About the fund

The Social Enterprise Demonstration Fund (SEDF) supports job creation and economic growth by providing opportunities for social enterprises to get funding.

We launched a third $5.6-million round of the SEDF as part of Ontario’s Social Enterprise Strategy 2016 - 2021. This round will support the development of financially sustainable and scalable social enterprises by addressing key challenges faced by social enterprises, such as access to capital.

How it works

The Social Enterprise Demonstration Fund provides funding to not-for-profit organizations with expertise in supporting social enterprises. These not-for-profit organizations use the funding to support social enterprises. They do this in 2 ways:

  1. providing mentorship, coaching, and supports to the social enterprise
  2. providing funding to the social enterprise in the form of a grant, a loan, etc.

The not-for-profit organization must find funding from other sources to match the ministry’s funding.

This round of SEDF has three targeted funding streams:

  1. Financial sustainability stream provides support for projects that help Ontario social enterprises become financially sustainable. This stream focusses on not-for-profit social enterprises and social enterprises that reduce inequities among underserviced populations (based on location, type of service, etc.).
  2. Scale-up stream provides funding for projects that enable Ontario social enterprises to scale-up.
  3. Social finance stream provides funding for projects that encourage and enable the flow of new investment capital to Ontario’s social enterprises.