The SocialFinance.ca weekly round up is back! SocialFinance.ca produces a round up featuring social finance related news, insights, job openings, and events. We source the content for these round ups from Twitter, an RSS reader, and directly from our community of social finance practitioners. Below is our round up for the weeks of January 16 and January 24.
National

This series of blogs talks about social purchase as a way to bolster demand for the goods and services produced by social enterprises. The first two posts have described the concept and suggested two ways of encouraging its adoption, especially in the public sector.
The Caledon Institute recommended this approach to the City of Hamilton as one option in pursuing its goal of social inclusion, in respect of its role as co-host of the PanAm Games in 2015. Here are the recommendations on social purchase that we made to the City. They pertain to the Games specifically but clearly have broader application.
What a great year it has been in social finance and impact investing. There has been a massive surge in interest as more and more people realize that making the world a better place and living well are not, in fact, mutually exclusive.
I was fortunate enough to attend last week's Social Finance Forum organized by the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing (CII). The event was packed and there was a real buzz in the air. I left MaRS with renewed faith and a sore throat, a testament to my yapping all day long with incredibly interesting people. I have two personal takeaways from the event I thought I'd share with the social finance community, with the hope that you will accept my honesty in a positive light.
The 2011 Social Finance Forum, which took place over the past two days at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto, brought together investors and ventures in order to create meaningful interactions and learning opportunities to mobilize capital and inspire new ideas. This video covers some of the key events of the day.



























