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?”
As we begin to think through the possibilities and ramifications, we become intentional in how we respond to and solve problems. It is by way of this understanding that we move through the murky waters of uncertainty, towards consistent methods of risk management and brand development.
To mix metaphors, seeing successful social enterprises as coral reefs may be the tip of the iceberg in a new understanding of how social enterprises grow and affect social change, and how we can help them do so. These themes will be explored more fully at our EconoUs2017 event Doing Business Differently: An evening of celebration and insight on September 14, 2017.
Recipient of the Social EnterPrize in 2011, Groupe Convex is featured in the latest edition of our case study series, our effort to more effectively tell the stories of amazing Canadian social enterprises. Written by the Ontario Institute for Students in Education, University of Toronto, the case study demonstrates a social enterprise committed to generating meaningful jobs in an increasingly diverse number of ways. It also highlights the possible challenges of relying too much on a particular government policy and the difficult choices that come when one income stream does better than another.
On September 13-15, 2017, EconoUs2017 will convene up to 350 delegates and community leaders from across Canada and abroad for three days of learning, connecting, and celebrating the heart and soul of local economies. Trico Charitable Foundation is honoured to partner with EconoUs to bring the Social EnterPrize back home to Calgary and host a panel celebrating doing business differently on Thursday September 14th, 2017.