Communicopia

It's been a full week. On Monday I had the honour of sitting on the opening panel discussion for the Second Canadian Conference on Social Enterprise in Vancouver. The topic of the panel was "Social Enterprise: Why?" and I was joined by two very strong colleagues, Johanne Mennie who is leading the social economy file for the federal government, and Marty Donkervort, who heads one of Canada's most successful social enterprises, Inner City Renovations in Winnipeg. I represented both the private sector and a funding perspective, through my experience with BC Technology Social Partners and the BC Social Enterprise Fund (see promotional video on the fund here).

The panel was lively, and our different perspectives on the business case for social enterprise and the challenges facing both the sector and the individual organizations within it were well received by the audience, which numbered over 450 people from across the country. There is a podcast of the panel posted here, and I will post photos as soon as I get them.

Later that same day I gave a workshop on "Branding and Positioning your Social Enterprise" to about 60 people. The workshop was lively and there were many great questions from the group. My Powerpoint file is attached to this blog post for those of you who came and wanted more notes. I have also attached the 2 page overview of Communicopia's branding process and the blank Creative Brief document that I handed out at the session. Please use at will to prepare your own organization for any creative projects you may be planning.

Tuesday afternoon was even more fun. BCT SVP had our official launch of the BC Social Enterprise Fund (see our promo video here) over lunch, announcing our second $270,000 round of growth capital investments in second stage social enterprises. In our presentation and accompanying movie I think we made a great case for support for the sector, as well as why the space needs more investors and more innovation in how money is directed. Once again, BC is leading the way in Canada.

To ground those visions into a plan, that afternoon with the help of Derek Gent from Vancity Capital, Pam Chalout of Renewal Partners, Michael Lewkowitz of Igniter / Tides Socail Finance 21, and David LePage of enp, I helped host a "Funders Forum" invitation only gathering of active funders in the Social Enterprise space. About 30 funders from across the country discussed the gaps to success in the sector and did focused planning work on 3 solution streams to address the gaps. The results are too early to tell but I feel hopeful the energy in the room for massive change will continue to move forward. Look for more to come from this emerging collaboration / coalition in the coming months.

For more information on the leading edge of social enterprise thinking (which, as usual, occurs in the U.S.) check out Jeff Skoll's Social Edge project. A great definition of what it means to be a social entrepreneur is on the Skoll website here.