Point A to B
Points of Interest. Shortest Point. Get the Point.
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| L-R Mary McGrath, Nancy Neamtan,
Itifo Engulu, Tessa Hebb, Tonya Surman
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Celebrating Women in
Impact Investing
On Thursday Nov. 6th, an evening reception was held at the Social Finance
Forum 2014, by the Women in Leadership Foundation for four outstanding women who work in the impact
investing field in Canada. Partnered with MaRS Centre for Impact
Investing in Toronto, the celebration highlighted the years and
dedication plus vision needed by the women to create the industry that exists
today.
The
evening was an opportunity for Forum attendees to celebrate the achievements of
the four successful women and their tremendous contributions to the sector. Without them,
Canada could not be providing the opportunity for people to invest in
businesses and causes that benefit society. Social Finance leads the way in
doing business differently and the four women represented have taken the steps
to make it possible.
Emceed by
the ever popular Allyson Hewitt, the Awards ceremony began with Itifo Engulu of
CIBC and formally of the Montreal Community Loan Fund, providing terrific
summaries of the many achievements of the award recipients while emphasizing
that these achievements had formed the foundation for Canada’s impact
investing field today.
Nancy Neamtan has been
working to develop investment in the social economy in Quebec since the late 1980's.
Currently, she is the President and Executive Director of the Chantier de
l’économie sociale. She was the first person to convince government and various
corporate funders to invest millions of dollars in the non-profit and
cooperative sector, laying the groundwork for future investments and providing
a model for partnership for the social finance sector.
Tessa
Hebb is currently the Director of the Carleton Centre for
Community Innovation and also a full-time professor at Carleton
University in Ottawa. In the mid 1990's, Tessa attended Harvard and
Oxford universities pursuing post-graduate degrees in her field now known as
Impact Investment. However, at the time of her studies, this term and
everything associated with it did not exist. As Canada’s longest standing
academic in the field of impact investing, Tessa had the vision to work in the
field before it had words. She has since helped to form the policies,
structures and terminology for impact investing in Canada.
In 2007, Mary
McGrath, working in collaboration with Ruth Richardson, co-founded and
developed Canada’s first crowdfunding site ‘Small Change Fund’. Pre-dating
Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Small Change Fund allows Canadians to fund issues of
environmental sustainability and social justice. The organization has enabled
support for grassroots projects, mostly in rural and isolated locations.
Mary’s leadership has given the sector its best tool to engage
Canadians to connect to, care about and support the environment.
In 2009, Tonya
Surman created Canada’s first community bond to buy and renovate the
Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. Now with three additional locations
including one in New York, CSI leads the sector in innovative finance development
made available to all people who want to build their communities. With
facilities housing more than 800 social enterprises and non-profits, CSI has
given impact investing a large scale, direct way for individuals to enact
change.
The women were awarded certificates of achievement for their
outstanding efforts in the field of Impact Investing. The 200+ crowd signified
loudly that the awards were well-earned. From the achievements of the award
recipients, it is obvious that Canada has had tremendous female leadership for
many years in the social finance sector. The Women in Leadership Foundation was
proud to have participated in a significant night of recognition.
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| Tina Crouse WIL Ottawa |
