Learn what it takes to braid an integrated capital stack for systems change.
Designed and facilitated by Charity May, Sacred Futures | A Waystack learning experience
Format: Interactive workshop
Duration: 3 hrs (1:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Monday, June 22)
Description
Every day, community-based organizations or social enterprises arrive at the edge of something transformational. The vision is there. The community trust is there. The need is clear. But the capital stack? It’s fragmented, conditional, and stuck — because the people who hold the different pieces have never been in the same room, speaking the same language, at the same time.
Moving capital into meaningful projects in reparative ways is challenging because of a fundamental problemcore problem. Capital is a siloed language. And to braid capital across the silos, you have to translate across the aisle. From community based organizations and social enterprises, to funders and investors. The divide between these two worlds costs us. It slows the flow of capital. It burns out the people doing the braiding. It leaves transformational projects under-resourced when the money to fund them exists.
The concept of braiding capital was introduced to this community by Yolanda Harrell of New Hill Development, and it captures something that other terms often miss. Braiding is embodied work. It requires holding multiple strands at once — moving slowly enough that none of them fray, paying attention to tension and slack. The weaving is the integration, the art, yet it is also complex, tenacious work.
A braided capital stack includes the financial instruments: grants, loans, recoverable grants, guarantees, community bonds, equity, tax credits. But it also includes the relationships that have to be cultivated before any instrument can land. The political will that has to be built. The cultural wisdom and heritage that give a project its legitimacy and durability. The values alignment that makes trust possible. The timing — because capital deployed in the wrong sequence can collapse a deal even when all the pieces are present. The care that a community organization pours into holding a project together across years of uncertainty.
This game drops you right into a real world simulation to answer these questions. By taking on various roles, you’ll learn about the ecosystem of integrated capital, where catalytic investment meets commercial investment. You’ll learn about structuring and how to make a deal that works (or not). You’ll play your part in braiding a diverse capital stack across grant dollars, debt and equity and the non-financial resources of social, political and cultural capital.
How it Works
In this 3-hr experiential workshop, you’ll step into a role — a foundation, a CDFI, a community-based organization, a market buyer, a community investor — and work with the room to close a real capital gap in real time.
Through three acts of improvisation, you’ll negotiate, reject, build trust, break trust, and discover why integrated capital is not just about financial instruments but more about relationship, sequencing, and power.
Then we’ll unpack what we discovered together.
You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of how the tools of integrated capital actually work — loans, guarantees, community bonds, recoverable grants, technical assistance — who holds them, what unlocks them, and where the system breaks down.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- Clarity on the roles different capital providers play across the ecosystem, and the constraints each one carries
- Experience structuring deals with the tools: grants, loans, guarantees, recoverable grants, equity, technical assistance and capacity building
- A deeper understanding of where coordination breaks down, who bears the burden of it, and what it would take to change that
- New relationships formed through the shared experience of navigating the capital stack together
- An embodied sense of how integrated capital can lead to greater impact for people and the planet
Who Should Join
This session is currently open to SAFSF members and designed for anyone seeking a primer on the tools integrated capital and how they work. Program officers and foundation leaders, CDFIs and loan funds, Impact investors and wealth advisors all stand to learn something new through this interactive experience.If you sit at the intersection of capital and community and are wondering why unlocking capital for transformative projects is complex, then this is for you! This workshop is limited to 15 people. If seats become available, we will open up registration to non-members.
What Others Are Saying
“I have been in several trainings/cohorts related to integrated capital, and this game was by far one of the most effective, creative, and entertaining ways in which to transfer knowledge about what a stack is, how to create one, and the challenges and opportunities in the real world.”
“So good!”