Guest Posts PFC Conference 2022: Reflections on Mobilizing Capital for an Equitable Community-Driven Finance Ecosystem PFC/FPC Oct 20, 2022 4 mins read News & Insights Guest Posts PFC Conference 2022: Reflections on Mobilizing Capital for an Equitable Community-Driven Finance Ecosystem Tracey Robertson, Lead for Innovation, Partnership Investments, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Victor Beausoleil, Executive Director of Social Economy through Social Inclusion (SETSI) Organizations and enterprises seeking to address current and long standing structural social, environmental, and economic issues need investment capital, alongside capacity support for adaptation, relief, rebuilding and innovation. At PFC’s recent conference, Trista Pewapisconias, Cooperatives First, Tiffany Callender, Federation of African Canadian Economics (FACE) and amanuel melles, Network for Advancement of Black Communities (NABC), moderated by Michelle Baldwin, Community Foundations of Canada (CFC), had an honest and candid dialogue on the opportunities and challenges of investing and supporting an equitable and inclusive community-driven finance ecosystem that can meet the capital needs of social purpose organizations and social entrepreneurs across Canada. This session was organized by Catalyst: Community Finance Collaborative. Catalyst is an emerging national coalition of social finance intermediaries, funders, entrepreneurs, non-profits and financial institutions that are working together to strengthen an equitable community-driven finance ecosystem, to mobilize capital for social purpose organizations and social entrepreneurs. The panel was a brilliant demonstration of community and intergenerational collaboration. It revolved around many questions and the actionable insights, which are important for many sectors to unpack. This is a summary of the key themes and issues discussed. Voice of the community (definers and decision makers) Community driven approaches to accessing capital are vital for success. Local business models are currently derived from colonized and patriarchal ways of operating. The sentiments shared by Trista Pewapisconias representing Cooperative First, which works with Indigenous communities to create cooperative businesses, were compelling. Trista emphasized that, “Indigeous ways of relating and operating, empower members to create based on their community beliefs and cultural imperatives.” Tiffany spoke of the need to mobilize Black leaders in the community to organize capital to invest in local black entrepreneurs and to build out Black-led intermediaries for capacity support. The motto for her in this instance was “for us by us.” Role of intermediaries It is critical that capital investors and intermediaries have a broad understanding of the actors in the ecosystems. Establishing genuine and reciprocal relationships that advance JAIDE (Justice, Access, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) is critical for the social economy ecosystem sustainability and it provides stakeholders the social license to co-create an equitable community driven finance ecosystem that centers the voices of those on the margins and historically excluded. Amanuel emphasized that community finance is important but not sufficient. We need to connect the dots between all the work that is happening across the community finance ecosystem and remember that thriving intermediaries help to do that. Trust across different actors Economic justice and Reconciliation are also key pillars of an equitable ecosystem. To decolonize spaces and enhance approaches to systemic transformation, wholesalers and intermediaries must be willing to cede power, transfer wealth and co-create frameworks that challenge the status quo and cultivate pathways for new actors. Innovation is boundless and scales exponentially when everyone is given the opportunity to contribute, but the historical narratives and paradigms of exclusion must change to achieve the community abundance we all desire and deserve. No code (decode), accessible to everyone To steward and advance the work of many communities we are collectively required to implement knowledge mobilization and translation activities. The current barriers to ecosystem amplification and engagement are rooted in a lack of access to not just capital but also information. Traditional models can work as a private bubble with its own code that is not widely shared which results in a profound disconnect from the good stuff that folks are leading in community. To create greater access, we must decode the technical jargon often associated with the aforementioned ecosystems and honour the diverse perspectives and lived experiences of many communities that have been participating in models of community finance and cooperative economics since time immemorial. The panel was a brilliant demonstration of community and intergenerational collaboration that can be summarized with the Yoruba proverb “It is better to go far together than fast alone.” #communityfinance #communitydriven #equity #economicreconciliation #catalyst Share This Article Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
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