Summer Job Will Pay YYC Student to Work on Their Social Enterprise: Apply Now

Thanks to a new initiative of the Trico Charitable Foundation, a Calgary post-secondary student developing a social enterprise during their studies will no longer have to put that venture on pause while working to ‘pay the bills’ during the summer.

“Through our work with student social entrepreneurs, we saw they often face the agonizing choice of putting their venture on pause because they need to generate income during the summer” explains Dan Overall, Director of Trico Charitable Foundation. “Combine that with the fact that more and more Calgary students are developing social enterprises and Calgary’s growth as a social entrepreneurship hub*, and we knew the time was right for this type of initiative.”

The Trico Summer Student Social Entrepreneur will work full-time over summer 2017 (exact start and end dates to be negotiated based on the selected student’s schedule). Tasks will be broken down as follows:

• 50% of their time will be devoted to their venture as they see fit,
• 30% of their time will be devoted to putting their venture through the A.S.E.S.S. process, the Foundation’s toolkit to help social enterprises develop, and
• 20% of their time will be devoted to helping the Foundation in its other social enterprise support efforts.

“This program represents a ‘summer of opportunity and social impact’, for the student and the 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.”

Students have until January 27th, 2017 to apply and the chosen candidate will be notified by February 7th.

A detailed job description is available here.

* On September 16, 2016 Mayor Naheed Nenshi proclaimed the first-ever Social Entrepreneurship Day in Calgary. Noting Calgary’s emergence as a social entrepreneurship hub, the Proclamation stated:

• Calgary’s vibrant business community is an important catalyst for innovation and growth in the area of social entrepreneurship;
• A growing number of Calgary organizations are investing funds and lending talent to social entrepreneurship projects;
• More Calgary non-profits and companies are partnering to effect social change while achieving economic growth.

More About the Trico Charitable Foundation:

Established in 2008, the Trico Charitable Foundation seeks to close gaps in society by provoking innovation and building capacity in social entrepreneurship. Its work focuses on the Canadian context through four key areas of focus: 1) A.S.E.S.S., a capacity building toolkit with funding for non-profit social enterprises in Alberta, Canada; 2) a biennial Social EnterPrize which celebrates mature Canadian social enterprises (for profit and not-for profit) and commissions case studies on the recipients; 3) The World of Social Entrepreneurship, an annual Calgary event in partnership with Beakerhead that attracts over 130,000 in person visits and celebrates the coming together of science, engineering and art to solve social problems; and 4) working with the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation on RECODE, an effort to nurture social innovation and social entrepreneurship in Canada’s post-secondary institutions.

The Power of S x E:

Social entrepreneurship works best when ‘social’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ is blended so that market success and social impact mutually reinforce each other and become virtually indivisible. The results become so much more than the sum of their parts and new, boundary-pushing realities become possible. That is why Trico wants to move the conversation past “social + entrepreneurship” and on to “social x entrepreneurship”, or “S x E” for short. Read more here!