For those of us interested in alternative economics, it was a very interesting week on the Front Range of Colorado.  There was significant activity among and between many groups who are innovating better ways to flow capital (financial capital, sure, and also social, human, intellectual and natural capital) through our economy and society.

Slow Money, a movement that evolved from Investor’s Circle, is a new network of investors focused on making long-view investments which accept below-market rates in addition to social and natural captial returns related to localized, organic food systems.  Fast Money metaphorically defines the success of Boulder’s TechStars web 2.0 startups, which are moving at speeds reminiscent of Silicon Valley circa 1998.  Local money was at the hub of the Business Association for Local Living Economies (BALLE) annual conference.  And sustainable money reared its head in the form of a new bank that has been founded from the ground up on sustainable principles.

The week began with a great juxtaposition, with networking events held for the close-in Boulder communities around Slow Money and TechStars.

• The Slow Money Alliance (Twitter stream: #slowmoney) is a funding network whose purpose is to: preserve and restore local food systems and local economies; … reconnect food producers and consumers and reconnect investors to that in which they are investing and to the places in which they live; … promote the transition from an economy based on extraction and consumption to an economy based on preservation and restoration.   Founded and run by Woody Tasch, the former Chairman and President of Investors’ Circle, which focuses on “patient capital for a sustainable future,” the Slow Money Alliance drew out many of Boulder’s most progressive investors and wealth managers, as well as sustainability activists and local capitalists to two hosted events last week.

• The same night as the first Slow Money gig, TechStars (Twitter stream: #techstars) hosted a coming out party of sorts for the ten companies who have just started their summer-long ‘deep immersion’ in web 2.0 entrepreneurism.  This is the third year of the TechStars program, and three of the program’s ten members of the class of 2007 have already sold or merged their companies, representing a model of growth paradoxical to the Slow Money principles, a paradox we’ll unpack below.

• The next night, on the eve of the BALLE Conference (Twitter stream: #balle), Denver’s BALLE chapter, the Mile High Business Alliance, launched a new concept — a recirculating gift certificate called Local Flavors — to encourage citizens and businesses to buy local.  This presentation outlines the concept via a new presentation tool also worthy of attention, prezi.com. Local Flavors is already endorsed by local business stalwarts Twist-n-Shout and Tattered Cover, along with many other local businesses on East Colfax, the neighborhood where it will launch this summer.  This evening gathering, drawing in both Colorado business leaders and local economy architects from around the country, kicked off three more days of the discussion of strengthening local economies from big cities to rural communities across North America.

• One important new contributor to the discussion around local and sustainable economics is e3Bank.  Founded from the ground-up on sustainable principles, e3Bank has completely re-thought the concept of a bank within a much broader context than many people consider.  Those of you who have gone deep into the assessment of sustainable local systems have realized that without new banks, we can only make modest change.  With a bank created on fully-aligned values, the money fulcrum can shift, and tip many of the levers of change that have seemed too hard to move with brute force.

So, where’s the nuance in all of this?

First is the financial innovation indicator.  While the world of traditional global finance remains a shambles (the psychological bounce in the stock market notwithstanding), new financing and incubation models are thriving. Some of the models of banking, local spending and food systems are not new — people have been working on these concepts for decades (millenia, acutally) — but the proliferation and faster adoption of some new manifestations suggests that there is an emerging consciousness ready for more radical tools and systems, now that the global banks and financial markets have revealed their underlying weaknesses.

Second is the growth paradox. It can seem at first glance that the fast-moving, growth-oriented TechStars incubator is the odd man out.  After all, it leverages much of the financial theory and many organizing principles disparaged by the hyperlocalvores.  Funded by venture capital firms and angel investors with a proudly single bottom line, the financial values seem fully incongruent with sustainability. However, as one presenter at BALLE pointed out, a strong technical innovation community creates the flow of dollars, jobs and, ultimately, a community of people that supports a thriving local business ecology.

Boulder is an incubator of this paradox, where web 2.0 wunderkinds from around the world will spend some of the money invested in their companies at the farmer’s market, local businesses, and maybe even bank in a more sustainable manner.  Entrepreneurs in green tech and clean tech continue to grow in number, and contribute both sustainable products and venture-funded jobs to our economy.

As e3Bank grows, it will adopt a deployment strategy that leans heavily on information technology to reduce its physical footprint.  The BALLE and Slow Money communities both use not only websites for fund raising, but also Twitter, Facebook groups and other digital media tools to increase their footprint.  In short, while the tech community has not yet adopted the progressive business models common to the sustainability world, the two communities strengthen each other.

At nuance, we function at the intersection of these communities.  One study we have undertaken is the interaction between the two groups.

• Amplification networks (we like ‘amplification’ more than ‘growth,’ which represents a failed model) that spread technology (information technology, energy technology, even social systems) will continue to thrive, and the cities that host these networks — Boulder, Boston, SF and the rest — will fare much better than the rest of the nation as our recession continues.

• Sustainability networks exemplified by the BALLE and Slow Money groups — and empowered by e3Bank and their peers — will become much stronger as the collective consciousness catches up to the progressive models imagined 5, 25 or 5,000 years ago (depending on your frame reference).  Neighbors around the country have woken up to the rhythms of our natural systems, and are building micro-economies that harmonize with those systems rather than attempt to dominate them.

Rather than focusing on the differences, these two types of networks will become much stronger when they realize the virtue that each other brings into the same physical places.  A world where a dad spends the summer teaching bio-dynamic agriculture to a group of 10-year-olds while mom bikes to her job as a start-up chief technology officer isn’t the kind of science fiction it might have seemed even ten years ago.  And in a handful of progressive communities around the world, the experiment is already underway.

Please share your thoughts, experiences and comments.