Themes: Finance

Microbusinesses contribute significantly to both nation-wide economic activity and their owners’ household balance sheets, but many remain financially vulnerable, struggling to make ends meet and build wealth over time. Despite…

Business owners and social entrepreneurs in many communities struggle to access the funds they need to launch or expand their businesses and initiatives. At the same time, most of our…

About the Report: There have been a number of writers who have accurately identified the fundamental flaws within the current hegemonic financial and ownership system that support, and drive, unsustainable…

Seeking to address the investment financing challenge that co-operatives face, this research explores the potential for building on existing legislation in Manitoba to create a province-wide Community Development Investment Fund…

This paper describes innovative financing and delivery mechanisms for getting long-term unemployed people back into work. Finance can be innovative especially when it comes from non-public sources, when it is…

In Canada, community investment is a relatively young financial sector with an evolving definition. At its simplest, community investment is financing that targets underserved communities to develop opportunities for income…

For thirty years, the community development finance industry—banks, credit unions, loan funds, community development corporations, venture funds, microfinance institutions—has quietly provided responsible, well-designed and wellpriced credit to lower-income people and…

The social economy is not new and its beginnings can be traced all the way back to Babylonian times. However, it can be said to have officially emerged around the…

A Community Resilience Guide Americans’ long-term savings in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, pension funds, and life insurance funds total about $30 trillion. But not even 1 percent of these savings…

AFB 2011 presents a comprehensive recovery plan designed to: get Canadians working in good jobs again; reduce record-high income inequality, strengthen Canada’s middle class, and improve supports for Canada’s poor…

Governments across Canada are implementing comprehensive plans with targets and timelines aimed at reducing poverty and social exclusion. The Province of Manitoba has taken important steps to address poverty and…

As a fi rst step towards fulfi lling the Ontario Government’s election pledge to tackle poverty in the province, the new Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction will outline its strategy…