Despite constrained resources, community finance organizations shaping future of rural, northern Canada

“We're able to find entrepreneurs that may have faced challenges beyond the balance sheet.”

Why It Matters

Northern and rural Canada face unique economic challenges, and while the community finance landscape in these regions is limited, community needs are high. Here are three intermediaries finding creative ways to fund ventures and grow local ecosystems.

This journalism is made possible by a partnership with Catalyst: Community Finance Initiative. See our editorial ethics and standards here.

In the 1990s, in Blyth, Ont., the world-renowned Blyth Festival Theatre hit a financial wall, with the banks recalling the theatre’s operating loans.

The small village faced the possible loss of their cultural hub, where stories of rural Canadians often took centre stage.

The theatre contacted Community Futures Huron, a federally-funded initiative providing small business services to rural and remote communities. Founded the same year, Community Futures Huron agreed to give the theatre a loan, and within a month or two, the Blyt

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