Place Based Capital
Place based capital is about empowering local people and places to flourish economically on their own terms. It’s about all community members – regardless of their background – taking the lead in their economic future and receiving the rewards of their collective efforts. It’s about ensuring that every dollar, piece of land, building, or natural resource is channelled back into the community that supports it. It ensures that capital doesn’t just pass through a community—it roots itself there, growing prosperity from the ground up, inclusively and equitably.
Simply put – Place based capital is capital that works for local places and people.
By ‘capital’ we mean financial capital such as ‘money’ available for investment. We also mean capital ‘assets’ such as land, buildings, equipment and natural assets. With place based capital – things like money, finance, investment and assets – better serve and benefit the interests of local places and people.
Place based capital provides a readily available, more reliable and sustainable source of capital – reducing the reliance on ad-hoc, temporary and restrictive grants and funding. It enables local places and people to access the capital they need, invest in themselves, govern themselves and realise the dreams they hold for their families and communities. It enables local places to build capital reserves making them financially self-reliant, resilient and prosperous.
Place based capital also includes non-local parties such as government, developers, impact investors and philanthropy. It invites them to co-invest alongside local places and people in a way that builds local financial capacity, alongside meeting their own impact goals.
Place Based Capital concepts and practices that are currently being explored in Australia offer a way of thinking about, developing and strengthening multiple forms of place based capital.
We offer place based capital services, programs and courses that:
- Fund place based impactful opportunities that will benefit local places and people across Australia.
- Support locally led, owned and inclusive capital, development, investment, returns and impact.
- Build the empowerment, control, wealth, equality and wellbeing of local people and places.
- Enable local places and communities to invest in themselves and attract co-investment from aligned sources outside the region.
- Enable external actors and funders to invest in a way that builds local economic empowerment alongside other impact goals.
- Utilise aggregation and cooperation between local places to achieve economies of scale and provide access to larger forms of capital.
- Transform the capital and investment logic – so that local places and people are financially self-sufficient, resilient and prosperous.