As a venue for industry networking, the Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) occasionally highlights the participation or biography of our association members. CfPA membership is designed to be inclusive and open to individuals and organizations sharing a professional interest in the field of Regulated Investment Crowdfunding.
Interview With Paul Lovejoy
CfPA: Can you tell us a little about your background and your interest in the field of regulated investment crowdfunding?
Paul: I was a defrauded investor in 2008 and became deeply concerned about concentrations of wealth and too-big-to-fail banks. Seeking answers, I volunteered for the Obama campaign in Florida and became enmeshed in politics to try and understand how we got too big to fail banks and a financial crisis. However, by 2016 blame, gridlock and lobbyists eventually drove me out of engaging in politics any further.
In 2017 I worked for a wealth strategy firm that used crowd-sourced peer-to-peer lending as a part of their investment strategy. This opened my eyes to the idea of regular people becoming part of our financial system’s infrastructure bypassing the need for traditional banks. Working at this firm also led me to learn about the private market, Regulation A (Reg A) and Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) giving the average person even more opportunity to become our nation’s financial system. A system that creates a market-based redistribution of wealth, eroding the concentrations of wealth and power held by the too-big-to-fail banks without the need for major political action.
In 2020 I discovered that impact investments were only available in the private market and the general public only has access to the private market via crowdfunding. This is when I had my Aha moment that the only way the general public could be an impact investor was by becoming a crowd investor.
In 2022 I opened up Stakeholder Enterprise, an investment advisory firm specializing in crowd investing and created the Crowd Investor Program, a three-part initiative to ethically build wealth through private market crowd investing.
CfPA: What recent trends or developments in our industry are you most excited or concerned about?
Paul: Bi-partisan support, favorable regulatory winds and crowdfunding portals becoming more established have me most excited about this industry.
CfPA: Is there any particular project or initiative at CfPA that interests you most?
Paul: I absolutely love the petition to the NFL suggesting that teams use a Reg A offering to allow fans to become part-owners. I just recently saw that the Republic platform announced that there will be campaigns to invest and become part-owners of professional English football clubs through investment crowdfunding.
CfPA: What is one interesting fact about you that we might be surprised to know?
Paul: My great-great-great grandfather, Stephen Pleasonton, took the original Declaration of Independence along with other early precious government documents from the White House before it was burnt down by the English during the War of 1812 and hid them in the countryside. I learned this while helping my son with a family tree school project and with Ancestry.com.
CfPA: What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Paul: “You don’t need to change the world; you need to change yourself. And you have to do it in your own way because only you have the possibility of knowing yourself.” - Don Miguel Ruiz
CfPA: What would you like to learn from being a part of this group?
Paul: I want to be around the people who built the foundation and community of regulated investment crowdfunding and to stay up to date with the latest industry information.
CfPA: If you could change one thing -- just one -- about our industry, what would it be?
Paul: I would like to see the limit cap on how much a retail investor can invest in Reg CF removed. Especially since any retail investor with a brokerage account can invest as much as they want to with options trading.
CfPA: Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of work that you're passionate about?
Paul: Living on the south shore of Oahu I’m lucky enough to compete in open water swimming events and surf the best waves in the world when I’m not swimming.
CfPA: What other things would you like to say to the broad CfPA community?
Paul: I believe that the
members of the CfPA are kind of like the European cathedral architects. But instead of building cathedrals that will be completed after their deaths, we will be building a financial system that will be completed by future generations.
Who knows, maybe my great-great-great grandson will mention me when asked to share an interesting fact about themselves.
![Lovejoy_Paul-4270[2971] (1).jpg](https://www.crowdfundingecosystem.com/image/getimage/5cb22359750d41b49fc3159c4b478ef0 "Lovejoy_Paul-4270[2971] (1).jpg")
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