Founded in Edmonton, Alberta, Iron & Earth is a worker-led non-profit with a mission to empower fossil fuel industry and Indigenous workers to build and implement climate solutions. With the decline of global oil and their mission in mind, Iron & Earth made the decision to develop a social enterprise training company, as a sort of sister organization.
The Trico Charitable Foundation, in collaboration with the Trico Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Centre at the Haskayne School of Business, is pleased to announce a new special perk for What’s Next YYC finalists.
What’s Next YYC (WNYYC) will showcase ten exciting Calgary and area based social enterprises that have already won awards or successfully completed a local social enterprise support program. It looks to answer “what’s next?” on the journey for these organizations.
New Perk: For 2021 each of the 10 finalists of WNYYC will receive the option of either anonymously keeping $2,500 or anonymously giving $2,500 to a fellow finalist.
The Trico Charitable Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of the NU Student Social Entrepreneurship Awards. These awards will be given to student social entrepreneurs in 2021 and are meant to celebrate the best and brightest student social entrepreneurs in Alberta. The NU Awards joins a number of Trico Charitable Foundation initiatives, such as What’s Next YYC and the Social EnterPrize, in advancing Alberta as a leader in social entrepreneurship.
For the 2021 edition of the Social EnterPrize, one recipient will:
-Receive $100,000 prize money;
-Be featured in a video profile;
-Be featured at an award ceremony scheduled for the evening of November 18, 2021 (if the ceremony is in-person travel & accommodation will be provided);
-Be featured in an in-depth profile in a case-study undertaken by a Canadian post-secondary institution; and
-Help advance Canada’s social entrepreneurship movement.
coRISE is a social enterprise in Calgary that upcycles excess food to create nutritious snacks, and then contributes proceeds from that venture to support mental health programs through pet companionship.
Canada’s first Indigenous arts hotel, Skwachàys Lodge (pronounced skwatch-eyes) is another shining example of Canada’s leadership in coming up with ingenious ways business ventures can be blended with a social mission. Located in Vancouver, Skwachàys Lodge is a unique social enterprise created by a social housing organization, Vancouver Native Housing Society (VNHS).
Social entrepreneur Aishwarya Khanduja firmly believes in pursuing her passions to their fullest extent, and there are plenty of examples of her doing so. The Trico Foundation had the privilege of working with Aishwarya when she joined the team as 2019’s summer student social entrepreneur, where she developed her social enterprise LoopEducation as she brought her venture through our A.S.E.S.S. process.
As one of our favourite examples of a Canadian social enterprise, a 2013 Social EnterPrize recipient, EMBERS Staffing Solutions (ESS) continues to excel by using the power of business models to solve social problems. Since the last time we touched base with Founder and CEO, Marcia Nozick in early 2019, ESS has paid 9.2 million in wages and benefits and grossed 11.6 million in sales.
Happy New Year! The start of 2021 gives us the opportunity to reflect and learn from 2020. Although 2020 came with its many challenges, the past twelve months were busy, historic, and made great progress in advancing both social entrepreneurship and Calgary’s role as a hub for social entrepreneurship.
Not only does the Biosphere Institute of the Bow Valley (Biosphere) offer award-winning education, research, and community engagement programs, they also continue to serve as a community resource centre, maintaining thousands of records on local ecology and planning in their public library. Biosphere is now looking to undertake business and financial planning for a new social enterprise they helped to create, called Bow Valley Green Energy, to prepare it to accept investments in community-owned and-managed renewable energy projects.