From May 16–18, 2025, over 250 people gathered at the historic Georgetown Steam Plant in Seattle for the inaugural Cascadia BioFi Conference—a place-rooted gathering exploring a shared question: how do we build bioregional funding ecosystems that actually support regeneration on the ground, at the scale of watersheds and bioregions?
Hosted by Regenerate Cascadia in partnership with the Georgetown Steam Plant CDA, the weekend opened with a welcome dinner at the Duwamish Longhouse—grounding participants in Indigenous wisdom and the responsibility to walk in right relationship with land and water. The venue itself was symbolic: a 100+ year-old decommissioned power plant in the heart of the Duwamish River Valley, a Superfund site and living testimony to both industrial extraction and community resilience.
The Gathering
The event was designed less like a conventional conference and more like a happening—mixing talks and panels with hands-on sessions, mapping, art, and open-space collaboration. Across the weekend, participants built a shared language around bioregionalism and BioFi (bioregional finance), surfaced the human side of finance—trust, trauma, culture, relationship—and dug into practical tools and models including flow funding, participatory budgeting, community currencies, biocultural credits, and MRV accountable to place and community consent.
Saturday's programming opened with teachings from Brandy Gallagher, Hiinahcit, Terry Dorward, and Isabel Simons on rematriation, land-based learning, and bioregional stewardship. Martin Kirk of the NoVo Foundation offered a global perspective on systemic funding, while Michelle Lee introduced BioFi as a living framework for resourcing change from the ground up. The day continued through panels, workshops, and participatory sessions exploring equity, decentralization, and cultural repair.
Saturday evening transformed the Steam Plant into a Cascadia Day celebration—a community barbecue and waste-free potluck, opening storytelling with Paul Chiyokten Wagner and the Crowdsource Choir, reflections on early bioregional movement history, and a live poetry reading hosted with Cascadia Poetics Lab.
Sunday showcased concrete funding models: Salmon Returns' bioregional regeneration fund, Open Future Coalition's collaborative platforms, and Kinship Earth's flow funding approach—alongside structured workshops to define core pillars, guiding principles, and actionable next steps for building a bioregional funding ecosystem. A biochar kiln demonstration ran through midday as hands-on climate praxis.
A core through-line was that technology is secondary to relationships—and that any durable funding system must grow in tandem with real-world stewardship, community governance, and lived cultural protocols.
In the Press
Photo Gallery
Conference Schedule
Friday, May 16 — Welcome Dinner
Community arrival and relationship-building at the Duwamish Longhouse, with a communal dinner hosted by the Duwamish Tribe.
Saturday, May 17 — Foundations, Mapping & Governance
Opening ceremony and land acknowledgement. Morning sessions on right relationship, two-eyed seeing, bioregional wealth, and rematriation of value. Whole-systems framing on nested scales of regeneration. BioFi primer defining bioregional finance as a strategy to shift capital flows, empower communities, and regenerate living systems.
Afternoon interactive stakeholder mapping, equity and inclusion circle, participatory economics and governance sessions, flow-funding experiential activity for Duwamish River Valley groups, and regenerative storytelling.
Evening Cascadia Day celebration with community barbecue, opening storytelling, Crowdsource Choir, early bioregional movement history, and live poetry reading with Cascadia Poetics Lab featuring Robert Lashley, Claudia Castro Luna, Jason M. Wirth, Paul E Nelson, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, and Matt Trease.
Sunday, May 18 — Models, Case Studies & Next Steps
Cascadia BioFi and bioregional financing facility introduction. Concrete funding models from Salmon Returns, Open Future Coalition, and Kinship Earth. Outdoor biochar kiln demonstration with carbon finance discussion. Structured "Growing a Funding Ecosystem" workshops. Micro-presentations and pitches. Case studies on co-op/CDFI finance, regenerative agriculture, and small-business pathways. Final harvest and handoff into post-conference momentum.
Partners & Collaborators
The conference was made possible through the partnership and participation of organizations spanning bioregional organizing, Indigenous leadership, regenerative finance, circular economy, cultural arts, and community governance:
BioFi Project · Buckminster Fuller Institute · Design School For Regenerating Earth · Open Future Coalition · Open Civics Network · Kinship Earth Flow Fund · Regen Foundation · Kwaxala · Indigenomics Institute · NoVo Foundation · Salmon Nation Colabs · Protectors of the Salish Sea · King County Circular Economy · Seattle Donut Economics Coalition · Regenerative Capital Group · R3.0 · Regenerosity · SEEDS Regenerative Currency · Edge Finance · Ethereal Forest · Re+ King County Zero Waste · Global Earth Repair Foundation · The Heron's Nest · O.U.R. Ecovillage · IISAAK OLAM · Salmon Returns · Gitcoin · Allo Capital · Open Future Fund · Studio Rhye · Shared Capital Cooperative · Rooted Northwest · Cascadia Poetics Lab · Georgetown Steam Plant CDA