ColivingDAO Insights: The Web3 Path for Regen Living
Hosted by ColivingDAO founders Daniel Aprea and Gareth Thompson, this podcast explores how Web3 technologies can enable sustainable, community-driven, and regenerative living.
Each episode of "ColivingDAO Insights" offers valuable perspectives, knowledge, and analysis on the practical applications of Web3 technologies in fostering regenerative living, such as decentralised ownership and governance models, proptech innovations, community living, and ways to regenerate both the planet and the economy.
ColivingDAO Insights: The Web3 Path for Regen Living
Impact Investing and Community Living: Turning Capital into Planet-Positive Change with Leehe Skuler
The divide between making money and making a difference is a false one – and Leehe Skuler has spent 15 years proving it. In this captivating conversation, we explore how impact investing is redirecting capital toward regenerative solutions that benefit people and planet simultaneously.
Leehe Skuler takes us through her fascinating journey from environmental activism to pioneering impact investments across Africa, where she helped finance clean energy solutions for off-grid communities. Her work revealed a crucial insight: the barriers to funding regenerative enterprises aren't insurmountable – they're primarily psychological and structural. Through innovative approaches like offering bank managers observation roles and structuring funding arrangements, Leehe has successfully unlocked capital for ventures that transform lives while generating sustainable returns.
"The paradigm that we were born into – that you have to choose between values or money – makes all of us feel uncomfortable," Leehe explains. "Even the most cynical, experienced person in finance doesn't like to admit they're putting their values aside to make money." She argues that this either/or mentality is actually a relatively recent concept, emerging primarily in the 1980s, rather than an economic law of nature.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Leehe shares her experience growing up in Israeli kibbutz communities, where resources are shared, decisions made collectively, and money plays a minimal role. These intentional community models have given her unique insights into the challenges and rewards of communal living – knowledge she now applies to the regenerative communities emerging in rural Portugal where she currently lives.
Looking toward the future, Leehe envisions networks of diverse regenerative communities collaborating while maintaining their unique characters. As decision-making tools improve and more people seek meaningful connection, these new community models could transform our relationship with both the environment and each other.
Welcome everyone to yet another episode of Coliving DAO Insights. This is your co-host, daniel, and I'm joined today, as usual, by my co-host, gareth, as well as our special guest of the Leehe Skuler. Leehe, who works on new regenerative finance initiatives, has a background in international development and is fascinated with regenerative communities and currently living among them in Portugal. Thank you so much for being here, Leehe.
Leehe:Hi Daniel, Hi Gareth, Great to be here.
Gareth:Hey Lihie, so you have a background in impact investing and really we'd love to hear more about that. Can you tell us just a bit about you and how you got into impact investing and what your motivation for that was?
Leehe:Sure, and I don't know if your listeners know a little bit about impact investing, so I may mention what it is the sector does. But generally I grew up in Israel and in a very kind of active, socially active family and what I found to be my most kind of intense driver was the environmental issue and I was kind of in a non-profit world and the demonstrations and the anti-corporation kind of stance for kind of my whole growing up. And then as I kind of got into the world of activism I had the opportunity to sit with a big environmental non-profit and the under board as representing the youth started understanding what a mess this whole sector is and the different interests and really understanding that the non-profit activist world is not for me. I wanted something more practical and realized where's the money? The problem is a lot of people agree with these issues but then when it comes to investing or to bring the capital to make the transition to a more sustainable, regenerative living, the capital just doesn't go out. To make the transition to a more sustainable, regenerative living, the capital just doesn't go out.
Leehe:And during my studies I kind of focused on economics and finance and philosophy and politics as well, but I really got into the economic side, went into kind of investment banking and just to understand how finance works. And then I was really fortunate to kind of stumble upon the impact investing world around 2007, when it was really taking off 2007, 2008, 2009, during the financial crisis in New York and kind of met one of the pioneers in this space and I was investing in new energy solutions in developing countries focused on off-road communities making a profit, making a social impact and environmental impact, and that's it. I was hooked. I joined them right away and became, you know, started working in that space. So it was what we call basically better energy or cleaner energy solutions for the people who are, you know, don't have any electricity or cooking. And then kind of, as I worked with them, first in headquarters in the US and then in Amsterdam in the European headquarters I started understanding the financial mechanisms and how you make this happen.
Leehe:But I wanted to get much more on the ground and to work with entrepreneurs. So I moved to our African activities and some years in the African continent in various places working. We had 67 entrepreneurs across 18 countries. So I was working with them and kind of really got down the model of how do you do that? How do you maximize profit and maximize or optimize measurable, significant change in social, environmental issues? And started to understand how the business model of these kind of ventures look like. What's a marketing strategy? What's a? How do you kind of optimize multiple variables instead of maximizing one? And I got you know as you work with entrepreneurs and go down to the daily decisions of the business.
Leehe:I really realized it's possible and not only possible. I felt that you know if it is possible to maximize or to optimize your capital and make a significant, meaningful change. I was like, okay, then all businesses should. And I really got into that and, being originally from Israel, I had a lot of friends in tech and my family was in the startup world and I realized most of them are didn't even hear about any global challenge, let alone directed technologies that they're developing and the startups that they're creating into these kind of challenges.
Leehe:And I felt if anyone needs to be kind of adopting and implementing this double bottom line, triple bottom line approach, a holistic approach of really making a change in the world while making money, it should be tech entrepreneurs, people who are essentially thinking about our future, designing the reality of our future.
Leehe:They have to be committed to the wellbeing of nature and society in a kind of systemic, methodological, data-based way and not just in an intention in their heart like, oh, I want to do good, which is great, but it's just not enough. So I ended up moving back to Israel, tel Aviv, and to work with a startup ecosystem there to help connect these worlds the impact world, the tech world set up some funds, consulting and worked with different kind of agencies into starting that ecosystem there. And academia I started a kind of academic program and eventually co-founded an organization called GITA, which is a Global Impact Tech Alliance which really brings together anyone who's trying to change the world through tech innovation and especially the people trying to finance that, because there's not a lot of enough finance there and the methodology of how to do impact VC is still kind of emerging, especially in the climate space.
Gareth:That's really cool and very fascinating how you start with the intention to just simply make the world a better place. Right it sounds. It's a bit cheesy and cliched at times, but it's true. A lot of us are motivated that way. And then you go out into the world, and the traditional path was exactly the route. You came into the sort of activist or non-profit world, and there's a really interesting phrase called the non-profit industrial complex, where people argue that charities and non-profits actually depend on the regular business world to actually exist. There needs to be a for-profit sector in order for there to be a non-profit sector, which is a really interesting paradox. And so you found that, really that opportunity, just as though these worlds were coming together, almost where the business world and the limitations of the non-profit world were being realized, and you just sort of found that really amazing niche in between and the vehicle to use business and to use money flows to improve things, and then, of course, tech is a big accelerator.
Gareth:So yeah, really fascinating journey, and there's so much more we'd love to talk about here. Dan, do you want to move on to the next element here we want to have a talk about, and that is lehi's background and intentional communities, which is really fascinating too.
Daniel:Yeah, absolutely, I think. First of all, it's really interesting to hear how this all came about, came to be and, in fact, when we realized as a challenge we as entrepreneurs, we like to address the challenge you know and Gareth and I often talk about, we identify challenges in the co-living space, property ownership and all that. So we decided to take action and I can definitely see the same vibe here, leahy. You realize there's a challenge in the world and why just accept that? Why not do something about it? My question first of all, before we move to communities and everything else at this point, would be why do you think there are barriers when it comes to capital flowing into regenerative opportunities, regenerative enterprise? Why is that in the first place? And what's being done? I mean, what are you doing specifically for that, or what is it that needs to do to make sure the barriers don't stay in the way?
Leehe:Yeah, it's a great question. So I think there's several factors. One is the issue of psychology, and there's something about an industry and the way it kind of gears people to thinking in a certain way, and investors and financial managers are really directed and rewarded for thinking in terms of caution and risk. Right, if you're managing someone's money, you do a bad decision, you get fired. You do an OK, non-risky decision, you can continue with your career for 40 years and nobody will say a thing, and so there's a real intention there to kind of be conservative, do what has been done before, and any kind of change or new kind of activity is really difficult to enter. So that's first of all, kind of this kind of sector-based challenge. This is not tech. There's no one running around with money trying to do something new. They're trying to do something old, and so that's one kind of thing. The other issue is kind of, I think we kind of look at the way money is managed in maybe not a fully realistic way. We kind of imagine some rich people writing checks and they can send these wherever they want and money can flow wherever it needs to, and there's a good intention and that's maybe a percentage of the world's capital, but I'd say it's a very, very tiny percentage. Most of the money in the world is managed. That means in the finance world we'll call it OPM other people's money. That means someone is hired to manage someone else's money. Now that person, by definition, is not going to be taking risks, is not going to follow the heart and mind and values of that person. They have a job to manage someone else's money. If it's private wealth, you know they can be a little more connected to the individual and what they care about. But most of the world, as in 80% of the capital flows in the world, is what we call institutional capital, which is the public's capital, it's our capital, it's banks and insurance and pension funds and there's a real disconnect there between the owners of the money and the managers of the money. And the owners of the money have very clear indications to go to. You know how to diversify, to go to stocks, to go to. You know they have no incentive to do something new. Definitely needs to have something that isn't proven.
Leehe:And the biggest thing in money management world is risk. And the issue with new technologies and transitioning to kind of sustainable, regenerative solutions across the world and project is that there is an unknown there and with that unknown there's uncertainty, which, for investors, uncertainty, is like cancer right, they hate uncertainty. But there's also a perceived risk. So we were investing in, you know, entrepreneurs, local entrepreneurs in developing countries, specifically for me in Africa, doing clean energy solutions for local populations right. So our home system For an investor who's, you know, used to his regular day or is used to just doing regular accepted assets investing in our fund or investing directly in those entrepreneurs sounds crazy because of the perceived risk, what they think is going to happen. There is not enough data to actually have a model risk, and so anything new is perceived high risk.
Leehe:And then you have this issue that, first of all, there's a disconnect between the intentions of the owners of the money and it could be society as well and the managers of the money. And then you have this kind of emotional disconnect, risk averse activity and new activities that I've never been invested in before, and nobody's going to say, unlike, let's say, new software or new technological innovation, that it may be risky but you have potential to make millions or billions. Right, there's a risk reward ratio when you're investing in these kinds of solutions. You're probably going to get kind of a normal moderate return. You're not going to make billions. You're probably going to get kind of a normal moderate return. You're not going to make billions, you're not going to be a unicorn.
Leehe:And so our financial investors are used to just looking at existing numbers of past activity and, based on that, modeling potential return. Anything new like that just seems crazy to them. So you have this kind of industry issue of really avoiding investing in new solutions that don't have this kind of potential to be billion dollar ideas, and so that's kind of, in a way. So we have psychology, we have structural issues, but I really think we also have a lack of imagination. So people, especially when you're talking about regenerative finance, don't have a real vision of what will happen when this investment succeeds, and so the returns and the future kind of look all blurry.
Leehe:And again that perceived risk or that unknown risk means typical investors will not invest. Then you have to create all these new mechanisms to play with it, to catalyze investment, to open, unlock these doors by slowly working with them instead of being angry at investors, understanding that they have these reservations, and kind of showing them the way, giving them the time to slowly learn, understand all the information they need, to be comfortable with making this investment. And then the good thing is, once they do, they will continue. And so investors. I feel like I call them like a herd or sheep, because typically no one wants to move alone, no one wants to be that sheep standing alone in the field shaking. But if a few go and they succeed, everyone will follow. So just understanding that dynamic, I think, is what I found interesting in the climate and impact finance world.
Gareth:It sounds like you've done a lot of great work bridging that gap. Leahy to meet them where they're at, you understand that they have that objection of the risk involved in investing in new technologies. Probably a lot of them understand that we need to change the systems, that we have to avoid big environmental problems and social problems. So, yeah, can you tell us a bit more about how you just hold their hand and help them through that process, or do you have any real examples you could give us?
Leehe:sure, um, yeah, I have a lot. Um, I'd say you know, the first one would be when, in that first one days, I joined ian cow and we would, uh, invest in local african entrepreneurs. Right, a lot of these businesses that we invest in were very typical, simple businesses, which would be like a business selling solar home systems to villages, to households and villages, and in theory they should have been able to get cash flow or working capital loans from their own financial institutions right in the bank where they live in the city, and yet they couldn't, because also the banks found this kind of new activity too risky. So one example there that we would invest and our investor base is quite wide, and because this kind of multiple objectives we had in our fund, which is a financial objective but also environmental and social one, we had different kind of investors. Those are more philanthropic side, more government capital and your financial capital, and we could have that mix within our fund as well. It's kind of multiple lens of thinking and the people in the more finance side would talk to the bank people who work in the bank, the bank officers and managers, and so what we did in the beginning was just offer them a role or a seat, a silent seat, in our board, in our local kind of office board.
Leehe:So when I was living in Accra in Ghana, we had about 11 entrepreneurs in Ghana and we would meet every month, sometimes two months, to review what's going on in all the businesses in our portfolio. And we would invite these kind of high level executive bank managers, you know, but the local banks to join these meetings and go over the performances, the sales, the revenues of our company and, you know, we'd offer them like tasty cookies and tea in a nice location, a nice hotel in the city, and so they would join, they would come in for those two hours once a month. But they slowly got familiar with these businesses and they started understanding their actual risks and understanding this is a cash flow business and that really getting into it. And two years later we can already direct entrepreneurs. If they needed, just like a simple, you know, working capital loan, we could send them to a local bank. You could send them to a local bank. So just understanding it takes time.
Leehe:To familiarize these fund managers or these you know heroes, bank managers is one way to do it. Another way is what we call catalytic funding. So we'll work with philanthropists or government capital to provide these kind of high-risk loan. They'll take the first loss or investment and they will actually take the risk. The higher risk they will offer, the more what we call plain vanilla capital just regular money for money, profit for profit kind of investor to take a position where they can have a 25% return and the other person investing with them is willing to take any loss for their first loss, meaning that their returns are kind of covered or guaranteed by this kind of more philanthropic or public capital investor or funder.
Leehe:And in the beginning it seems weird.
Leehe:You know there's so much to do with philanthropy and with money that should go, you know, to children around the world. Why would we do it? To subsidize basically an investor. But what happens is if you get them in the door and get them in the conversation and get money already playing, that perceived risk, that sense of I don't know what this business is and I don't know if I may fail, goes down significantly if you give it a year or two and so that investor that may need it to be subsidized by a philanthropist two, three years down the line will be funder and what they're willing to do and what they're not willing to do is an interesting way to get money out as well, and we can go yeah, we can go into that to nature-based solutions and ocean restoration projects that I'm involved with now. And it's kind of the same principle of not pushing the investment manager, the person managing the money, beyond where they can go at a certain level and just kind of slowly introducing them to the sector without judgment.
Daniel:Awesome. Yeah, I really like how you're giving us these real life examples of the concept you mentioned, which really resonates with us, which is how to engineer a different system of incentives, because the lack of incentives has been historically a major barrier, just like you said, and we feel that a lot, a big part of what we do here at Koldo Vendau is really not trying to find quick fixes or small incremental changes, but completely redesign the system of incentives, because that's the only sustainable, long-term way forward, and I love how you found some ways to really shift that balance and completely change the perspective. I know there are still a lot of people in this space that feel that it's structurally complex, if not even impossible. Maybe some people feel to achieve a multi-win or a triple win. A lot of people still feel that, okay, if I want to do something good for the planet or for the people, we have to compromise, not just.
Daniel:The basic trade-off is actually either losing money or just giving up on a lot of potential returns. So there are still mental or mindset barriers when it comes to understanding that it is actually possible to achieve a win on multiple levels and by changing the incentives. That's exactly what we want to do here. So how would you address this for all the people and it's not everyone, of course, but for the people that are still not clear on whether it's possible, or how it's possible, to really achieve a win on multiple levels? What would you tell them?
Leehe:Yeah, that's a really good point and I struggled with that a long time and kind of my story I think represents moved from the non-profit world to the profit world and thought that there is this gaping hole, that you either make money and then you kind of put your values and your soul aside and you know whatever needs to be done, or you do good and then you kind of condemn yourself to a life of poverty and that's the way it is right. It's either or world. And then this world of sustainable capital, impact capital, this whole spectrum started appearing between those two extreme sides of only pure profit, for profit or doing good. And that's where I found myself in and as I've been in it you know about 15 years, I more and more realize it's really the only place to be. So I think the paradigm that we were born into that you have to choose.
Leehe:There's a reason it makes all of us feel uncomfortable. Even the most kind of cynical, experienced person in finance does not like to admit that. They're thinking, oh, if I make money, I have to put my values aside. And the reason it makes us uncomfortable first of all, it's not very natural to the way we like to work in the world. And second, it's not true at all. It's also a relatively new concept. All the years that businesses existed throughout history made money. That was never the concept. It was only like in the 80s around Milton Friedman and kind of these concepts of the business, of business is business, that we started accepting this paradigm. So it's a relatively new paradigm. You won't see these kind of approaches. You look before. Of course a company is required to take care of its surrounding, its community. These ideas are relatively new, from the 80s. They haven't been around all that long and they have caused massive destruction.
Leehe:So, first of all, knowing it's not like a natural law that it's either values or money, but it's a new idea. Second, once you see it happening, you realize it's possible. But then, if you go into a little bit of the economics of it, I argue that not only is it possible but you're more profitable. If you're actually answering a true need, something that is really required in the world and nobody else has done it, then your potential and opportunity is much higher than someone who created, let's say, a new game for the iPhone right, some kind of luxury entertainment issue. If you manage to find and capture a gap in the market, which is basically a market failure, then your potential for growth is much higher. Now do you have to put much more thought into your business model. Because you're addressing a social, environmental need, it can't be exorbitant in terms of the price. A lot of times you have to make it affordable because if something really important, you want people to buy the goods or services, then yeah, you have to find that balance.
Leehe:But profit in its essence is not a bad thing. Profit allows a business to survive, to live, and so it allows it to invest in the future, to hire more people, to rent another office, to grow. Profit is necessary for a business. It just, if we're only looking for profit, is when the perversion happens, and I think this thinking is we have to kind of fight that paradigm from both sides.
Leehe:For some nonprofits, people are like money is bad and profit is bad, and if I'm doing something good from the world, I'm not allowed to think about profit, which is absolutely wrong. You'll see all these nonprofits failing because they don't have enough money to survive and they actually may be doing more harm in the world by pulling out a lot of talented people, not offering them fair salaries and then failing in the end of what they wanted to do. So money is not a bad thing if you're looking to change the world, but also changing the world is not a bad thing if you're looking to make money. It's just kind of this paradigm we live in and I invite anyone listening to start challenging it and find any data point that will actually support that old paradigm. I can say you know, I teach and I work with investors around the world. The data is there. It is not an either or situation and you can absolutely make money and make a profit. Maybe not be an Elon Musk right Billions and billions, but make a good profit and grow and have a really good company and actually make significant change.
Leehe:So, yeah, I think living in that paradigm and that is a challenge, but more and more people, especially young people, I think are coming into that and I think we're already much more comfortable saying we're allowed to put our values in our consumption choices. You know, if 30 years ago, I don't know, my parents would buy something, they would only look at the price. It's only an economical decision. Today we might look at where was this produced. You know what is the environmental effect of this issue?
Leehe:So in our consumption choices we're allowed to put our subjective values and what we believe is right in the world. We also allow ourselves to do that in our employment decisions. If it used to be, I'll go for the first job that offered me the highest salary and I'll stay there for 40 years. We don't think about that anymore. We are not only about that. We want to see that we have purpose. We want to see that we're making a difference, that we're working in an interesting place and a great team right. So just like we are allowed to put our values in different economic decisions, we should be also putting these kinds of values in our business decisions, investment decisions, knowing, just like with employment or consumption, that it will actually make our life better to combine profit.
Daniel:That's brilliant and I love to hear that. I'm a big fan of non-zero-sum solutions, so seeing that there is this opportunity in the world and it's possible and it's doable and it's happening already. It's always refreshing to hear that, and I like the idea of putting our money where our values are or putting our time where our values are. So I really feel this is very inspiring for everyone who's listening, knowing that there's never been a better time to really align financial incentives with personal values and purpose and the difference that we all want to make in the world. I agree.
Gareth:I also really love what you said, leahy, about the pure profit. The financial profit motive is actually a new thing from the 1980s and it's been such a powerful narrative that we think that that's the way things have always been, almost. But this kind of leads nicely into the power of community because, you know, pre-1980s or if you go back maybe 200, 300, a thousand years, people weren't thinking about pure financial profit. They were all clubbing together in community to find, to create shelter, building relationships, and all of those things were as important as money. Money kind of greased the wheels or just enabled things to happen. I love the way you painted that. It's not a new. We're not necessarily building an entirely new paradigm shift. When we talk about financial profit not being the only priority, we're actually going back to our roots, our ancient roots in a way. It's a really interesting perspective.
Leehe:And I think it's semantic as well. I don't know in other languages, but I know in Hebrew the word for company is literally the same word as society. It's the same word, and in English we use company also for a group in the army. So any kind of strong group is considered a company and it's just semantic. And I'm sure this is true in other languages because throughout history the word company did not represent this kind of disconnected thing, but really a community, a group that was part, that was trying to move something and change something. So I think it's very true and we kind of have to relearn history to look at it. Oh yeah, that works.
Daniel:That's a great point and it's exactly what it is the company being someone's company. So it's really about connection and doing something together, being together, so there's value in being together as well, which very nicely leads into the question of communities, right? Because when we speak about going back, uh, rather than going forward, I mean we're going forward without creating a completely new paradigm. We're just incorporating the learnings from the past and refreshing the paradigm, let's put it this way. So we know you have a lot of experience in the kibbutz communities, being from israel as well, so we'd love to hear more about that and how this shaped your perspective in what you do on a daily basis.
Leehe:Yeah, so it's kind of a very different side of my past. It's great to talk about both. Wonderful that you guys are talking about this. So just a little context. Yeah, I grew up in Israel and Israel.
Leehe:The army is mandatory, but the history of country and Israel it really started 100 years ago or 120 years ago, really from a socialist kind of motivation. So a lot of the early kind of communities and I know this is all very sensitive when we're talking right now about Israel but in the past there was a big socialist movement that kind of was a basis of creating the country and with that these communes or these communities called kibbutzes were started. A few models were started and they somehow were closely connected with the beginning of the army. The army was an Israeli defense force and it was the beginning just defense groups that were in these communities, that were agricultural communities, that were socialist communities and they needed someone to defend themselves. I won't go into the history, but it still exists that when you join the army you have a choice Instead of just joining, you can connect with a group, an intimate group, an intentional group. Those groups are built throughout high school. So it's like three years from when you're 15, you start thinking about your values and what you want to do in the world, and then, instead of just joining the army, you postpone your service and, as a group, you join a kibbutz. And I did that kind of program. And so we lived in the kibbutz in first of all an intimate group setting. So we were one group, we had one bank account, we had to make decisions together, we had to, you know, represent ourselves in front of authorities as one unit, and we also lived in the kibbutz.
Leehe:And this was a kibbutz that was fully still a kibbutz, so there was no money in any way. You know, you go to the dining room, you eat, you go to the there's like a little shop with anything you need and you kind of write what you took. You get clothes, there's cars that are communal, everything is communal. There's a pub that's open to twice a week. That is, you know, free alcohol, free beer and wine, and this is how it. So we are kind of thrown into this world from a lot of us, from cities. You know regular urban environments, and suddenly you're in this world where there is no money. Everyone makes decisions together. Once a week there's a kibbutz assembly, all of it.
Leehe:All the decisions have to be decided on together and we were part of that and we had to do that as well in in our group and somehow since I didn't really connect to the whole army, soldier vibe um it ended up that when we joined the army as a group, I was offered to kind of stay in the youth movement that was our organizing youth movement and support these kind of groups. So first do a course on how to develop intimate communities and what we call, yeah, intentional groups, how to help them be created, to work with those teenagers before they move and then support them as they go on their journey. Because this group exists not only in that year before the army. It exists throughout the service and in the middle of the service you get pulled out of the army. Whatever you were doing, doesn't matter how important it was, all the members get pulled out of the army and we go and fulfill the mission of the group. And so the group, throughout this whole period, has to understand its values, its objectives, its goals, create a mission within society, something that they want to deal with. It could be poverty, it could be, you know, any kind of polarization in the country, it could be a nature thing. We were an environmental movement. So you create a mission that has to be fully formed, it has to be really connected with each individual of the group and if it gets approved, you go ahead and do that. So it turned out that around and then I continued working with it through my service and then afterwards.
Leehe:So about four to five years, I was working with the creation and then the support of these kind of intentional communities and a lot of them continued forward and I think, having the support and having that course, we have an incredible course. It was about six months that we went through a lot of knowledge. You know the history of this group and then what happens. What happened? You know in the states, what happened group and then what happens. What happened? You know in the States, what happened across the world, communes, et cetera.
Leehe:The psychology of it.
Leehe:So we had psychologists come over and teach us about group dynamics and what happens to an individual when they join a group, the challenges of it, the risks of it there's a lot of issues with that and then also the philosophy of it, the logic, the development of principles, the idealism behind these kinds of intentional groups throughout history and where we are today with all that.
Leehe:So, yeah, I had about four or five years in my life that all I did was kind of work with intentional communities, development, the support of that, and then for a really long time I kind of put it away because it doesn't really fit in the modern world, or it didn't until a few years ago, around the 2016, of the first time I was in Portugal and started hearing that there are communities popping up at the time I heard about 400 communities across the country and that fascinated me because I always kept this kind of connection in my heart to the idea of having a potential community and what does it mean and how incredible of an experience it is and what does it does to you as an individual.
Leehe:And so I came back and then I came back, and then I came back, and then I came back and I did a tour around here about three months to visit a lot of the communities, to meet them, maybe see if anyone fits, if I want to join them, and I guess the last two, three years I've been in this path around regenerative design and learning more about it, and then just so happened that I am surrounded by a lot of these communities around.
Leehe:So I kind of we meet, we chat, we talk and with some of them I find myself kind of helping them through some of the challenges that, incredibly, are not so different from the key challenges that the groups and communities I worked with when I was 18 encountered. So there's a lot of these kind of fundamental issues that communities deal with in certain times that just repeat themselves again and again and again. So I find myself now just volunteering and helping out and trying to to help them work through that, because it always seems like a very dramatic when communities go through these challenges and it's good to have a helping hand. So I guess now I'm engaged with it again in a kind of more supportive way and kind of thinking about where I fit in and if I'll be part of a intentional community again that's really great that there's kind of this full circle.
Gareth:I can see almost a full circle story developing where you mentioned the phrase regenerative design and now you're you know you're in the impact investing world and I feel like the money and the community bits are coming together somehow in your life. Is that right?
Leehe:I hope so. Part of the move to the countryside here in Portugal and, you know, buying our farm and regenerating it and really, from one side, a practice, what you preach kind of approach. I was living in big cities, yes, working with communities and climate investors around the world and but living a life that was very much in the non-sustainable, fossil fuel based old world and the community side is also very much missing. And so moving here was kind of not only trying to rethink how we want to change our relationship with nature, but because so many people from around the world are moving here, like me, like my partner that had the choice of living in the big city. We've done that. We've lived that life and felt it was not what we want or not for us a good life. There's a community here emerging a new way of doing things within a very rural and a hardly developed area. Suddenly these new people coming in trying to engage with nature are bringing a new sense of community, and so I hope and I feel that we're creating kind of a new way to deal with kind of small rural communities using technologies, not relying on technologies, kind of changing the way we center our priorities, and so that's super interesting. You can see stuff like someone in a very rural town developed an app to handle fires and to arrange like a community kind of volunteering when there are fires or any kind of natural issues, something that if you talk to the locals here which are in their 80s or 90s, they wouldn't connect. So it's kind of bringing in what we have accomplished through technology, innovation and bringing it in, as you say, to communities is happening and I see it happening. So it's really fascinating and I think there's a lot of miseducation here.
Leehe:I call it miseducation because a lot of people have this kind of idyllic idea that they'll just join a group, join a community and raise their children in harmony with many people and everything will be simple and easy.
Leehe:But for me, I feel a true community or intentional group is kind of parallel to a relationship between two people or three.
Leehe:But I think it's an incredible benefit to our lives. It fulfills us, it gives us a sense of belonging and meaning and purpose and connection. But it's also super difficult and hard and there's a lot of issues that you need to know that are going to happen or are likely to happen in a relationship and prepare and know how to deal with it and so there's a lot of knowledge can make it easier and there's the stuff. You can prepare yourself and prepare the conversation and already have kind of free, agreed decisions on how to deal with these kind of things. But people who don't know all that and have that idea like kind of thinking tend to struggle a lot and to have a lot of pain and challenges. So I hope more people kind of just know the reality of what it means, that the incredible, amazing part of being part of community, but also the challenges of it and how to go through that really, yeah, it's really fascinating combination and you know there is.
Gareth:We're really passionate myself and dan are very passionate about co-living, dow, bridging these worlds and being one way to build communities. Combination and you know there is. We're really passionate. Myself and dan are very passionate about co-living, dow, bridging these worlds and being one way to build communities that really integrate modern life and but bring it more into alignment with the land, with nature, and get the best of both worlds. But we're equally aware that this is not an easy thing to do. It's a lot of work, right, it takes a lot of work to build community and to build the fabric of community and the social connections. And the challenges, the disagreements, like what happens when somebody doesn't do the dishes, is a classic. I think it's a classic case of how you build very complex decision-making mechanisms or how you build a relationship. It's almost centered on how do we sort out this dishes problem in the kitchen.
Leehe:I would say it's amazing to me how much of conflict is around food in general, around the kitchen. Food and money, I'd say, are the biggest issues that people deal with, and it's always surprising that I've seen groups fall apart and really break up because they couldn't, so so much drama happened around that. So so, yeah, it's really basic everyday things, just like a little partner for the first time, and I am still looking on how like investment and capital can connect with these things. There's different ways. There's, of course, decisions that the members have to make about how much they share really, or how much they want to be intertwined or individual.
Leehe:But especially growing up, like me and I think, like you guys, in the urban environment where the nuclear family is the only kind of tight community having losing autonomy over financial decisions, or is that kind of level of how much we share and how much we are responsible for each other when it comes to money, I think is something that is emotionally very challenging a lot of people.
Leehe:There's a lot of fear, there's a lot of anxiety around that, and I've seen different models, you know if it's from a cooperative to a different, you know, steward model, all these different models that try to bake in a holistic view of many variables into the organizational structure. But I think it's challenging and you know each group still is building their own and I think as long as there isn't this kind of again certainty or kind of replicable copy paste model, then investors, as we said, that don't like being that cheap alone on the field, will have a hard time investing, offering capital for these kind of shared structures. So I feel there's a lot of creativity happening now on how to create, how to combine money and community. We have our old models, you know, uh, co-ops, which I think are really great for a lot of things, but I'm kind of hoping we'll start developing also new models that represent the structures we need.
Gareth:Yeah, absolutely, and that's a nice way to end with a final small question. This obviously could take an entire series of podcasts in itself, but what do you see as the future for regenerative communities? Leahy, this is something that obviously we at Co-Living DAO are aiming to do. We're taking the old model of the co-op and we're using new, more advanced structures, combining that with a DAO one approach. And, yeah, what do you see if you look forward five to 10 years in the future? What's your ideal kind of future for regenerative communities?
Leehe:So, first of all, yeah, I love what you're doing, which is why I'm here, and I think it's so, so necessary. I think. What I think of the future, I think we'll start following finding a way to make this work. I think anything from WhatsApp groups that allow, like instant conversation and decision making tools and these kinds of things that literally technical solutions to make decisions together, which is the key. I think. As that grows and people find more and more comfort in these new ways of communal living, I think we'll see many more.
Leehe:I also think I hope we'll see more and more breakdown to communal decision-making from kind of centralized decision-making and I see that in kind of more rural, smaller communities you already see that at a local municipality will allow communities to make decisions together, to take ownership or management of big things in their lives or little things in their lives that have to do with a whole group of people. So I feel this movement growing and really maybe kind of from my war perspective of being in the countryside in Portugal, there's just people coming all the time from all over the world joining and with the same questions or the same issues or the same ambitions. So I feel this is a type of movement that people try to reconnect with other humans in a meaningful way, knowing how much meaning that gives us. I think people took it for granted for a long time and so, looking four or five years, I can see it already in other regions, because I live in a very unpopulated region. You start seeing more and more groups and then kind of a collaboration or coalition among communities that can coordinate together.
Leehe:And I think that's what is really interesting for me how we take it from that individual, each community, each group, I think, is very unique and different, just like each couple or partnership is very unique based on the two individuals, the three individuals that are in it. Same with the groups. And so I think that way of finding methods to coordinate and communicate among these very, very, very different units and to kind of grow that network is really interesting. You know the global ecovillage network is doing great work there and I see that in different ways. So I'm hopeful that slowly become a more acceptable approach.
Daniel:Beautiful Thanks. That's such an exciting vision that you painted and, as we like to say, the future is not something we're waiting for, but something we are building together. So great to see that, uh, you are here building a similar future as well. That's awesome. So thank you so much, lihi, for joining. It was very inspiring and insightful. If you want to share anything as final thoughts maybe you want to tell people how they can connect with you or find out more about you Feel free to do so, and we're very, very grateful to have had you here today.
Leehe:Yeah, great, I love having this conversation with you guys. I think we can put maybe my LinkedIn profile if anybody wants to connect and follow what we're doing here. And if anyone is in Portable doing a regenerative business or project, then I am working in a fund that invests in these kind of businesses during impact, lens and systems change land. So, yeah, if that's relevant for you, I would be happy to meet and connect fantastic.
Daniel:Thank you so much, lihi, and thanks everyone. Thanks everyone for joining today. If you're listening to this or watching this and you're not a subscriber yet, make sure you follow this channel or this podcast. Make sure you subscribe and share the love, because I'm sure you know at least some people, or maybe a lot of people, that would love to be part of this as well. So make sure you spread the word. I hope you all enjoyed the podcast today and we will be back very, very soon for more. Thanks for watching.