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Social Finance

Canada’s social and environmental sectors are dramatically underfinanced. To scale up their programs and increase impact, they need access to new forms of capital.

The increased scale and impact of social finance in Canada will generate significant long-term benefits to Canadian society.

Our focus is to map an accelerated growth plan for the financial infrastructure urgently needed to support Canada’s charitable sector.

Tides Canada hosts Causeway, a new national collaboration to accelerate the growth of social finance options for charities and community organizations.

Learn more about Social Finance from Tim Draimin, Tides’ senior fellow and Natasha van Bentum of Tides’ PowerUP Canada Fund in the Charity Village cover story Social Finance: A hopeful alternative for mission success by Elisa Birnbaum.

Innovation & Social Enterprise: Building Financial Capacity
Is the person possessed by a truly new idea for solving a public need? Is it a truly transformational innovation, or just a tweaking of how things are now done? How is it different from what others do in the field?
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Strengthening Organizational Capacity
If you find it increasingly tough to cultivate and manage a gaggle of funders and their divergent needs, an emerging class of financing may become a vital new source of sustainability for your organization. According to the findings of a recent survey1 on the emerging world of social finance, senior executives from nonprofit organizations around the world are keen to access new forms of capital for their organizations.
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Social Finance Forum MaRS Discovery District
Canada’s first national conversation on social finance with the mainstream financial industry was held in Toronto on October 15, 2007, building upon a number of successful forums held from 2004 - 2006 in Vancouver on innovations in social finance.
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Building Social Finance Momentum
An underdeveloped but essential aspect of sustainable investing in Canada prepared by Tim Draimin, Tides Canada Foundation; Ted Jackson, Carleton University for the Social Investment Organization (SIO) Conference.
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Scaling Up the Canadian Social Finance Sector
There is considerable interest in the opportunity of scaling up social finance in Canada. To that end, Tides Canada, J.W. McConnell Foundation and PLAN, with funding from Vancity Credit Union, hosted a 1.5 day social finance strategy session with national leaders in social finance on October 19 and 20, 2006. The purpose of the meeting was to map an accelerated growth plan for the financial infrastructure needed to support Canada’s competitive, innovative and entrepreneurial social sector.
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The Social Purpose Capital Marketplace
There is growing interest in the opportunity of scaling up social finance in Canada, as a means to foster social innovation and leverage additional capital to advance the social and environmental quality of life. This paper compiles recent thinking on the opportunity of creating a social capital marketplace, with a focus on the role of charitable organizations, both as financiers and recipients of social finance capital.
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21st Century Financing: Exploring New Sources of Investment For Social Transformation
Tides Canada Foundation, the Plan Institute for Caring Citizenship, Ashoka and Vancity Credit Union hosted a roundtable dialogue on 21st Century Financing: Exploring New Sources of Investment for Social Transformation.
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Over the Horizon: The Future of Canada’s Capital Market for Social and Environmental Innovation
Tides Canada Foundation and Social Capital Partners hosted a roundtable dialogue on the state of “social” capital markets in Canada to look at the new forms of innovation in finance for social purpose initiatives led by non-profit or charitable organizations or hybrids involving for-profits.
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Social Finance in Ireland
This document sets out to examine the opportunities for social finance provision in Ireland. It is written to support and inform the work of those engaged in and supporting local development in Ireland.
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