New BerkShares Video

November 1, 2009

Dear BerkShares Businesses,

As you may know funding for the research, development, and administration of
BerkShares comes from many sources.

First of all support comes directly from the many BerkShares businesses and
banks that contribute to BerkShares events. The recent auction is a case in
point with the donation of many practical goods and services. Though in the
middle of a down pour of rain, an enthusiastic group of attendees bid on
items they needed and supported BerkShares at the same time.

In addition residents of the Berkshires fund BerkShares through individual
charitable gifts or gifts through their foundations. All of this has been
extremely important to the efficient running of the program.

But by far the biggest financial supporters of BerkShares are interested
individuals and foundations outside the Berkshires. “Why?” you ask. Well
because they feel BerkShares is the best developed model of a local
currency. They are asking those of us lucky enough to live in the Berkshires
to experiment with all aspects of this new program, test it out, explore all
its workings. They will then apply what we learn to a program for
strengthening their own local economies.

To pursue this funding we write a number of applications to foundations.
Last year BerkShares was a finalist in the $100,000 Buckminster Fuller
Challenge (http://challenge.bfi.org).

We have applied again this year. One of the options in the submission is to
attach a video describing the program. Kate Poole who is a media fellow
with the Schumacher Society and part of the now famous local currency sock
puppet team, decided to pull together clips from various media coverage of
BerkShares into one new video. It is posted on youtube where you can view
it.

http://www.youtube.com/efssociety

Click on the first video in the upper right hand corner. And while there,
enjoy other media coverage of your local currency.

Best wishes,

The BerkShares Team
P. O. Box 125
Great Barrington, MA 01230
413 528-1737
www.berkshares.org