Michael Sauvante

I would like to share a bit about me personally, rather than my work bio. If you are interested in my career, please follow the link at the bottom.

Let me start by saying I am currently a young 78-year-old, just getting his second wind. I am a disabled Viet Nam Navy veteran (’68), who had the privilege of witnessing the Apollo 8 mission splash landing in the South Pacific.  After returning home, I met my wife Pati, whom I married on Valentine’s Day, 1972. We have one son who graduated from Boston University law school, and is now a mystery writer, and a 18 year old grandson. 

From the beginning of our relationship, Pati and I have had a deep interest in the big questions – Who are we? Why are we here? What is this world all about that we live in? Following a Bachelor’s degree in Business (Finance), those questions led me to approaching the world of business with a different set of lenses than the traditional entrepreneur.

I viewed business as a means to serve the world, rather than have it serve me. I/we started our first business in 1977 (followed by more than a half dozen over 30 years – mostly in Silicon Valley).

Along the way I was recruited for a custom PhD in connection with a unique project I promoted in partnership with Hewlett-Packard – the first corporate incubator in Silicon Valley. As part of that effort I befriended Harvard Prof. Clayton Christensen, the father of “disruptive innovation,” who became my mentor. He gave me a framework for building new programs, which has substantially influenced me ever since.

Around that same timeframe I got introduced to the concept of sustainability, and a light bulb went off in my head. I now had a framework to pursue the values that I had developed organically. The combination of disruptive innovation and sustainability became a potent set of tools that have driven me ever since.

A decade later I decided to switch from the for-profit world, and launched an economic development non-profit organization, to pursue my goals as a social entrepreneur and change agent, as described on the home page. That initiated a deep dive into the issues around economic development at the community level. In particular, given my entrepreneurial background, I explored ways and means to nurture small businesses and non-profits, the economic backbone of most communities. In particular, my goal was to figure out how to get them the financial resources they needed to carry out their missions.

I was also deeply concerned about the large number of homeowners that faced foreclosure during the 2008-2012 financial crisis, leading to me publishing this book Eminent Domain: How to use eminent domain to stop foreclosures, rescue homeowners and save communities, available on Amazon.

I initially focused on both the institutions and instruments of money. Institution-wise, that was primarily focused on banking, where I became one of the top advocates for public banking. Instruments-wise, that was primarily focused on securities (capital), including providing the Obama White House with research on what was wrong with our national securities laws leading to them crafting the JOBS Act which legalized equity crowdfunding. Much of which is reflected in my other writings, videos and work product found on this page.

Then a particular event occurred in 2017 that caused me to look into money itself, not its institutions or instruments. That launched me into an entirely new direction, leading to the development of the Sustainable Communities Framework, the program that is the subject of the book introduced on this website. Professor Christensen’s ideas have helped me to develop a truly disruptive new paradigm for society around the goal of making the economy work for all of us and not just the few at the top.

For that, I recommend you obtain a free copy by going to this page. I hope you enjoy it.

If you would like to know more about my career, go here.