Art Lew
The Tyranny of Experts – Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor by William Easterlye
Economist William Easterly, bestselling author of The White Man’s Burden, traces the history of the fight against global poverty, showing not only how these tactics have trampled the individual freedom of the world’s poor, but how in doing so have suppressed a vital debate about an alternative approach to solving poverty: freedom. Presenting a wealth of cutting-edge economic research, Easterly argues that only a new model of development—one predicated on respect for the individual rights of people in developing countries, that understands that unchecked state power is the problem and not the solution —will be capable of ending global poverty once and for all.
The Lady of the Sewers and Other Adventures in Deep Spain by Paul Richardson
Art will be moving to Spain for a while, and this book is part of his ‘preparations.’ Paul Richardson’s mission—”to sieve out the ancient, perverse and eccentric from the new, nice and normal”—took him from coastal plain to mountainous peak. From ritual pig killings to wood-chopping competitions, from an alchemist who eats stone to pilgrimages in the name of obscure Virgins, his journey into deep Spain is captivating, often hilarious, sometimes surprising, and always highly illuminating.
Carol Madsen
Carol has been working for the past few years with members of the Somali community in the Surrey, BC. Some of the books she has been reading are inspired by this work.
Infidel: My Life and Nomad: From Islam to America by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali captured the world’s attention with Infidel, her compelling coming-of-age memoir, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, in Nomad, Hirsi Ali tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made to her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed, and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical journey to freedom and, more crucially, her emotional journey to freedom—her transition from a tribal mind-set that restricts women’s every thought and action to a life as a free and equal citizen in an open society. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of Islam with Western values.
Paige’s Story: Abuse, Indifference and a Young Life Discarded by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond
This investigative report by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, BC’s Representative for Children and Youth, documents the downward spiral of a child who had great potential but never received the protection, nurturing and care she needed and deserved. A drug overdose in April of 2013 was the direct cause of death for Paige, a 19-year-old Aboriginal girl living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This report argues that it was actually years of abuse and neglect, persistent in action from front-line professionals and an indifferent social care system that led to this young woman’s demise.
Derek Pachal
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights. Starting from this provocative idea, Sapiens goes on to retell the history of our species from a completely fresh perspective. It explains that money is the most pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised; that capitalism is the most successful religion ever invented; that the treatment of animals in modern agriculture is probably the worst crime in history; and that even though we are far more powerful than our ancient ancestors, we aren’t much happier.
The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us by Bee Wilson
Ever since men first hunted for honeycomb in rocks and daubed pictures of it on cave walls, the honeybee has been seen as one of the wonders of nature: social, industrious, beautiful, terrifying. No other creature has inspired in humans an identification so passionate, persistent or fantastical. In The Hive, Bee Wilson explores the magical world of the honeybee. From the hive to honey, from beekeepers to honeymooners, via Aristotle, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Sherlock Holmes. Derek is a beekeeper himself and has already read most of the technical books on the subject and looks forward to reading a more light-hearted exploration of the myths and interesting facts about our relationship to bees.
Geoff Ripat
The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit by Kim Skildum-Reid and Anne-Marie Grey
As switched-on sponsors continue to evolve their sponsorship programs, other sponsors are falling behind – not because they are less intelligent, but because their approach and tools have not kept pace with recent big changes in sponsorship. It isn’t about awareness or exposure any more. In an era of unprecedented consumer power, sponsorship is the single most potent marketing tool you have to create and foster relationships and relevance with your target markets. The Sponsorship Seekers Toolkit is designed to equip both sponsees and sponsors with the basic theory, skills and tools required for selling, implementing and managing sponsorships. It includes checklists and templates for letters.
Papillon by Henri Charriere
Classic autobiographical/fictional account of a man, sentenced to life imprisonment in a penal colony in French Guiana, who refuses to be broken or permanently detained by the callous and corrupt administration and system. Not CED, but good reading!
Katie Schewe
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinarylife, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. His small act of kindness propels him into a world he never dreamed existed. There are people who fall through the cracks, and Richard has become one of them. And he must learn to survive in this city of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels, if he is ever to return to the London that he knew. Katie got a copy of this book signed when Neil Gaiman came through Winnipeg a few years ago. This one of her favourite books that she’s looking forward to revisiting.
Katie is also looking forward to exploring The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit as recommended by Geoff.
Kelly Gillis
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” In the forty years since its original publication, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind has become one of the great modern Zen classics, much beloved, much reread, and much recommended as the best first book to read on Zen. Suzuki Roshi presents the basics—from the details of posture and breathing in zazen to the perception of nonduality—in a way that is not only remarkably clear, but that also resonates with the joy of insight from the first to the last page.
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Originally written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before To Kill a Mockingbird. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014.
Go Set a Watchman features many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird some twenty years later. Returning home to Maycomb to visit her father, Jean Louise Finch—Scout—struggles with issues both personal and political, involving Atticus, society, and the small Alabama town that shaped her.
Exploring how the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird are adjusting to the turbulent events transforming mid-1950s America, Go Set a Watchman casts a fascinating new light on Harper Lee’s enduring classic. Moving, funny and compelling, it stands as a magnificent novel in its own right.
Marianne Jurzyniec
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done. It is not a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.
A CED perspective intersects with many different sectors and areas of focus and if you’re like Marianne you likely have an interest in all of them. Marianne is reading Essentialism in an attempt to learn more about doing less, but better, and having greater impact in the areas in which she’s involved.
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
This book applies insights from diverse areas of economics and begins to answer why nations develop differently, with some succeeding in power and prosperity, while others fail. Based on fifteen years of original research, Acemoglu and Robinson marshal extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today. This has been on Marianne’s reading list ever since she wanted a crash course in political economy. This summer it’s finally time.
Matthew Thompson
Guns, Germs, and Steel; The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel seeks to answer the biggest question of post-Ice-Age human history: why Eurasian peoples, rather than peoples of other continents, became the ones to develop the ingredients of power (guns, germs, and steel) and to expand around the world. Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion, as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war, and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.
1919 by John Dos Passos
1919 is the second novel in John Dos Passos’ ambitious, groundbreaking and much lauded trilogy USA, originally published in 1932. In this trilogy Dos Passos sought to capture the essence of American culture following the first World War, taking particular interest in the gap between the rich and poor and the lives of ordinary people. To do this he employed four distinct narrative modes: fictional narratives exploring the lives of his main characters, “Camera Eye” sections that are written as autobiographical stream of consciousness, “Newsreels” that pull from newspaper headlines and article fragments from the period, and biographies of historical figures. Matthew read the first in the series, The 42nd Parallel, three years ago and looks forward to continuing this fun but challenging read.
Michael Toye
Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact by Peter Plastrik, Madeleine Taylor, and John Cleveland
Social entrepreneurs, community-minded leaders, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropists now recognize that to achieve greater impact they must adopt a network-centric approach to solving difficult problems. While the advantages of such networks are clear, there are few resources that offer easily understandable, field-tested information on how to form and manage social-impact networks. Easily understandable and full of actionable advice, Connecting to Change the World is an informative guide to creating collaborative solutions to tackle the most difficult challenges society faces.
Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant
Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant spent four years surveying thousands of nonprofit CEOs, conducting hundreds of interviews, and studying a dozen high-impact nonprofits to uncover their secrets to success. The secret? Great nonprofits spend as much time working outside their four walls as they do managing their internal operations. They use the power of leverage to become greater forces for good. Crutchfield and McLeod Grant studied 12 nonprofits that have achieved extraordinary levels of impact—from Habitat for Humanity to the Heritage Foundation—and distilled six counterintuitive practices that these organizations use to change the world.
Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic and Matthew Miller
Blueprint for Revolution is an illustrated guide to changing the world, or just your community, through non-violent means, from the slacker-turned-world revolutionary–named “the secret architect of the Arab Spring” by The Atlantic–who orchestrated the non-violent fall of Milošević in his native Serbia, and went on to influence peaceful uprisings from Georgia to Zimbabwe to Lebanon.
Paul Chamberlain
Transition to Common Work: Building Community at The Working Centre by Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini
The Working Centre in the downtown core of Kitchener, Ontario, is a widely recogniz
The cooperative enterprise model is seeing a renaissance around the world. The turnover of the largest 300 cooperatives in the world over the last 3 years has grown by 11.6 per cent to reach 2.2 trillion USD in 2012. Preliminary data from 76 countries points to more than 250 million people working in co-operatives. The International Co-operative Alliance recently postulated that cooperatives would be the fastest growing form of enterprise by 2020.
This is an ambitious goal, even taking into account the momentum of the cooperative movement in the aftermath of the crisis and following the 2012 UN International Year of Cooperatives. Their continued appeal in follow up to the global ‘great recession’ suggests it might not be off target.
During the recent and persisting economic crisis, the cooperative model proved its value time and again as a resilient business model. For workers of conventional businesses which were failing, cooperatives offered a socially, as well as economically viable alternative. Empresas recuperadas (reconverted enterprises) in Argentina are just one example of firms where workers were able to save their jobs by taking ownership of the companies they worked for.
Looking ahead and considering some of the pervasive drivers of change which will shape the future world of work, the cooperative model looks well placed. It’s clear, for example, that the cooperative principles are well in tune with the spirit of peer-to-peer networking which has become such a core feature of the knowledge economy. In fact, LSE economist Robin Murray has argued that this is precisely where cooperatives flourish best.
The Danobat Group in Spain, which makes
chip-removing machine tools, has thrived by
putting ownership in the hands of workers.
Photo by Lydie Nesvabda.
“Front line workers and plant managers have been given greater autonomy … work is being organized in teams and around projects. Projects draw in other firms in webs of collaboration. The capacity to co-operate, within firms and between them, is becoming more important than the principle of obedience,” Murray says.
Avanto Helsinki, a cooperative founded by university students in Finland, is an example of young people establishing cooperatives following such principles. Avanto is a “think-and-do-tank” offering participatory research, PR and communication services to companies, organizations and the public sector. The cooperative model was seen by the young entrepreneurs as a low-risk start sharing both risk and responsibility. It also offered a democratic (one member one vote) way to organize the day-to-day running of business, in addition to having fun with a group of likeminded peers.
Cooperatives have made some of their greatest strides in the green economy. In the renewable energy industry, for example, a recent ILO report found that they have a number of competitive advantages, including democratic local control over energy production and use, the capacity to create local employment, and reasonable pricing. Cooperatives could play a major role in achieving the goal of ‘energy for all’ – the drive to bring clean, modern energy to the 1.3 billion people in developing countries without access to electricity
Cooperatives have shown innovative flair in sectors such as social care, where there are widening gaps between what communities need and what governments can provide.
Another recent ILO publication on tackling informality in e-waste management shows how organizing into cooperatives can help to improve the living and working conditions of e-waste workers. India and Brazil have had experiences where solid waste management cooperatives have extended their membership and services to include those working in e-waste management. During the official launch of the publication in January, discussants stressed the importance of an enabling legal and policy environment for cooperative enterprises at the national level, as well as more participatory development of regulations and guidelines around e-waste management at the local level.
Cooperatives have shown equally innovative flair in traditional sectors such as social care, where the gaps between what communities need and what the government can provide are widening. Driven by global demographic changes, jobs in provision of care services are projected to be some of the fastest growing segments of the labour market. Cooperatives in Italy, for example, have expanded to the point of providing a wide range of services, from day-care for children to home-care for the elderly.
It’s said that need is the mother of invention. Cooperatives have historically emerged out of the need to provide goods and services not available from the public sector and conventional businesses. As such needs expand and become increasingly complex, cooperatives will find more and more space to meet them, advancing social conclusion and creating jobs for the future in the process.
Originally published by the ILO Blog on February 18, 2015
Simel Esim is a political economist, working in social and economic development for the past 20 years. She is the Head of the Cooperatives Unit at the International Labour Organization in Geneva. From 2004 to 2012, she was a Senior Regional Technical Specialist in the ILO Regional Office for Arab States, based in Beirut, Lebanon. Prior to the ILO, she worked in the International Center for Research on Women, Development Alternatives, Inc. and the World Bank.
Waltteri Katajamaki is Junior Professional Officer with the ILO Cooperatives Unit.
Social Finance Forum 2015: Unplugged
MaRS Centre for Impact Investing is gearing up to bring together the best and brightest in social finance for the 8th annual Social Finance Forum, the place to engage and profile leaders in Canada’s diverse social finance scene and capture advancements from the world stage.
The Canadian social finance market place is bursting with talent and experience and MaRS is delighted to share with participants the opportunity to shape the Forum’s agenda. This year you are invited to apply to design and host a session at the 8th annual Social Finance Forum, on November 12th & 13th, 2015 in Toronto, Canada!
Submissions are open until 5pm, July 31st, or until a great selection has been received.
So get your ideas in as, talented early birds get the worm! Keep your eyes on SocialFinance.ca and we will keep you informed as to what ideas are emerging. We encourage collaboration where synergies exist and may introduce you to session hosts who have submitted an idea that could work with yours.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
You are encouraged to put some serious time into planning your session to ensure it’s participant led and a rich experience for all those involved. To this end here are a few suggestions you might want to follow to ensure your workshop is a success:
Avoid all PowerPoint presentations and podium presentations. Really! At all costs. Just delete these from your repertoire, no matter how tempting it is to fall back on these old “tried and tested” methods. They’ve been tried and they’ve been found wanting…
Ask questions – don’t make statements. Benjamin Franklin famously said “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”. Clearly, for the majority of conferences these words are not famous enough. Follow them and you won’t go wrong.
Mix it up. Different people learn differently. There are seven main learning styles but don’t get caught up in the details. If you can plan so that people can learn by listening, and by interacting with others, and in some way visually then you’ve covered the three main learning styles. Think about it and plan to cover these bases and your participants will walk away with more than you or they bargained for.
Be irreverent. It’ll make your session memorable. People too often confuse serious with sombre. We can be deadly serious but still enjoy ourselves. You can lay off the bad dad jokes but have a go at lightening up the subject matter. Be self-deprecating, don’t deprecate others. And OK, tell a bad joke if it’s relevant – what could possibly go wrong?
Be passionate. You are running a session at the Social Finance Forum for a reason, right? Tell people why. Show them. Passion and commitment are contagious.
Good luck. Actually no – it’s not about luck – it’s about planning and thinking about how to place our wonderful participants at the centre of your session. Go for it!
SOURCE: SocialFinance.ca
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities has issued a report on the potential for social finance to mobilize capital towards social and economic outcomes in Canada.
Exploring the Potential of Social Finance in Canada follows a study where the Committee heard from 51 witnesses, including many CCEDNet members and partners and our Executive Director, Michael Toye.
Many of the Committee’s recommendations echo the social economy policy priorities identified by CCEDNet and partners.
Some of the Committee’s observations include:
- the use of social finance instruments by governments around the world is increasing
- momentum toward greater stakeholder engagement and social finance capital investment is building in Canada and internationally
- social finance can contribute to the development of genuinely new and innovative approaches to addressing complex social issues
The Committee noted that there was a general consensus among witnesses for the potential of social finance to tackle persistent social challenges, but opinions varied with regards to the ways in which social finance tools should operate. Most comments centred around regulatory changes that would allow charities and non-profits greater flexibility to engage in revenue-generating activities, the necessity and challenges of measuring social outcomes using adequate metrics, the need to build capacity within the market, and the government’s role – both financial and otherwise – in developing the social finance market. Dissenting opinions by the New Democratic and Liberal Parties also emphasize concerns related to social impact bonds.
The Committee made the following recommendations
RECOMMENDATION 1
The Committee recommends that Employment and Social Development Canada build on the work of Canada’s National Advisory Board to the G-8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce by creating an advisory panel, involving stakeholders from the public, private, non-profit and charitable sectors, to help define a national strategy on the development of the social finance marketplace in Canada.
RECOMMENDATION 2
The Committee recommends that Employment and Social Development Canada with other departments examine the structure and fund sourcing of catalytic capital funds in other jurisdictions and make recommendations with respect to how such a fund might best be established in Canada.
RECOMMENDATION 3
The Committee recommends that the federal government consider legislative and policy measures, as appropriate, to allow charities greater flexibility to conduct business activities for the purpose of re-investing profits back into their charitable missions.
RECOMMENDATION 4
The Committee recommends that the Department of Finance and the Canada Revenue Agency review current regulations with respect to the profit-generating activities of non-profit organizations, and consider options to allow some non-profits with a clear social purpose to generate surplus revenues in some circumstances.
RECOMMENDATION 5
The Committee recommends that the Department of Finance and the Canada Revenue Agency conduct a review of current policies with respect to program-related investments, with a view to improving the communication and/or clarity of these measures, as necessary.
RECOMMENDATION 6
The Committee recommends that Employment and Social Development Canada work with the provinces and relevant stakeholders to create national guidelines for defining and measuring the impacts of social finance projects in order to ensure reliable and consistent standards for social outcome measurement across Canada.
RECOMMENDATION 7
The Committee recommends that the federal government expand eligibility criteria for existing programs to support small- and medium-sized enterprises, such as Industry Canada’s Canada Business Network, to expressly include charities and non-profit organizations working in the field of social finance, where appropriate, and consider the creation of programs aimed at developing the technical capacity of these actors to participate in the social finance market.
RECOMMENDATION 8
The Committee recommends that Employment and Social Development Canada, in collaboration with relevant federal departments and agencies, explore social procurement.
RECOMMENDATION 9
The Committee recommends that Employment and Social Development Canada continue to encourage cross-sector collaboration on social finance by convening regular meetings of stakeholders from the for-profit and the non-profit and charitable sectors, in order to encourage partnership development and to share information and best practices.
U.S. President Barack Obama made a prison visit the media highlight of his weeklong campaign to make the justice system fairer. One of his key reasons for reform is the US$80 billion being spent annually on incarceration.
The dream in Manitoba is social enterprises can create thousands of jobs for people who have problems accessing the labour market by doing energy and water retrofits on the most inefficient homes where low-income people live. We can grow, too, to do most of Manitoba Housing’s trade-based work. There is lots of work to do and long lineups of people to do the work but precious little to connect them together.
CCEDNet’s Board is pleased to announce that Walter Hossli has been named Director for a term ending at the 2016 Annual General Meeting. 
He wrote “Competition in the Voluntary Sector: the Case of Community Based Trainers in Alberta” published by the Muttart Foundation.
Build and Grow Your Social Enterprise
Writing an Effective Grant Proposal
Participatory Management: Increasing Staff Involvement in Decision-Making 
