Reshaping How to Finance a Viable Future
“ In all, the BioFi gathering afforded roughly 200 people a place to organize around
similar values, build relationships, exchange ideas, and co-vision how to reimagine investment strategies for a livable planet and a regenerative, equitable future.”
Was it really just a few short months ago, May 16-18, 2025, that 200+ people converged at the Georgetown Steam Plant for the Cascadia BioFi Conference? The energy, speakers and networking at the conference continue to feel alive today. A recent article in Magic Canoe offers a good summary of the conference-what the conference offered, challenges to be met and suggestions for a way forward to the challenges.
Regenerate Cascadia is called out for their bravery in holding the conference, the first of its kind and the poignant venue, given the focus on needed regeneration of our lands, culture and more. The author notes:
“The venue choice was intentional, as the structure sits half a mile from the Duwamish River, a waterway that once ran through nine miles of wild bends and floodplains before the city dredged and straightened it in the 1910s to create a five-mile canal for industry. Today, nearly 80 percent of the city’s industrial lands sit in the reshaped river valley, a site of both industrial violation and collective reinvention. “
Attendees at the conference were there to learn more about, and the practical application of “bioregional finance” or BioFi, a term coined by Samantha Powers, founder of the BioFi Project in 2024.
“ Most attending this BioFi conference see the movement as a critical lever for structural change, not just a philosophy but a practical way to organize people and economies at every level. Everyone there appeared to be seeking ways to better attract resources and turn rhetoric into action.”
Regenerative designer Michelle Lee followed our own Brandon Letsinger-Brown who opened the conference, by defining bioregional finance and offered three examples of “bioregional finance facilities.” Regenerate Cascadia was one of the examples she covered, describing the large vision Letsinger-Brown and co-founder Clare Atwell have. Since its founding in 2023, Letsinger-Brown and Atwell have worked many hours in meetings, travel, strategy sessions, listening tours and more to build a strong foundation.
“Regenerate Cascadia now focuses on two key initiatives: building relationships with and between groups of varying sizes doing place-based restoration work across the region and building an ecosystem of funding to support these groups.”
What this looks like is emerging-it has not been done before and yet so much has already been achieved as foundation for the work. Speaker after speaker at the conference offered tested examples of how BioFi has and can work.
Regenerate Cascadia and others face a challenge-meaningful inclusion- that goes back to 1988 and the Third Annual North American Bioregional congress when Jeffrey Lewis, a Black man, said that bioregionalism was “primarily a movement of middle-class, educated white folks.”
The author offers a way forward to meaningful inclusion:
“ For future assemblies to effectively reflect, represent, and serve the diverse communities that inhabit the bioregion, Regenerate Cascadia and its partners remain tasked with building lasting, authentic relationships with all communities of color. Its organizers will continue to foster trust with the communities they want to reach, to understand the day-to-day realities facing them, and then act accordingly.”