Two entrepreneurs. Two successful businesses. Both were unable to access financing from mainstream financial institutions. Both are driven entrepreneurs with solid business plans to support their growth. Both have experienced economic and social benefits, and were empowered through capital. The difference was the setting: Ouattara is a client of a microfinance organization based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Ryan is part of a new targeted domestic microfinance project in Toronto, Canada.

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On April 8, 2011, MaRS hosted nine practitioners of social finance from across the spectrum to speak about the best (and worst) practices in social finance. Alex Kjorven was the Development Manager at the ACCESS Community Capital Fund at the time of this event and spoke about practices to avoid when practicing microfinance in Canada. How do you ensure that your staff are properly trained to deal with clients? How do you properly evaluate potential loan recipients? "If we try too hard to make it perfect, we'll actually end up screening out the very people we are trying to help."

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I recently attended the 2011 Social Finance Forum, organized by the newly minted MaRS Centre for Impact Investing. A worthy event, to be sure, it provided me with much to ponder while offering a fascinating snapshot of this at-times-dynamic-at-other-times-stagnant social finance space.

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Venture Deli Management Services seeks an experienced Executive Assistant to help in the growth and development of its growing management consultancy and investment management business.

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