Local businesses need funds to invest in future-oriented projects, investors want to invest in the local community and communities need jobs growth. This summer, seven student social entrepreneurs advanced a model for sustainable finance in the local community. Working under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Organization Studies W. Trexler Proffitt, Jr., in the Department of Business, Organizations and Society, the Lancaster Sustainable Enterprise Stock Exchange (LanX), a local stock exchange concept that would channel investment into small and medium local businesses, moved closer to reality.

LanX is a concept in development for self-sustaining, locally governed, regional securities, offering and trading platform to match small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in South Central Pennsylvania with accredited individual and institutional investors. It would also facilitate the offering of securities for other types of projects, such as sustainability and energy efficiency initiatives.

LanX would act as a social business, striving to channel capital into the local area, defined as the counties surrounding Lancaster, York, Reading and Harrisburg. LanX would help local SMEs issue shares or bonds, provide initial investors with a first look at new opportunities and maintain a secondary trading platform to provide liquidity.

The exchange goes beyond previous offering and trading concepts by emphasizing local firms and championing environmental, social, and governance sustainability goals. Its target is to list 50 securities from local firms in 10 years. LanX will be a pilot local securities market that can be replicated in many other areas of the United States and abroad.

To contact Proffitt call 717-291-3990 or email [email protected]. For more information, visit Tinyurl.com/3vm8uz7.