project story
National Development Organization
Testing an Alternative Financing Model
What if the most valuable experiment tells you to stop?
A national organization supporting rural economic development wanted to explore whether an alternative financing model could help reach small ventures that struggled to access conventional funding. Before committing significant resources to developing the idea, the organization needed to find out whether the concept was worth pursuing at all. The Moment designed and ran a structured experiment to find out.
Challenge
Many early-stage agri-food and agri-business ventures struggle to access financing through traditional lending programs. Entrepreneurs whose products are considered too niche, who lack conventional credit history, or who operate in emerging sectors can face repeated rejection. The organization saw a potential gap and wondered whether a community-backed lending approach — where individual investors fund loans to small businesses — could fill it.
Rather than investing resources into building or adapting a platform from the start, the organization wanted evidence first. They needed to understand whether borrowers and investors would actually want to use such a model, whether the concept was feasible, and whether the risks were manageable.
Approach
The internal team came to the project with a set of clearly defined hypotheses spanning questions of desirability, feasibility, and viability, explored from the perspectives of all parties who would be involved in the exchange. The Moment designed a research approach to test each one.
Landscape Scan: A review of existing funding mechanisms, community-backed lending models in Canada and internationally, and impact investing options grounded the work in what already existed and where genuine gaps might be.
Stakeholder Interviews: Internal stakeholders with expertise in various aspects of the organization were interviewed to explore feasibility and internal appetite for the concept.
Prototyping and Testing: A clickable prototype of a fictional lending platform was developed as a tool to explore the concept with potential borrowers and investors. The prototype gave participants something tangible to react to, prompting conversation about what the model could offer and whether it would meet their needs. Engaging underserved entrepreneur communities was a deliberate part of the research design, with the approach shaped by guidance from a community representative to ensure the engagement was respectful and appropriate.
Business Model Scenarios: Three business model canvases were developed and explored with internal stakeholders in a collaborative workshop, with each scenario evaluated against the organization's goals and mandate to surface which directions would truly serve both the organization and the entrepreneurs it aimed to support.
Recommendations: Findings were synthesized into clear learnings for each hypothesis, accompanied by risk profiles and recommendations on where further investment was warranted and where it was not.
Impact
The experiment gave the organization clear, evidence-based guidance on whether to move forward. Borrowers and investors showed genuine interest in the concept, but with important conditions. The research also surfaced significant structural limitations within the Canadian financial landscape. The business model canvases helped the team weigh different scenarios and understand their options for expanding access and creating impact within the sector. The organization left with a set of recommendations grounded in the evidence needed to make a confident decision about next steps.
Project Leads
Solving complex challenges doesn’t happen by accident, it takes the right mix of minds, skills, and perspectives. For every engagement, we assemble a team tailored to the needs of the work: one that spans service, experience, systems, and technology design.
Karen Oikonen
Principal
Karen (she/her) believes that real change starts with deeply understanding people. A lifelong explorer and champion of the human experience, she is committed to creating inclusive, participatory engagement with diverse communities and thrives when exploring vulnerable topics.
Robert Hicks
Lead
Rob (he/him) thrives on meaningful collaboration, ensuring the right people are heard and their insights turn into actionable prototypes.