Bow Valley College and Women In Need Society (WINS) have partnered to launch a new on-campus thrift store that combines affordability, sustainability, and hands-on learning. The initiative gives students access to low-cost essentials while creating real-world learning opportunities in social enterprise and community impact.
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We define social entrepreneurship as using business models (selling a good or service) to enhance social impact. This reflects most Canadian definitions.
Many see the social and the entrepreneurial as being in opposition, like two sides of a scale that needs to be balanced. Instead, we see the social and the entrepreneurial as partners in progress.
We support a social entrepreneurship movement that dares to ask, “How far could we go in solving the world’s problems, and even fulfilling our potential as human beings, if we fully harnessed the power of business models to enhance social impact?”
Created by the Trico Charitable Foundation in 2011, the biennial Social EnterPrize celebrate and advance leadership and excellence in social entrepreneurship in Canada. Social enterprises are organizations, for-profit or not-for-profit, that blend the social and the entrepreneurial by using business models/markets to solve social problems.
This 2013 Social EnterPrize recipient is a brilliant example of how perseverance, planning, and maintaining quality can turn a grant based charity into a self-sustaining social enterprise. We had a chance to catch up with Founder and CEO, Marcia Nozick on the most recent updates on ESS.
“This program represents a ‘summer of opportunity and social impact’, for the student and the Trico Foundation”, said Overall. “The student will be able to move their venture forward while generating additional income and plugging into our support services, network activities and events; and we get another bird’s eye view on what is needed to take promising social enterprises to the next level. It’s a real win-win.”
Happy New Year! The start of 2019 gives us the opportunity to reflect and learn from 2018. The past twelve months brought the Trico Charitable Foundation amazing insights such as crossing the chasm; the 6 key mindsets of social entrepreneurship; the release of 9 A.S.E.S.S. blogs; social entrepreneurs', summer students', and Social EnterPrize recipients' journeys and learnings; and the grand opening of the Trico Changemakers Studio.