Slow Money

Slow Money is a term used to describe community currencies. The term stresses one of the social implications of community money: it promotes more interaction on a local level, taking more time for a transaction. An example of a Slow Money currency are the BerkShares, one of the many Community Currencies around. It is claimed that it takes more time to process a transaction, hence there is more time for graciousness, time for building connection with community of place.

Another implication of Slow Money is that it stays in the community; most of it gets reinvested in the local community itself. It therefore moves slower than conventional money.

Slow money is not sleepy money but awake to the flow of economic life pulsing through a region, shaping its future, providing warning signs and creating options for public policy and private initiative. Perhaps the greatest task of concerned citizens in the twenty-first century is to reclaim responsibility for the consequences of our economic transactions--personally, institutionally, and in public spending. Slow money is the start of this process.

The Sustainability Dictionary defines it as such: "Slow money is invested with an understanding of the natural dynamics of these businesses and investors set their expectations of financial return around these processes."