I am here at a truly global event at fiess2011.  At the Palais des Congrès, in Montreal, the room is filled with over 1200 people from across 67 countries.  This conference shines a bright light on initiatives driven by local leadership and communities with some anticipation of what will grow out of the ashes of our current world financial crisis.

I am curious about the role institutional investors have in building the social economy and how further engagement can take place.  So, I took at deeper dive into Fondaction CSN and Fonds de solidarite.  These funds were born after the financial crisis of the 1980s when unemployment was at 14% and interest rates hovered at 18%. Quebec pension funds and the labour movement sought ways to stimulate the Quebec economy and job creation, through the development of investment funds. This interested me, because today, institutional investors such as pension funds, banks and credit unions have a critical role and opportunity in the emerging impact investment market in Canada and globally.

Over the last number of months at MaRS I have focused on the development of the new Centre for Impact Investing with a goal of scaling the market to allow for multiple points of entry for entrepreneurs and investors.  A big question is: how can we engage investors and support social enterprises to achieve scale?  Some great examples were presented over lunch with Michael Swack, Founder and Chair of the Financial Innovations Roundtable at the Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire.

Michael spoke about making social impact at scale. He asked us how we exercise collaboration to go to scale and affect more people in a positive way. His answer? “The future is plastics…. no no no, the future is infrastructure”.  Okay, so infrastructure is not very exciting, until you hear about collaborative business models.

Collaborative business models retain local control and ownership, lower the cost of operations, and expand access to capital and management talent through pooled resources and shared infrastructure. This allows for a reduction in efforts devoted to fundraising, increasing the number of people reached and the overall social impact.

Here are two examples to follow: CCA Global Partners and ROC.

• CCA Global Partners helps SMEs collaborate and coordinate shared services, and has over 2,700 franchises world wide. Their Social Good program, CCA For Social Good™, has produced a nonprofit business toolkit that helps nonprofits achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness. This program allows nonprofits to scale while staying independent.
• ROC stands for Resident Owned Communities. When a manufactured home community or “mobile home park” is for sale, ROC seeks to provide homeowners, who are working together as a democratic organization, with the opportunity to purchase their community. ROC also provides groups with on-going technical and networking support as well as training, aiming to improve access to affordable housing and build assets for low-and-moderate income families and individuals.

Michael suggests that to go to scale, we need to collaborate with people who bring different skillsets and strategies.  We also need to consider what types of partners and systems are required at different points of the business cycle.  He recognizes the vital role of government subsidies, philanthropy, and the private sector through the life cycle.

This brings me back to the start of the day, when Samuel Barco (VP, INNOMADES) from Spain reminded us that we are a whole interrelated eco-system, connected as a network of actors, with no one actor in control.  This is important, as we talk about the transformation of a system as a process of evolution, which may end up being a longer-term process than imagined. Transformation includes a culture shift towards pluralism - and this gathering is doing a great job of encouraging that.

I am here at fiess2011. Follow us on Twitter, using the hashtag #fiess2011.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/futurowoman/2093464886/

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