As Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, I wish to recognize the Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDCs), Business Development Centres, and Community Business Development Corporations (CBDCs) across Canada for their contributions in support of rural small and medium-sized enterprises in their time of need throughout this exceptional period. The challenges of the last year have highlighted the importance of sustaining and growing small businesses that anchor small and rural communities across Canada.
As Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, I wish to recognize the Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDCs), Business Development Centres, and Community Business Development Corporations (CBDCs) across Canada for their contributions in support of rural small and medium-sized enterprises in their time of need throughout this exceptional period. The challenges of the last year have highlighted the importance of sustaining and growing small businesses that anchor small and rural communities across Canada.
I am grateful for the support you have provided to your clients over the last year. Your ability to quickly adapt and support the delivery of the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund provided thousands of businesses across the country with timely support when they needed it most. You helped thousands of entrepreneurs manage the impacts of COVID-19, providing them with hope in the form of liquidity relief and flexibilities that alleviated some of the pressure.
You also continued to deliver on your core services through the delivery of the Community Futures Program, helping start and grow local businesses, creating jobs and opportunities, and contributing to economic stability in your regions. During the 2020–2021 fiscal year, CFDCs, Business Development Centres, and CBDCs financially supported over 4,500 businesses and created or maintained nearly 23,500 jobs across Canada.
I want to thank each of you for your hard work and dedication to your communities. The past year has forced us to adjust to new ways of doing business, and the work you do at the 267 CFDCs, Business Development Centres, and CBDCs throughout the nation plays an important role in assisting entrepreneurs and business owners in continuing to adapt and grow their businesses in the communities they call home.
Canada’s economic future depends in large part on the ability of small businesses to grow, diversify, and innovate. CFDCs, Business Development Centres, and CBDCs across the country will continue to play a key role as we strive to build back better from the pandemic. I look forward to continuing this collaborative relationship as we make impactful investments in our communities.
By providing the products, services, knowledge and skills needed for economic development and growth, small businesses will be key to the economic recovery from the COVID-19 global pandemic in our territory. Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDCs) deliver programming in all 33 Northwest Territories communities. The Community Futures program specializes in supporting small businesses from the ground up. They help communities and entrepreneurs enhance their skills, tools, and resources and build the confidence and resilience that contribute to the health and vibrancy of our communities.
By providing the products, services, knowledge and skills needed for economic development and growth, small businesses will be key to the economic recovery from the COVID-19 global pandemic in our territory. Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDCs) deliver programming in all 33 Northwest Territories communities. The Community Futures program specializes in supporting small businesses from the ground up. They help communities and entrepreneurs enhance their skills, tools, and resources and build the confidence and resilience that contribute to the health and vibrancy of our communities.
CFDCs are, and will continue to be, an important cornerstone of our Government's support to the small business sector. Under the guidance of volunteer boards, and staffed with expertise in community economic development, our CFDC network offers a valuable resource, not only to prospective entrepreneurs, seasoned managers and local business leaders, but to our government as we enter this period of economic recovery.
It is my pleasure to share with you the 2020-2021 Annual Report for the Community Futures Network of Canada (CFNC). This report highlights some of the ongoing community economic development work on behalf of the 267 Community Futures Development Corporations and Community Business Development Corporations serving rural and remote communities across Canada.
It is my pleasure to share with you the 2020-2021 Annual Report for the Community Futures Network of Canada (CFNC). This report highlights some of the ongoing community economic development work on behalf of the 267 Community Futures Development Corporations and Community Business Development Corporations serving rural and remote communities across Canada.
Since its establishment in 1985, the Community Futures Program has played a key role in the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises through its rural community-oriented economic development strategies. Our success is directly attributable to local volunteer boards comprised of community members who dedicate their time, knowledge, and passion to their communities, along with professional staff delivering development services that are instrumental in growing and diversifying local economies. At Community Futures we open doors to opportunity by investing capital, resources, and expertise in local entrepreneurs.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated public health restrictions had a significant impact on rural and remote businesses and added to the existing disparity between urban and rural/remote support for small and medium businesses. Community Futures organizations were there for our businesses in those challenging times.
Community Futures played a critical role in pandemic relief measures by delivering $500 million in support through the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund (RRRF) between July 2020 and June 2021, in addition to our regular activities. Community Futures Organizations (CFOs) were able to efficiently administer thousands of additional RRRF applications through our established infrastructure and deploy over 11,000 RRRF loans while helping to maintain over 44,000 jobs, saving thousands of rural and remote businesses and the communities in which they are located.
This report will showcase some of the stories about the resilience of those clients and communities and the invaluable support provided by CFOs.
On behalf of the CFNC’s Board of Directors, I would like to extend my thanks to the Government of Canada, the regional development agencies and the territorial governments for their continued support of the important work we do. Your financial support and the dedication of our staff and commitment of our volunteers ensures we will continue to support economic growth in our rural and remote regions across the country.
Formally established in 1985, the Community Futures Program (CFP) plays a key role in business development in rural and remote communities across Canada.
MISSION
The mission of the CFP is to strengthen and diversify those rural and remote economies across Canada.
THE GOAL
The goal of the CFP is to create jobs and foster new approaches to community economic development based on community strengths and infrastructures.
Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDCs) and Community Business Development Corporations (CBDCs) deliver the CFP on behalf of the Government of Canada.
The Community Futures Network of Canada is an inclusive, interconnected network of 267 offices servicing rural and remote areas of the country from sea to sea to sea.
Each office is deeply embedded within its own community, offering business counselling, training and its own unique suite of financial products to suit the small and medium-sized business needs of each community it serves.
Each shares a common vision to create diverse, sustainable communities by supporting local, community-based economic development and takes pride in encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit of the businesses, the organizations and the people it supports.
In addition to this support, CFDCs and CBDCs work in collaboration with other economic stakeholders to create a favourable socioeconomic environment.
Each member office is a standalone corporation that operates as a nonprofit organization reporting to, and governed by, a board of dedicated community volunteers, and is comprised of business leaders within its own community.
This year has been extraordinary in many ways. Not only was the world gripped by a global pandemic, but small and medium-sized businesses in Canada were hit the hardest, from coast to coast to coast. Various levels of lockdowns and restrictions meant many rural entities had to rethink business models and quickly innovate to offer products and services online. Some struggled to stay open and survive.
But this is where CFDCs and CBDCs shone, rising to this challenge, empowering countless businesses with emergency loans, keeping the lights on and Canada’s rural economies churning. They encouraged innovation and took care of their communities, their organizations and their people. They delivered crucial services but they also delivered hope.
This annual report focuses on a small sample of the many local businesses and initiatives that have benefited from the Community Futures Program and the Regional Relief and Recovery Program across Canada, and the ripple effect realized by investing in rural and remote communities now and in the future, as Canada rebuilds.
As the weeks wore on during the global pandemic, rural and remote businesses needed increasing levels of support, and the Community Futures voice of rural advocacy was heard.
Small businesses struggling with the economic impacts of COVID-19 in rural and remote Canada were able to rely on Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDCs) and Community Business Development Centres (CBDCs) for financial relief and recovery support in 2020 through the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund (RRRF), made possible through the Government of Canada’s COVID 19 Economic Response Plan.
Based on the network’s long history of supporting rural communities and their businesses through complex and challenging times of crisis, $466,473,051 was allocated to the Community Futures Program nationally. The funding was directed towards struggling rural and remote small and medium sized businesses that desperately needed additional help to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and who were unable to access existing federal business support programs. Applications were made through 267 local CFDCs and CBDCs, offering flexible terms and repayment options.
Small business owners are resilient by nature, and by joining together in this unique economic response, the CFDCs and CBDCs, part of Community Futures Network of Canada, powerfully demonstrated the Community Futures Program’s core strength – uplifting and supporting 11,374 of rural and remote businesses on their path to recovery.
RRRF Statistics below reflect funding received and disbursed in fiscal 2020 – additional funding was allocated in Budget 2021 and dispersed within the first quarter of fiscal 2021.
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