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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We have previously explored the links between social finance and Islamic finance; here, we explore Islamic finance claims of social impact. Part 1, published last week, examined the model; here, Part 2 lists a few examples of Islamic finance being used to produce social benefits.

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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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We have previously explored the links between social finance and Islamic finance; here, we explore Islamic finance claims of social impact. Part 1 examines the model; Part 2 lists a few examples of Islamic finance being used to produce social benefits. What is the scale of social benefits of Islamic finance? Can conventional social finance learn anything from its principles?

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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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