Ryan Young, the new director of the Social Enterprise Fund, is already targeting new ways to use one of the largest social funds in Canada to maximize its benefits for Edmonton.
"What I would love to do is look around the city, in collaboration with multiple groups, and say, 'Where can we create the biggest impact in the city of Edmonton?'" Young told Taproot. "What are the top issues that we can address through a social investment fund? Let's look at that."
Young, who took the reigns at the Social Enterprise Fund at the start of October, said this approach differs slightly from how the fund has operated until now. In the past, eligible organizations across the city and beyond (loans have gone to Calgary Opera, for example) approached the fund's team. In the future, Young said, the fund could also target organizations that match its own goals for change.
"Now, we're kind of flipping it," he said. "We have a sizable fund — one of the largest in Canada. What kind of impact can we achieve with it? (For) financial impact, we have goals for that. But more importantly, what kind of social impact and change do we want to create with this fund?"
The fund was created in 2008 by the Edmonton Community Foundation in collaboration with the City of Edmonton. It invests through loans rather than grants, focusing on organizations with any incorporation model that have social goals in their DNA. The fund has invested in excess of $90 million into more than 110 projects since its founding, and its disclosures suggest more than $40 million of that has been paid back. Some of its clients include the Centre or Race and Culture, CKUA, Jasper Place Wellness Centre, One Family Law, Edmonton Ski Club, Teatro Live!, and Jerry Forbes Centre.
Each investment is a loan with a negotiated term length, though the average is five to 10 years. Interest usually runs between one and three points above bank prime rates. The Social Enterprise Fund is actually two funds: One is a fund of $1 million from the City of Edmonton and the second is a fund with a larger, unspecific sum sourced by the ECF.
Young previously served as an associate dean at the JR Shaw School of Business at NAIT, and remains the president and director of T5M Connect, a development firm focussed on infill housing in Edmonton. He said any new approach to how the fund operates will not exclude social enterprises with their own goals and values from procuring investment. Setting targets, he said, would instead help create additional focus. And, he added, his freshness in the job means new ideas still need to be discussed in collaboration with the fund's board of directors.
Still, he has more nascent ideas. "I think there's a lot of potential for us to bring groups together and do investments that that say: 'Hey, we want to create social change, and we can do it through investments, not just through grants, and to create an impact on something like affordable housing," Young said. "So that's one thing ... (but) it's too early for me to say."
The Jerry Forbes Centre, which provides coworking space for organizations with social good at their core in Edmonton, is one of the many to receive support from the Social Enterprise Fund. The fund's new head, Ryan Young, has ideas to increase the fund's benefit to the city. (Supplied)
Another idea Young has for the fund is for it to help manage new, targeted funds that partners create for different goals.
"For example, if another organization wants to create fund number three that focuses on healthcare, we are (potentially) able to manage that fund as well," Young said. "As far as bringing in new investors, that's something that the board would have to decide on."
Two ideas for specific funds or targets within existing funds were child health and affordable housing. It makes sense that housing is on Young's mind, given his work with T5M Connect.
Through his "side business," Young, his wife, and a neighbour couple bought two lots in North Glenora and built Alberta's first multi-unit residential building constructed to passive house standards. The project won an Edmonton Urban Design Award.
Young left his role at NAIT to take the opportunity at the Social Enterprise Fund. He said it was his belief that he could create meaningful change that convinced him to take the leap.
"What I saw in this role, particularly, is that I can continue to create impact, but just in a very different way," he said. "I see the potential here to be huge."