My colleagues and I are on a mission to create a robust infrastructure and ecosystem that will make regenerative community investing easy, seamless, accessible to all, and fun!
To this end, we have put many pieces in place: legal/coaching services (Jenny Kassan Consulting), a community investment platform (Crowdfund Mainstreet), and an investor community open to all (Angels of Main Street). We are always asking ourselves what else we can do to support the movement for community investing.
One big missing piece is welcoming and inclusive physical locations where entrepreneurs, investors, and allies can come together to connect and build trust. In the last year and a half, we have all come to appreciate in-person gatherings. The human species was not designed to connect via video camera! Yet coming together in person continues to be challenging, especially for small businesses whose livelihoods depend on being able to meet customers face to face.
Michelle Thimesch and I have launched an investment fund called Opportunity Main Street with the mission to lift up and sustain overlooked entrepreneurs and the investors who want to support them by providing a physical location where they can meet and share resources. We are thrilled to announce our first investment—Charm City Inn, a beautiful building in Baltimore, MD.
The building will be a hub for community investing—a place where entrepreneurs can connect with local investors, sell their products in a cooperative retail space, and produce products in a commercial kitchen. It also includes short term residential units and a pub/eatery in the basement.
By providing affordable cooperative space for entrepreneurs with shared resources like a point-of-sale system, shared staffing, and meeting space, we can help them ease back into community-facing businesses without having to bear all the risk and expense.
Opportunity Main Street is offering the opportunity to invest in this project through secured promissory notes at 7% interest and preferred equity with a projected 12-15% IRR. This offering is only open to accredited investors. The last day to invest is September 28.
Please email Michelle@