The Government of Canada announced this week who’ll distribute the renewed $50 million Investment Readiness Program (IRP). 

The Investment Readiness Program is an initiative of the Social Finance Fund, a $755 million federal government initiative announced in 2018 to boost the amount of repayable capital available to social purpose organizations, including charities and non-profits. The program provides funding to organizations that may not be ready to take on this kind of loan. 

The renewed program will see four organizations act as “readiness support partners”, distributing funds directly to social purpose organizations looking to boost their investment readiness; and 22 “ecosystem builders” who will fund projects focused on strengthening Canada’s social innovation communities. 

Notably, the Foundation for Black Communities (FFBC), a philanthropic organization funding Black-led, Black-serving organizations across the country, will fund social purpose organizations directly. Though FFBC isn’t one of the four “readiness support partners,” one of those four organizations — Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) — is mandated to “provide support for the Foundation For Black Communities…to direct IRP funding to Black-led and Black-serving SPOs.” 

Speaking to Future of Good, FFBC’s co-founder, Liban Abokor, says CFC will support FFBC with granting infrastructure and some marketing, but that FFBC will make all decisions about which Black-led, Black-serving social purpose organizations will receive grants.

Abokor commends CFC for “recognizing that we need an organization like FFBC to do this.” He adds: “I think it’s important to recognize…folks being committed to racial equity, and saying, ‘We’re going to take a bit of a different path that’s necessary to get to a better destination.’” 

Abokor says the decision to be part of the IRP has a lot to do with FFBC’s mission for its own future. He says the foundation hopes to one day have its endowment invested heavily in Black-led, Black-serving organizations, so building the capacity of those organizations to take on investment is an important step toward that goal.

“The Foundation for Black Communities wants to ensure that the endowment that we’re building is not only available to Black communities through granting,” Abokor says, but that they’re also reaching Black communities through investment. Abokor says FFBC will invest in charities, non-profits, and some for-profit organizations serving Black communities across the country. 

The IRP’s renewal was announced in the April 2021 federal budget, and in May of 2021, the government announced it would seek feedback from recipients of the IRP on how to improve the next round. In a Future of Good story at the time, Victor Beausoleil, SETSI’s executive director, said, “Ensuring that a Black-led Investment Readiness Partner is included amongst the intermediaries is an important step towards greater inclusion, diversity, equity and access in the social innovation and social finance ecosystem.” At the time, he told Future of Good, “The current ecosystem is not adequately meeting the resource and capacity needs of African Canadians who are not just underrepresented – we have been historically excluded.” 

Overall, there appears to be a slightly sharper focus on equity-seeking communities among the funding partners for the renewed program than those of the pilot program. Six of the 22 partners of the original IRP appear to have been focused explicitly on various equity-seeking communities (such as racialized and Indigenous communities), while 10 of the 26 partners on the new list appear to have this focus. Some organizations serving equity-seeking groups added to the list of intermediaries include the Native Women’s Association of Canada; EntrepreNorth, an organization serving Northern Indigenous entrepreneurs; and Inclusion Canada, which serves people with intellectual disabilities.

Abokor says he hopes FFBC’s granting is one step of many toward a more equity-centred social finance landscape. “We want to ensure that the Investment Readiness Program isn’t seen as conclusive,” Abokor says. “We hope that there will be Black-led intermediaries [for the Social Finance Fund] as well.” 

Details about how much money each granting partner, including FFBC, will receive are not yet released. Abokor says FFBC will begin accepting applications in the fall of 2022.

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