The Funder Circle is Cascadia BioFi's community of practice for funders, philanthropists, and aligned investors who are interested in supporting regenerative outcomes across the Cascadia bioregion. It is a space for co-learning, relationship building, and the co-design of new funding mechanisms rooted in trust, place, and community governance.
The Funder Circle is built on the premise that effective regenerative finance requires more than writing checks. It requires funders and communities to develop shared understanding, learn from each other's expertise, and build the relational infrastructure that makes capital allocation meaningful and accountable. This is a departure from conventional philanthropy, where funders and recipients are often separated by significant cultural and institutional distance.
What the Funder Circle Offers
The Funder Circle brings funders into direct relationship with the landscape groups and regenerative practitioners doing the work on the ground. Through regular co-learning sessions, funders develop firsthand understanding of what bioregional organizing looks like in practice: how landscape groups form, how communities develop regeneration strategies, how mapping and governance processes work, and what it takes to build trust across diverse stakeholders.
In return, landscape leaders gain insight into how funding decisions are made, what funders need to see in order to invest with confidence, and how to articulate their work in ways that resonate across institutional contexts. This two-way learning process is the foundation of what BioFi calls cross-education.
Sessions are structured around concrete experiences: landscape updates from groups in the Landscape Hub Cultivator, field visits, shared mapping exercises, and design conversations about the Cascadia Regeneration Fund. The Funder Circle is not a lecture series. It is a participatory space where funders are active contributors to the design of the financial infrastructure being built.
Who It Is For
The Funder Circle is designed for philanthropic foundations, family offices, individual donors, Donor-Advised Fund holders, and institutional investors who are interested in place-based regeneration, trust-based philanthropy, and systemic approaches to funding. It is particularly suited for funders who want to move beyond traditional grantmaking and participate directly in the co-design of a bioregional funding ecosystem.
The program is intentionally small in its early phase, working with six to ten early-adopter funders who are deeply aligned with the work. As the community of practice matures, it will expand to include additional funders and develop into a broader Cascadia Funders Collaborative.
The Co-Design Process
Funders in the Circle are not passive observers. They are participants in the design of the Cascadia Regeneration Fund, contributing their expertise in governance, capital structure, impact measurement, and portfolio design. The co-design process ensures that the fund reflects both community priorities and funder requirements, creating alignment between those providing resources and those governing their allocation.
This approach is grounded in the recognition that funders, like communities, need to be educated and empowered in new ways of working. Trust-based philanthropy is not simply a policy change. It requires a cultural shift in how funders understand their role, how they relate to the communities they seek to support, and how they define success.
How to Get Involved
If you are a funder, philanthropist, or institutional investor interested in bioregional finance, trust-based philanthropy, or community-governed funding models, we welcome your participation. The Funder Circle is currently in its formation phase, and early participants will play a foundational role in shaping the program and the fund.
For inquiries, please contact Regenerate Cascadia through our contact page or reach out directly to our BioFi program team.