As the Water Flows: Shifting Capital for Ecosystem Renewal
This is Part 3 of the Attuning with Nature Series.
Drawing from my experience in investment banking and fund management, I reveal how we're helping redirect capital flow toward regenerative ends. Learn how Sacred Futures works with capital innovators to pioneer new pathways for investment that mirror natural systems, creating opportunities for capital to serve as a force for ecosystem renewal.
The architecture of our conventional financial systems wasn't built by accident. Our capital markets have been carefully engineered to concentrate power through controlled access to money and knowledge. Yet as any hydrologist will tell you, concentrated flow often leads to erosion and depletion. The future calls for a different pattern – one where capital flows and circulates freely, nourishing entire ecosystems through distributed networks.
Reimagining Capital's Purpose
During my tenure in investment banking, I realized that we don’t have a shortage of capital issue - there's ample money to address the polycrises of social and ecological despair. The real obstacle lies in how capital moves, who controls its flow, and what we deem valuable in our investment decisions.
Consider the traditional definition of an accredited investor – a designation that relies heavily on accumulated wealth as a proxy for investment wisdom. This framework not only concentrates power in the hands of the already-wealthy but fundamentally underestimates the capacity of communities to make informed decisions about their own economic futures. It's time to question these inherited assumptions.
The Sacred Future of Finance
A sacred future in finance roots capital investment in three fundamental principles:
Relationship-centered deployment
Local ecosystem development
Community self-determination
This vision expands our definition of assets beyond traditional metrics to encompass the true wealth of people, experience, and place. It recognizes that genuine prosperity emerges from building autonomy through interdependence with the living world.
The Practice
Sacred Futures serves as an adaptive advisor to capital innovators who are architecting new investment strategies aligned with natural principles. Our work spans:
Fund Design & Structure
Crafting investment vehicles that serve the intended purpose
Developing risk assessment frameworks rooted in relationship
Creating trust-based underwriting guidelines
Strategy & Implementation
Building investment policy statements that bridge investor requirements with community needs
Designing portfolio management systems
Establishing impact measurement aligned with relationship
Team & Culture Development
Nurturing leadership capacity for new financial paradigms
Creating governance structures that distribute power thoughtfully
Developing succession planning for long-term sustainability
What This Looks Like
In our first two years, we've advised emerging fund managers and served on investment committees collectively moving nearly $250 million in investment capital toward future-reverent work. Our expertise spans capital markets, real estate, and impact investing, providing the technical foundation necessary to help capital innovators construct financing vehicles for repair and renewal. Our impact speaks through the transformative work of two catalytic fund partners:
Over the initial years of Potlikker Capital’s formation, we worked with the founding team to establish the creative framework of the investment process, reimagining how risk is defined and assessed in agricultural finance. Our guidance included the development of an investment policy statement that bridges farmer and ecological centricity and investor expectations, opening transformative possibilities for moving capital to farmers of color for the repair and healing of our soils and the wider agricultural system.
We were privileged to come alongside RUNWAY in the launch of their first in-house investment fund. "Their advisory support was instrumental in launching our $50M ROOTED Fund. From team development to portfolio management, they helped us build systems that ensure our evergreen fund will continue transforming how Black communities access and deploy capital.” - Jessica Norwood, CEO and Founder of RUNWAY
A New Pattern of Flow
Imagine a world where capital flows like water in a healthy watershed – distributed, nourishing, and cyclical. Where fund managers become watershed stewards, directing resources with the wisdom of natural systems. This isn't just idealistic thinking; it's already happening through the work of pioneering capital innovators.
These emerging fund managers stand at the frontier of financial innovation, actively retooling:
How we define and assess ‘risk’
The terms under which capital is borrowed and returned
The infrastructure supporting entrepreneurial vitality
The metrics by which we demonstrate success
The future of investment lies not in further accumulation, but in deliberate circulation.
By supporting fund managers, family offices, and impact investors in aligning their practices with living systems, we're helping to birth a new financial ecosystem – one where capital flows to nourish regeneration, renewal, and relationship.
