Until now, there has never been an economic impact study on the innovative Nova Scotia Community Economic Development Investment Fund (CEDIF) tax credit program to assess its impact in creating jobs and building local economies. Beginning last September, CCEDNet has been partnering with the Co-operative Enterprise Council of New Brunswick (CECNB) and the BC Community Impact Investment Coalition on a Pan-Canadian Community Investment Organization Project that has included this landmark study. We are very excited to announce that CECNB has just completed this study and the results are staggering! 

An investment of less than $700,000 by the Nova Scotia government in 2019 generated $2 million in investment by Nova Scotians into CEDIFs. 

Nova Scotia CEDIFs invested in 116 small businesses whose annual economic impacts in 2019 were: 

• $118 million annually in GDP value-add 
• 1,200 jobs (FTEs) 
• $52 million in annual wages and salaries 
• $25 million in annual taxes 

This means that every $1,000 invested by government into the CEDIF tax credit in 2019 resulted in the creation/maintenance of 1.75 jobs for Nova Scotians (approximately $575/job).

Find out more about the Pan-Canadian Community Investment Organization Project, follow future developments on community investing in the Atlantic region, and download the full report here. 

Looking for more CEDIF information? Check out this 2013 webinar on the model.

The Pan-Canadian CIO Project is funded by the Government of Canada’s Investment Readiness Program. The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the funders or supporting organizations.