This Sunday, April 22nd is Earth Day. This year Earth Day Canada is encouraging everyone to take up a new habit that is good for the planet and you. Have you decided what your new habit might be? How about supporting an environmental social enterprise or an environmentally conscientious social business?

Green Calgary is a social enterprise that is a wonderful resource; they provide knowledge, workshops, volunteer opportunities and the healthy homes program. The Ecostore operated by Green Calgary is a great place to stock up on earth friendly products and the funds raised are then re-invested in community environmental programs. To find out more on Green Calgary and the Ecostore visit their website at http://www.greencalgary.org/ and follow them on twitter @greencalgary

Another environmental social enterprise located in Cochrane, Alberta is Home Reno Heaven. Home Reno Heaven accepts donations of home renovation products, appliances, tools and landscaping products and resells them to generate revenue for self sustaining affordable housing. If you have been thinking about acquiring new appliances, you can donate the old ones to Home Reno Heaven. They will resell them, use the proceeds to support the Cochrane Society for Housing Options and best of all there is no waste! Make sure you follow the donation guidelines, they only accept donations of products that they can resell. To learn more about Home REno Heaven and their donation program vist their website at http://www.homerenoheaven.com

I am an insatiably curious person. Many things interest me and it is difficult to focus on just one thing. In fact, I’d like to think of myself as a “systems thinker” and so I’m always exploring all sorts of intriguing things to see how it all connects.

So, when thinking up my first blog for the Trico Charitable Foundation (TCF) I was at a loss for where to begin. How was I going to pick just one topic to focus on? I thought it might make sense to start with why I was drawn to working at TCF – and that is my growing awareness and interest in social enterprise (for TCF’s purposes, we define social enterprise as non-profit organizations running a business). I’ve also been learning a lot about private, charitable foundations. It’s a whole new world for someone who has only worked in the non-profit sector. Perhaps it would be valuable to share some of my new knowledge here?

Then I found myself watching Geoff Mulgan’s TED talk, Post-crash: Investing in a Better World, and I remembered some questions that have been on my mind for some time now. What is the economy for? What is the role of business in contributing to social good? This felt like as good a place to start as any.

Join Alex Bruton, President of The Innographer and Professor of Innovation at Mount Royal University as he facilitates us through an ideas generation workshop.

This experiential workshop helps you design really big value ideas – the kind that can’t help but make significant change in the world around us because they’re highly impactful, highly feasible, and highly passion-nourishing. In a safe, supportive and practical learning environment, you’ll experience coming up with an idea and designing a simple enterprise model that aims to build genuine wealth in society. And you’ll take away the DIY tools for doing it again, either on your own  whiteboards or on the back of the next napkin you run into.

 The Trico Charitable Foundation and Enterprising Non Profits-Alberta (enp-ab) recently celebrated our one year anniversary. During the last year we granted $92, 500 in funding to ten non-profit organizations in Alberta. To raise awareness of these organizations and their social enterprise endeavors we will be featuring them on our blog.

 Our first feature grantee is the Association for the Alberta Network of Immigrant Women (ANIW). This organization was founded in 1986 and recently celebrated its 25^th anniversary. ANIW focuses on researching issues that impact the settlement of immigrant women in Alberta. This research is used to develop programs that support and empower these women.  

 ANIW like many not for profit organizations is considering pursuing a social enterprise. They understand and appreciate the value of diversifying their revenue sources to ensure the continuity of their programs. The Executive Director, Kamal Seghal, is familiar with social enterprise and has thought about it as a possible opportunity for ANIW. She has seen examples of social enterprise working in Calgary but was unsure of how to start developing a plan for her organization.

  In 2011, a representative from ANIW attended the Trico Charitable Foundation and enp-ab’s Building Your Social Enterprise Workshop. ANIW realized that many of the social enterprise endeavors they had been contemplating for their organization were possible and that there was support for organizations pursuing social enterprise. Kamal Seghal said that “The stimulus for us to move forward was the support”.

(This Photograph features ANIW‘s staff, from left to right: Nizar Allidina, Chido Samantha Mbavarira,  Rooh Khan, Rosa Martinez-Suarez).