What are reasonable profitability targets for a social enterprise start-up with a mission to create employment for disadvantaged populations? How does external financing play a role in the execution of the social mission and how does a social mission as a key part of the business model impact the ability to reach profitability targets? SCP showcases one of our early investments and highlights key learnings about the inherent mission tensions in these business models.

“We knew that in order to understand the “blended value” (social and financial) of these kinds of investments, we would need a different kind of measurement tool to help us and our portfolio organizations understand their unique value creation – a Social Return on Investment.”


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BANC committee submission on SME financing

Canada can continue treating its financing monoculture as inevitable, or it can follow the lead of peer jurisdictions and intentionally build the institutional diversity required for a different outcome. The status quo produces predictable, cumulative exclusions that compound over time into lower productivity, narrower entrepreneurship, weaker community resilience and entrenched inequity.

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