This Community Finance Gathering is an open and inclusive convening of community finance stakeholders in Ontario, from place-based funds and financial institutions to community organizations and policy leaders.

This gathering is a part of the Catalyst Community Finance Initiative. We are seeking to build and scale the ecosystem together and it is critical to have a wide range of perspectives and stakeholders at the table. We hope you will join us!

Convening Goals

• Connections: Participants gain a better understanding of the network of individuals and organizations connecting through the “Catalyst Community Finance Initiative” and those committed to the development of community finance in Ontario.
• Updates and Information Sharing: Participants will receive updates on the community research and other activities of the Catalyst Community Finance Initiative.
• Discussion and Dialogue: This dialogue will support the framing and ongoing development of an organizing model and action tables from various perspectives and social lenses to scale the work of our community finance ecosystem collectively.

About Catalyst

The Catalyst: Community Finance Initiative is a multi-year initiative to develop enhanced ecosystem and policy infrastructure to support the start-up and scale up place-based community finance organizations in urban, rural and Northern communities in Ontario and across the country.

We are seeking to: collectively design relevant ecosystem and provincial public policy infrastructure to ensure that community finance institutions can successfully and sustainably start-up and scale their impact; facilitate knowledge sharing amongst place-based finance and capacity organizations; and engage existing and new community finance organizations that can serve organizations, projects, and enterprises in selected urban, rural and Northern communities, alongside mainstream leaders in philanthropy, public policy, and financial institutions.

A growing, wide range of networks, intermediaries and funders are supporting this initiative including the following organizations:

For more information about Catalyst, please visit: https://catalystcommunityfinance.ca/