Shelley Legin has three decades of senior-level experience and innovation in all levels of government and the financial and post-secondary sectors. Legin is known for her transformational leadership skill and a track record for excellent strategic and operational outcomes.

Legin believes impact investing is a possible mechanism to collaborate across corporations, not-for-profits, the private sector, institutions and government to address significant social issues.

Legin’s research will focus on the role of the intermediary in mobilizing both the field of impact investing and higher education system actors to address low participation rates of non-traditional learners in post-secondary education in a scalable way.

For the purpose of her research, she defines non-traditional learner populations as Indigenous peoples, immigrants, rural youth, youth aging out of foster care, people with disabilities, people of low socio-economic status, inner-city, adult learners, first generation learners and single parents. These populations have lower post-secondary participation than Canada’s population participation rate of 54%. For example, the 2016 Census shows that only 33.9% of First Nations people, Métis and Inuit complete college or university and just 20.4% of mothers in single-parent families had a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 39% of those married or living common law (Statistics Canada, 2016). The overarching purpose of the research is to explore how to mobilize equitable post-secondary access by leveraging social finance.

Grounded in a theoretical framework based on institutional and field theories, Legin recognizes there is an opportunity to research and construct a catalytic intermediary role to address gaps in the extant literature specifically to:

• Elucidate the current and possible future role of the intermediary in impact investing.
• Expose opportunities to further the institutionalization of the social impact field.
• Detect barriers and enablers to mobilization and scale.

Scholarships Awarded

• British Columbia Graduate Scholarship – October 2021
• Royal Roads University Doctoral Scholarship – May 2022

Knowledge Dissemination

Legin also completed development of course curriculum for FSIM 525, Social Finance and Sustainable Investing and received Royal Roads University (RRU) Curriculum Committee approval in September 2022. The course is one of three required for a new RRU Graduate Certificate in Financing Social Impact scheduled to commence January 2024.

Legin holds a Bachelor of Administration from the University of Regina (1985), a Master of Business Administration from Queen’s University (2000) and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA).