Community Impact Investment

We have set up a Community Investment Cooperative here on Vancouver Island to provide a vehicle for local people to invest in community impact on social, economic and environmental conditions in their own backyards.  We will be investing in affordable rental housing, renewable energy, waste recovery and recycling, and sustainable community economic development.  We now have a Coalition of community investment funds across BC to strengthen this work, inspired by initiatives like community economic development investment funds in Nova Scotia.  There are big challenges for this kind of work so that the Federal Social Finance and Social Innovation initiative can help address.  We need:  Matching capital from the federal government; tax incentives and enabling regulations to get over the hurdles that Securities Commissions place in our way.  

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Consultation has concluded

guydauncey about 7 years ago
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courtneymo about 7 years ago
Thank you for sharing this important work! Community Economic Development Investment Funds are an important way to increase access to capital for entrepreneurs and to increase investment opportunities for community-minded investors. I agree that the Government of Canada could support changes to securities rules to make the setting up of these funds easier and they could ensure they are RRSP eligbible.
clairehhb about 7 years ago
Beyond the securities commissions, it will be important to have government support to engage the brokerage firms to allow clients to put impact investments in their portfolios. It has been my experience that there are many RRSP eligible impact investments that do not get approved by a brokerage firms new product committee due to a lack of familiarity with the impact investment space or because of logistical challenges to the registration of the security. The cost of being listed on Fundserv or other digital platforms that facilitate the purchase and sale of securities is a MAJOR obstacle to large scale uptake of impact investments despite signifcant investor demand.