Conseil de la coopération de l'Ontario

Published purpose

This 30-month project will support a feminist response and recovery from the current impacts of COVID-19 through systemic change. The Cooperation Council of Ontario (CCO) will achieve this by examining the experiences of women social entrepreneurs when it comes to accessing funding for their projects and focusing on a key concern, such as why women/binary people have difficulty accessing funding. For those who manage to secure funding for their social entrepreneurship projects, the challenges they face in securing it will need to be identified as well as how the COVID-19 pandemic affects women's ability to secure funding for their social entrepreneurship projects in a chaotic environment. Following analysis of the data, the project will develop theoretical and practical knowledge and recommendations to advance the discussion at the decision-making level in financial institutions and government and work with stakeholders (financial organizations, policymakers) to translate these recommendations into action. At the end of the project, the organization will have contributed to addressing systemic barriers by encouraging more effective and equitable sharing of resources, increasing networks and collaboration to accelerate systemic change, and addressing persistent harmful gender norms and attitudes to support women's equality. Their partners in this project are the Franco-Ontarian Foundation, the Northern Policy Institute, several women social entrepreneurs, and CCO members and partners.