Towards a Thriving Community Finance Ecosystem

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The Towards: Community Finance Development Accelerator is a capacity-building program providing technical knowledge, advice, visibility to investors, and peer support for community finance intermediaries seeking to drive positive social and environmental impact in their communities through lending and investing. A key highlight of this program is the opportunity to connect with investors, culminating in an investor showcase during the final session.

One participant in this year’s program will receive a $10,000 peer grant, awarded during the Investor Showcase at the end of the program. Learn more

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The program has now concluded. Click here to learn about 2025 Towards Accelerator Alumni. Please sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with the 2026 Towards Accelerator Program dates.

Format: Online Sessions

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Region Serving: Across Canada

Enhancing Impact Investing Through Community Finance

The TOWARDS Accelerator is designed to be an immersive program to grow community finance intermediaries. TOWARDS takes inspiration from the American Network of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and its impact in providing tailored community finance solutions to underserved communities.

Growing community finance intermediaries within the impact investing and social finance ecosystems will allow more individuals, business owners and social-purpose organizations to access financial resources.

Program Goals

- Support the start-up and scale up of community finance intermediaries (particularly northern, remote, and/or rural community finance intermediaries;
- Build capacity in impact investing, impact measurement, equity / gender lens investing, climate action and biodiversity, investee support and selection, and beyond;
- Mobilize new impact capital for rural regions, food systems, women, housing, climate action, and biodiversity;
- Weave a stronger network of collaborative and innovative financial service providers focused on community; and
- Grow the quality and availability of impact investment opportunities in Canada.

Program Components

- Weekly Skill-Building Sessions: Tailored sessions cover foundational topics such as financial management for communities, social equity-based lending, theory of change and more.
- Access to Tailored Support: Personalized advice and support from a wide range of subject matter experts addressing their unique organizational challenges and strategic goals.
- Mentorship and Coaching: Access to mentorship and coaching from North America’s leading community finance institutions.
- Networking Opportunities with Canadian Investors: Participants will have an opportunity to present their investment thesis to investors and receive feedback from both investors and cohort peers.
- Focus on Community Wealth Building: The program will have a particular emphasis on how to operate and flow money to best support equity-deserving groups or communities. It will explore emerging social finance models such as community wealth sharing, cooperative ownership, community land trusts, and place-based investment mechanisms.

Eligibility Criteria

Please note that you do not need to be an existing community finance intermediary to apply. If you are an organization that has deep relationships in community and are considering a financial offering to better support your community, we encourage you to apply for consideration.

✓ Organization Type: Existing place-based institutions operating at sub-national levels, including credit unions, community loan funds, community land trusts, community investment co-operatives, community futures organizations, and similar entities located within and serving rural, remote, and/or northern communities.

✓ Organization Stage: These entities should be beyond ideation and ready to scale up operations with at least one dedicated team member. This does not mean that the individual is full-time, but participants should have at least one staff member that has the intermediary as a part of their job responsibilities.

✓ Capital Raise: Planning to raise at least $1 million capital in the next 12 months.

✓ Impact Intent: Demonstrated commitment to deepen organizational impact or integrate impact deeply into business models.

✓ Equity Commitment: Commitment to gender, racial, social, and environmental equity in current or future operations.

✓ Community Engagement: Significant community involvement and/or willingness to enhance community-focused initiatives via impact investing.

Required Commitments

A commitment from 1 or 2 Key staff to attend all virtual sessions and meetings.
Full participation and engagement in weekly virtual sessions (~2 hours per week).
Completion of relevant program activities and action work.
Engagement with coaches, mentors, and investment pitch sessions.

Testimonials

The below testimonials come from our successful first cohort of 2024, showcasing the impact of our program.

Based on the outlined curriculum, this is the most complete, comprehensive educational offering I have found anywhere outside of the Oxford Social Finance Programme in England. Canada has had a need for this kind of focused educational effort for a long time. This is something critical to the sector’s success.

-Peter Cantelon, Executive Director, Jubilee Fund

The Towards Accelerator is an essential program in the Canadian social finance ecosystem to support community finance intermediaries. Deploying capital into underserved communities is hard — there’s a reason it’s not happening through traditional markets. The Towards program brings together a diverse peer group who are tackling problems of access to capital enabling them to exchange learning, put into practice new fund management skills, and build out their fund models to achieve urgent social and environmental outcomes.

-Wayne Miranda, Market Development, Boann Social Impact

I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the incredible experience I had as part of the inaugural cohort of the TOWARDS Community Finance Development Accelerator. The sessions were exceptionally well-planned, the content was both comprehensive and engaging, and the opportunity to learn from such knowledgeable presenters has been invaluable.

I want to particularly commend the Investor Showcase, as this session provided me with the confidence to pitch to investors. Thanks to the insights gained, an investor has already reached out with an interest in investing in the African Canadian Farmers Fund. I would also like to extend my appreciation to Wayne Miranda, my mentor, who dedicated the necessary time to help me develop my pitch. His constructive feedback and support were instrumental in my preparation and success.

Thank you once again for this wonderful opportunity!

-Afua Asantewaa, Project Manager, Inclusive Prosperity Capital, African Canadian Farmers Fund

Why “Towards” and why a Turtle?

The TOWARDS Accelerator embodies the essence of resilient progress. Like the steadfast journey of a turtle towards its destination, this initiative aims to catalyze a gradual transformation in the landscape of community finance. Our goal is clear: to propel us steadily toward a future marked by equity, inclusivity, and shared prosperity across Turtle Island.

Turtle Island is another name for North America, and often used in lieu of saying Canada, as per many Indigenous creation stories. This wording reminds us to view the continent and its people as a living being, worthy of respect and protection. Further, the turtle is also culturally significant to other communities and peoples that have settled in Canada. The turtle is one of the four sacred animals in Chinese culture, symbolizing longevity, power, and tenacity. In Hinduism, the world is thought to rest on the back of a giant turtle named Kurma, representing the foundation of the universe. In Buddhism, the turtle symbolizes steadfastness and tranquility.

The choice of a turtle as a metaphor for an Accelerator program is deliberate. It underscores the importance of intentionality in our endeavours. True transformation isn’t about racing to the finish line; it’s about nurturing deliberate connections and fostering sustainable growth. By doing so, we propel ourselves towards our goals with greater speed and endurance, reaching farther together than we ever could alone.