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Social Purpose · Cooperative · Community Finance Consulting
We help organizations that help people
to solve problems that matter
Demos Partners is a group of experienced, purpose-driven consultants with decades of frontline experience working with cooperatives, credit unions, social enterprises, non-profits, governments, and public-sector organizations. We work across Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe to solve problems and create lasting impact on real people. We work in areas such as affordable housing, cooperative development, community finance, and international development. We specialize in asking and answering the hard strategic questions that don't fit a standard consulting playbook.
We provide our clients with unique value: decades of hands-on, frontline experience in identifying and solving problems that create tangible and durable social, economic, and environmental benefits.
REAL PROGRESS
Towards a better world
8
Partners and advisors
240
Collective years of experience
50+
Countries
Our work
We collaborate with our clients on specific problems and challenges – every project is unique and gets a unique solution. Learn more below about some of our recent projects in Canada and around the world.
Edmonton Affordable Housing
Like many Canadian communities, Edmonton's once-vibrant non-profit housing sector eroded over two decades as national and provincial program support dried up. As new-build funding returned, the city needed strategies to rebuild this sector through alternative financial instruments. Smaller non-profit developers were stalling on the cash-flow gap between acquisition and stabilized operations, and the city was looking for ways to engage private developers. Demos was brought in to design implementable financing instruments and a path to scale, navigating a municipal environment where political priorities were shifting.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Coastal Community Credit Union
Mergers don't end at the signing — they end when the merged organization has a shared vision and management knows where the permission space sits. With partners who have collectively worked through dozens of mergers and acquisitions, Demos was engaged to lead Coastal Community's post-merger planning, including staff interviews and surveys, facilitating board summit on vision, purpose, values, and strategy, and a post-summit synthesis defining management's permission space.
British Columbia, Canada
Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League — 5-Year Strategic Plan
Led a comprehensive strategic planning process for JCCUL — the national federation representing Jamaica's credit union movement. Three-phase engagement: pre-retreat process, stakeholder surveys, and one-on-one leadership interviews; a five-day facilitated retreat; and a post-retreat deliverables phase including a full strategic framework and Balanced Scorecard.
Kingston, Jamaica
Northern Alberta Cooperative Housing Association (NACHA) Land Trust Simulation
Prairie cooperative housing peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Now, much of that housing is aging, undercapitalized, and dispersed — three conditions that make sector-wide preservation almost impossible. Demos is developing a virtual simulation for the Land Trust Simulation Project, working with the NACHA and supported by the City of Edmonton, to model whether a community land trust can preserve existing co-op housing stock and unlock new development at scale.
Alberta, Canada
HONOR Program — Cooperative Sector Development in Ukraine
Rebuilding a cooperative sector during an active war is not a development problem with established playbooks. Demos supports SOCODEVI's HONOR program in Ukraine — mentoring co-operative leaders, contributing to training programs focused on women's cooperative leadership, and helping build the second and third-tier associations that will outlast the conflict. The program builds on sixteen years of organizational presence and more than seventy cooperatives supported, funded by Global Affairs Canada.
Ukraine / Global Affairs Canada
Community Energy Cooperatives Canada
Renewable energy cooperatives spread across Canada are unable to leverage their collective scale and coordinate their efforts. Demos is supporting a newly-formed national organization, Community Energy Co-operatives Canada (CECC) – through research, engagement, and a Board workshop – to create a strategy and organizational plan that will allow CECC to support the co-ops to more easily access financing, shared services, and advocate for beneficial government policies.
National / Montréal, Canada
Rural Wealth Creation — Drayton Valley & Brazeau County.
Drayton Valley and Brazeau County in Alberta are navigating a novel problem: a post-resource economic transition that keeps wealth in the community rather than letting it leave with the industry. Demos is leading the feasibility and business modelling work for a Rural Wealth Creation initiative built on community land trusts, cooperative enterprise incubation, and local capital mobilization — in collaboration with the University of Alberta's Community-University Partnership and UpSocial Canada.
Drayton Valley, Canada
Diaspora Investment Platform — Jamaica, Colombia & Canada
Actively developing a Diaspora Investment Platform that mobilizes diaspora capital for cooperative and community investment in countries of origin. Working with SVX as financial structuring partner, JCCUL and Coomeva as in-country cooperative anchors, and exploring Barbados as an additional pilot geography through the We Gatherin' diaspora engagement initiative.
Jamaica · Colombia · Barbados · Canada
What we do:
Services that drive impact
Demos supports cooperative sector development across the multiple global regions. We design training programs, develop second-tier associations, provide regulatory and policy reform advice, and help cooperative movements evolve their organizational infrastructure to survive, grow, and create positive change.
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Caribbean & Latin America
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Ukraine & Eastern Europe
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National cooperative policy
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Cooperative law reform
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We have worked inside municipal affordable housing systems, supported community land trust development, and designed financing instruments that enable smaller developers to get back into building affordable housing. Demos offers the experience and knowledge of some of Canada's leading affordable housing practitioners.
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Supporting Community Land Trusts & cooperative housing
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Municipal housing strategy
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Social and blended financing solutions
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Needs assessment & feasibility studies
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Demos supports cooperative and community-owned solutions to support the energy transition. Working at the intersection of cooperative enterprise, community finance, and government policy across jurisdictions, we support organizations to advocate for and build stronger and more resilient community-owned renewable energy as part of the solution to energy independence and energy security.
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Renewable energy cooperatives
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Community wealth building
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Federation development
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Cross-provincial policy brokering
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We are rigorous strategic partners for leaders navigating complex, multi-stakeholder problems. Our approach is data-driven but oriented toward discovery rather than documentation. We design engagements as active cycles of inquiry, with feedback loops that allow strategy to evolve as it meets reality.
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Strategic planning & facilitation
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Policy development & advocacy
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Governance & board development
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Regulatory reform
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We understand the particular tension between financial performance and social purpose — and we know resolving it requires clarity, not compromise. We offer strategic planning, board facilitation, governance reform, and organizational development for credit unions, cooperative federations, and national cooperative associations.
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Strategic plans
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Board counsel & facilitation
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Balanced scorecard development
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Federation & association strategy
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Demos connects capital to cooperative and community development. We work with clients to design impact investment vehicles, community investment cooperatives, diaspora bond structures, community bond offerings, and blended finance instruments. We specialize in financial solutions that neither pure charity nor traditional equity can provide.
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Diaspora investment platforms
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Community bonds & blended finance
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Impact fund design
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CMHC & affordable housing finance
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What we do:
Services that drive impact
What we do:
Services that drive impact
We have worked inside municipal affordable housing systems, supported community land trust development, and designed financing instruments that bridge the cash flow gap for smaller non-profit developers. We bring Canada's leading housing practitioners into the room when the problem calls for it.
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CLTs & cooperative housing
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Municipal housing strategy
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Social and blended finance
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Needs assessment & feasibility
Energy Transition & Community Economic Development
Supporting cooperative and community-owned approaches to the energy transition. We work at the intersection of cooperative enterprise, community finance, and economic development policy, helping organizations and governments position community ownership as a direct response to energy transition.
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Renewable energy cooperatives
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Community wealth building
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Federation development
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Cross-provincial policy brokering
International Cooperative & Development Programs
Supporting cooperative sector development across the Caribbean, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. We design training programs, develop second-tier associations, provide regulatory and policy reform advice, and build the organizational infrastructure for cooperative movements to survive and grow.
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Caribbean & Latin America
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Ukraine & Eastern Europe
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National cooperative policy
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Cooperative law reform
Credit Union & Cooperative Strategy
Strategic planning, board facilitation, governance reform, and organizational development for credit unions, cooperative federations, and national cooperative associations. We understand the particular tension between financial performance and social purpose — and we know resolving it requires clarity, not compromise.
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Board facilitation & retreats
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5-year strategic plans
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Balanced scorecard development
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Federation & association strategy
Social Finance & Impact Investment
Designing impact investment vehicles, community investment cooperatives, diaspora bond structures, community bond offerings, and blended finance instruments that connect capital to cooperative and community development. We specialize in structures neither pure charity nor traditional equity can provide.
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Diaspora investment platforms
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Community bonds & blended finance
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Impact fund design
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CMHC & affordable housing finance
Strategy, Policy & Organizational Development
We are rigorous strategic partners for leaders navigating complex, multi-stakeholder problems. Our approach is data-driven but oriented toward discovery rather than documentation. We design engagements as active cycles of inquiry, with feedback loops that allow strategy to evolve as it meets reality.
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Strategic planning & facilitation
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Policy development & advocacy
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Governance & board development
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Regulatory reform
"What sets Demos apart is the rare combination of practitioner depth and intellectual seriousness. In our Drayton Valley work, they have moved fluidly between community engagement, financial modelling, and the strategic questions that determine whether community wealth building actually takes root. They are partners we trust to do the hard thinking alongside us, not just deliver against a scope."
Dr. Maria Mayan, Director, Community-University Partnership, University of Alberta
"Rural economic transition is full of organizations that talk in frameworks and few that can build what those frameworks call for. Demos brings both. In our Drayton Valley collaboration, they have grounded ambitious ideas about cooperative enterprise and community ownership in the practical work of feasibility, governance, and finance. That blend is rare and it is exactly what communities navigating economic change need."
Geraldine Cahill, UpSocial Canada
"What stood out when I sat in on a Demos members' meeting was the sheer depth and breadth of cooperative knowledge in the room — practitioners who have built, governed, financed, and federated cooperatives across multiple sectors and continents. That is exactly the kind of expertise our movement needs as we build a national federation for community energy. Demos brings both the strategic discipline and the practitioner depth to help us turn a complex, multi-stakeholder process into a coherent direction for the organization.”
Dr. Martin Boucher, Founding President, Community Energy Cooperatives Canada Dean of Research, NorQuest College
"Demos' adaptability in responding to evolving municipal priorities was remarkable. For municipalities seeking transformative affordable housing solutions developed through genuine partnership, Demos delivers exceptional value that continues paying dividends after project completion."
Erin Black & Jared Abbott
Affordable Housing & Homelessness, City of Edmonton