Concordia Coalition on Innovative Finance
The Concordia Innovative Financing Coalition (CIFC) serves as an organizer of Concordia-led discussions related to the deployment, evolution, or establishment of new funding streams directed towards the financing of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Officially launched at the 2018 Concordia Annual Summit, the CIFC aims to bridge “talk” with “action” and catalyze investment into impactful projects. Concordia leverages its geographically diverse programming and Membership Community to advance both regional-specific funding discussions as well as explore trends within the global ecosystem of innovative financing. The CIFC‘s first regional focus is on Latin America, and as the Coalition grows, will look to scale its cross-sectoral dialogues to East Africa in 2020.
Although every form of capital is simultaneously needed, from grants to loans to guarantees to equity, we know very little about how to best deploy all those other forms of capital. It did not take a crisis for ThBC.lab to realize that vulnerable communities need deeply concessionary capital to survive and that countries should move towards new financing models.
TheBC.lab believes that some aspects of life will be different on the other side of this pandemic, but we do not think things will look much different for the lives of poor people around the planet unless governments implement public policies that create incentives for Impact First (financial service providers). As in all crises, they will bear the brunt of economic disruption, social unrest, and illness. The world will move on, and so will most impact investors. If this crisis results in just a handful of new impact-first investors committed to long-term sustained investment in marginalized communities that, by our standards, would be a silver lining.
TheBC.lab works closely with all networks of financial service providers that form part of the capital continuum to collaborate in creating the right climate for change, risk reduction, and positive impact focus. From Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to local church philanthropy, connecting the financial ecosystem to leverage each others’ investment will generate efficiency and impact.