Hello everyone!

Lot’s has been going on with the Smart Village project! As many of you may already know, the fundraising went quite well in November and December, and we were able to raise the money and get the financing we needed to purchase the property out in Meadow Creek. However, after receiving the property appraisal, it turned out that the asking price was too high above the appraisal price and we were forced to back out of the deal to protect our investors. Just the way these things go sometimes.

That said, we’re super excited to be back on the land hunt again and to find something even better.  And since we started looking again, we’ve found so many interesting opportunities. We’ve also got a whole lot more experience now than we did several months ago when we started this project. I expect things to move more quickly this time around, now that we already have the funds we need, and the partners setup all over the region. I can’t wait to share some of the new opportunities with you guys.

Aaaand to help with the land search, we’ve freshly updated our slidedeck! Check it out at futurethinkers.org/village

But with all that that said, we could use your help again (you there, reading this, yes you)…

We need help with the land search

There are so many great properties out there, but most of them are not listed on MLS sites. Often, a land owner might be retired or unable to get the funds and energy to develop their land, and may be interested to sell or partner if the right buyer comes along. After reading Mark Frazier’s book “Founding Startup Societies“, we learned that for this type of regenerative smart village project, it isn’t uncommon that property owners and/or local municipal governments would even want to donate land to the project because of how much good it can do for the local people, the region, and the world.

So there are a few strategies that we want to use to make the land search go even faster:

1) Research & reach out to local radio and news stations to ask that we be interviewed

One way to get the word out is to get in touch with local news and radio stations all over British Columbia. (we’re still quite focused on the Kootenay region, but it can’t hurt to keep our eyes open for other opportunities). If we can get interviewed on those programs, we can tell people about our project and ask them to keep an eye out for properties that fit our criteria. You can help us by researching & adding to this list of radio and news programs so that we can request to be interviewed by them. If you want, you can also reach out to them and suggest that we be interviewed.

2) Crowdsource the property search

We’d love for you guys to help us with the land search by crowdsourcing properties that you’ve heard about and think would be a good fit for the project – especially those not publically listed. You can check out our land search criteria here, and submit properties that you find here.

3) Share this project with your networks

We could use your help sharing this project with your friends and family (especially if you live in BC or know people who do). You can share any of the following docs:

• futurethinkers.org/landsearch – the form that we’re using to accept property submissions.
• futurethinkers.org/village – the slidedeck that describes this whole project and what we plan to do.
• futurethinkers.org/landcriteria – the Google doc that gives all the criteria of what we’re looking for in a property.

Other Updates

We are building a FREE resource library for anyone want to build or contribute to a Smart Village

We are working on building a library of free resources for the local communities that we hope to work with. This is just a way to utilize our position of priviledge with the podcast & network to give something to the communities that we want to ask to support us. These resources will include free books, courses, tickets to workshops, software, and even hardware and machines for our upcoming maker-space.

These resources will cover all kinds of subjects and categories, like how to do regenerative farming, how to build communities, how to freelance and make money online, how to design infographics, how to build things for your community, and lots more.

The list is getting long, but if you know of a good course, we are actively seeking partnerships with the creators of those resources. If you have any questions or comments, or you know of other resources that should be on our list, please leave a comment on this article.

Looking forward to building this project with you!

-Mike, Euvie, & Team