News

The Housing Supply Challenge, led by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), is an innovative competition that encourages residents, stakeholders and experts from across the country to propose creative solutions to housing. The goal: to help meet Canada’s pressing need for safe and affordable homes by breaking down barriers to the creation of new supply. The Challenge will distribute $300 million in funding over five years through various unique rounds. 

We are excited to announce that Tapestry Community Capital has been accepted into Round 2 of the program, Getting Started, which seeks to find solutions to pre-development challenges. 

CMHC received a total of 167 submissions that all demonstrated great potential impacts. Tapestry’s application is one of 29 that has been shortlisted and provided with incubation funding to further develop a concrete and implementable solution. Stage 2 of this round will make up to $38 million dollars available to successful applicants to implement their solutions.

Our solution seeks to solve two very complex challenges. 

Non-profit affordable housing providers have a dire need for a flexible source of financing that can be designed on their terms, to meet their desired timelines. Simultaneously, there is a critical need for greater, and more meaningful participation of communities surrounding affordable housing developments. Affordable housing providers require innovative avenues for participation that will help to shift perceptions and build community support.

“There is immense pressure to fill the void in affordable housing stock and community-based organizations are urgently looking for solutions to fill their funding gaps and speed up the process of securing financing,” says Tapestry Co-Executive Director, Ryan Collins-Swartz. “At the same, we have seen that NIMBYism in these regions can slow development or even stop projects from getting off the ground. The result is that many housing projects never succeed, or are not scaled to their full potential, because of a lack of financing and community support.” 

Community bonds allow organizations to set their own financing terms and raise funds on a predictable timeline. While unlocking private capital, they also build a powerful sense of community ownership. Residents, neighbours, and local businesses alike can all invest to improve their community, while earning a fair return. 

Community bonds have been used to finance several affordable housing developments across Canada, including The Mount in Peterborough, Ontario and Brique par Brique in Montreal, Quebec. While affordable housing projects in Canada have raised a total of $3 million in community bonds to date, one single inclusive housing provider in the UK, Golden Lane Housing, has used this model to raise the equivalent of $26 million CAD. There is huge potential for non-profit housing providers to unlock capital on this scale to develop more affordable housing. 

Building on our extensive experience of engaging communities to fund locally impactful projects, we seek to apply this knowledge to the affordable housing sector as a flexible and scalable source of financing. Our solution adapts our proven process for raising community bonds to meet the complex funding needs of affordable housing providers. 

Be part of the solution

We will be designing this program through a highly collaborative process involving a diverse range of stakeholders that provide, fund, or are personally impacted by affordable housing. 

As part of our discovery phase, we will be looking to speak to a multitude of stakeholders affected by affordable housing financing, including non-profit housing providers, financers and community members. 

Please get in touch with us at info@tapestrycapital.ca if you or an organization you know might be interested in this consultation. 

Learn more about our project, and the projects of other applicants, here.

*Please note the ’Financing affordable housing with the power of community’ project received Incubation Funding under the Housing Supply Challenge – Getting Started Round, however, the views expressed are the personal views of the author and CMHC accepts no responsibility for them.

As we approach the end of an exciting year, we are pleased to share that three new individuals have joined Tapestry’s Board of Directors. Their voices will support our evolution as we navigate the future; engage in new dynamic ways with non-profits, charities and co-ops across Canada; and continue to deepen and integrate our efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in our organization and beyond.

As leaders in their respective fields, we are thrilled to have the unique expertise of Homaira Siddiqui, James Chan and Mritunjay Sinha to help guide our growing organization. Each of them brings a wealth of experience to strengthen our organization, with vast skills in finance, technology, social enterprise, and policy. Their addition to the Board will help to further position Tapestry as a critical leader in social finance in Canada. 

Our new board members have shared some of their motivations and hopes for their time with Tapestry below – we look forward to growing with them in the time to come.

Mritunjay (MJ) Sinha

A social entrepreneur-operator and an investor, MJ helped build a multi-million-dollar micro-loan portfolio in rural India and a co-operative that served over 200 women entrepreneurs. Through his advisory firm, he has helped deploy over C$150M through private-market impact investing, and another C$250M through responsible investment strategies for family offices and foundations, including the Hamilton Community Foundation, the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation, and the Upper Canada Equity Fund. MJ is Treasurer for Computers for Success Canada, a Board Director for The Helderleigh Foundation and Philanthropic Foundations Canada, and sits on the Impact Investment Committee for the Laidlaw Foundation and the Investment Advisory Committee for the Foundation for Black Communities. MJ’s passion for social change is complemented by his experience in capital markets, corporate strategy, and global health, and his degrees in Computer Engineering and M.B.A.

“I  have been deeply passionate about the intersection of positive social change and financial returns for more than a decade now, even before I knew what impact investing was. I’ve admired the work that Tapestry Community Capital has done for the last many years helping structure impact investment products (such as community bonds), making them market ready, and assisting both investors and investees in looking at capitalism differently. So, it isn’t surprising that I am very excited to have been appointed to their Board. I look forward to working together with an amazing Board and team, and helping make capitalism a little more fair, just, and equitable.”

Homaira Siddiqui

Homaira seeks to find more sustainable and equitable ways in which energy can be generated, distributed, stored, and conserved. She is particularly interested in the intersection between energy and equity, and the ways in which distributed and aggregated energy projects can bolster community resilience. Homaira began her career in a technical role re-engineering the very first plastic known as the Bakelite resin by repurposing biomass from a pulping waste stream. Her engineering career has since traversed advocacy and policy, holding roles with Engineers Without Borders and the International Renewable Energy Agency. Her experience in the energy sector spans over five years covering markets across North America, where she has supported diverse clients to navigate pathways towards a distributed, low-carbon, and resilient energy future. Homaira is also an Advisory Committee member of Women In Renewable Energy (WiRE), where she serves to offer passionate women in the energy sector a meeting point and a catalyst for forming highly engaging and supportive relationships. 

“I first came across the concept of a cooperative many years back with news of some of the earliest renewable cooperative pilots in Germany and Denmark. I remember being intrigued by this alternative – and what seemed ‘novel’ to me at the time –  an investment model of pooling resources to meet an essential communal need. As an energy geek, I am fascinated by the parallels that can be drawn between decentralization of the grid and localization of economies. I am particularly interested in identifying and countering barriers to participation in alternative models that continue to favour elements of traditional top-down structures and do not recognize the diversity of local potential and needs. I am thrilled to have been appointed to the Board of TREC/Tapestry, a powerhouse of social innovation that has 20+ years of experience in raising community investment. It is an honour to have a chance to work with some of the most brilliant and passionate folks at TREC/Tapestry to facilitate and support resilient and inclusive investment models for community-led, socio-economic driven projects.”

James Chan

James works with people, places, and partnerships to foster civic participation, promote equitable urbanism, and grow the social economy. He is currently the Manager of VERGE Capital at Pillar Nonprofit Network, and serves on the Board of Directors for Inspirit Foundation. James is a past member of London Community Foundation’s social finance committee, was a co-founder of Ottawa Civic Tech, and served on the Board of Directors at Code for Canada, Park People, and The Centre for Active Transportation.

“TREC has been at the forefront of social innovation and social finance long before those terms were popularized. The idea that led to its creation over two decades ago is more relevant and important than ever –  bringing communities together to address big challenges like climate change through shared risk-taking, financing, and ownership. Through TREC’s latest social enterprise Tapestry Community Capital, that same innovative and cooperative spirit is making it possible for communities to build and invest in a wide range of local initiatives such as affordable housing, arts & culture spaces, and community hubs. I am proud to join the Board of TREC and support its mission of bringing these projects to life through the power of community capital.”

Our new Board Members will provide diverse views and expertise that will further our collective work at Tapestry. Please join us in welcoming our newly elected Members!

If you take a look at our brand, you can learn a lot about our organization and what we stand for. You will see a red thread connecting people, capital and solutions to society’s greatest challenges. That thread illustrates our ethos – that solutions must be designed, financed and implemented collectively, equitably, and inclusively by and for communities. That thread is the foundation of our Tapestry. 

While we have lived these values since our inception three years ago, we have now gone a step further to put these principles into a policy to guide how we operate internally and externally to ensure that we contribute to a more just, equitable, diverse, inclusive, and dignified society for all. 

“That may sound like a mouthful,” says Karen Scottie, who leads Tapestry’s Human Resources, “but each of these pieces is critical in making sure that everyone we engage with feels welcome and safe at all times.”

“This is not just a policy for our Staff and Board,” they explain, “we really see it as a foundation for the way we operate as an organization, and want this to transcend through to our work with the organizations that we serve as well.”

At the policy’s core are several main themes, explains Karen. “The first is that we simply aren’t ok with the status quo. We don’t want to just say that we are welcoming of all groups, whether it be in a job application or in supporting a new project, but actually want to be more conscious about actively engaging with people and groups comprised of and led by indiginous, racialized, women, people with disabilities, members of sexual minority groups, or any others with non-binary or non-privelged backgrounds.” 

“This can be a challenge”, says Karen, “and we are learning as we go”. Tapestry has made a recent change in its recruitment policy to make it clear that priority will be given to the groups addressed above, because we acknowledge the importance of a diverse workplace and know that to achieve this, we need to be deliberate about it. 

We are also strategically seeking out more diverse organizations that could benefit from the use of community bonds and thinking critically about how we can improve the accessibility, both physical and financial, of our services. 

“We have established a Committee to create a Tapestry Fund.” shares Mary Warner, Co-Executive Director of Tapestry. “We hope that through this fund that we can make our services available to a wider array of organizations that might not otherwise have the funds available to make it to the point of raising community bonds.”

The second core theme of the policy is that Tapestry is committed to continuous learning about anti-racism, justice, equity, inclusion, diversity (JEDI) and accessibility, and to integrating these learnings into every aspect of what we do.

“We have come a long way as a team simply by having open conversations about these difficult topics,” says Karen. The team recently completed the Feminuity Diversity, Equity and Inclusion course and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation Anti-Racism Workshop, and has initiated a bi-weekly JEDI book club. 

The final core element of the new policy is collective accountability. “What we mean by this,” shares Karen, “is that we are all responsible for each other’s actions by tolerating, ignoring or harbouring them. We hope that through education, training and open discussions, we can build the confidence of our team to always stand up for what is right, and speak out against injustice.”

Acknowledging that these topics are ever changing, Tapestry has committed to maintaining this policy as a living document. “This isn’t just a policy for the bookshelf,” says Karen, “we have developed an implementation strategy to help us make sure that these commitments come through in everything that we do and want to make sure that it can evolve as the needs of our communities change.”

Do you have any suggestions on how our organization can become more diverse and inclusive? We would love to hear from you. Please write to us at info@tapestrycapital.ca.

This summer, Tapestry had the opportunity to hire a Summer Associate with the support of the Canada Summer Jobs Grant and the Loran Scholars Foundation.

Jasleen Bahia sought us out online during her job search, knowing that she was interested in working in social impact and eager to put her university business courses to use. And how lucky for us, because she was an amazing addition to our team!

She brought a passion for community engagement and a keen interest in learning about social finance. Learn more about Jasleen’s background here.

Over the course of the past few months, Jasleen has supported with everything from the implementation of new human resources policies, to marketing, to working directly with our clients. In the video below, she wraps up her summer with some reflections on her experience.

Are you interested in social finance and the work that we do at Tapestry? Keep an eye on our Careers page for new opportunities and sign up to our newsletter for the most current updates on open positions.

We are pleased to welcome Theodora Mladenova as our new Impact Investment Manager at Tapestry Community Capital.

Theodora brings to our team a diverse background in banking, having worked for the past 10 years across Client and Brokerage Services at Invesco and BMO Nesbitt Burns, as well as Capital Markets, Derivatives Services and Treasury at RBC and Scotiabank.

“I’ve always had an interest in Finance, but I also have a strong desire to contribute to building a more fair economic system,” says Theodora. Born in Bulgaria, and having lived in many countries when she was young, she was always interested in politics and the ways in which political and economic systems impact individual’s livelihoods.  

She moved to Canada as a teengager and pursued her degree in Economics and Political Science at the University of Toronto, where she also led a research team at the Munk School, monitoring G20 compliance. 

“I’ve been looking to transition into a sector that aligns with my values for some time now,” shares Theodora. “Impact investing provides an avenue for me to make that change in an effective way, while using the skills and knowledge I already have.” She hopes that her credentials, including her CFA and FRM designations, as well as her banking experience will add value to the growing Tapestry team. 

“Community investment is a sound and sustainable way to finance capital projects. Not only do community bonds unlock private capital that would otherwise be out of reach to non-profits, but they also encourage deep community involvement,” says Theodora. “This aspect of community building is a remarkable by-product.” 

At Tapestry, Theodora will lead our process and infrastructure to manage 4000+ community investors and $80 million in impact investments. Together with Tapestry’s Investment Management team, she will focus on building and implementing systems that make community bonds an efficient and user friendly experience for issuers and investors alike. 

In her spare time, Theodora enjoys getting outside. She is an avid camper, hiker, climber and cyclist. She loves to travel, meet new people, and learn about new cultures and customs. Lately, she has been trying to revive her piano skills.

She also loves to spend time with her adorable rescue pup, Mitko.

We hope that you will get the chance to meet and work with Theodora in the near future. Interested in arranging a chat? You can reach her at Theodora@tapestrycapital.ca. 

Meet Jasleen Bahia, Tapestry’s newest team member and Summer Associate. 

Jasleen’s interest in social enterprise and social impact began with her own lived experiences. Growing up, Jasleen relied heavily on community programs and benefited greatly from the work of local non-profits. “Around the age of 14, I realized that I wanted to start giving back. These organizations and programs helped to raise me, and I wanted to make sure they could continue to reach as many kids as possible,” says Jasleen.

Jasleen has worked with BGC Canada, Girls Who LEAP, and ShEvalesco, and took on progressive responsibility within these organizations as she progressed through high school. She still cares deeply about supporting her local community, and continues to volunteer in her free time.

Through this experience and her studies, Jasleen has come to realize that she is not just passionate about social impact, but really curious about it’s intersection with business and finance. “I only learned about social enterprise a few years back,” she says, “but I knew right away that this was something I wanted to focus my energy on. I see the space changing so rapidly, and see so much potential for growth.”

Jasleen is currently studying Business at Western University, and is hoping that she can focus her time in the Richard Ivey Business School to expand her knowledge of social enterprise. 

Jasleen is excited about working with Tapestry because she is eager to learn more about the nonprofit sector, and all it’s diverse players. “I’ve done a lot of work with youth, so that’s what is familiar to me, but I love the fact that through Tapestry I will get to learn about organizations working in so many different fields, from education to long-term care, all of whom share the underlying desire to better their communities.”

With Tapestry’s transition to a remote working environment, we have benefitted from the fact that our new employees can be based anywhere in Canada. In Jasleen’s case, she’s based out of her hometown, Vancouver, BC. Jasleen is excited about extending the reach of Tapestry and introducing the local non-profits that she works with to the concept of community bonds. “There is a huge population of untapped community-minded impact investors out West, and I think this model will gain a lot of traction in BC.”

“What excites me most about this opportunity with Tapestry is that it aligns so closely with my personal values – community is really at the core of everything I do,” says Jasleen. “Knowing that the work I am doing is going to have an impact in the community really drives me and motivates me to put in extra energy.”

In her free time, Jasleen loves to do anything outdoors – be it hiking, running or camping. She hopes to spend a lot of her summer in the beautiful Rockies, and will also be running her third marathon this summer, as a participant in the BMO Virtual Marathon. 

We welcome Jasleen to our growing team and hope that our clients and community will have the chance to meet her.

Interested in chatting with Jasleen? Reach out to her at Jasleen@tapestrycapital.ca. 

Meet Erica Glueck, our Senior Manager of Investments.

Erica joined the Tapestry team in 2018 to help us manage our client’s growing base of community bond investors. In the 3 years since she joined, Erica has seen that number of investors under management nearly double to 4000, and now manages around $80 million in impact investment.

As we continue to grow and take on new clients, Erica’s role has also evolved to include a stronger focus on supporting new issuers in structuring their impact investment offerings, and preparing all the necessary infrastructure to enable investments. Alongside our new leadership team, she is also supporting organizational strategy.

This is why Erica is looking to grow her team with the addition of a new Impact Investment Associate. The Impact Investment Associate will oversee our portfolio of clients and their respective investors, ensuring that the entire investment process is a streamlined and pleasant one.

Are you interested in learning more or know a friend who might? We’ve asked Erica what a day in the life of our Investment Management Team looks like.

What does the investment management team at Tapestry do?

In a nutshell, we oversee all transactions – and by that I mean all the money going in and out through bond purchases, interest accruals, disbursements, and maturity events – and all the reporting and due diligence that goes along with those transactions.

A huge part of what we do is also client facing work. We work very closely with our portfolio of issuers, really helping them to manage their investors well. We want investors to feel confident in their community bond investments, feel that they are managed professionally, and ultimately, be champions for the organizations they have chosen to invest in. We know that when investors are treated well, they choose to re-invest, and this just means more money for greater impact!

What does a typical day look like for you?

It really depends! Some weeks I spend more time on our overall process and operations, working to improve efficiency, and others I really get into nuts and bolts and need to focus on detailed transactions…like for example, when we are moving $6 million dollars in interest and principal in a few short weeks!

But generally, I’d say that I like to have a lot of structure to my days. I spend about 30 percent of my time overseeing investment operations. About 40 percent of my time is spent on new and existing clients, helping them to move forward in structuring their investment deals, looking out for project risks, looking at financial statements and writing offering statements. The remainder of my time is usually focused on overall Tapestry strategy, building new systems (like our investment management platform), working with our Futures Committee and thinking about what’s next for our organization.

What motivates you to do this work?

When I first applied for the role I started in, I was really drawn to the organization because of the renewable energy work we had done. I actually came from a policy background, and I was really interested in the interaction between policy and sustainability, and how we could create a more energy efficient economy.

What’s really cool is that I get to do that, but I also get to see the direct impacts of how community financing puts any socially or environmentally oriented organization on a stronger financial trajectory. The growth we have witnessed in our clients has been remarkable – for example, seeing an operating budget grow from $400,000 to $9 million over the course of a few years.

I also love being able to see the physical projects that transpire as a result of these impact investments we are managing. It’s incredible to see an old historic building transformed into a new hub and meeting place for the community, or seeing an established organization finally take ownership of the space they have been in for so long.

I find it really powerful to see that transition from subsistence to a really sustainable and growth-oriented mindset. So many non-profits get stuck spending time on getting that next big grant that they actually don’t have the time and energy to think big and plan big. Community bonds really give them that power to be in control, set their own terms and move forward.

On a more personal level, I am a total word and data nerd, so investment management is really fun for me. I’m also a problem solver, and love the diversity of challenges we face working with such a broad group of clients, that are all financing very different projects.

How would you describe tapestry as an employer?

Tapestry has really grown and matured over the last few years, but even since the beginning, the ethos has been community ownership and community power. That word community is just really ingrained in the organization, and collaboration is really intrinsic and embedded in everything we do.

We rarely make big decisions unilaterally, and take the time to come to agreement together. There is also very little, if any, ego in the organization. We are all equally invested in our growth and passionate about what we do.

Sometimes working collaboratively like this is harder, because it means we have to talk things out and contemplate them a little bit deeper, but ultimately we end up with a better service, product and organization.

What is the team looking for in the Impact Investment Associate?

We would really love to see a bright systems thinker – someone who can appreciate how things work internally, externally, and together. I want to see someone who isn’t afraid to challenge processes, just because that’s the way it’s been done in the past, and someone who is keen to find weak spots in efficiency.

I hope that the new Impact Investment Associate will have the willingness and humility to really learn those problem areas before jumping to make changes. I think the better we can learn the problem, the more sustainable the solution will be long-term.

On a more personal level, I hope they will have a collaborative work ethic that will mesh well with our team. I want them to feel comfortable to ask questions, talk it out, and take ownership of their work.

Lastly, it’s really important to me that they are committed to our overall mission. Community bonds are an investment vehicle that should be accessible to everyone – not just accredited investors – but to everyday investors that just want to invest in a good cause.

We want someone who will be passionate about making the investor and issuer experience as pleasant as possible, and someone who will design processes in a way that makes what we do sustainable and scalable. Ultimately, we want to help as many organizations as possible to create these amazing impact investment opportunities for their communities of supporters, and this will only be possible by becoming more efficient and better at what we do.