---
title: where you sit in a blended finance stack
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/where-you-sit-in-a-blended-finance-stack
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/where-you-sit-in-a-blended-finance-stack.md
subtitle: "a stack ranks you by who loses first. this one places you by what your money pays for: the cost, the flow, the reading, or the market"
category: how-to
---

# where you sit in a blended finance stack

*a stack ranks you by who loses first. this one places you by what your money pays for: the cost, the flow, the reading, or the market*

A **blended finance capital stack** answers two questions for everyone in it: when money comes in, who is paid first, and when money is lost, who loses first. Grants and first-loss capital sit at the bottom. Mezzanine sits in the middle. Senior lenders sit on top, paid first and priced lowest. Your seat sets your return and your risk.

That ladder works for a toll road. It explains less for a river corridor, because a living place carries two prices at once. It has a **cost**: the land or easement, the project, and the crew who keep it. And it has a **value**: the work it does every year for the people downstream. A conventional stack finances only the cost. Ensurance finances both, and it places you by which one your money pays for.

Picture a willow and beaver corridor above a town's water intake. The willows hold the banks. The ponds slow the spring melt. The floodplain takes high water so the treatment plant doesn't have to. The corridor does that work whether or not an instrument exists. Either someone pays for its keeping, or the town pays after it fails.

:::johnson
**you sit where your money does its job.** Fund the cost, pay for the flow, read the value, or keep the market moving. Each seat has its own source of return, and the place is never the thing that gets sold.

[talk through which seat fits →](/contact?from=guide&topic=every-way-the-work-pays)
:::

## two sides, not one ladder

[*ensurance*](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide) runs on two payors. One side finances the **cost**: real-asset and income investors, foundations making program-related investments, family offices, and buyers who want to hold titled land. The other side pays for the **value**: the utility, county, insurer, resort or data center that already carries a bill when the living system fails. Around them sit the people who measure the place and the markets that circulate its instruments.

On [the value gap](/guide/the-value-gap?from=guide), cost-side money funds the price and value-side money closes the gap. A certificate is priced on cost, the living work is valued by a published method, and the gap is the unpriced work in between. Nobody gets paid until someone pays, and the protocol's bid follows realized payment, never the valuation.

So read the stack as six seats around one place rather than as rungs on a ladder.

| seat | what you put in | where your return comes from | gap position |
|---|---|---|---|
| **grants and gifts** | money with no claim on it | none in cash; the outcome and the record | fund the cost |
| **cost-side note** | acquisition capital | a coupon from proceeds and premiums, principal returned at entrust | fund the cost |
| **certificate** | the mint price, set on cost | designed distributions, and a reprice as payors arrive | fund the cost |
| **payor premium** | a premium priced under your loss bill | avoided loss, plus a position you hold | close the gap |
| **coins and liquidity** | trading capital or a pool position | pool fees and price | circulate |
| **services** | the work of measuring and deploying | fees on the rate card | read the value |

## the six seats

### grants and gifts

Foundations, public programs and private donors fund what no investor will price yet: the first valuation, the legal work to secure a parcel, the baseline that later monitoring reads against. The return is the outcome. A gift to a place agent lands in that agent's account and funds the work directly.

The discipline is the one in [the subsidy that proves the product](/guide/the-subsidy-that-proves-the-product?from=guide): concessional money should retire a named uncertainty and then step aside for the next place. [Catalytic capital](/guide/catalytic-capital-conservation-forever?from=guide) has a job. Holding the whole structure up forever is not that job.

### the cost-side note

This is the seat a yield investor recognizes. The note is a planned instrument, designed with counsel. In the design, you fund the acquisition of a natural asset, the protocol pays a coupon monthly from aggregated proceeds and premiums, and principal is returned when the asset reaches **entrust**, its permanent protection. The note is based on the natural asset it funds. It is not a token redeemable for land, and its legal terms are set in the note documents.

The note pays a coupon, not the gap. If you want the reprice, hold the certificate. If you want the coupon, hold the note. A foundation that wants its program-related investment back, and an infrastructure investor who wants long-duration income, both fit here.

### the certificate

A certificate is priced on the cost of protection and issued on the value the place does. When someone buys one, the sale price goes straight to the certificate's configured recipient: the place's agent account, or a split that pays the steward and crew. That is the paycheck. It never passes through a pool. The [crew-funding series](/guide/how-conservation-fundraising-reaches-the-crew?from=guide) covers that path in full.

The holder takes two things. First, distributions from the agent, its group and the protocol, which are planned. Second, a position bought at cost. As dependents start paying and the protocol bids on that realized payment, later buyers pay closer to value. You are paid by the recognition, not by any sale of the place. No certificate is a deed, and none is redeemable for land.

### the payor premium

The utility downstream of the corridor has a bill already. It shows up as filtration, sediment removal, or trucked water in a dry August. A premium priced under that bill pays for the living system that holds the loss back. The payor's return is avoided loss: next year's bill is smaller, with a record to show why. Paying through a certificate means the premium is a position on the balance sheet, not just an expense. A convert into $ENSURE at a published rate is part of the design.

This is the seat that makes every other seat pay. Premiums are what turn the value into yield. The ceiling on a premium is the [avoided cost](/guide/an-avoided-cost-is-the-benefit-you-can-book?from=guide) of the grey alternative. Stretch the term and the annual premium shrinks.

### coins and liquidity

A coin on the place is the fast door. Traders and liquidity providers enter for their own reasons. Pool fees go to the coin's payout recipient, which is often the place's account. Liquidity providers keep the fees on their own positions. Trades through the app pay a 1% fee to Basin OpCo. None of these seats needs to care about the corridor to fund it. The creator's supply goes into liquidity and is never sold to pay anyone.

### services

Someone has to read the value before anyone can price the gap. The [rate card](/services?from=guide) is public: a valuation runs $2,000 to $5,000, a regional analysis $10,000 to $15,000, a deployment $15,000 to $50,000, and an ongoing program $1,000 to $4,000 a month. Field partners and crews earn those fees for real work, and the work is what every other seat relies on.

## what each seat carries

| seat | what you are underwriting | what protects you |
|---|---|---|
| grants and gifts | that the work happens | the agent's public account and the place's record |
| cost-side note | that proceeds and premiums cover the coupon over the term | the asset the note funds, with terms set in the note documents |
| certificate | that payors arrive and the protocol bids on what they pay | a cost-based entry price, and a steward paid to keep condition |
| payor premium | that the living system keeps holding your loss back | a smaller bill, and a certificate you hold |
| coins and liquidity | price and pool depth | your own exit, at market |
| services | that the client pays the invoice | a scoped engagement |

The conventional stack protects the top by stacking losses underneath it. This one gets its protection elsewhere. The cost side is based on a real asset. The value side has its own bill as the reason to pay. And the place has a steward who is paid first, because condition is what every other seat is paid on.

## four yields from the same stack

| yield | what the stack returns | where it reads |
|---|---|---|
| **financial** | note coupons, premiums avoided, certificate distributions and reprice, pool fees, service fees, each from its named source | the transaction, the split, the invoice |
| **ecological** | banks held, melt slowed, floodplain storing water, condition kept or improved | the parcel account on [natural assets](/natural-assets?from=guide), with its verification status |
| **social** | a paid steward and crew, and the groups formed around the corridor | the agent, its group and the [proceeds](/proceeds?from=guide) graph |
| **cultural** | a river corridor a town knows as its own, kept in its record | the place's record and the people who answer for it, never a cash payout |

## how to pick your seat

A foundation with a catalytic mandate usually starts with a grant, then moves to a program-related note once the place has a payor. A family office or real-asset fund looking for income sits in the note. A value investor who wants to buy below what the work is worth sits in the certificate. A utility, insurer or county that already pays the bill sits in the premium. A desk that wants to be early on [whether nature is an asset class yet](/guide/is-nature-an-asset-class-yet?from=guide) can hold more than one seat.

The order is what makes the stack work. Cost-side money moves first because the value side has shown it will pay. The value side pays because its bill is real. The steward is paid from the first sale. And the corridor never comes up for sale to make anyone whole.

If you hold a mandate and want to see where it fits on a named place, [talk it through with us](/contact?from=guide&topic=every-way-the-work-pays). Capital providers can also start at [/solutions/capital-providers](/solutions/capital-providers?from=guide).

## sources

[Convergence, blended finance](https://www.convergence.finance/blended-finance) — the standard definition of blended finance and catalytic capital

## the series

[how to make money with ensurance](/guide/how-to-make-money-with-ensurance?from=guide) (start here)

1. [the value gap is where the money is](/guide/the-value-gap-is-where-the-money-is?from=guide)
2. [four yields, one place](/guide/four-yields-one-place?from=guide)
3. [what natural asset work pays](/guide/what-natural-asset-work-pays?from=guide)
4. [how to bring a property into ensurance](/guide/how-to-bring-a-property-into-ensurance?from=guide)
5. [protect your property by paying what protects it](/guide/protect-your-property-by-paying-what-protects-it?from=guide)
6. [who gets credit when you bring a deal](/guide/who-gets-credit-when-you-bring-a-deal?from=guide)
7. [you make your money when you buy the land](/guide/you-make-your-money-when-you-buy-the-land?from=guide)
8. [where you sit in a blended finance stack](/guide/where-you-sit-in-a-blended-finance-stack?from=guide)
9. [a coupon that rises with the hazard](/guide/a-coupon-that-rises-with-the-hazard?from=guide)
10. [keeping wealth in a living asset](/guide/keeping-wealth-in-a-living-asset?from=guide)
11. [how to make an instrument for a place you care about](/guide/how-to-make-an-instrument-for-a-place-you-care-about?from=guide)
12. [getting paid to provide liquidity to a small market](/guide/getting-paid-to-provide-liquidity-to-a-small-market?from=guide)
13. [the effect is the revenue](/guide/the-effect-is-the-revenue?from=guide)