About

First convened as a roundtable of social finance fund managers in 2012, our pan-Canadian network was formalized as the National Impact Investment Practitioners table (NIIPt) in 2014.

Focused on the pivotal role of social finance intermediaries in supporting the social purpose sector to effectively mobilize, amplify and deploy social finance capital for purposes aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, the NIIPt received a grant in 2019 through the Investment Readiness Program, to support key ecosystem deliverables including a "State of Affairs" assessment of Canada's social finance infrastructure and marketplace.

Mission & Mandate

The NIIPt is a mission-driven, multilingual, pan-Canadian, pan-sectoral, pan-structural, practitioner-led community of practice. The forum is intended to bring together Canadian expertise in social finance:

as a source of peer support, including the candid exchange of best practices and community-grounded experience, guided by the values of transparency, reciprocity and integrity;
as a knowledge-mobilization partner, mentor and ally in building a social finance marketplace;
as an advocate, identifying shared policy priorities, and speaking with a collective voice, to advance an enabling environment for social finance in the service of a strong, inclusive and resilient social economy.

Membership Criteria

The NIIP Table defines an impact investment practitioner as a Canadian-based and -operated entity:

with an existing capital base whose primary purpose is impact investing;
actively deploying capital to generate measurable social and/or environmental returns, as well as patient, concessionary or market-based financial returns;
investing primarily in non-publicly traded Canadian enterprises; and
producing publicly accessible reports, including robust SDG-aligned impact measures, on its activities.

Any organization that meets these criteria and supports the mission, mandate, core values and guiding principles is eligible and warmly welcome to join the Table. Those wishing to do so are asked to provide a letter to the Secretariat demonstrating alignment with the terms of reference, for endorsement by the Table.