Iowa Community Investment Exchange (ICIX) aka
The Iowa Stock Exchange
With Financial Transaction Tax for Civil Restoration
by Sondra Wilson. Written July 27, 2025. Updated September 7.

The Iowa Stock Exchange (ICIX) is a first-of-its-kind public stock exchange where Iowans invest not in Wall Street speculation, but in local renewal through the Civilian Restoration Corps (CRC) and future initiatives born here in Iowa.

Operated under the Iowa Public Credit Union (IPCU), ICIX will allow everyday residents to co-create the state’s future — funding initiatives like Gardens Across Iowa™, Housing Helpers™, MycoFuel Engineers™, and FryerForce™.

Instead of dividends for distant shareholders, ICIX delivers returns through:

  • Growth of Iowa businesses.

  • Expansion of worker-owned cooperatives.

  • Rising ICIX share value as initiatives succeed.

  • Direct rewards for Iowans who contribute ideas and innovations.

How ICIX Works

Iowans Buy Shares

  • ICIX shares provide seed capital for CRC initiatives and future projects.

  • Half of CRC initiatives incubate as worker-owned cooperatives (e.g. MycoFuel Engineers, FryerForce, SolarBerry Brigade).

  • The other half serve as workforce development programs (e.g. Housing Helpers, Pothole Patrol, Trail Trimmers).

CRC Initiatives Operate with Vouchers

  • CRC-certified teams receive vouchers to purchase tools, materials, and meals from participating Iowa businesses.

  • This ensures every dollar circulates locally, supporting Iowa jobs and supply chains.

The Inventor’s Guild: Iowa’s Innovation Engine

The Inventor’s Guild is the brain of ICIX and CRC, ensuring the system evolves, protects inventors, and sparks new industries.

It serves three roles:

  1. Improving CRC Operations

    • Any Iowan can propose a product or tool.

    • The Guild tests it across CRC initiatives.

    • If superior, the product is added to the voucher-approved list.

    • Every time vouchers are spent on that product, the recommender earns a commission.

    This rewards innovation while ensuring CRC always uses the best solutions.

  2. Supporting Everyday Inventors

    • Many inventors cannot afford costly patent attorneys, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation — as Nikola Tesla was.

    • The Guild provides patent assistance, legal protections, and guidance so any Iowan can secure their ideas.

    • In exchange, inventors agree to a small royalty share (the vast majority going to them or their estate).

    • That small share builds a public wealth fund for Iowa’s schools, hospitals, libraries, healthcare, and infrastructure.

    This creates intergenerational prosperity while protecting inventors’ legacies.

  3. Launching New Initiatives Beyond CRC

    • CRC’s 10 initiatives are just the beginning.

    • Through the Guild, any Iowan can propose a new initiative for testing and pilot funding.

    • If successful, it can be opened to public investment on ICIX and eventually “break free” as a cooperative or enterprise.

    This keeps ICIX dynamic — a permanent pipeline of Iowa-born solutions.

Examples of CRC Initiatives

CRC consists of eleven initiatives. Collectively, the initiatives will create tens of thousands of high-paying jobs across the state, restoring and vastly improving urban and rural infrastructures and transforming our economy to meet the needs of a progressive 21st century. There are two types of initiatives:

Worker-Owned Cooperatives

These eleven initiatives start out as pilot programs, aided by my administration and nonprofit partnerships, then — once they have become self-sufficient — will break off and become independent, worker-owned cooperatives:

  • Gardens Across Iowa™ — installs highly-efficient food and herbal medicine gardens in every town and city, including community gardens and on school grounds for new statewide in-school gardening program that teaches valuable skills to students and offsets school lunch costs.

  • MycoFuel Engineers™ — captures agricultural runoff with mycoremediation ditches, then processes mushrooms into renewable fuel pellets.

  • Union Energy Works™ — a proposed CRC pilot that explores refining crude oil locally to reduce farmland seizures; powered with renewable heat inputs from MycoFuel Engineers.

  • Iowa FryerForce™ — recycles restaurant fryer grease into clean-burning diesel fuel.

  • SolarBerry Brigade™ — manufactures and installs plant-based solar panels and batteries to lower energy bills.

  • CRC’s Inventor’s Guild — see below.

Workforce Development Initiatives

These initiatives are made up of private businesses who already exist, allowing them to become “CRC Certified” in order to (1) expand operations, (2) gain access to a list of jobs from across the state, and (3) utilize CRC Vouchers to offset costs.

  • FarmHire™ — creates high-paying jobs rebuilding barns and assisting small farmers with odd jobs.

  • BioFuel Mechanics™ — designs easy-to-repair farm equipment powered by FryerForce fuels.

  • Housing Helpers™ — certifies local contractors, granting them vouchers for top-grade materials and meals while advancing the Right to Homestead Act.

  • Trail Trimmers™ — builds and maintains trails, waterways, campsites, and recreation areas.

  • Pothole Patrol™ — resurfaces roads and strengthens rural and urban infrastructure.

CRC initiatives run entirely on the CRC Voucher Program:

  • Certified CRC teams receive vouchers to purchase tools, materials, and meals.

  • Vouchers can only be redeemed at Iowa businesses, keeping money circulating locally.

Voucher demand also drives innovation:

  • At the heart of this system is the Inventor’s Guild, which connects community innovation directly to CRC and the Iowa Stock Exchange.Any Iowan can recommend a product or idea.

  • The Guild tests it across CRC initiatives.

  • If it proves superior, it’s added to the voucher-approved list.

  • Every time CRC vouchers purchase that product, the original recommender earns a commission.

For example: Housing Helpers may currently use Conklin’s elastomeric paint when installing cool roofs across Iowa. If an Iowan recommends a new product—let’s call it Murphy’s Paint—that dries faster, resists chipping, and costs ten cents less per gallon, the Inventor’s Guild would test it. If it proves superior, Murphy’s gets added to the voucher list. From then on, every time CRC-certified contractors buy it with vouchers, the original recommender earns a percentage.

This model turns everyday problem-solving into a statewide engine for invention, rewarding Iowans for ingenuity while ensuring better, cheaper, and more sustainable solutions rise to the top. And when entirely new technologies are born, the Guild helps inventors patent them—securing credit for the creator while directing a small share of royalties into Iowa’s commonwealth funds for schools, hospitals, libraries, and infrastructure.

CRC is not designed to create permanent state jobs. Instead, it is an incubator of cooperatives. Once an initiative proves successful—say, MycoFuel Engineers or Iowa FryerForce—it will “break free” as a worker-owned business. This creates a self-sustaining cycle of local wealth and innovation.

Funding Through a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT)

ICIX will be sustained by a graduated Financial Transaction Tax (FTT):

  • 0.5% on stocks

  • 0.1% on bonds

  • 0.005% on derivatives

Even with modest trading, these rates could raise nearly $77 million annually — comparable to the Iowa Lottery’s $106.6 million contribution in 2024 [5].

Revenue will support:

  • 50% CRC operations

  • 25% public healthcare & housing

  • 25% disaster preparedness & climate resilience

This ensures Iowa invests in its own future while shielding small investors, retirement accounts, and cooperatives from unnecessary burden.

Governance and Oversight

  • Chartered under state law as part of the Iowa Public Credit Union.

  • Public oversight board with citizen representation from all 99 counties.

  • Transparent reporting of returns, voucher circulation, and community impact.

  • Legal alignment with the American Accreditation Registrar (AAR), ensuring cooperative governance and public trust.

Why ICIX Matters

ICIX is not just an exchange. It is the financial engine of Iowa’s sovereignty model — linking finance, housing, and legal power into one democratic system.

  • Decentralizes power from Wall Street to Main Street.

  • Funds public goods without reliance on federal aid.

  • Empowers Iowans to innovate, invest, patent, and co-govern.

  • Builds resilience against economic, social, and climate shocks.

This is more than economic reform. It is a new model of governance — one where prosperity rises from the soil and the people, not from distant boardrooms.

References

[1] Hamilton, A. (1790). Report on a National Bank. In H. C. Syrett (Ed.), The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (Vol. 7, pp. 305–344). Columbia University Press.
[2] Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. (2023). Agricultural finance update: Bank branch closures and rural credit access. https://www.kansascityfed.org/agriculture/
[3] Baradaran, M. (2015). How the other half banks: Exclusion, exploitation, and the threat to democracy. Harvard University Press.
[4] Iowa Credit Union League. (2024). Iowa credit union economic impact fact sheet. https://www.iowacreditunions.com/
[5] Iowa Lottery. (2024). Annual report. https://ialottery.com/