Walk Story

Walk Story is the name of the statewide initiative for the Hawaii chapter of BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) – an int'l network of sustainable businesses dedicated to producing healthy, self-sufficient communities. BALLE believes in the power of local businesses to transform communities for the better by working cooperatively toward a common vision where diverse people are engaged in shared learning to build community assets and become catalysts for advocacy, innovation and well-being. Walk Story is lead by and for “socio-ecopreneurs.” Please feel free to explore and contribute to our 10 evolving programs.

Ainability

Dedicated to improving food self-sufficiency by helping bring affordable and nutritious locally grown food to everyone in our island community. To accomplish its goals, Ainability integrates the best local and global solutions from the industry and on the ground, utilizing innovative web tools to facilitate its programs. Web tools include but are not limited to an ag system “green” pages, an agricultural matchmaking service and a statewide “soil-to-sale” Community-Supported Ag solution. The on-the-ground programs provide hands-on educational and entrepreneurial opportunities, comprised of a Iiving laboratory, an organic farm, a delivery system and a market cafe.

Policy Ninja

A powerfully fun new advocacy tool that shines a light on the political process to provide constituents fast and easy ways to take informed action. Our transparency section helps you see who sits on important committees, where their money is coming from and the votes they're making. You can also set up email action pages with a call button and video widget to contact decision-makers. That's not all... you can also create pages for letters to editors and official state testimony! So take a deep breath, find your inner ninja and get in on the action. Advocacy has never been so easy or so much fun!

Hawaii Prosperity Plan (HIPP)

A new breed 401(k) plan managed to combine prudent, low-cost investment strategies with 100% fee transparency to vastly improve the retirement income savings of Hawaii’s residents. HIPP is a multiple employer 401(k) plan sponsored by Sustain Hawaii, which means any for- or non-profit in Hawaii can adopt HIPP as their 401(k). Corporations with one employee on up can enjoy a professionally managed plan with pricing traditionally reserved for only very large companies. There are no setup costs nor fee minimums. Costs on average will be between 1% and 2% less per year per participant which could mean an extra $400,000 of savings over 40 years.

Hawaii Clean Power

Hawaii Clean Power provides a comprehensive look at our islands' energy system from power monitoring to energy efficiency, renewable energy, carbon emissions and related financing mechanisms like state & federal tax incentives and utility rebates. Scientifically rigorous energy auditing, carbon inventorying and offsetting helps individuals and businesses calculate their energy footprint and create the most cost-effective plan to reduce their petroleum-based consumption through energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions, and further offset their impacts through native reforestation and sustainable agriculture if needed.

Keep it Local/Prosumer Programs

Prosumer Programs is our “Keep it Local/Buy Local” suite of Business to Business and Business to Consumer (B2B & B2C) solutions dedicated to improving our islands' ecological, socio-cultural and economic stability. One example program includes a partnership with the Honu Guide, whose goal is to help create a thriving local economy by driving more "prosumers" to local businesses. The Honu Guide does this through an affordable, educational, fund-raising book filled with 100s of valuable coupons from local, sustainable businesses. A set of web and smart phone solutions will be complementing the coupon book soon, so stay tuned!

Ewe Tools

Ewe Tools are a suite of powerful, easy-to-use, affordable web tools geared to help for-profit and non-profit organizations streamline operations, increase productivity, lower IT support & software costs, reduce material waste, lower CO2e emissions and more. The web tools include services like: email, content management driven websites, email broadcasting, ecommerce, electronic surveys, social networking portals, project management systems, member and event management systems, video conferencing, business planning software, brainstorming software, a learning management system and more.

The Socio-Ecopreneurial Thinkubator

A socio-ecopreneur is an innovative businessperson who minimizes or eliminates negative ecological and socio-cultural impacts when developing goods and services for profit. The socio-ecopreneurship program is a platform that takes a budding socio-ecopreneur through the entire business development process from creating a business and marketing plan, to coming up with a name, registering with the DCCA & IRS, designing a logo and corporate identity package & website, identifying best of breed tools for organizational operations, connecting with existing talent for staff or partnerships, and connecting with funding mechanism.

Benefiscal

Benefiscal is a socio-ecopreneurial portal dedicated to helping create an entropy-based economy. Our economy is rooted in a system of finite natural resources that can only replenish themselves or reabsorb pollution at rates governed by the laws of thermodynamics. True-cost pricing could fix our economic system by accommodating the actual costs of all ecological externalities like pollution. An entropy-based economy would provide a quantitative mechanism for true-cost pricing, catalyzing socio-ecopreneurs to produce the most affordable goods and services which would ultimately also be the healthiest for people and the planet.

Grant Match

Grant Match is dedicated to helping the non-profit sector easily access relevant grants from local, national and international foundations & philanthropists and governments. Grant Match also creates visual network maps of the non-profit sector, funders and community beneficiaries, which get clustered to see which groups are aligned and can possibly benefit from collaboration and strategic partnering. Grant Match makes it easy to help groups connect and partner with each other on proposals, which will dramatically improve the likelihood of receiving funding due to the magnified impacts of the collaborative efforts and ecological and socio-cultural benefits.

Kuleana Wai

Kuleana Wai is dedicated to bringing a systemic understanding of our access to fresh water and current fresh water use. Water is going to be a much more significant issue than oil in the relatively near-future. Kuleana Wai is preparing for that inevitability by providing a system that benchmarks and monitors water use via a water footprint - the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. Solutions will also be offered, including: low-flow showerheads & faucet aerators, rainwater harvesting, pressurized drip irrigation, dual flush toilets, grey water systems, etc.

The Hawaii Prosperity Plan

Our goal is to help keep economic power local to the greatest extent possible while sustaining vibrant, livable communities and healthy ecosystems in the process. Long-term economic viability is created through local business ownership, economic justice, cultural diversity, social equity and ecological stewardship.

The Hawaii Prosperity Plan (HIPP) is a 401(k) investment platform takes us a step in that direction and is managed by Kobo Wealth, Matthew D. Hutcheson, LLC, Sustain Hawaii and Charles Schwab (as custodian). HIPP seeks to provide hope and a vision for our local economy and for the retirement savings of all Hawaii‘s employees. This new platform can play a role in helping diversify our economy by supporting local entrepreneurs and spurring job creation.

The Prosperity Plan is guided by the following principles of a Healthy Economy.

A healthy economy produces and exchanges as many local goods and services needed by residents as it can, while reaching out to other communities to trade products it doesn’t produce at home. These communities value their unique character and encourage cultural exchange and cooperation.

Healthy economy public policies support decentralized ownership of businesses and farms, fair wages, taxes and budget allocations, trade policies benefiting local economies and stewardship of the natural environment.

Healthy economy consumers appreciate the benefits of buying from healthy economy businesses and, if necessary, are willing to pay a premium to secure those personal and community benefits.

Healthy economy investors value businesses that are community stewards and accept a "healthy return" on their financial investments rather than a maximum return, recognizing the value derived from enjoying a healthy and vibrant community and sustainable economy.

Healthy economy media provide sources of news independent of corporate control, so that citizens can make informed decisions in the best interests of their communities and natural environment.

Healthy economy businesses are primarily independent and locally owned, and value the interests of all stakeholders, while building long-term profits.

Healthy economy businesses strive to:

Source products from businesses with similar values, with a preference for local procurement

Provide employees a healthy workplace with meaningful living-wage jobs

Offer customers personal service and useful, safe, quality products

Work with suppliers to establish a fair exchange

Cooperate with other businesses in ways that balance their self-interest with their obligation to the community and future generations

Use their business practices to support an inclusive and healthy community, and to protect our natural environment

Yield a "healthy return" to owners and investors

Find out more about additional tools that can help us achieve a healthy economy and self-sufficient community.

*The content regarding the Healthy Economy comes from the BALLE website.

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Walk Story

Ainability

Policy Ninja

Hawaii Prosperity Plan (HIPP)

Hawaii Clean Power

Keep it Local/Prosumer Programs

Ewe Tools

The Socio-Ecopreneurial Thinkubator

Benefiscal

Grant Match

Kuleana Wai

The Hawaii Prosperity Plan

The Prosperity Plan is guided by the following principles of a Healthy Economy.

Find out more about additional tools that can help us achieve a healthy economy and self-sufficient community.

Programs

Tools

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