Publications
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Funding Services For Homeless Youth In Canada
Homelessness in Canada is dire and responses to the crisis are growing more sophisticated. Communities are beginning to recognize the differences between homeless youth and adults and are reshaping their services to reflect that fact. Many are seeking an end to homelessness, rather than just mitigation of its harm. Some are collecting data and managing […]
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Market Momentum: Impact Investing & High Net Worth Canadians
As the impact investing ecosystem continues to grow, and powerful voices speak up in support of it (think Larry Fink’s letter to BlackRock’s portfolio companies’ CEOs), investors are increasingly looking to combine profits with purpose. Canadian research has focused primarily on investments made by large institutional investors and funds, rather than on individual investors. To […]
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The Pay-for-Success Opportunity: From Activities to Outcomes
In social services, intuition does not always produce results and long-funded programs do not always achieve what we hope. As we realize the complexity of changing people’s lives, evidence has become the watchword. Service providers want to know that their work actually helps those they serve. Governments and other funders want to know that their […]
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Do Ontario’s For-Profit Social Enterprises Face a Capital Gap?
A gap between the capital sought by social enterprises and the capital supplied by the market may dampen sector growth. To maximize jobs, revenue and social good, policy-makers must know if a capital gap exists and, if so, at what size. We wrote this paper to help fill those blanks. We report the findings from […]
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How Pay-for-Performance Can Improve Employment Outcomes for Syrian Refugees
Since November 4, 2015, Canada has admitted more than 40,000 Syrian refugees. More than 25,000 of these refugees arrived between November 4, 2015 and February 29, 2016. These refugees are now settling across Canada. Many are or soon will be looking for work. To help refugees find work, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) funds […]
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Barriers to Putting Community Bonds into RRSP Accounts
Impact investors are buying into social enterprises through community bonds. Some of those investors want to put their community bonds into their RRSP accounts. We investigated why mainstream financial institutions usually hesitate to accept community bonds into their clients’ RRSP accounts. Our interviews revealed key barriers that render the bonds expensive and difficult to process […]
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A Health Outcomes Fund for Canada
How paying for outcomes could improve health and deliver better value for money Compared to other high-income countries, Canada’s health system performs poorly. It delivers neither the highest quality of care to citizens, nor does it deliver good value for money. New approaches are needed. This paper sets out the case for establishing a health […]
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Making the most of our money
Why Canada and Ontario should invest unclaimed assets for social good The Bank of Canada holds $626 million in unclaimed assets, a sum that grew by $49 million in 2015. An asset that remains unclaimed will eventually turn into national revenue, but until then it is held in low-yield investments. British Columbia, Alberta and Québec […]
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Impact Donor Advised Funds
A scan No matter how good our intentions or how much money we spend, we continue to struggle with many of the same problems. Solutions to deep social ills—chronic disease, homelessness, children in government care—seem distant despite constant effort. Tying social spending to outcomes attempts to make our efforts more effective. Outcome funding pays social […]
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Enterprising Change
Report of the 2015 Social Enterprise Survey for Ontario There has been a lot of talk about social enterprise (SE) over the last few years, with many ideas about what it is and what it means for the future of our communities. While there is no one definition of social enterprise, most agree it involves […]
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Issue Brief on Seed-Stage Impact Investing in Canada: Insights from the field
Seed-stage investing is attracting an increasing amount of attention from Canadian impact investors.1 At the same time, new accelerator programs tailored to the needs of seed-stage impact ventures are emerging across the country. These trends point to a growing interest in seed-stage impact ventures and their capital needs. As impact investing market builders, we at […]
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Mobilizing Private Capital for Public Good
Priorities for Canada Focused on directing private capital into projects and ventures whose aims are to deliver measurable social outcomes, impact investment (or social finance) has the potential to foster innovation in the social sector. It is spurring new forms of non-profit, private and public sector collaboration, and is being used to develop and test […]
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Impact Investing in Canada
State of the nation Canadians are faced with persistent social and environmental challenges that require cost-effective solutions. Our future ability to meet growing needs in education, healthcare, energy, climate change, and the inclusion of vulnerable populations such as seniors, people with disabilities and new Canadians, requires an integrated approach to link and unlock economic and […]
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The Landscape for Social Impact Investing
A white paper Impact investing is a term that has recently been introduced into the investment community. It describes a range of finance and investment approaches that have the goal of generating both financial return and benefit to society. In the past five years, the impact investing industry has grown tremendously. In 2010, global assets […]
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Blended Financing for Impact
The opportunity for social finance in supportive housing Driven by the work of the Turning the Key report commissioned by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, a number of supportive housing providers in Canada created a Social Finance Working Group in 2012. Their goal was to explore social finance opportunities in the supportive housing sector, […]
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Mission Possible
Assessing the appetite, activity and barriers for impact investing among Canadian foundations Impact investing is an emergent investment strategy that seeks to disrupt the traditional, bifurcated systems in which governments and civic organizations address social needs, while markets, private capital and business seek financial returns. By proactively directing private capital toward opportunities that generate positive […]