Highlights from the 2025 BioFi Conference
From May 16–18, 2025, over 250 visionaries, organizers, artists, funders, and culture-shapers gathered at the historic Georgetown Steam Plant in Seattle for the inaugural Cascadia BioFi Conference—a gathering rooted in the question: How do we regenerate an entire bioregion?
The setting was symbolic: a 100+ year-old decommissioned power plant turned public cultural space, located in the heart of the Duwamish River Valley, a Superfund site and living testimony to both industrial extraction and community resilience. Just across the water sits tohl-AHL-too (“herring house”), an ancestral Duwamish village that has been inhabited for over 1,400 years. The weekend began in ceremony there, at the Duwamish Longhouse, grounding us in Indigenous wisdom and the responsibility to walk in right relationship with land and water.
Grounding Indigenous Support & Systems Reimagined
On Friday evening, we gathered at the Duwamish Longhouse for a communal dinner hosted by the Duwamish Tribe. We shared a nourishing meal prepared by Native hands, gathered around long tables to deepen conversations, and listened to stories that reminded us why we do this work. It was a sacred and grounding evening—offering a felt sense of continuity, care, and cultural resilience. The evening reaffirmed our collective responsibility to move at the speed of trust and to honor the original stewards of this land in every step forward.
From Vision to Practice: Bioregional Teachings
Saturday’s programming opened with teachings from Brandy Gallagher, Hiinahcit, Terry Dorward, and Isabel Simons, who spoke about rematriation, land-based learning, and bioregional stewardship. These voices set the tone for the day, calling us to move from abstraction to embodiment, from concept to connection. From there, we explored the possibilities of regenerative finance. Martin Kirk of the NoVo Foundation offered a global perspective on systemic funding, while Michelle Lee introduced BioFi as a living framework for resourcing change from the ground up. The day unfolded through panels, workshops, and participatory sessions where attendees engaged with themes of equity, decentralization, and cultural repair. It was a space of courageous inquiry—alive, messy, and deeply necessary.
Cascadia Day Celebration: Culture is the Heartbeat
On Saturday evening, the Georgetown Steam Plant transformed into a cultural celebration. Cascadia flags flew from the rafters. Smoky barbecue filled the air. Paul Chiyokten Wagner opened the night with flute, story, and a call to protect the Salish Sea. Then, the Crowdsource Choir led us in song and sonic co-creation, followed by a Cascadia Poetics Lab reading featuring some of the region’s most soulful writers. It was a reminder that movements don’t grow from spreadsheets—they grow from song, food, firelight, and shared breath.
Flowing Funds Differently: Tools & Tensions
Sunday’s focus was tangible and pragmatic: how do we move resources differently? Speakers offered tools, stories, and tensions around shifting capital flows. Cheryl Chen of the Salmon Returns Fund shared approaches to financing cultural and ecological continuity. Jamaica Stevens and Sushant Shrestha of the Open Future Coalition spoke about decentralized giving models and digital infrastructure for shared resource flow. Kinship Earth offered insight into participatory grantmaking and emergent "flow funding" networks, while Mike Seo explored cooperative lending strategies through community development financial institutions. Breakout sessions invited participants to pitch project ideas, prototype funding models, and dream together about a distributed BioFi network spanning the bioregion. Concepts like OMNI mapping, living covenants, tokenized mutual aid, and donut economics were explored through the lens of place-based regeneration.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The BioFi Conference was an invitation. An invitation to listen more deeply, to fund more relationally, and to root ourselves in a different kind of economy—one that centers care, reciprocity, and interdependence. As we left the Georgetown Steam Plant, many of us carried the same question in our hearts: What does it look like to live in right relationship with place—and to finance the future for generations to come?
We don’t have all the answers. But we are building the mycelial networks to find them together.
With deep gratitude to our hosts, collaborators, and the many hands and hearts who made this gathering possible. In partnership with Regenerate Cascadia, the Georgetown Steam Plant CDA, and dozens of bioregional co-conspirators.
🌐 Learn more at cascadiabiofi.org
In service to people and place,
Ashley Bonn, M.S.Ed. (she/her)
Cascadia Community Organizer
Portland, OR (Chinook land)
