On 25 January, we brought together 130 initiators of citizen collectives, policymakers, scientists and financiers to look for concrete solutions to the financial bottlenecks of citizen collectives.

We organised the sold-out event ‘Financing collective value(s): from challenges to solutions’ together with Triodos Bank and Katalys. The day was opened by Tine De Moor, professor of Social Enterprises & Institutions for Collective Action. De Moor: ‘Citizen collectives regularly experience financial challenges, both due to a lack of policy for this form of governance and due to a lack of confidence in their operation. This is mainly because governments and financial institutions have little to no experience with citizen collectives.’

The financial challenges of citizen collectives are a brake on this growing movement. In his keynote, Hans Stegeman, chief economist at Triodos Bank, highlights the financial system in which citizen collectives find themselves and calls for ‘financing impact’. The subsequent sessions addressed specific financial bottlenecks: financing housing collectives, access to government funds, alternative revenue models for citizen collectives and assessing risks when investing in citizen collectives.

Lukas Held, project coordinator of CollectieveKracht, made three observations.

• Our financial system is not set up to finance the non-financial value that citizen collectives create.
• Fortunately, a broad coalition of dedicated individuals and organisations is forming. Together, they create more space for citizen collectives.
• Many working investment models for citizen collectives have already been developed. Now, it is a matter of sharing and scaling up.

UPDATE: The interactive sessions during this event have led to the publication of a whitepaper. All important findings of this day can be found here. Practical examples, expert advice and concrete tasks come together in this document.