Imagine a typical American community in these very untypical times. COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll. Many small businesses have closed -- temporarily, it is hoped. Unprecedented numbers of workers have been laid off or furloughed as businesses conserve cash in the...

We are so excited to have Elizabeth Carter join our team! Elizabeth is a social enterprise and community development attorney licensed in NY, NJ, and IL (pending). As Principal Attorney of the New Jersey-based law firm The Law Office of Elizabeth L. Carter, Elizabeth...

At the end of 2019, Cutting Edge was contacted by St Louis non-profit, WEPOWER to help support their accelerator program for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in St. Louis. Cutting Edge attorney, Sarah Kaplan, took on the project specifically to create a securities law...

Cutting Edge has worked with TechSoup  for the past three years to provide legal strategy and expertise on their Reg A+ offering, which debuted in November 2018. TechSoup is the first nonprofit to participate in a Reg A and has seen great success in their first year....

All sectors and industries need workers to function. However, too often staff can find themselves being exploited by upper management and undervalued for the work they provide. The Staffing Cooperative exists to build staffing companies where workers are in control....

The IRS may be making a huge mistake that only supports the wealthy. (But you can help fix it.) At Cutting Edge Counsel we stand for fairness and equity. A big part of what drives us is the need to level the playing field between the wealthy and the non-wealthy. We...

We spoke to Lauren Grattan and David Lynn at Mission Driven Finance to talk about their mission, and how their community-first perspective guides them to find investment opportunities. What does Mission Driven Finance do and what are its guiding principles? ...

The concept of opportunity zones as a innovative and exciting way to bring investment into the poorest parts of US cities has caused heads to turn all over the country. Unfortunately, its gaining too much attention from the wealthiest investors. In August 2019, the NY...

For a cannabis business, section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code sucks. But here’s how to make it suck less. Normally, businesses deduct the “ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business[.]”  But...

Over the past couple of decades we’ve heard a lot about “social enterprises,” a term usually applied to companies that are visibly making the world a better place. Those are the good guys, the heroes of our time. We would all like to be one of them, to do something...

What is Sonoma West’s mission? Sonoma West Publishers is a small newspaper group devoted to local community news coverage, a mission we have been following for 154 years. Each of our four newspapers is actually older than the incorporated cities they cover.   Why...

  In 2018, CERO was a winner at the Massachusetts Sustainable Business Awards. A few years prior, Cutting Edge Capital helped them complete a successful DPO. Listen to CERO general manager, Lor Holmes reflect on their experience and give advice to other...

At Cutting Edge Capital, we think a lot about the possible legal strategies that can advance community capital. There are the often-used (if not well-known) strategies like crowdfunding, direct public offerings, and charitable loan funds. But then there are strategies...

In this webinar, Kim Arnone and Brian Beckon discuss community capital, investment funds, opportunity zones, and local...

Elizabeth Warren’s recently proposed Accountable Capitalism Act (“ACA”) has ignited a lot of controversy, with supporters hailing it as the way to save capitalism, while others argue that it will destroy capitalism. In my view, while it is a step in the right...