About
What is Firm?
FIRM (Financial Inclusion and Resilience Movement) is a community-led movement that brings together organisations, institutions, researchers, and individuals working to strengthen financial inclusion and community resilience. FIRM is rooted in communities across Canada and is designed to support collaboration, knowledge sharing, and collective action that can grow and evolve over time.
Vision
A future where everyone can fully participate in economic life and where communities have the knowledge, resources, relationships, and power to shape financial systems that work for all.
Mission
To strengthen financial inclusion and community resilience by building a community-led ecosystem that connects people, organizations, knowledge, and resources through collaboration, shared services, collective learning, and participatory governance.
Mandate
FIRM exists to support disability, Deaf, and intersectional communities by:
- Building and sustaining shared community infrastructure;
- Mobilizing community-generated knowledge and expertise;
- Supporting collaboration, peer learning, and mutual support;
- Strengthening organizational capacity and resilience; and
- Advancing community-led approaches to financial inclusion and systems change.
Values
- Community Leadership
- Accessibility
- Inclusion
- Participation
- Collaboration
- Equity
- Sustainability
How FIRM Began
FIRM emerged from years of community-led research, partnership building, and co-design focused on understanding and addressing financial inclusion barriers in Canada.
Through the Partnerships for Financial Inclusion project, community organisations, researchers, and people with lived experience worked together to identify the barriers and vulnerabilities that many people face when interacting with financial systems. This work highlighted both individual challenges and the broader pressures faced by the organisations working to support their communities.
A key finding was that many community organisations possess valuable expertise, trusted relationships, and innovative ideas, yet often struggle to sustain and scale their work because of limited capacity, infrastructure, and resources. Participants consistently identified the need for stronger networks, shared supports, community knowledge, and new models for collaboration.
FIRM was created in response to that need.
What began as a concept for a Community Supportive Infrastructure evolved into the Financial Inclusion and Resilience Movement: a community-led ecosystem designed to support collaboration, shared services, knowledge sharing, community governance, and long-term sustainability.
Today, FIRM continues to grow through the contributions of organisations, institutions, and individuals who believe that financial inclusion is strengthened when communities work together, share expertise, and build collective capacity.
FIRM was initially developed through the Partnerships for Financial Inclusion project led by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) at OCAD University. While the project provided the foundation, FIRM is designed to continue evolving as a community-led movement that extends beyond any single project or funding cycle.
Relationship to the Partnerships for Financial Inclusion Project
FIRM emerged from the Partnerships for Financial Inclusion project led by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) at OCAD University.
The project brought together disability, Deaf, community, research, financial-sector, and institutional partners to better understand financial inclusion barriers and identify sustainable community-led approaches to addressing them.
FIRM is one of the key outcomes of that work. While the Partnerships for Financial Inclusion project supports the development and launch of FIRM, FIRM is intended to continue as an independent, community-led movement that grows beyond any single project or funding cycle.
Learn About the Partnerships for Financial Inclusion Project
Governance
FIRM is currently developing a community-led governance model through an inclusive co-design process involving community organisations, partners, and individuals.