What Is Social Finance?

Social Finance is an approach to managing money that delivers social and/or environmental benefits, and in most cases, a financial return. Social finance encourages positive social or environmental solutions at a scale that neither purely philanthropic supports nor traditional investment can reach.

Top Resources

• Social Finance: A Different Way to Do Good by The Give Smart Blog
• Why You Should Care: How Charities, Nonprofits, and Foundations can Benefit from Social Finance, by Nora Sobolov
• Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor
• The Quest for Blended Value Returns: Investor Perspectives on Social Finance in Canada
• From Fragmentation to Function: Critical Concepts and Writings on Social Capital Market's Structure, Operation and Innovation
• The Impact Investor’s Handbook: Lessons from the World of Microfinance

Top Blog Posts from SocialFinance.ca

• Social Finance: A National Imperative and Nascent Opportunity
• Sir Ronald Cohen on Social Finance
• The What and Where of Social Enterprise in Canada
• Bridging Theory and Practice in Social Finance

Related Websites

• Social Capital Markets
• Global Impact Investing Network
• Social Venture Exchange
• Social Edge
• AlEtmanski.com

Additional Resources

• Financing the Big Society: Why Social Investment Matters, CAP Venturesome
• Investing for Social and Environmental Impact, Monitor
• Community Development Investment Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Vol 5, Issue 2, 2009  
• Social Entrepreneurship - Part 1: Legislative Innovations, Enabling solutions to complex social problems, MaRS  
• Social Finance: Enabling social enterprise for public benefit, Causeway
• Causeway Social Finance Forum, 2008 Proceedings