INVESTMENT READINESS PROGRAM

First convened as a roundtable of social finance fund managers in 2012, the pan-Canadian body was formalized as the National Impact Investment Practitioner’s table (NIIPt) in 2014 and was rebranded as the Table of Impact Investment Practitioners (TIIP) in 2020.  Focused on the pivotal role of social finance intermediaries in preparing the sector to effectively mobilize, amplify and deploy a catalytic infusion of capital in the service of the Sustainable Development Goals, the TIIP mandate is three-fold:

• As a community of practice and reciprocal support, engaging in continuous knowledge-sharing and the candid exchange of applied experience;
• As policy advocate and advisor, identifying and communicating shared legislative, regulatory and infrastructure priorities with all orders of government, and;
• In the context of the Investment Readiness Program, as an “ecosystem mobilization partner,” including active capacity-building support for emergent intermediaries and social purpose organizations, and practical collaborations with readiness partners, researchers and service providers across the system. These integrating initiatives include the State of Social Finance in Canada 2021 report, outlining gaps and opportunities for intermediaries in the social finance landscape.

Expanding Access to Impact Investment (EAII) is an initiative focused on the assessment and potential development of systems to engage and enable a broad range of investors to pursue impact investing. The work includes development of market development strategies with a vision to grow the marketplace and capital sources for social impact funds in Canada. In particular, this initiative focuses on opportunities to increase the flow of capital directed to social finance intermediaries such as community loan funds, affordable housing funds, social venture capital and Indigenous venture funds that connect the supply side of the social finance market (such as, social finance investors) with the demand side (such as, social purpose organizations).

This initiative looks to:

• Assess and test legal structures, technology platforms and business models to identify opportunities to sustainably enhance investment into a broad range of social finance intermediaries.
• Leverage the experience of leading social finance intermediaries and market enabling technologies to develop common solutions for accessing investors.
• Assess enablers and blockers in awareness, engagement and activation of impact investments by non-institutional investors, including everyday retail investors, angel investors, family offices, high net worth individuals and wealth advisors.
• Assess the needs and challenges being faced by social finance intermediaries to expand their investor base in order to provide additional sources of capital for investment into opportunities providing social, environmental and economic returns.

The Small Communities Initiative (SCI) focuses on building and preserving affordable community housing and other community-owned assets in rural and smaller communities across Canada, as well as supporting Indigenous financial intermediaries to attract, structure, and grow community investments. This initiative looks to:

• Strengthen the capacity of, and tools available to, small community intermediaries and service delivery partners in order to attract early stage funding and support the delivery of community asset projects.
• Provide financial support to key service delivery partners and intermediaries through the SCI small grants program.
• Develop an Indigenous Partnership Fund to improve access to non-governmental capital for growing Indigenous community-owned financial intermediaries and enterprises.

Case Studies