Were community linkages and synergies capitalized upon during the CCIP program?
The evaluation revealed that CCIP projects were, for the most part, successful in leveraging community linkages and synergies in order to capitalize on the most appropriate knowledge and resources available to achieve their objectives. Part of their success was born of the fact that CCIP project proposals were submitted by communities of interest; in other words, groups of people or organizations that had a vested interest in increasing access to risk capital within their community. The use of a management board by projects was a crucial aspect of being able to network effectively. In many of the projects, the networks of individual board members were leveraged in order to extend contact into the community and achieve greater results. Their level of success was also enhanced when these members were seen as being very credible within the local business community. What other outcomes have occurred? The evaluation revealed that the CCIP’s activities increased the efficiency of the investm
