Anchor institutions – large public or nonprofit institutions rooted in a specific place, such as hospitals, universities or municipal governments – have significant roles to play in community wealth building. They are among a region’s biggest employers and purchasers of goods and services. Anchors also tend to have significant fixed assets, endowments and real estate holdings that can be used to drive economic development – economic power that translates into a specific “anchor mission.”

An anchor mission is the deliberate and strategic use of resources to benefit communities, especially low- and moderate-income neighbourhoods or historically disadvantaged groups. It is the conscious anchoring of capital, jobs and other opportunities locally. When pursued in tandem with their core missions (e.g. education, health care), anchor institutions have the potential to make their communities stronger by every measure.

This report is timely for a number of reasons. At a time of increased public debt and renewed promises to tackle poverty in Ontario, anchor strategies offer an opportunity to leverage existing public funds and assets to address these ambitious objectives.

This research also supports anchor institutions in the Toronto Region and across Ontario that are considering the community wealth building approach, as well as of those already grappling with challenges arising from their new institutional efforts. Given the number of successful anchor strategies that have emerged in the U.S. over the last decade, the time is right to examine best practices and apply lessons learned to Ontario.

This paper begins by offering a more detailed explanation of anchor institutions and strategies (‘anchor mission’ and ‘anchor strategies’ are used interchangeably throughout the report), followed by examples of well-established anchor missions in the U.S. It then looks at the current landscape and economic potential of anchor strategies in Ontario and analyzes five key issue areas and enabling strategies to overcome challenges. The conclusion describes next steps in anchor strategy development in the Toronto Region and Ontario.

While anchors can deploy different community wealth building tactics, much of this paper is focused on the issues and opportunities associated with how and where institutions spend their money. In Ontario, universities and hospitals alone spend $9.9 billion procuring goods and services annually. Given this scale of spending, it is evident procurement is among the most important levers anchors have to advance community wealth.

Additionally, though communities, social purpose organizations, advocacy groups, foundations, research institutes, private businesses and others all have important roles to play in anchor strategy development, much of the initiative and groundwork must necessarily come from the anchors themselves. For this reason, the report focuses on challenges and opportunities facing anchor institutions.