We continued to share knowledge and education across the sector.
New Power Labs started as an idea but is growing into a movement.
Since 2019, building on presentations at over 30 conferences, from keynotes to panel discussions, and through conversations with thousands of sector leaders and networks, we have strengthened the New Power Labs vision, amplifying actionable insights from our research while continuing to build momentum.
In November 2022, we were invited to the Sustainable Finance Forum to present to the cabinet on women in entrepreneurship and the future of social finance in Canada. We received broad support for the need for more systemic actions and accountabilities in advancing equitable capital flows, and our work.
Through workshops and lunch & learns that we led, we had the opportunity to discuss implications of insights from our research and have partners share their experiences in deploying capital to overlooked and underfunded communities. We’re committed to continuing to contribute to shared knowledge and learn from one another.
In 2022, we launched a fully bilingual website to articulate the vision and approach of New Power Labs while amplifying knowledge with our library of data and insights from existing research on equity, diversity, and inclusion in capital flows.
We have published a variety of thought pieces and editorials, and were featured and interviewed in a series of articles, including:
We lead data-driven research.
Our research is working to:
Map power structures among capital deployers and institutions.
Collect, map and visualize self-reported disaggregated sociodemographic data across capital deployers and capital recipients.
Explore the underlying factors influencing control over capital flow, including the progression to leadership positions for underrepresented communities.
Examine the dynamics and mechanisms behind capital access, unpacking the diligence process through an equity lens.
We have co-designed a deep research strategy that is being implemented across diverse capital flows,
from philanthropy to impact investing, to venture capital/private equity and bank and credit union financing. Our actionable and data-driven research supports practitioners in embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion in capital flows.
In 2021, in consultation with the Government and in partnership with SVX, we authored a report exploring capital access gaps that diverse social entrepreneurs face and recommending opportunities and a path forward to the Federal Government and broader stakeholder groups.
This report, to be published alongside a full set of recommendations in 2023, found that:
“Further reinforcing the status quo, many of these funds and social finance intermediaries believe they are inclusive. With good intentions, this group applies the same processes, models and approaches to evaluating social ventures, while often holding unconscious bias against equity descerving communities.”
“When we do not actively challenge systemic bias, oppression and racism in how capital flows, we are enabling these structures and behaviours. Today, social finance mirrors traditional finance in excluding equity deserving communities from leadership and capital.”
“In developing recommendations to reduce the barriers faced by equity deserving communities, it was recognized that neutrality enables further inequity. With a growing number of new investment funds and social finance intermediaries, there is an opportunity to build equity into their models and investment process while supporting, enabling and incentivizing existing and scaling funds to update their own practices as it relates to supporting diversity and inclusion in their portfolio.”
We also launched a research project exploring how Canadian impact investing funds, impact investing arms of foundations, and social impact accelerators are addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion within their leadership teams, internal operations, and portfolio and program ventures.
In May 2022, in partnership with Propel Impact and SETSI, we published our first report “In the Dark: Assessing progress toward equity, diversity, and inclusion across impact investors and social impact accelerators.”
Our research highlights that impact investors and social impact accelerators have good intentions and want to do better on equity, diversity, and inclusion commitments but remain in the dark, in part due to a systemic lack of data. Beyond having good intentions, the path towards equity will require a long-term commitment of human and financial capital. Building shared resources will accelerate change across impact investors and social impact accelerators. To move out of the dark, we must map to whom capital flows and collectively work towards transparency in setting, monitoring, and reporting on key equity goals.
In October 2022, we beta-launched a library on our website sharing aggregated research and reports on capital flow to various diverse communities. This growing library aims to support access to data and insights.
