Towards More Affordable Homes
The Towards: Community Housing Finance Accelerator is a free cohort-based capacity-building program designed to help community finance intermediaries strengthen their ability to raise and deploy capital for community and affordable housing.
Through technical knowledge, resources, visibility to investors, and peer support, participants will build the tools and connections needed to become investment-ready and mobilize blended capital at greater scale. A key highlight of this program is the opportunity to connect with investors, culminating in an investor showcase in the final session.
Who Should Apply? The accelerator focuses on supporting smaller, emerging community finance intermediaries: organizations that pool investment capital into community and affordable housing projects. This includes loan funds, equity funds, trusts, credit unions, co-operatives, or even NGOs managing multiple projects in a single vehicle.
If you are…
- A community finance organization or co-operative that understands local contexts and can deploy capital but struggles to raise capital;
- A non-profit entity lacking the financial fluency to communicate effectively with sophisticated investors;
- An organization issuing, planning to issue, or operating an early-stage housing fund or bond;
…We encourage you to apply.
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. However, please note that the program is structured and best-suited for organizations who are later stage and have a product in mind.
Commitment: Bi-weekly two-hour sessions to build community and community finance, with in-between down weeks for office hours and peer meet-ups. Set aside time for pre-readings to make the most of each session.
Key Dates:
- Application Deadline: August 3rd, 2026
- Selection: Week of August 3rd, 2026
- Program Period: September 3rd – December 8th, 2026
Format: Online Sessions
Region Serving: Across Canada
Ready to level-up your organization’s capacity to mobilize capital for affordable housing? Apply below or share this opportunity with an organization that would benefit.
Grow Your Team, Invest in Back-End Fund Management, and Build an Infrastructure for Scaling and Growth
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. SVX has led two cohorts of Towards to date, serving 20+ community finance intermediaries across Canada.
Strengthening and scaling community finance intermediaries is key to breaking down capital barriers and unlocking the housing sector’s full potential to increase the supply of affordable housing.
Program Goals
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- Support the start-up and scale up of community finance intermediaries focused on capitalizing housing.
- Build capacity in affordable housing and development, impact investing, impact measurement, equity / gender lens investing, climate action and biodiversity, investee support and selection, and beyond;
- Mobilize new impact capital for affordable housing, rural regions, food systems, women, climate action, and biodiversity;
- Weave a stronger network of collaborative and innovative financial service providers focused on community housing; and
- Grow the quality and availability of impact investment opportunities in Canada.
Program Components
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- Bi-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.
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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.
Core Content
Introduction to Towards Accelerator, Community Finance and Impact Investing
Community Finance in Housing
Technical
- Business Models for Community Finance Intermediaries
- Capitalization and Financing for Community Finance Intermediaries
- Budgeting, Financial Planning, Management and Reporting
Impact
- Theory of Change and Impact Thesis
- Impact Measurement, Reporting and Management
- Equity Lens Investing: Gender, Social Equity, Indigenous Rights & Reconciliation
Showcase
- Towards Community Finance Showcase
Optional Content
Getting Ready for Due Diligence Workshop
Eligibility Criteria
✓ Organization Type: Smaller, emerging organizations that pool or plan to pool investment capital into community and affordable housing projects. This includes early-stage loan funds, housing bond issuers, investment co-operatives, community land trusts, credit unions, and non-profit or NGO entities managing multiple housing projects in a single vehicle. If you are serving rural, remote, or northern communities, we especially encourage you to apply.
✓ 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.
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. However, please note that the program is structured and best-suited for folks who are later stage and have a product in mind.
Required Commitments
- A commitment from 1 or 2 key staff to attend all virtual sessions and meetings.
- Full participation and engagement in bi-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 community finance cohort of 2024, showcasing the impact of our program.
The Towards Accelerator Program is one of the pieces of the puzzle that you didn’t know you were missing to help build capacity, inclusiveness and resiliency in your fund or program. This was a great team building and professional development program for us.-Justin Abbiss, Executive Director, Fair Finance Fund
Great resources, connections and content, the SVX team hit all the right notes in developing and running the Towards program. Participating in the accelerator gave us clarity on our funds next steps and a push in the right direction!-Mat Rouleau, Director of Development, Project Village Housing
The SVX Towards Accelerator Program has been transformative for the Nourish Fund’s development. As we’ve worked to create Canada’s first urban food and farm fund, the program provided critical structure and expertise that helped us refine our investment strategy and impact thesis. The weekly sessions on topics like deal room development, due diligence, and capitalization strategies gave us practical tools that directly translated to our work supporting equity-deserving farmers in urban communities. The program’s emphasis on both financial viability and social impact perfectly aligned with our mission of building equitable food economies. Thanks to SVX, we’re now better positioned to mobilize our $500K seed capital. The program significantly enhanced my technical knowledge of social finance and equipped me with practical skills to apply these concepts effectively-Michelle Chin-Dawe, Coordinator, Fair Finance Fund
I highly recommend the Towards Accelerator program. The level of expertise from the instructors improved our preparation for investment, the one to one sessions allowed us to get into the details for our model and make improvements, and the peers in the program brought helpful insights and cheer to the work. It was an excellent experience.-Jo Reynolds, Impact Investment Lead, Carolinian Canada
I strongly encourage all individuals and organizations involved in raising capital for the community to take part. It offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on our current position and identify the changes needed to support future growth. The connections I made to advance our fund and strengthen community finance were truly impactful.-Nas Rabariniaina, SADC
Implemented by:
*This project, ‘Connecting Capital and Capacity for Community Housing’ received funding from the National Housing Strategy under the NHS Solutions Labs, however, the views expressed are the personal views of the author and CMHC accepts no responsibility for them.
Blog
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