Social Entrepreneurship @ Work: Recap of Canada's 2007 Social Finance Forum

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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. Over 80 participants from the traditional ﬁnance and social ﬁnance sectors, academia, federal and provincial governments, funders, credit unions and co-operatives attended the Forum hosted by “Causeway”, a national collaborative working on effective pathways for ﬁnancial investment in public beneﬁt. They came to learn about Canadian and global best practices and success stores in social ﬁnance and the challenges and opportunities for scaling up social ﬁnance nationally. Participants were asked to consider how the ﬂow of capital to address growing social and environmental challenges could be increased and what role they could play in the effort.

The Forum was sponsored by SiG @ MaRS, Social Capital Partners, The J. W. McConnell Family Foundation and Tides Canada Foundation and coordinated by the Causeway Steering Committee, comprised of Tim Draimin of Tides Canada, Tim Brodhead of the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation, Carol Hunter of the Canadian Co-operative Association, Ted Jackson of Carleton University, and Al Etmanski of PLAN and Ashoka Canada. The Committee also greatly beneﬁted with advice from Laird Hunter.

Canadian social ﬁnance practitioner panelists commented that there is a need for a creative non-proﬁt investment bank, a need to build social entrepreneurship, a role for federal and provincial policy to support social ﬁnance, and a need for recognition that high risk capital investments in underserved markets can be proﬁtable.

The Canadian Disability Savings Plan was proﬁled as a public policy and ﬁnancing innovation that could both generate social ﬁnancing for enterprise development and inspire the opportunity of market-based approaches to social inclusion.

A number of international case studies were reviewed for replicability to the Canadian context, including the UK experience with fostering the development of a social ﬁnance sector particularly the role of tax incentives, community development venture funds, foundation investment, bank disclosure, sector association and structures and models for local social venture ﬁnancing.

The Deutsche Bank’s Eye Fund, the US Low Proﬁt Limited Liability Corporation and the US Financial Innovations Roundtable were considered as examples of how the traditional ﬁnancial sector can generate blended social and ﬁnancial investment returns; how new legislated corporate models can foster social innovation; and how sectoral collaboration can help advance market sophistication in the social ﬁnance sector.

Participants were asked to identify highlights of the day and suggestions for next steps to be included in planning future phases of the Causeway initiative. Groups reported that there is a need for more collaborative structures, there is an opportunity to build a social capital marketplace based on the experience of others, the perception of risk is higher than actual risk, there is a role for government to advance the sector, Canadian institutional investments should be mobilized and the opportunity exists to leverage up good Canadian practice.

The Causeway Steering Committee committed to incorporating input from Forum participants in developing an action plan for furthering the dialogue and collaboration towards the creation of a social capital marketplace in Canada.