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January 2024

Tapestry welcomes Heather Watt-Kapitain as Campaign Manager

By News

Tapestry Community Capital is happy to welcome Heather Watt-Kapitain to the team. As Campaign Manager, Heather will support community bond issuers through all stages of the bond lifecycle, from the earliest feasibility stages all the way to reinvestment campaigns. 

Heather brings with her many years of experience in project management, entrepreneurship, stakeholder engagement, facilitation, and community finance. In 2016, when she was chair of the board of 10C, a coworking space in Downtown Guelph, Ontario, she supported the campaign to purchase and renovate a 15,000 square foot building — and raise $2.5 million for it through community bonds. 

In 2021, Heather left the board for a staff role at 10C where she joined the Harvest Impact team, a character-based lender powering social enterprises and regenerative farmers working toward a circular economy. 

Heather’s looking forward to bringing all of this experience to Tapestry’s clients — and in doing so, “shifting status quo, shifting mindsets, getting people to see the possibility and the opportunity in social finance,” she says. “In a time where there can

be general feelings of hopelessness, community bonds give people an opportunity to take action and support effective change.”

Outside of work, Heather has a busy home life with three kids and three dogs. She loves to read and spend time in the woods in Guelph, where she lives. “The entire Tapestry team knows that my son and I have this cold plunge challenge that we’ve been doing for the last 10 weeks,” she adds with a laugh, “so I like taking on absurd things like that.”

We hope you’ll have the opportunity to meet Heather soon. If you’d like to get in touch, you can reach her at heather@tapestrycapital.ca. Welcome to the team, Heather! 

Haliburton County-based Places for People celebrates successful first community bond raise

By Uncategorized

In rural Haliburton County, Ontario, a small and mighty team is addressing the community’s lack of affordable housing head-on. 

At the end of 2023, Places for People celebrated a huge milestone: they met their very first community bond raise’s $850,000 goal — in just 10 weeks. Their success is thanks to a dedicated, close-knit community, which Places for People has spent years connecting with and supporting.

Jody Curry, president of Places for People, speaks at an event celebrating the organization’s successful community bond raise. 

The $850,000 raised will help Places for People consolidate its assets so they’re in a better position to act fast and purchase new properties when they become available. The need is great in Haliburton County, one of the lowest-income counties in the province, where the seasonal economy (Places for People vice president Fay Martin calls it “cottage country”) means that come autumn, many residents are out of work. 

Jody Curry speaks with Haliburton County community members. 

President of the organization, Jody Curry said the community bond raise helped Places for People get the word out about homelessness. But it also presented an opportunity to better understand how the lack of affordable housing touches just about every community member. 

“Rural and urban communities are very different,” Jody said. “When you live in a rural community, everybody, in some way or another, has a story to tell us. Everybody had a story that their sister’s been living in their basement, or about the guy they tried to hire but he couldn’t find anywhere to live, or the hospital nurse who quit because she was tired of driving from Bracebridge. The stories were endless.”

Tapestry Community Capital and Places for People team members.

Jody said the team is thrilled to see their hard work on the campaign pay off. “It feels good,” she said. “We’re a real grassroots organization, and always have been, and have always believed that our community would help us. And they always have. That’s the neat thing about a small organization with no staff — people understand that we’re all volunteers and we’re just trying to make something happen.”

Please join us in congratulating Places for People! Tapestry is proud to support this important work. 

Read more about Places for People
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