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?”
“We were so delighted to be awarded the Best Emerging Social EnterPrize award by the Trico Foundation. The greatest effect was that we had our name out there, people started looking at us, and respecting the work that we did” said Brian Postlewait of Mission Possible of their 2011 award."
In a historic collaboration, seven regional non-profit organizations have come together to launch Enterprising Non-Profits Canada / enp-Canada. In the past, local enp sites have offered business planning and technical assistance to non-profit organizations wishing to develop, launch and grow social enterprises. enp-Canada will now provide a platform for synthesizing those efforts, collecting insights and promoting further partnerships in the advancement of social enterprise in Canada. Social enterprises are businesses operated by non-profit organizations for the blended purpose of creating social value and generating income from sales.
The first day I started Trico Charitable Foundation I looked around the office and thought, where's the phone? Two short weeks later, on Valentine's Day, the Foundation officially kicked off its commitment to advance social entrepreneurship. The strategy for our first year included support for non-profit social enterprises through the launch of Enterprising Non-Profits Alberta (enp Alberta) and the Social EnterPrize, support for for-profit social business through a partnership with the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, and the production of the Enterprising Spirit conference....and finding a phone. Today is Valentine's Day, and it's amazing to me that the Foundation is already heading into its third year.
Trico Charitable Foundation is receiving over $1.5 million in federal government funding for its Enterprising Non-Profits Canada project. This project will test the ability of not-for-profit organizations to leverage non-federal government funding to address social challenges. Trico Charitable Foundation will support the development of the social enterprise sector by coordinating and pooling ideas and resources across the country.