Vancouver: Making Impact Through Social Finance
We are pleased to announce that the Canadian Global Impact Investing Group is expanding into Vancouver with its first local event, “Making Impact Through Social Finance”. Please join us as we hear from organizations deploying capital to transform lives, reduce poverty, fund social ventures, build communities, and support sustainable development. Presentations from the Vancouver for Acumen Fund chapter, Vancity, the Global Catalyst Initiative, and Opportunity International Canada will give us insights into each organization and how they are making an impact. We hope that you will gain a broader understanding of social finance, mission related investing, microfinance,community based investment products, and how you can blend investment opportunities that generate a return while also making a difference.
This event will be held on Wednesday, November 23rd from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm,with speakers presenting between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm. The event is sponsored by the Segal Graduate School of Business and will be hosted at their facility at 500 Granville Street, at the corner of West Pender in downtown Vancouver. We would like to thank the Segal Graduate School of Business for supporting this event.
We will be giving away door prizes - a copy of the newly released book, Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference, written by industry gurus Antony Bugg-Levine and Jed Emerson, and Banker to the Poor, authored by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus.
To register for the event, please RSVP at: http://www.meetup.com/Canadian-Global-Impact-Investing-Group/
The following is a brief summary of each organization:
Vancouver for Acumen Fund Chapter: The Acumen Fund is a pioneering not-for-profit global venture fund that is changing the way the world addresses poverty. The Acumen Fund makes disciplined investments (loans or equity) that yield both financial and social returns. Vancouver for Acumen, a volunteer-run chapter, supports this mission by actively championing Acumen Fund’s innovative model of investing patient capital in enterprises that solve the problems of poverty. Since it was founded in 2001, the Acumen Fund has invested more than $45 million in enterprises that provide access to water, health, energy, housing and agriculture inputs to low-income customers in South Asia and East Africa.
Vancity: Vancity’s triple bottom line business model is driven not only by a commitment to financial success, but to environmental and social sustainability as well. Vancity offers a variety of community investment and Socially Responsible Investing products that are integrated with its banking and financial services, combining competitive financial returns with positive social returns. Just as an example, its enviroVISA and Home Energy Loan Program help act positively on climate change, flexible and patient loans from the Resilient Capital Program help high impact social enterprises grow their businesses, and Vancity staff provide financial literacy workshops to members of the community.
The Global Catalyst Initiative: The Global Catalyst Initiative works with early stage, market-oriented social ventures tackling global poverty in the developing world. By providing capital, active project support, and access to key advisors, it helps ventures grow from pilot to proof of concept, and improves their investment readiness and positioning within the impact investing landscape.
Opportunity International: Opportunity International is one of the world’s largest non-profit microfinance organizations providing small business loans, savings, insurance and training to entrepreneurs in the developing world so they can work their way out of poverty with dignity. We will hear an overview of Opportunity International’s Agrifinance program in Africa, which can transform farmers from subsistence growers to cash crop producers through access to loan capital. Opportunity International also helps farmers improve crop productivity and expand market access for their crops through its partnership programs.
