Social Finance Fund | Wholesaler

The Social Finance Fund (SFF) is a $755 million initiative that seeks to accelerate the growth of Canada’s social finance market.

The SFF will support charities, non-profits, social enterprises, co-operatives and other social purpose organizations (SPOs) in accessing flexible financing opportunities. Greater access to social finance through the SFF will help them grow, innovate, and enhance their social and environmental impacts.

Program design

The SFF will provide repayable funds to a small number of investment managers known as wholesalers. The SFF will also provide a smaller portion of non-repayable funds for activities that support the wholesalers’ use of repayable funds and the SFF’s goals.

Wholesalers will invest in existing or emerging social finance intermediaries, such as credit unions, community loan funds, and private equity firms. Wholesalers will invest in social finance intermediaries alongside other investors. Investors will aim to leverage a minimum of two dollars in private capital for each dollar in federal support.

Social finance intermediaries will invest in a range of diverse SPOs. The SFF seeks to reach and support SPO’s led by or serving diverse equity-deserving groups. These include:

• Indigenous peoples
• women
• low-income individuals
• people with disabilities
• linguistic minorities
• Black Canadians and other racialized communities
• members of the LGBTQ2+ community
• recent immigrants and refugees

ESDC will not directly fund SPOs or SFIs through the SFF. Organizations interested in accessing financing should communicate directly with the selected wholesaler(s) and SFIs.

ESDC will select wholesalers through an open and competitive process. Wholesaler(s) will receive funding over 10 years on an annual basis and upon demonstration of needs and capacities. Recipients of funds must make all applicable repayments from investment proceeds by the end of the program. The Government of Canada expects final repayment of funds by 2036 to 2037.

ESDC will communicate further details about the program design once wholesalers are selected.

The objectives of the SFF are to:

• support the development of existing and emerging social finance intermediaries
• extend the reach of social finance to underserved Canadian populations, sectors and regions, including rural communities and the North
• enable the sustainable growth of diverse social purpose organizations
• advance Canada’s progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

To meet these objectives, wholesalers will:

• leverage new private investment to co-invest in social finance intermediaries and/or to invest in the proposed wholesaler fund towards the target of leveraging a minimum of $2 of private investment for each $1 of SFF contribution
• support existing and emerging social finance intermediaries with affordable and flexible financing as well as technical and management expertise
• work with social finance intermediaries to ensure diverse social purpose organizations can access affordable and flexible financing as well as technical and management expertise
• incorporate a social equity lens in the process of investment decision-making to ensure the full inclusion of equity-deserving groups
• contribute to the SFF’s goal of a minimum of $100 million dedicated to investments in gender equality
• work with social finance intermediaries and social purpose organizations to implement robust impact measurement and management approaches to ensure investments contribute to measurable social and environmental impacts

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