Harvest Impact, a project of 10C Shared Space
Contact Julia Grady
Email: julia@10carden.ca
Website: http://www.harvestimpact.ca
Phone:519-780-5030
Office Headquarters Address:
10C Shared Space, 42 Carden Street, Guelph, Ontario N1H 3A2
Background
Year Founded: 2019
Vision: Smart communities invest in themselves. Social financing will help enterprising organizations to create social and environmental impacts in the food, farm and environment sectors.
Mission & Mandate: Harvest Impact is a non-profit community-based social lending fund designed to raise and deploy the capital needed for circular food economy companies to flourish. The Harvest Impact Fund provides agricultural, food & environmental start-ups with enterprise lending from $2,500 to $50,000, while offering direct, impactful investment opportunities to local investors, allowing them to secure a more equitable and sustainable food system in their own backyard.
Description: Harvest Impact Fund provides agricultural, food & environmental start-ups with wrap-around enterprise training, ecosystem connection and relational lending of $2,500 to $50,000 (with larger projects anticipated). In addition to financing, investees also benefit from the Harvest Impact Enterprise Support office, a team of circular enterprise navigators who can support with strategy and technical expertise, support the enterprise to leverage additional financing, and identify collaborative pathways to help circular food businesses grow and succeed. When combined, Harvest Impact and 10C’s placemaking, social enterprise, mentorship, and social finance activities offer emerging circular food economy enterprises ways to incubate, test, develop, and grow new businesses and products in the food, farm and environment sectors.
Fund Characteristics
Assets Under Management
Harvest Impact currently manages $780,000 of committee capital with a goal to build a fund of 3-5M. To date, Harvest Impact has placed 36 loans totalling $373,000 across southern Ontario. 70% of these businesses are led by women or gender-diverse entrepreneurs working on exciting projects that advance equity and sustainability.
Success Stories
Beck’s Broth – Nutritious bone broth infused beverages
Harvest Impact financing: $40,000 in 2022-23 Kitchener, Ontario
https://becks-broth.myshopify.com/
Beck’s Broth – Beckie Prime, founder of Beck’s Broth came to 10C’s Nourish kitchen in 2021 to begin processing beef bones for bone broth as the base for nutritious hot chocolate. Within the first year, the business outgrew the shared kitchen and with development of new products, such as a cold brew coffee beverage, required a more dedicated space for production. Beck also participated in the COIL Activate accelerator in 2022. Beck’s business has been further strengthened by financing from Harvest Impact which will support the development of a shelf-stable product line for distribution nationally.
“The information and resources (like mentoring) available through Harvest Impact are invaluable to business owners who want to work better. Also, the networking and the people that you meet! Having that network, the connections and the constant inspiration is really important.“ – Beckie Prime, Founder of Beck’s Broth
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