By Michelle Strutzenberger, Axiom News Even with the trillions of dollars and billions of volunteer hours invested in charity over the last 30 years, it
The harsh reality is new ways of doing things in an old system typically yields old results. It’s akin to planting a flower in the middle of a desert. Embracing the recommended core disciplines (‘action’, ‘learning’ and ‘leveraging’), guided by new mindsets (‘co-creation’, ‘electric judo’ and ‘systems health’) and an ecosystems approach presents the best chance of producing the culture change we need, serving the goals of the government, and maximizing the potential of the SIE for all Albertans.
Perhaps the crux of the matter was addressed in one question within the consultation documents: “How can we leverage ALL types of innovation?”
The acronym for “action”, “leveraging” and “learning” added to “innovation” could be “ALL Inn.”
This could be Alberta’s rallying cry and represent:
• Innovation will be everywhere.
• Innovation includes everyone/everyone has a role.
• Alberta is committed to the innovation agenda.
We applaud the Alberta Government for taking the bold step of creating a Social Innovation Endowment. As a partner in this work, we see ourselves as accountable for doing all we can to ensure the success of the SIE in Alberta and championing its future. We believe that Government should hold the social innovation sector to high account as a partner in this work and empower it to do the work needed so that all Albertans may benefit from the opportunities that social innovation holds.
If the SIE is to achieve its ambitious, arguably audacious, goal of solving ‘wicked problems’, Alberta will have to go “ALL Inn.”.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://tricofoundation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Jasmine-Retzer-crop.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]By Jasmine Retzer, Student, Mount Royal University • The Calgary social enterprises profiled in this article will be the subject of SEWF
SEWF 2013 was pleased to host a wide array of local students, including five from West Island College. The following story reproduces the post-event summaries
When I started Lean Machine in 2005, it was a bold move. The thought of an independent organization attempting to enter a category dominated by
October 7, 2014
Enterprising Non-Profits Alberta: Intro to Social Enterprise Workshop (Calgary)
This workshop is intended for organizations that are interested in social enterprise, but would like to learn more about how starting a social enterprise will affect their organization.
This session will introduce social enterprise and is designed for organizations considering this path in the future. It will explore what social enterprise is, the many forms it can take, and why an organization would consider social enterprise. We will also discuss some of the potential community impacts and review the development path of social enterprise planning. This session will highlight local social enterprises and explore their journey to provide tangible examples of how social enterprise can help your organization further its mission and increase the chances of sustainability in the future.
Workshop details:
When: Tuesday, October 7th, from 8:30 am – 11:30 am MST
Where: Trico Charitable Foundation, 1003 11 Ave SW, Calgary
Cost: $50 for the first team member and $30 for additional attendees
Why don’t more entrepreneurs and professionals access the support of mentors who want to help? It’s not for a lack of wanting the help. A
As a small and relatively new private foundation, we were intrigued by Kania, Kramer & Russell’s discussion of an emergent philanthropy framework. While our initial debates focused on the ‘newness’ and the key elements highlighted in their article were theoretically interesting, we were more attracted to the ‘how to’ elements outlined in the ‘How to move to an emergent model’ section.
For us, the authors’ move away from their views on strategic philanthropy does not mean that emergent philanthropy loses its own requirement to be strategic. Rather, it honours the notion that the shift from predictive to emergent models requires different processes, communication and cultures to ensure that we can describe the impact of what we are doing.
To this end, the ultimate potential of the article lies in its attempt to explain how emergent philanthropy can be done. Sadly, this does not seem to be the focus of much of the discussion that has occurred. This strikes us as a squandered opportunity. Imagine the incredible value of all the organizations that participated in this debate talking about ‘co-creating strategy’, ‘working the attractors’ and ‘improving system fitness’ – do they embrace these elements, what has worked, what hasn’t, what have they learned? We are sharing our story in the hopes that it inspires more experienced foundations to join a discussion of the ‘how to’ aspects of the article.
Hearing stories from passionate, active social enterprisers can be enriching and informative enough, but imagine a tour to see them in action. That’s the opportunity
World forum helps spark deliberate effort to share learnings from a burgeoning field This may not have been a key intent of the Social Enterprise