Q&A with Research Analyst Intern Liam Gatensby

For the past several months, Raven Outcomes has had the pleasure of welcoming Liam Gatensby as our Research Analyst intern. During this time, Liam has contributed meaningfully to our work, taking the pen on our forthcoming report examining the political, institutional, and financial conditions that have helped scale outcomes finance ecosystems.

His research offers valuable insights into how governments around the world are building the policy, institutional, and financial foundations required for community-driven impact to flourish.

Now that Liam is wrapping up his internship with Raven Outcomes and is preparing to embark on his final semester of graduate school, we invited Liam to share more about his experience, what drew him to this work, and what he hopes his next chapter will look like.

How did you get involved with Propel Impact?

For years, I have been a quiet observer of the Canadian social finance and innovation space. Coming from a non-finance background, I was seeking a way to bridge knowledge gaps in everything from my understanding of the Canadian social finance ecosystem to core financial concepts to build a foundation that will help me launch a career in the field. That's where Propel Impact was the perfect fit.

Through Propel Impact’s programming, I gained foundational industry knowledge and, more importantly, the chance to apply it through hands-on experience during my internship with Raven Outcomes.

What attracted you to Raven Outcomes?

I was drawn to Raven Outcomes because of its commitment to systems change and community-led approaches. Government funding models are often slow, top-down, and disconnected from lived realities. Traditional financial systems weren’t created by or for Indigenous Peoples. To date, these systems, both public and private, have failed to address longstanding gaps in housing, healthcare, and sustainable jobs.

Raven Outcomes takes a different approach. When the status quo isn’t working for communities, the answer isn’t to double down on the same approaches; it’s to create new ones. Raven Outcomes is at the forefront of challenging these systems, building tools that amplify local priorities, promoting self-determination, and fostering long-term Indigenous well-being.

What was your role and what did you work on?

As a Research Analyst intern, I spent most of my time authoring a report exploring how governments worldwide have helped outcomes finance approaches take root. Globally, outcomes finance is being used as a tool for more impactful public investment. Meanwhile, in Canada, the ecosystem remains underdeveloped.

Our goal was to understand which policy, institutional, and financial conditions enabled outcomes finance to succeed in places like the U.K., the U.S., and Denmark, and what lessons Canada can learn from those examples.

Across every case, the message was consistent: outcomes finance does not emerge organically; it requires deliberate government leadership, supportive legal and institutional frameworks, catalytic public investment and strong technical infrastructure to flourish. Where these conditions exist, the approach scaled and evolved, and where they didn’t, progress stalled.

What did you learn during your time at Raven Outcomes?

My time at Raven Outcomes has taught me to think beyond the limits that mainstream policymaking so often imposes. In government, decisions are frequently shaped by election and budget cycles; in business, success is measured quarter to quarter. These systems incentivize quick wins instead of lasting solutions, often leaving the very people the policy is meant to serve behind.

Working at Raven Outcomes taught me to view public policy through a fundamentally different lens, rooted in the Seven Generations Principle. According to this principle, every decision we make today should contribute to a thriving world seven generations into the future. This lens forces you to stretch your thinking beyond a fiscal year, beyond a mandate letter, and beyond a quarterly report. It’s a perspective that forces you to slow down, zoom out, and recognize how decisions ripple across communities, families, and the land overtime.

I began to see our systems undervalue long-term thinking. Many of the issues we face, from poverty to climate change, require investments that may not yield results in a fiscal year or an election cycle, but will matter immensely to future generations. Raven Outcomes’ work creates space for this thinking by aligning funding with meaningful, lasting results.

Working at Raven Outcomes taught me that meaningful change requires more than new policies. It requires new time horizons, new accountability structures, and a willingness to prioritize people and outcomes over political timelines.

What is next for you and what are your career goals?

With the final semester of my Master of Public Policy degree at Simon Fraser University beginning in the new year, I have been thinking about the kind of work I want to dedicate myself to after graduation. Many of Canada’s most persistent social challenges are symptoms of widening wealth inequality, which influences health outcomes, housing stability, economic opportunity, and intergenerational mobility.

Therefore, in my career, I aim to work at the intersection of policy and social investment, helping to create enabling conditions for long-term, shared, community-centered wealth creation, and broad-based employee ownership models. Ultimately, I want to help design systems that not only address the symptoms of inequality but also eliminate it at its roots, creating an economy where prosperity is truly shared.

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