Real buildings. Real homes. Real returns.
What if your dollars could build something that lasts?
The ACBN Community Bond isn’t backed by a promise — it’s backed by a building. Bethany Legacy Apartments is a 45-unit affordable housing development in Woodstock, Ontario: homes for the seniors who built the path our community walks today.
$8.55
Social ROI per dollar invested
30,000+
Entrepreneurs in our ecosystem
Since 2017
Building Black business in Ontario
Real buildings. Real homes. Real returns.
A $16.4M project, already de-risked
Most people never get to invest in a development until it’s finished and the returns are gone. Bethany Legacy is different. The hard, uncertain early work, the part where projects usually die, is already done.
Most real estate projects fail in the first mile, the land falls through, the zoning gets denied, the financing never materializes. Investors are usually asked to fund exactly that uncertainty.
Bethany Legacy Apartments is past it. The riskiest phase of this development is behind us, and the milestones that de-risk it aren’t projections, they’re documented, completed, and verifiable
Land Secured
Title to the site has been transferred from Oxford County to ACBN. Land control is the single most common point of failure in affordable housing development; a project without it is a proposal, not a project. ACBN owns the ground this building sits on.
Permits and zoning approved
All municipal permits and zoning approvals are in hand. There is no outstanding regulatory risk and no pending approval that could halt the build. The project is cleared to proceed
$1 million contingency reserve
$900,000 plus raised and deployed to bring the project to a build-ready position with $1 million contingency reserve built into the budget to absorb cost and supply-chain shocks.
Experienced Delivery team
Bethany Legacy is being built by a licensed builder, architects, and project managers with multi-unit residential experience, drawings complete, builder secured, and management structure in place to carry the build from servicing through occupancy.
Real buildings. Real homes. Real returns.
The Afro-Caribbean Business Network (ACBN) is a Black-led non-profit that has worked to remove systemic barriers facing Black entrepreneurs in Ontario since 2017. ACBN’s ecosystem reaches more than 30,000 entrepreneurs across 40+ partner organizations and generates $8.55 in social return for every dollar invested.
- PCapital raised through the ACBN Community Bond is deployed across four areas, each chosen because it builds something that lasts beyond the life of the bond itself.
- $Affordable housing: Bethany Legacy Apartments and land for future development.
- $Microloan capital: Direct funding for Black entrepreneurs declined by traditional banks.
- $Organizational stability: The infrastructure that sustains ACBN's programs.
- $Strategic impact investments: Community-owned assets built to compound over time.
Creating Sustainable Impact
Together, these four areas do more than fund a project. They build the ecosystem — housing, capital, capacity, and ownership — that Black entrepreneurs and families need to grow generational wealth in Ontario.
All four are guided by ACBN’s 3C Framework™: Clarity → Connection → Capital.
— What ACBN Does
The ACBN Community Bond is backed by a real development , it is backed by Bethany Legacy Apartments. A 45-unit, three-storey affordable housing development in Woodstock, Ontario, with land secured, permits approved, and financing anchored by the CMHC Affordable Housing Fund.
Twenty-three of the 45 units are affordable, targeted at approximately 70% of market rent, with the remaining 22 rented at market rate to create long-term financial stability. The total project budget is approximately $16.4 million.
“And that’s where we feel Oxford County and Woodstock were really receptive to what we wanted to do. We actually want to add value.”
Ryan Knight, ACBN Co-Founder and and Co-Executive
Shawn Allen, a prominent figure in Canadian finance, epitomizes the essence of Scarborough, having been born, raised, and currently residing in this vibrant community. In 2008, he founded Matrix Mortgage Global, guiding it to become the premier private lending brokerage in the nation.
Shawn’s exceptional contributions have earned him significant recognition, including his induction into the Scarborough Walk of Fame, 5 consecutive Broker of the Year awards, and a place on the prestigious Growth 500 list for the fastest growing mortgage brokerage in Canada.
He has also been honoured three times with the Top 100 Global Mortgage Broker award. Notably, Shawn was acknowledged as one of the top 100 most influential Black individuals in Canada in 2022 and 2023.
[/dsm_card_carousel_child][dsm_card_carousel_child title=”Rosemarie Powell” subtitle=”Big on Green / Toronto Community Benefits Network ” image=”https://acbncanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/rosemarie-powell-headshot-photo-1.jpeg” image_background_height=”300px” button_url_new_window=”1″ _builder_version=”4.26.0″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#FFFFFF” background_enable_color=”on” border_radii=”on|3px|3px|3px|3px” global_colors_info=”{}” parent_button=”off” parent_header_level=”h4″]
Rosemarie Powell is Executive Director of the Toronto Community Benefits Network, co-founder of the Canadian Building Diversity Institute and Owner of Big on Green Property Management.
She has been a passionate advocate for social, economic, and environmental justice for over 20 years and has advanced equitable approaches to policy development and implementation at various levels of government.
Her community engagement and environmental advocacy work earned several awards for leadership and imagination.
[/dsm_card_carousel_child][dsm_card_carousel_child title=”Ryan Knight” subtitle=”Co-Founder and Executive Director, Afro-Caribbean Business Network” image=”https://acbncanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ryan-Knight-Photo-headshot-scaled.jpg” image_background_height=”300px” button_url_new_window=”1″ _builder_version=”4.27.7″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#FFFFFF” background_enable_color=”on” hover_enabled=”0″ border_radii=”on|3px|3px|3px|3px” global_colors_info=”{}” parent_button=”off” parent_header_level=”h4″ sticky_enabled=”0″]
(ACBN), was created in 2017 as a response to his own experience of looking for support to help scale up and franchise his business venture Detailing Knights. The ACBN works to unify and educate Black entrepreneurs in its network of more than 6,000 businesses, and in early 2021 began working on a research partnership with the Sheridan College Pilon School of Business to identify the needs of Black entrepreneurs and develop recommendations and resources to help build their business capacity.
He is a volunteer board member for Mississauga Board of Trade, a founding Board member of the Peel Learning Foundation, which assists students and families living in poverty, and a founding board member of SETSI the Social Economy Through Social Inclusion. Knight was inducted into the Sheridan College Pilon School of Business Hall of Fame in 2020.
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Learn more about our offerings and programs available through the Black Entrepreneurship Ecosystem.
