Jenny Kassan - Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business Without Selling Your Soul

Praise for Raise Capital on Your Own Terms

This is a crucial, powerful resource for businesses that need money to make their dreams come true. There are so many investors out there who are looking to move money off Wall Street and into their community. Jenny shows you how to connect with them so you can build a better world together!

Kate Poole, Founding Member and Leader, Regenerative Finance

An insightful, practical, enriching book for entrepreneurs and organizations looking to build their businesses without venture capitalists. A much-needed alternative voice for entrepreneurs!

Aner Ben-Ami, Managing Director, Candide Group

Raise Capital on Your Own Terms is a perfect motto that speaks directly to entrepreneurs. We have all that we need to create a better business funding system, and Jenny lays out the path forward.

Vicki Saunders, founder of SheEO

Jenny Kassans new book turns the way entrepreneurs should look for capital upside down. It is a book for any entrepreneur, but especially mission-driven ones.

Alicia Robb, PhD, founder and CEO, Next Wave, and Managing Partner, Next Wave Impact Fund

Jenny Kassan is an expert on raising capital from friends, customers, and community and a leader at creating terms of investment that work for everyone.

Morgan Simon, author of Real Impact

Jenny Kassan is the go-to small business advisor. With this book, she shares her proven strategy for helping businesses raise capital on their own terms, in alignment with their values, by guiding them to finding like-minded, supportive investors.

Kristin B. Hull, PhD, Director, Nia Community Fund

Jenny Kassans book is both inspirational and practical. It is inspirational because it lifts the shroud of mystery over raising capital, and it is practical because she walks the reader through the process in well-written, bite-sized chunks. This is a must-read for those new to raising capital as well as many who may think they are old hands!

Vince Siciliano, CEO, New Resource Bank

This should be the Bible for entrepreneurs building a small business. It makes the daunting task of raising capital easy to navigate through clear and detailed advice and innovative legal options and ownership models. These proven strategies from a national expert can empower everyone with a business plan while helping evolve capitalism into something more conscious and regenerative.

Michael Kramer, Managing Partner, Natural Investments, and coauthor of The Resilient Investor

A major problem plagues the entrepreneurial sphere. Many of the best businesses dont reach their potential because theyve not been empowered with information about how to raise capital in a way aligned with their own vision and goals. This book is a solution to that problem. Its an invaluable and groundbreaking resource that I would recommend to all entrepreneurs to expand their thinking and develop their unique right approach to raising capital. We have needed this book for a very long time, and now it is here.

Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big

The process of raising money often dehumanizes both sides. Jenny Kassan outlines a path that allows business owners to retain their integrity and raise capital on their own terms and investors to support the real value created by business owners. A more local, more grounded, more connected kind of economy is what the legal techniques described in this book guide us toward. This is the kind of world I want to work for. I am glad to be in her orbit.

Kevin Jones, cofounder of Socap, Good Capital, and Neighborhood Economics

Jenny Kassan fulfills a desperate need for entrepreneurs seeking capital. Her book addresses the emotional, psychological, and practical barriers to seeking funds in an interconnected and easy-to-understand way. I cant recommend this book enough.

Nikki Silvestri, founder and CEO, Soil and Shadow

Im so excited about this book! Jenny Kassan has been at the forefront of community capital, and readers could not find a better coach, mentor, and guide to this innovative way of raising capital. Prepare to have your old notions of how to raise capital turned upside down!

Amy Cortese, author of Locavesting

HOW TO FUND YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL

Jenny Kassan

Foreword by Congressman Ro Khanna

Raise Capital on Your Own Terms

Copyright 2017 by Jenny Kassan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
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Oakland, CA 94612-1921
Tel: (510) 817-2277, Fax: (510) 817-2278
www.bkconnection.com

Ordering information for print editions
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First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-8471-5
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-8472-2
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-8473-9

2017-1

Production manager: Susan Geraghty. Cover design: Irene Morris. Author photo: Jennifer Graham Photography. Interior design: Paula Goldstein. Copyeditor: Michele Jones. Composition: Westchester Publishing Services. Proofreader: Sophia Ho. Indexer: Sylvia Coates.

To my parents, Art, Liz, Joan, and Linda, for making everything possible.

To Michael Shuman, Marsha Murrington, and John Katovich for believing in me.

And to my husband, Vinnie.

Jane Jacobs brought us together and continues to inspire what we do every day. I cant believe my luck!

Legal disclaimer: This book serves as a guide and resource, but is not legal advice. Qualified professional counsel should be consulted for questions on your specific situation.

For readers located outside the United States of America and those seeking investment from outside the United States of America: The author is an attorney with knowledge of the law of the United States. The US laws are designed to protect US-based investors. Companies based in other countries or companies raising money from outside the United States are likely to be subject to non-US laws and should seek counsel from an attorney with knowledge of the laws of the country in which they are based and/or the countries from which they are seeking investment.