What Is Slow Money?

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The Slow Food movement revolutionized the way many people think about food with its mantra: “good, clean, and fair.” Entrepreneur Woody Tasch wants to introduce the Slow Food ethos into the world of finance. In his book, Slow Money (Chelsea Green, 2009), Tasch writes: “Be forewarned: slow money is no ‘ism.’” He is organizing for change. What does that change look like? It’s right there on the homepage of his non-governmental organization, the Slow Money Alliance: “A million Americans investing 1% of their assets in local food systems.” The Slow Money philosophy is gaining momentum, and was given some attention recently from the document of record for the fast money crowd: the Wall Street Journal. I spoke with Tasch about the effort and its genesis.

Jeff Severns Guntzel: Do you find the argument easier to make now?

Woody Tasch: Oh, absolutely. When you say the words “slow money.” It’s very intuitively obvious to the vast majority of people. I just say, “Before we start talking about slow money, just think about fast money for a second.” It’s obvious to a lot more people now than it was a year or two ago. There’s this idea of money that’s zooming around too fast to manage.

Severns Guntzel: When you were writing this book, whose hands did you imagine ending up in?

Tasch: It wasn’t like written for a specific audience. It was written for the investor part of all of us.

Severns Guntzel: Can you talk a little bit about your background? I have a little bit of a sense from the bio but how far back does your work with money go?

Tasch: I think it all goes back to Small is Beautiful, which left a kind of intellectual legacy. When Small is Beautiful was written in the ‘70’s by E. F. Schumacher, he was a Rhodes Scholar and senior economist for the British Coal Board. He was a very experienced industrial economist at a very high level. And then he had his late, late life epiphany about the collision course between economic growth and the environment—Western civilization and the kind of consumerism it was promoting. That book made a huge impact on me on the 1970s. I’d just gotten out of college and it was very clear to me that the book had all the wisdom we ever needed. We just had to figure out how to put it into practice.