The Cleaning Solution case study demonstrates a social enterprise that has balanced growth with organizational capacity and competes in a hyper competitive market while staying true to their mandate.
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?”
The Cleaning Solution case study demonstrates a social enterprise that has balanced growth with organizational capacity and competes in a hyper competitive market while staying true to their mandate.
The Studio doesn’t just seek to bring different groups together in its work, its very existence was the result of a diverse coming together of government (federal and the province of Alberta), a post-secondary institution (MRU), a private company (Trico Homes) and a Foundation (Trico Charitable Foundation).
This conversation isn’t a conversation of terminology. It is a recognition that if the students who leave our institutions are to be partners in solving wicked problems, they need learning experiences designed to showcase how knowledge is contextual and ever-evolving. Our community working to transform social impact education need not all work in the same way. Instead, as our international community of educators and institutions shapes itself, the guiding light of learning rather than knowing gives us room to play while upholding our current best understanding of the nature of learning and knowledge.
There are a growing number of events connected to social entrepreneurship. Many of them happen in our home city, demonstrating what an incredible hub of activity Calgary is. The Trico Foundation team is pleased to attend many of them and wish we could attend more.