean (Italy & Sicily)
Eligibility criteria Eligible grantees will be selected through a carefully curated and transparent process, where those invited by the core team will be eligible to apply. These teams will be part of an ongoing effort to stay connected beyond the round itself, engaging in learning exchanges facilitated through the BioFi Community of Practice (CoP), Design School for Regenerating Earth, Regen Coordi-Nation, and other collaborative spaces. Chosen grantees will demonstrate:
Coherent Bioregional Identity: Grantees must have a well-defined Bioregional Organizing Team, whether that’s a robust network of individuals, organizations, or bioregional learning centers, or a ‘keystone’ organization that actively engages broad community participation in its vision, mission, and strategies.
Strong Connection to Place: Grantees should demonstrate a deep, committed relationship to their bioregion, including a well-developed understanding of its geographic, geological, ecological, cultural, and multi-capital characteristics, flows, and boundaries.
Commitment to Inclusivity: Teams must prioritize working in right relationship with Indigenous peoples, marginalized communities, and diverse local stakeholders, ensuring inclusive and participatory approaches to bioregional organizing.
Established Financial Practices: Grantees should either:
Already have clearly defined practices for managing financial capital to support their internal efforts and/or to fund external bioregional regeneration initiatives (such as learning centers, regenerative projects, venture studios, or key leaders and organizers), or
Have a clear, grounded vision for how they will deploy financial capital toward bioregional regeneration, with an understanding of the challenges, needs, and support required to bring this vision to life.
Alignment with BioFi Philosophy and BFF Objectives & Attributes: Grantees’ visions and operations should align with the broad BioFi philosophy and the 3 objectives and 12 attributes of Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs) (laid out in the BioFi book 3), focusing on long-term, place-based, and participatory approaches to resource governance and biocultural regeneration.
A big thanks to all of the organizers of this round: Samantha Power, Tyler Wakefield, Benjamin Life, Monty Bryant 🧙🏼♂️✨, and Joe Brewer. And the supporting collaborators Scott Morris, Edward West, Matthew Monahan, Will Szal, Andrea Farias, Emily Rogers, and Félix de Rosen.
