photo by: Nick Krug

Farmer Jacqueline Smith carries her 11-month-old son Liam Cruse on her back as she prepares to shift her herd of sheep into another grazing area on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016 at her farm west of Baldwin City in rural Douglas County. Smith estimates that she process about one thousand sheep this year. She began her market lamb operation through a loan acquired through the Slow Money initiative, which pairs environmentally aware local farmers and producers with investors.

Seventeen months ago, Jacqueline Smith felt confident going before a “friendly shark tank” to ask for money.

Smith said she had nailed down the details of her presentation to potential investors in her sustainable agricultural venture.

“I really enjoyed it,” the Lawrence resident said. “I had a video. I talked about my plans. Someone was interested enough to give me a small loan.”

The idea Smith pitched was of raising market lambs. She had experience with sheep, having been co-owner of a lamb cheese operation in Westin, Mo., before selling her interest to her partner. The past venture and the one she was pitching to the investors shared a commitment to sustainable agriculture and animal welfare. Her plan for her Central Grazing Company was to feed the sheep only on the grass from her 80-acre pasture south of Worden.

The “shark tank” of potential investors to whom she spoke were indeed friendly to her interests in the environment and the soil. Both Smith and the money people were at the Douglas County Fairgrounds that day at the invitation of Small Money of Northeast Kansas.

Nancy Thellman, best known as the 2nd District Douglas County commissioner, founded the local Slow Money network in 2014. The idea is to bring farmers, ranchers, restauranteurs and others with ideas for sustainable, environmentally friendly food- or agriculture-related projects together with investors who share the same principles, she said.

“The concept behind the name is to take the investment dollars that move in nanoseconds these days on Wall Street and traditional markets and invest them close to home in things that make a difference,” she said. “It’s pretty unique because it is specifically focused on food producers, restaurants and food manufacturers. Tying the whole community together is the concern for the soil.”

Slow Money gets the “idea people” and potential investors together at yearly entrepreneur showcases, such as the one at which Smith pitched her Central Grazing Company idea. The presenters are chosen from entrepreneurs who submitted applications to Slow Money.

The application selection process and showcase are the extent of Slow Money’s involvement in any relationship that develops between entrepreneurs and investors, Thellman said. Although Slow Money of Northeast Kansas has people with financial and banking backgrounds as well as agricultural people on its steering committee who help vet the applications, the network doesn’t make loans or share opinions about the investment potential of any of the presenters’ ideas.

From his Colorado home Wednesday, Woody Tasch, who founded the Slow Money Institute in 2009, characterized the loans as “nurture capital.” They are “low-reward, high risk” loans traditional lenders are shy to make. What makes the process work is the personal relationships that develop between borrowers and lenders committed to the ethos of tying investment to the soil, both in terms of using dollars to help environmentally friendly projects and in keeping money and its benefits local, he said.

Tasch founded the group after a career as a venture capitalist, foundation treasurer and entrepreneur. He was the former CEO of Investors’ Circle and served as treasurer of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, which was one of the leading sources of grants for sustainable ventures in the 1980s and 1990s.

“That’s more a statement on the paucity of opportunities,” he said. “A very small portion of philanthropy goes to environmental issues.”

That fact explains the mission of Slow Money, which Tasch said had facilitated more than $50 million in small and medium-sized loans for sustainable projects since its founding and has grown to have about 35 affiliated local networks or clubs around the nation.

“I would say we are a work in progress, and as a social experiment we’re right where we want to be,” he said.

It’s an experiment that also is building a local record of success,

“We already know Slow Money works here,” Thellman said. “We have $500,000 in Slow Money loans we can account for.”

photo by: Nick Krug

Farmer Jacqueline Smith carries her 11-month-old son Liam Cruse on her back as she prepares to shift her herd of sheep into another grazing area on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016 at her farm west of Baldwin City in rural Douglas County. Smith estimates that she process about one thousand sheep this year. She began her market lamb operation through a loan acquired through the Slow Money initiative, which pairs environmentally aware local farmers and producers with investors.

photo by: Nick Krug

Smith's sheep begin to congregate before being shifted into an adjacent grazing area.

Smith said she was alerted to Slow Money after attending on a whim a conference in Kentucky. She returned to Lawrence excited about the connection of financing healthy, locally produced foods in environmentally responsible ways and contacted Thellman after visiting the local Slow Money network’s website. The end result was her invitation to the entrepreneur showcase.

She started Central Grazing Company as the only provider of ground lamb to one customer, Natural Grocers, a chain of health-food stores in 130 locations, including Lawrence, Smith said. In addition to her own 250 lambs she raises annually, Smith now buys lamb from six other producers and has added five additional products.

Smith is looking to start marketing online soon and has added other retailers beyond Natural Grocers. She projects she will process 1,000 lambs in the year ahead. The sheep she purchases are also exclusively grass-fed and raised according to strict animal welfare standards, she said.

That growth was facilitated with a second Slow Money loan “with friendly interest rates” from a lender who allowed her to delay the start of repayment until she had a better cash flow.

Smith said she has entered into an agreement with a processor that ensures that no parts of her processed lambs will end up in landfills or in feed boxes as bone meal additives. For example, skeletal remains will be rendered as soup stock, and skin will be sent to an environmentally aware tannery to be made into baby moccasins.

“There will be no waste” she said. “We will use 100 percent of the lambs we process.”

As her operation grows, Smith is also committed to restoring to native grassland the former hay field on which she raises her lambs. She rotates her guard dog-protected lambs daily within her 80 acres through the use of a paddock enclosed with solar-powered electrical fences.

“It’s very portable,” she said. “The grazing rotation is rebuilding the soil with the animal waste concentration left behind. It’s not overly grazed or manured ground. It’s how you try to re-establish the native grassland.

“I’m pretty passionate about it. It really registered on me that we have to pay attention not only to what we eat but to the soil. Without financing, sustainable companies that care about the soil can’t exist.”