HOUSE OF FRIENDSHIP: A BOND TO TRANSFORM ADDICTION TREATMENT IN WATERLOO REGION

House of Friendship is an investee of the VERGE Breakthrough Fund. This post was originally published by SVX on their Medium blog.

In 2019, House of Friendship successfully raised $1.2 million in investment capital from community-based investors across Waterloo Region, Ontario to expand an addiction treatment facility for the region. The advisory work on the impact investing strategy was funded by the Kitchener-Waterloo Community Foundation as a pilot initiative to demonstrate the potential for impact investing as a tool to mobilize community capital, diversify and grow potential capital sources, and to scale the impact of an organization. A core team worked on the House of Friendship bond led by SVX, in collaboration with the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing and Miller Thomson LLP.

This case study will provide background on the organization, capital need, process, lessons learned, and results of their impact investing strategy.