OutcomesX Announces First Canadian Transaction between ATB Financial and Windmill Microlending
JANUARY 25, 2024, NEW YORK, NY:
OutcomesX, a first-of-its-kind social outcomes marketplace, is thrilled to announce a groundbreaking pilot transaction between ATB Financial (ATB), a prominent Canadian financial institution, and Windmill Microlending (Windmill), a leading national charity that provides affordable loans to help skilled immigrants and refugees pay for accreditation, training, and career development. This innovative pilot marks a significant shift in donor financing in Canada, utilizing outcome-based metrics to unlock new channels for organizations like Windmill and provide impact-driven investment opportunities for donors like ATB.
Transforming Donor Financing
Traditionally, donors support nonprofits like Windmill through grants and donations based on operational budgets or planned activities. This pilot, however, flips the script, focusing on outcomes achieved rather than resources expended. Rather than providing a traditional grant for funding activities to occur in the upcoming year, ATB Financial purchased Verified Outcomes representing increased financial access over the prior year for skilled newcomers. This arrangement not only enables ATB to have full confidence in their investment but also empowers Windmill to deliver future outcomes, unencumbered by traditional grant requirements.
The Power of Verified Outcomes
This groundbreaking transaction wouldn't be possible without the rigorous standards and evaluation process of OutcomesX's partner, Impact Genome Registry. The independent registry builds trust and transparency in the social sector through its standardized taxonomy and impact verification methodology which is designed to create equity in the field. In this pilot, Impact Genome verified Windmill’s program claims and evidence to transform them into standardized outcomes in which ATB could invest.
“This transaction enables nonprofits to access funding based on the quality of their work, not the quality of their fundraising. By purchasing actual social outcomes, ATB is guaranteed that their funding goes towards achieving measurable positive social change.”
- Phyllis Kurlander Costanza, President and Co-Founder, OutcomesX.
Unlocking Impact at Scale
This pilot presents a novel and sustainable approach to financing social impact ventures. By aligning financing with demonstrably achieved outcomes, organizations like Windmill can attract more flexible and scalable funding. For donors like ATB, it offers a data-driven and impact-focused funding model, ensuring their resources directly contribute to measurable social change.
“We are grateful for the support of OutcomesX and ATB Financial to help newcomers convert their potential to prosperity,” said Claudia Hepburn, CEO, Windmill Microlending.
“When immigrants are given a chance to put their skills to work, everyone benefits.”
A Promising Future
This pilot holds immense promise for the future of social impact financing. By demonstrating the success of outcome-based investments, it opens the door for broader adoption and scaling. Through collaborations like this, OutcomesX aims to revolutionize the social impact landscape, driving a future where capital flows towards proven impact and unlocks the full potential of the social sector.
“ATB exists to make it possible. We view the OutcomesX pilot transaction as the beginning of a shift towards innovative social Impact investment that will empower our community partners to more efficiently produce the important outcomes that lead to sustainable change.”
- David Wighton, Managing Director, Social Innovation, ATB Financial.
For more information on the OutcomesX marketplace and how to participate in it, please contact Caroline Herriman at caroline@outcomesx.com
For media inquiries, please contact info@outcomesx.com.
About OutcomesX
OutcomesX is a social outcomes exchange whose mission is to transform social impact into a tradable good that impact investors, corporations, and philanthropy can purchase from vetted nonprofits and social enterprises. OutcomesX creates the infrastructure to standardize, price, trade, and report on social impact where outcome buyers benefit from price discovery and verified data to inform social spend, and impact producers get access to liquidity and reduced fundraising and reporting burden. Above all, OutcomesX brings efficiency and equity to the business of social impact, allowing any organization, large, small, or community-led, access to capital based on their results.
About ATB Financial
With $60.9 billion in assets, ATB Financial is a leading financial institution that started in Alberta with the focus of putting people first. Our success comes from our more than 5,000 team members who love to deliver exceptional experiences to over 800,000 clients across our Personal and Business Banking, ATB Wealth Management and ATB Capital Markets businesses. ATB provides expert advice, services and products through our many branches and agencies, our 24-hour Client Care Centre, four entrepreneur centres and our digital banking options. ATB powers possibilities for our clients, communities and beyond.
About Windmill Microlending
Windmill Microlending reduces poverty, inequity and labour shortages by providing affordable loans to help skilled immigrants and refugees put their skills to work in Canada. Founded in 2005, Windmill has delivered more than 10,000 loans to new Canadians, helping them triple their incomes, on average, and transforming their potential into prosperity. For more information, please visit www.Windmillmicrolending.org, or follow us on LinkedIn or Instagram.
About Impact Genome Registry
The Impact Genome Registry enables nonprofits and funders to standardize, independently verify and benchmark social outcomes. With the Impact Genome's standardized data, nonprofits and funders can evaluate and report on more than 132 common social outcomes. The Impact Genome Registry has standardized impact data on 2.2M nonprofit programs and has completed Impact Verification for over 3,900 nonprofits representing $5.2B in social spending. Thanks to the support of major philanthropies, any nonprofit can register their program for free with the Impact Genome.