So, are you interested in giving a loan? Or maybe just learn more about what this all means?
Collecting loans is one of our main ways of funding the process of buying Disgraça. Also a great way to use the money that you have “sitting” around in the bank for ages.
As you probably imagine, we don’t think banks are great and ethical, and the money we keep in them ends up moving around quite a lot, often being used to invest on things we never consent to or are actively against.
Following this train of thought, there’s a infinity of projects around the world that have been funded with what we call solidarity, interest free, loans. One of the closest ones is our friend land-project Akra, in Montemor-o-novo. This way, we can actually help make spaces and ideas come to life without being dependent on state funds or the financial background of the people that want to start them.
We collected a bunch of different questions that people have been asking us. You can also send us an email if you’d like extra info!
How do loans work?
The basic premise of these solidarity loans is that there’s no interest rates and that they’re flexible – meaning we’ll mutually agree on the details such as when to get the money back and can adjust them later on if needed. It can be that you want your money back after 3 years, or maybe you still don’t know. In any case, all we ask is that you let us know 6 months before you want it back.
We’ll also sign a contract that looks more or less like this.
Who am i lending money to?
Legally speaking, we created a cooperative called Alhos & Bugalhos, CRL which will be both the owner of Disgraça and the collective entity that you lend the money to.
In the near future we plan to make a lease contract to Disgraça that prevents the cooperative from selling the propriety back to the market, ever again.
Is there a minimum or maximum amount of a loan?
There’s no minimum amount, and we’re trying not to have a lot of big loans (say, more than 20.000€), but rather lots of smaller ones. Some folks have been donating 5.000€, others 1.000€, and others 10.000€. It’s really up to you!
What guarantee do I have that I will get the money back?
So, once we buy Disgraça, we’ll keep doing fundraisers, and possibly keep our GoFundMe campaign online to help pay back the loans. Also by that time, Disgraça will have been open, regularly doing events every week to pay rent, for about 10 years.
Being a quite a volunteer-driven space with a decent sized community orbiting around, we usually manage to fund raise quite a lot, and now that we won’t need to pay rent anymore, or focus will be on paying back loans and making the space better for everyone that uses them. Together with financing other projects internationally or not, as we always did!
Our intention is to have all loans paid in the span of 6 years.
What if you don’t have enough money when the time comes / multiple people ask for their loan back at the same time?
This is one of the reasons why we ask for both a non-binding date when you think you’ll need the money back, and for 6 months notice before you actually want the loan paid. This gives us enough time to prioritize the different loans we have.
But you’re right, even with all the best intentions and prediction efforts, we can still end up in a situation where we can’t meet the expectations just with the tools we have available within the space. In that case, we’re gonna reach out to our network and replace your loan with someone else’s, just like we’re doing right now!