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Resilient Fund Exploring Ways to Measure Impact

Resilient Fund Exploring Ways to Measure Impact

Vancity's role

Community Capital is part of Vancity's Community Investment division, which provides growth capital to profitable high-impact BC based businesses, social enterprises, social ventures, and not-for-profit organizations. The Community Capital team develops alternate forms of business financing - lending and equity investments that are designed to drive social and environmental impact to help communities thrive.

January 19, 2012First loan recipients Save-on-Meats, Atira Property Management say capital creating employment, feeding low-income people and preventing violence against women.

That’s what Vancity and the Vancouver Foundation are hoping to discover by measuring the social impact of investments from the newly-launched Resilient Capital program. The high-impact investment fund that was announced in November has a mission to build resilient communities by making up to $15 million of patient capital available to organizations tackling social and environmental challenges.

Resilient Capital, which currently stands near $11 million, pays its depositors a slightly higher premium than provincial government bonds. However, it’s demonstrating the impact the money makes that will ultimately convince people to move their money says Diane Fulton, the Vancouver Foundation’s vice-president and chief investment officer.

“More people will become interested in investing in this social finance field if we can demonstrate that the funds that have been put into Resilient Capital have made a difference,” she says. “If we can concretely measure impact, if we can show the impact, it should just mean that this area expands over time.”

Article courtesy of Axiom News. Read full article.