This national Community Finance Summit will bring together individuals, groups and organisations with an interest in growing Australia's community finance sector - by which we mean financial services, products and projects which have a community base and a social orientation (encompassing savings, loans, credit, banking, micro-finance, superannuation, insurance, housing finance, venture capital and investment instruments).

CLICK HERE to see the program.

This sector is broad and diverse. It includes:

• Micro-finance, micro-credit, and savings and loans instruments established to serve particular communities

• Credit unions, building societies and mutuals formed as savings and loans instruments by communities with a common identity or purpose.

• Ethical, social and regional investment vehicles 

• Community-based banking arrangements

• Ethical, social and regional superannuation vehicles

• Community foundations and non-institutional philanthropy  

• Community-based home ownership and social housing financing initiatives

• Environmental purpose financing initiatives

• Church-based investment and development funds

• Community-based insurance arrangements

• Indigenous, social and regional venture capital instruments

There has been no meeting place in Australia in which these various community finance initiatives and institutions have been able to gather, exchange ideas and consider their common interests as a sector. There has been no developmental body that facilitates and assists new initiatives, or encourages communities to start new projects. There is no peak body equivalent in Australia to the National Community Capital Association in the US. http://www.communitycapital.org of the CDFI Association in the UK http://www.cdfa.org.uk/.

This Summit will explore the development of this sector, the challenges facing it, and the opportunities ahead. 

Its aims are to:

• assess the current range of community finance activities and ventures, and how to strengthen and develop these;

• explore how to encourage and facilitate new initiatives;

• consider how to engage partners (third sector, philanthropic, corporate, government) in this field; 

• explore how to develop momentum towards a more favourable policy and regulatory environment.

      Who Should Attend?

• Directors, managers and staff of existing community finance ventures and initiatives

• Community leaders and community groups interested in community finance as a component in community building

• Community sector organisations wishing to develop community finance initiatives as part of their mission

• Economic development organisations wishing to develop community finance initiatives as part of their development strategies

• Local governments and community planners

• Philanthropists and social investors wishing to establish relationships in this sector

• Private sector financial institutions wishing to partner with community finance initiatives

• Policy makers and regulators

• Papers

• Workshops

• Displays

• Action Proposals

• Collaboration Proposals

CLICK HERE to offer a contribution.

  SEP PUBLICATIONS