by doverall | Dec 2, 2014 | Social Enterprise World Forum 2013
Rural communities have unique ways of addressing key challenges such as distance, size of market, lack of infrastructure and services, out-migration of youth, and the devastation brought about by branch closings, whether it be a grocery store or a manufacturing plant. Attendees learned how various intermediaries and rural social enterprises from around the world have risen to these challenges, and helped preserve the viability of their communities. This session was moderated by Ethel Côté, Social Enterprise Practitioner and Developer, Canadian Centre for Community Renewal and featured: Elena Casolari, CEO, ACRA-CCS, Michael Craig, Global Fellow; Strategic Advisor, Acumen and BASIX Social Enterprise Group, James Dunbar, Founding Chief Executive, New Start Highland A special thanks to session sponsor Enterprising Non-Profits (enp) Canada. Transcript of session (Includes Q&A): Elena Casolari: I’m very pleased to be here with you today and very much overwhelmed because I love social enterprise and I love social entrepreneurs. It was not the case some time ago. I have a financial background and I used to work for a mainstream investment bank for many years. I belonged to what I regard as the greedy crowd. One day I had really enough of making money, because it was money without values. I was looking for something else. I used to work in emerging markets, especially in India. I realized that my work was not very helpful to the many people who didn’t have any access to finance. I took some time and decided to join the social space and I’m very happy. I regard myself as an intermediary in this beautiful universe of social enterprise. I joined an NGO...
by doverall | Dec 1, 2014 | Social Enterprise World Forum 2013
In many ways Quebec is a leader in developing social enterprises and its social impact sector. Attendees were able to hear lessons learned from a jurisdictional leader in the field. This session was moderated by Peter Elson, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Nonprofit Studies, Mount Royal University, and featured: Johanne Lavoie, Commissioner, Social Economy Bureau, City of Montreal Nancy Neamtan, Présidente directrice-générale, Chantier de l’économie sociale A special thanks to session sponsor Enterprising Non-Profits (enp) Canada. Transcript of session (Includes Q&A): Peter Elson: I’m going to provide a contextual overview. A lot of my research has been comparative research, related to social enterprises but also relationship between provincial governments to the nonprofit sector across Canada. There are six points that I’d like to address in relatively short order, but the point is Québec is different. I would say that one of the first social enterprises was Samuel de Champlain, who to New France in the early 1600s. What did Samuel de Champlain do? He not only asked the people to grow their own vegetables in the small little community settlement they had but they also had communal plots, food could be grown communally. Not only that, they had an intimate and ongoing relationship with the local aboriginal communities. Samuel de Champlain actually did, like many people who came to New France, want to establish a new kind of society. He grew up in an area in Europe which was rife with political conflict. In fact, in several of his initial voyages to Canada, he brought representatives from various religions, denominations with him on the boat. The only reason he had...
by doverall | Dec 1, 2014 | Social Enterprise World Forum 2013
Borders are not just geographic. Attendees learned from unlikely partners who have joined together to create social change and innovation. This session was moderated by Jocelyne Daw, Founder & CEO, JS Daw & Associates, and featured: Batool Hassan, Director of Business Development, Acumen Anita Nowak, Advisor & Operating Director, McGill MOOC, The J. W. McConnell Family Foundation & McGill University Sam Stephens, Executive Director/CEO, Global Soap Project Transcript of session (includes Q&A): Jocelyne Daw: You are aware, obviously, that this session is about unlikely alliances and I think one of the interesting things that has been a theme throughout the Social Enterprise World Forum so far is the absolute critical nature of building innovation, social enterprises, is by working with partners. It’s very common to think of what I would call the ‘usual suspects’, the people who are natural partners with you. What we want to do is talk to you about unlikely partners, unlikely alliances, and give you some tangible examples of how unlikely alliances have come together to really create some incredible social change and really drive social innovation. We’re very privileged today to have three panelists and I’m going to introduced them by from an alphabetical point of view. I’m happy to introduce Batool Hassan. Batool is the Director of Business Development for Acumen. Some of you might be familiar with Acumen. A couple of people did the human centered design course online this past summer, including myself and our team. Then I’m happy to introduce Anita Nowak. Anita is the Integrating Director for the Social Economy Initiative at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. She...
by doverall | Nov 29, 2014 | Social Enterprise World Forum 2013
A great idea takes great implementation and working across borders (any border) is not always easy. Theory only gets you so far when managing beyond borders, this session enabled attendees to learn from practitioners who do it everyday. This session was moderated by Kristin Hayden, Founder/Executive Director, OneWorldNow! ), and featured: Francesca Agnello, Coordinator, ACRACCS Eve Blossom, Founder, Lulan Artisans Andrea Coleman, Co-founder and CEO, Riders for Health Transcript of session: Kristin Hayden: We’re here to talk about cross cultural collaboration and although we all work internationally, which I think is the very traditional way to think about cross cultural collaboration, we would like to go a little deeper today to talk about how that shows up in all areas of our work, even when we don’t go anywhere. There are lots of cultures and worlds to step in and out of every single day and to be mindful of that and how taking on this work in a cross cultural collaborative way is actually the bigger game. And I think the question that we have asked ourselves too is why is it worth it to do this work which is sometimes actually, very uncomfortable. I thought that yesterday. If you heard the plenary with Al Etmanski, who talked about the spiritual canoe and how there’s room for everybody in that canoe. I love that metaphor. I think that also summarizes much of our approach in cross cultural collaboration. Be he also touched on that it’s really hard and sometimes we don’t want to do it. I appreciated that he named that, that sometimes we would just say ‘it’s...
by doverall | Nov 29, 2014 | Social Enterprise World Forum 2013
Labs are an emerging way tackling complex challenges. This panel addressed how they are using this approach in their country and how social enterprises can emerge from this work to enable sustainability. This session was moderated by Tim Draimin, Executive Director, Social Innovation Generation (SiG), and featured: Runa Sabroe, Chief Consultant, MindLab Sarah Schulman, Visiting Scholar, Kennisland Joeri van den Steenhoven, Director, MaRS Solutions Lab While only Joeri’s presentation was recorded, the Q&A of the entire panel is available. Transcript of Joeri van den Steenhoven’s Remarks (includes Q&A): Joeri van den Steenhoven: I think that Sarah Schulman is completely right. We’re part of a big experiment, she called it now the Lab 3.0. I think we’re still finding it out as we go forward what a lab really is and what it actually can provide in terms of value and social good. I would encourage us to learn from each other and have a discussion also later on in this session, but also in the months ahead, about what it actually is this lab. Let me tell you a bit about what we’re trying to do at the MaRS Solutions Lab. I started five months ago, so we’re still very young. I’ve worked, as Tim said earlier, in the Netherlands where I ran a change lab, and I’m basically try to, I love the point that Sarah also raised and, and the experiences that Runa has, with my lab to integrate them into this new initiative called the MaRS Solutions Lab. First of all, why are we doing this? This is a bit of how I look to the...
by doverall | Nov 28, 2014 | Social Enterprise World Forum 2013
Corporations are moving from writing cheques to supporting social purpose work to doing it themselves. SEWF 2013 heard from a panel of experts working in this area, identifying trends and discussing the implications for the social enterprise and not-for-profit sectors. This session was moderated by Steven Fish, ED, Canadian Business for Social Responsibility, and featured: Celia Cruz, Executive Director, Instituto de Cidadania Empresarial (ICE). Andrew Hewitt, Founder, The GameChangers Charmian Love, Chief Executive, Volans Andreas Souvaliotis, Co-founder, Social Change Rewards Transcript of session (includes Q&A): Steven Fish: We’ve got a bit of a standing room only situation, which is great. I was concerned of the term Corporate Social Innovation might be seen as an oxymoron for some people and they might, might bail for other sessions so I’m pleased to see the turnout. Thank you so much for turning out in droves. We’re going to spend a few minutes just sort of framing the discussion and talking a little bit about how we’ve come to the concept of corporate social innovation. CBSR was founded back in ’95, mostly social and environmental entrepreneurs coming out of the Greater Vancouver area. Early members like VanCity Credit Union, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Happy Planet Juices and the like were early members and early social and environmental pioneers. So it’s not a space that’s foreign to us, but the predominant theme for our organization focused a lot more on corporate social responsibility and we’re going to talk a little bit about that today and about the evolution and the maturity of corporate social responsibility and how in my view, which we don’t always agree...
