Transforming the Community Impact of Campus Space: Bow Valley College and WINS Open a Social Enterprise Thrift Store

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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What is social entrepreneurship?

We define social entrepreneurship as using business models (selling a good or service) to enhance social impact. This reflects most Canadian definitions.

Beyond balance

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.  

Aspirational

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?”

From L to R: Michael Benarroch, President of the University of Manitoba; Wayne Chiu; Anne Mahon, Chancellor of the University of Manitoba

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.

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