Closer to Home Community Services is a Calgary, Alberta charitable organization that facilitates growth, belonging, and building meaningful relationships in communities. CEO Karen Olivier discusses IRP funding, social enterprise cafe industry learnings, and looking to the future.
In November 2013 Trico Charitable Foundation was honoured to host the Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF), bringing it to Canada for the 1st time ever.
As fate would have it, one session was titled “Three Things Public Policy Needs to do for Social Enterprise to Thrive in 2023.” The session was an all-star affair, moderated by Peter Holbrook, CEO of Social Enterprise UK, and featuring eight social enterprise policy leaders from Canada and across the world. We thought the ten year anniversary of the panel would be an interesting time to revisit it.
Calgary social enterprise Earthware is offering people the opportunity to affect real change by using a return-for-reuse zero waste takeout container program. Founder John MacInnes discusses IRP funding, a plethora of learnings, and overcoming challenges.
Taproot Publishing Inc. sees a future in which communities are served by sustainably funded acts of journalism facilitated by technology. They equip individuals and organizations with the information they need to contribute to their community, make good decisions, and stay engaged with others. Co-Founder Mack Male discusses IRP funding, implementing sales, & building a thriving team.
Ethically Aligned AI is a tech start-up and social enterprise that is on a mission to help organizations build better AI systems and help people to make sound choices in selecting trustworthy AI-enabled products or services. Founder & CEO Katrina Ingram, discusses IRP funding, a plethora of learnings, and reimagining the future.
The honorary degree is the highest honour the University of Manitoba can confer upon an individual for distinguished achievement in scholarship, the arts, or public service. During Spring Convocation 2023, honorary degrees were bestowed upon six exceptional individuals including Wayne Chiu, Founder of The Trico Charitable Foundation (TCF) and Trico Group. We are unbelievably proud of his accomplishments and inspired by his constantly evolving vision of how business models can serve society!
Two common refrains – hoping for the day when every business is a social enterprise, and claiming that social entrepreneurship “is a verb, not a noun” – sound positive. In fact, they’re holding us back from performing among the virtuosos of the world.
The funding ACWB received from IRP was used for a Feasibility Study to determine if a property in the downtown core of Fort McMurray could be purchased, turned into an arts incubator, and run as a social enterprise, providing sustainability for the incubator and for Arts Council.
Executive Director Sean Campbell of Union-Cooperative talks about their biggest learnings, partnerships, and next steps.
Funded by the Government of Canada, the Investment Readiness Program (IRP) supports social purpose organizations as they contribute to solving pressing social, cultural and environmental challenges across Canada.
Its goal is to help social purpose organizations prepare them to be ready for investments and participate in Canada’s growing social finance market.
The latest IRP round was overseen in Alberta by the Banff Canmore Community Foundation (BCCF) in partnership with Red Deer Community Foundation (RDCF). BCCF and RDCF utilized a jury of 14 community members to deliberate on the applications and Dan Overall, Executive Director of the Trico Foundation, was honoured to be part of that jury.
Recently, BCCF sent Dan five questions about IRP. Some of his answers formed the basis of a BCCF blog that is available here. You can see the entirety of the questions and answers below.