MCCD SOCIETAL IMPACT STRATEGIC PLAN | ENGAGING COMMUNITIES
Breaking financial barriers: New learning hub explores solutions to address financial exclusion
July 25, 2025 ·
Contributed by: Matt Innes-Leroux
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A new learning and action hub at McMaster is working to eliminate barriers to financial inclusion for Hamilton residents.
The Social Impact Hub brings together non-profits, businesses, government and academia to co-design solutions to pressing social challenges. The Hub recently held its first event, exploring challenges for residents experiencing financial exclusion in the City of Hamilton.
Financial exclusion refers to a lack of access to affordable credit and presents a barrier to a significant portion of the Hamilton population, with more than 13 per cent of households reporting they rely on fringe financial services like payday loans.
Financial exclusion disproportionately affects groups including racialized communities, newcomers, single parents, people with disabilities, and youth in precarious work or housing. Racialized households are twice as likely to be underbanked, and gender diverse individuals face heightened barriers to financial services.
“What we are doing here is intensely local and community-engaged,” says Brent McKnight, founder of the Social Impact Hub, and an associate professor of Strategic Management at DeGroote.
“There’s a large community in Hamilton that’s experiencing poverty, and we want to catalyze understanding, solutions, and ultimately create a stronger society. We are starting with financial exclusion.”
The Social Impact Hub’s financial inclusion pilot project is a cross-sector initiative looking to support local non-profit partners like the YWCA Hamilton, Mishka Social Services, Good Shepherd, United Way Halton & Hamilton, and Empowerment Squared so they can better address their clients’ needs.
“Non-profit organizations frequently deal with clients who are facing financial inclusion problems, whether they’re recent immigrants, precariously employed or reintegrating following incarceration. If you’re not financially included, then you are at risk of taking predatory loans or worse,” says McKnight.
The Social Impact Hub draws on McKnight’s expertise in experiential learning, regularly teaching live cases in his undergraduate and MBA-level strategy classes and designing courses like Innovation for Social Impact, where non-profits can participate and learn side-by-side with McMaster students.
McKnight says non-profit, for-profit, government, and academic sectors are intimately connected with financial exclusion challenges; productively engaging stakeholders from these sectors are key to the Social Impact Hub’s approach.
“One of our goals with this hub is to bring for-profit actors into meaningful engagement with this work,” says McKnight. “Our partners are choosing to leverage business solutions to help improve society.”
McKnight says participants at the event shone a light on some critical factors that make financial exclusion challenging. Much of financial exclusion is about distrust, as one participant described “credit is calculated against people, not with them” that highlights the hill many individuals need to climb to access credit. Other participants highlighted how confusing bureaucracy and fragmented support systems obscure solutions for individuals experiencing a financial crisis.
This understanding will now be used as input to co-create solutions with local organizations. In addition, discussions at this event will be used to generate opportunities for students in undergraduate and graduate programs for problem-based learning within DeGroote’s curriculum.
About the Social Impact Hub
The Social Impact Hub will be housed in the new McLean Centre for Collaborative Discovery. McKnight says the dedicated physical space will serve as a “learning laboratory” for students, researchers and community partners.
“When you create a meeting space, you can catalyze collaboration,” he says.
“We want the Social Impact Hub to feed and engage with our undergraduate and MBA students through special events like GRIT week and the final year consulting course. The Social Impact Hub gives us a forum to do that and to teach students the importance of working across sectors in new ways.”
The Social Impact Hub is powered by passionate DeGroote students and recent alumni including Avery Tedesco, Lama Al-Amodi, and Hala Arafeh who are making the hub a reality.
The Social Impact Hub empowers government, for-profit and social purpose changemakers by facilitating cross-sector collaboration. It actively involves students in the Hub’s mission by enabling them to drive meaningful change through practical, hands-on activities that focus on measurable impact.
About the McLean Centre for Collaborative Discovery
The McLean Centre for Collaborative Discovery is a purpose-built facility designed to enrich the student learning experience in a dynamic university setting. The McLean Centre will prepare students for the future of business by fostering collaboration, creativity, and a hands-on approach to learning. This innovative space is where DeGroote and McMaster students, faculty, staff and community partners will come together to solve authentic problems and tackle challenges facing society.
Visit McLean Centre for Collaborative Discovery for more information.
