Testing Community-Governed Allocation at Landscape Scale
The Flow Funding Pilots are the applied testing ground for Cascadia BioFi's core proposition: that finance flows more effectively when guided by trusted local relationships than by centralized decision-making. Through the 2025-26 Landscape Hub Cultivator (LHC) pilot, 10 landscape groups across the Cascadia bioregion are putting this principle into practice, each receiving $3,000 to design and implement community-governed allocation processes rooted in their own regeneration strategies.
These pilots represent the first time that Regenerate Cascadia's bioregional finance theory of change is being tested at scale, with real funding, in real communities. The design is deliberately small and relational. Each landscape group determines how its allocation flows, informed by the bioregional mapping workshops and regeneration strategies developed earlier in the LHC program. The result is not a template but a series of locally governed experiments in trust-based philanthropy.
How the Pilots Work
Each of the 10 participating landscape groups follows a structured yet adaptive process. During Phase 2 of the LHC (March to June 2026), groups complete bioregional mapping workshops that produce community-informed regeneration strategies, project portfolios, and initial budgets. These outputs become the foundation for each group's flow funding design.
Land Stewards then work with their landscape groups to develop a pilot allocation process aligned with local priorities. Some groups may invite applications for a series of micro-grants. Others may convene a local committee to identify and nominate projects. The common thread is that allocation decisions are made by community members who hold direct relationships with the people and places being supported.
Each pilot is documented by the LHC delivery team, capturing the governance process, the stories of where funding flows, and the outcomes that emerge. These accounts are shared across the cohort and with funders, building the evidence base for scaling community-governed allocation across the bioregion.
What the Pilots Are Designed to Demonstrate
The flow funding pilots serve multiple interconnected purposes within the broader BioFi framework. At the most immediate level, they test whether landscape groups can function as credible, accountable local funding hubs. This requires governance capacity, relationship depth, and the ability to make transparent decisions about resource allocation under real conditions.
At a systemic level, the pilots generate practical evidence for the Cascadia BioFi thesis that social infrastructure must precede financial infrastructure. The mapping, listening, and strategy work that precedes each pilot is not preparation for the funding decision; it is the foundation that makes accountable, community-led allocation possible in the first place.
The pilots also bridge the BioRegen and BioFi programs. The landscape-level organizing, relationship building, and capacity development that BioRegen supports becomes the social substrate through which BioFi capital can flow. This integration is the practical mechanism through which the Cascadia Regeneration Fund will eventually operate at larger scale.
Pilot Design and Funding Structure
Each landscape group receives $8,000 in total direct support through the LHC pilot year. Of this, approximately $5,000 supports planning, mapping, and strategy activities, while $3,000 is designated for flow funding. The funding flows through the Department of Bioregion, the 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor for Regenerate Cascadia, with landscape groups exercising governance over allocation decisions within established accountability frameworks.
The scale is intentionally modest. At $3,000 per group, the pilots prioritize learning over impact. The goal is not to solve landscape-level funding gaps but to develop the governance muscles, relational trust, and documentation practices that will support much larger flows through the emerging Bioregional Financing Facility model.
From Pilots to Permanent Infrastructure
The 2025-26 flow funding pilots are the first phase in what is designed to become a permanent feature of bioregional finance in Cascadia. Successful pilots will inform the design of the Cascadia Regeneration Fund, demonstrating to funders in the BioFi Co-Design process that community-governed allocation works, that landscape groups can hold accountability, and that relational trust produces better outcomes than top-down distribution.
The evidence generated through these pilots, combined with the context-based evaluation tools being developed alongside them, will provide the basis for scaling flow funding from a $30,000 experiment across 10 landscapes to a multi-million dollar bioregional funding ecosystem. The path from pilot to facility runs through proof of concept, and the 10 landscape groups in this cohort are building that proof together.