The Social Investment Organization (SIO) is pleased to announce the 2010 publication of Your Guide to Socially Responsible Mutual Fund Companies in Canada, a new reference tool for investment advisors and investors.

"The Guide offers an accessible overview of each company’s profile, SRI products and services and investment philosophy," said Eugene Ellmen, Executive Director of the Social Investment Organization. "Investors can also research company websites, where additional information will be found."

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The financing problems of social enterprise in Canada are well-known. Banks have difficulty extending commercial loans to social enterprises because they lack the security of hard assets, and private investors can't take ownership positions in businesses that -- as non-profits -- have no owners.

Yet there are fledgling models in Canada that have overcome these barriers. The Candian Alternative Investment Cooperative (CAIC), Access Toronto, Jubilee Fund in Winnipeg, and community loan funds in Montreal and Ottawa are some of the innovations that have successfully brought together socially responsible investors with local volunteers and publicly-funded agencies. The result is jobs and economic opportunity for low-income people in these communities.

The challenge now is to scale up. Is there a way to create an investment product that would attract not just thousands of dollars, but tens of millions of dollars to the social enterprise sector? As communities across Canada struggle with the effects of the current recession compounded by years of economic and social neglect, the need for such an investment vehicle has never been greater.

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There have recently been significant inroads made in creating new sources of financing for non-profits and social ventures in Canada. Causeway, a program of Social Innovation Generation (SiG) and an organization incubated at MaRS in Toronto committed to catalyzing the social finance marketplace, hosted two discussions over the past month to flesh out the development of potential investment vehicles.

In this discussion I will provide context for these conversations and offer resources for further understanding. I will continue to use this blog platform to chronicle the main developments of these funds in an attempt to keep you and the mounting number of social financiers up-to-date.

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There is an increasing need for the non-profit sector in Canada to seek new innovative ways of accessing capital to meet their goals. But before we go in-depth on the emerging world of social finance, it’s important to explore the different types of financing that exist for an organization.

Financing is the money acquired to run an organization and achieve its mission. All types of organizations must make decisions around financing with respect to their business objectives, ability to secure alternative investment, risk tolerance, and other related factors. Although, financing options vary based on the organization’s legal structure there are typically three types of financing options available to non-profits or social enterprises: Grant Funding, Debt, and Equity.

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The Social Investment Organization is seeking proposals for a consulting assignment to conduct research into the creation of an investment offering to finance social enterprise in Ontario.

The goal of the project is to determine the requirements for financing social enterprises in Ontario, and to establish a province-wide or national investment offering that would provide financing to social enterprise initiatives.

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