English – Page 71 – Canadian CED Network

Last week, over 5,000 people gathered in Ottawa for the Peoples’ Social Forum. It was billed as a convergence of social movements, with support from a wide range of unions and civil society organizations. The call for workshops led to over 400 sessions and activities on the program, from arts to Original Peoples rights, sustainable development, international solidarity and participatory democracy.

For CCEDNet, it was a valuable opportunity to build relationships with the labour movement and civil society groups who share our values of inclusion, diversity and equity. Keynote speaker Naomi Klein noted that opposition and proposition are like twin strands of DNA – you need both – and community-based economic alternatives are exactly what CCEDNet members have to offer.

CCEDNet and partners were able to put four workshops on the program. We wanted to:

introduce community economic development and the social economy to people who weren’t familiar with those terms (see the presentation);
illustrate success stories of partnerships between unions and communities to improve community finance and investment;
share information on how co-ops can solve small and medium enterprise business succession challenges while advancing a more democratic economy;
discuss the post-2015 development agenda at the UN and strategies to ensure the social and solidarity economy is included in a future global development plan.

CCEDNet Executive Director Mike Toye presents on CED and the Social Economy at the Peoples’ Social Forum

We also hosted a social economy movement assembly that allowed participants to self-organize around their areas of interest and identify actions to advance the social economy in their community or sector of activity.

Our report to the closing Peoples’ Assembly on Sunday morning reaffirmed the commitment of participants in the movement assembly to collaborate in building the social economy and laid out five priority areas for action.

The Peoples’ Social Forum closed with a call to action for a unified social movement to rebuild a healthy democracy and align efforts towards another system, not based on oppression and exploitation, but on an economy valuing life and the well-being of people and the earth.

That’s something CED and the social economy can help with.

For more information:

Peoples’ Social Forum website
Forum Program
PSF on Facebook
Peoples’ Social Forum coverage by rabble.ca
“Indigenous Issues at the Forefront of Peoples’ Social Forum“, Muskrat Magazine

mike_small.jpg

Michael Toye is the Executive Director of the Canadian CED Network, having worked in various other capacities with CCEDNet since 2000. Michael has also taught courses on CED and social enterprise at Concordia University and has written a number of articles and other publications on CED and the social economy, including co-editing the book, Community Economic Development: Building for Social Change.

Read Michael’s blogs

Follow Michael on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Community Economic Development and the Social Economy: Alternatives for a New Economy from Michael Toye

The Canadian CED Network is very pleased to announce that Sarah Leeson-Klym has been appointed Manitoba Regional Director as of September 1. Leeson-Klym, who has been CCEDNet – Manitoba’s Learning and Engagement Coordinator since 2011, brings the knowledge, skills, passion, and leadership required to strengthen and grow the network.

Leeson-Klym has an intimate knowledge of CCEDNet’s programs, operations, staff, members, and partners. Since first being hired to organize the Manitoba Gathering three years ago, she has steadily taken on additional responsibilities including all skill development and public education workshops and the Enterprising Non Profits – Manitoba program for social enterprise development. Responsible for member engagement, she developed important relationships and gained insights into their activities, challenges, and collective vision for better, healthier, fairer, and stronger communities and local economies.

A dedicated community organizer, Leeson-Klym is also a board member of the Daniel McIntyre St. Matthews Community Association and was the stage manager for the 2012 and 2013 LITE Wild Blueberry Pancake Breakfast. She is also an active board member of the successful and rapidly growing Rainbow Trout Music Festival. Leeson-Klym has an interdisciplinary degree in Social Justice Theory and Practice from the University of Winnipeg, as well as an Arts and Culture Management certificate from MacEwan University.

Michael Toye, CCEDNet’s Executive Director, commented that “Sarah’s values and vision for social and economic justice, deep understanding of CED, experience in building a strong movement for change in Manitoba, and ability to lead a strong network that both serves and represents the members and their missions will continue to build on CCEDNet’s successful presence in Manitoba.”

Feel free to welcome Sarah Leeson-Klym to the new role at sleesonklym [at] ccednet-rcdec.ca.

denglersw-parliament-ottawa-20050730-1280×960.jpg

The Canadian CED Network’s Policy Council has submitted a response to the federal government’s invitation for pre-budget submissions. The submission, sent to the Standing Committee on Finance, focuses on social procurement policy and training on social enterprise and co-operative for government staff.

The Recommendations for the 2015 Federal Budget are to:

Build on the experience of the CED sector in performance-based contracts by documenting and adopting most effective practices.
Establish a Canada Impact Investment Fund in partnership with private, institutional and philanthropic investors. The Federal government should invest $20M per year for five years in first loss capital, to be matched by private, institutional and foundation investors in a fund-of-funds structure.
Provide funding for the replication of successful community economic development investment initiatives across the country.
Implement a CED policy framework, inclusive of CED principles and a CED lens.
Implement social value weighting in all RFPs and contracts.
Provide social enterprises, non-profits, and co-operatives access to existing regulatory and tax measures and business development programs available to small- and medium- enterprises. This should be coupled with awareness-raising efforts for government officials to ensure a level playing field for alternative forms of incorporation.

Read the full pre-budget submission

Brendan Reimer has been involved in some form of social enterprise activity, though it wasn’t necessarily called this, for about 20 years. Brendan, current Regional Director of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network, also spearheaded the launch of Enterprising Non-profits (ENP) Manitoba, about two years ago.

As Brendan moves on from both those roles to join the Assiniboine Credit Union later this month, the ENP-CA news service caught up with him to discuss some of his insights on Canada’s social enterprise ecology over the time of his engagement: its state when he joined, the present crossroads and what gives him the most hope for the future.

This is an edited and condensed version of the conversation.

How would you describe the state of the social enterprise scene when you became involved? What’s the difference today?

Twenty years ago, nobody in Canada was using the language of social enterprise. Or, if they were, it was in very select small pockets.

Mostly, people called them non-profits, maybe community enterprises.

And so, as much as we talk about vagueness in definitions or endless debates on definition, 20 years ago there was no debate because there was no terminology around this.

And while certainly there were those who were doing it, such as Ten Thousand Villages or Goodwill, nobody was seeing those enterprises as a sector.

But today, we do have the terminology, we do have an analysis of what social enterprises are and their value. We do have an emerging sense that this is a sector as opposed to just a bunch of random businesses that happen to be non-profits.

As for the growth of the acknowledgement and support of the sector by government, it isn’t that government didn’t support these kinds of organizations previously. Ones that employ people with intellectual disabilities, for example, have been around for many years and have always had provincial support.

There has been government involvement for a long time with non-profit daycares and non-profit housing in the social economy enterprise kind of categories.

Social enterprise in the arts and culture world has also had government support of different kinds for many years.

What’s different now is the increasing government support for the social enterprise sector as an industry in itself.

What was the state of ENP when you got involved and what strikes you about the contrast today?

When I got first involved, we kept hearing about the good work happening through ENP in B.C., both in terms of promoting the model and providing people some of the education about how to go about exploring the model so that it’s done right and not just jumped into blindly.

ENP B.C. was also providing some resources to do, for instance, feasibility studies that nobody else really funds.

We kept hearing about this over the years. But now to see an emerging federation with ENP models across the country is very different than it was even three to four years ago.

That’s really exciting for a number of reasons.

One is to see the model that’s been refined and honed to be the best it can be over 10 years and over hundreds of presentations now being drawn on to implement for success in other parts of Canada.

And then, with the federation model, it’s great to see that people won’t be operating in isolation.

Not only will they be relying on lessons learned from the past, but they will now be able to, in real time, draw on lessons learned from each other. And while each region is a bit different, it will be a whole collection of people working on a very similar model in different parts of Canada. There can be a solidarity and sharing of resources or tools. Whether it’s addressing evaluation or methodology or tackling new questions and challenges, we can share insights with each other, so not everybody is having to trail-blaze on their own.

As you move on to other work, how would you sum up the single most important “gift” your time in this sector and with ENP has given you?

What touches me the most, always, are the human impact stories, to see how people’s lives are changed.

Where I’ve seen that with the greatest kind of impact is through the social enterprises that are providing training and employment for people that no one else is going to hire. The gratitude and the legacy that is created in these folks when they are given a chance is absolutely profound.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people tell their story about how they’ve come to a place where absolutely no one will hire them, no matter how hard they try. And then finally this social enterprise gives them a chance and now they are eternally grateful.

The impact is not only in terms of a career path or income, but in generating a different worldview. So many times I’ve seen people’s worldview change to one of wanting to give back, both to reach out and create opportunities for others, but also to just more broadly give back to the community.

I’ve especially seen this in people who have been involved with gangs and the justice system. They know they’ve spent a lot of their lives taking from community and they’re used to getting the message that they are not valued. And then when someone believes in them, when someone says, “you are a very important human being, you do have value, you have great potential,” that triggers something in people that is quite profound. They start to look at people, at the world in a different way and want to contribute and to treat others the way they’ve just been treated.

Seeing all of this both grounds me in terms of why this work matters so much and fuels my fire to make sure that more of this happens.

That’s a gift that will stick with me for a long time.

What’s the crossroads the social enterprise sector faces today, from your perspective?

For years the work has been about trying to get people’s attention with the concept and with the stories. It’s been about hoping that somebody somewhere will listen and understand and get excited about it.

And while there is still a lot of work to be done there for sure, at this point it’s more about managing growth. By growth I mean the growth of intention.

There are so many ways that social enterprises can be misunderstood, misinterpreted and expectations can be completely inappropriate for what they can do.

For example, there could be government or funders who see this as the magic answer that now absolves them of funding non-profits.

Or there could be non-profits who see that this is now the magic way to have core funding forever, without having to rely on outside funders telling you what to do.

Even the private sector could be thinking ideologically — they may not want government to do a lot of programming, which requires taxation, and so they see this as the privatization of solving complex issues like poverty.

Clearly those are all views that are unrealistic, and so managing some of those expectations is going to be really important.

At the same time, there is huge potential for scale. We have a number of social enterprises here that do maintenance work for Manitoba Housing, for example — about eight or nine million dollars of it a year. Manitoba Housing spends about $130 million a year on maintenance. So just in that one tiny segment of our economy, there is enormous potential for growth still.

And, of course we have thousands of people who want to work, who right now have barriers to employment.

So the potential for growth is enormous — and possible. We just need to ensure we have those reality checks, to make sure that it’s done well and done for the right reasons.

What do you see that gives you the most hope for the future of the social enterprise ecosystem in Canada?

For one, the impact on the human being that comes through the social enterprises always gives me hope, whether it’s one person or a thousand.

That’s the reason to do it. And never mind just that person. That person has relatives, acquaintances, and so the ripples of this goes well beyond the people directly employed in social enterprises.

The understanding that more and more government people and private sector leaders and non-profits are all looking at this (hopefully with a realistic vision) also gives me hope. And that could be on the employment side, or in rural communities that are seeing certain services disappear and looking to social enterprises as a way to regain those.

There is huge interest and there is a lot of potential, and there is growing awareness of how to use this model to create better quality of life in communities, and so that gives me a lot of hope.

Here in Winnipeg, as an example, the Chamber of Commerce has put together a policy platform for our upcoming municipal election. It has decided that one of the pillars of the economic strategy will be intentional growth of social enterprises through a municipal procurement policy.

That’s the first time I’ve heard of a chamber of commerce be that aggressive in articulating the importance of the social enterprise sector to the city’s quality of life and the city’s business community.

We’ve also been working here with the City of Winnipeg Police, who are really excited about the potential of getting the city to shift the way it spends its money to social enterprises so that they will have less crime in the community to react to. So they see it as an effective crime prevention strategy.

As a third example, we’re working with one of Canada’s largest construction companies. In their Winnipeg office here, they are really excited about the potential to subcontract a lot of their construction work to social enterprises as well, because it’s the right thing to do and because of the community impact it will have.

So to see these different areas of percolating excitement gives me a lot of hope because I think those kinds of conversations and that kind of connection can be made with those same types of groups in other parts of Canada and other sectors as well.

This article was originally posted by www.socialenterprisecanada.ca on August 6, 2014 and appears here with permission.

michelle_strutzenberger.jpg

Michelle Strutzenberger brings more than 10 years of experience in writing, social media, curation and digital distribution. Subject areas of interest include creating abundant or deep communities, social-mission business, education that strengthens kids’ sense of hope and possibility and journalism that helps society create its preferred future. She is currently supporting the development of Axiom News podcasts. Contact Michelle at michelle at axiomnews.com.

The United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (TFSSE) has published a paper outlining its position and voicing concern that “the process of crafting a post-2015 development agenda and set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has paid insufficient attention to the role of what is becoming increasingly known as the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE).”

TFSSE was founded following a conference in May 2013 on the Potential and Limits of Social and Solidarity Economy organized by the UN Research Institute for Social Development, which is also a member of TFSEE.

TFSSE’s position paper asserts that effective sustainable development, from a socio-economic perspective, must include:

The transition from informal economy to decent work
Greening the economy and society
Local economic development
Sustainable cities and human settlements
Women’s well-being and empowerment
Food security and smallholder empowerment
Universal health coverage
Transformative finance
Enabling SSE

The paper also provides a short overview of what the SSE is and why it matters, stating that “Rather than assuming that the benefits of growth will ‘trickle down’, or rely[ing] on safety nets to protect the vulnerable and on technological fixes to protect the environment, SSE seeks proactively to mobilize and redistribute resources and surplus in inclusive ways that cater to people’s essential needs. Furthermore, SSE promotes environmental protection and the economic and political empowerment of the disadvantaged and others concerned with social and environmental justice.”

This position paper follows the recent efforts of the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS), an observer member with TFSSE, to develop and present a succinct set of SSE recommendations for the UN’s Post-2015 Development Agenda. These recommendations received over 500 endorsements from organizations in over 70 countries, including the Canadian CED Network and several of its members.

Read the paper

We asked staff and board members what they were planning on reading this summer: vocationally and vacationally. The resulting list is at turns surprising and exciting, practical and insightful. We hope that you might draw some inspiration from the following reading list for your own summer entertainment and professional development.

Click on the names below or scroll down to read the suggestions.

We’d love to hear what you’re reading! Share your suggestions with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Art Lew – General Manager, Haida Gwaii Community Futures and CCEDNet Board Member
Brendan Reimer – Manitoba Regional Director
Carol Madsen – Vice-President of CCEDNet’s Board
Caroline Lachance – Past-President of CCEDNet’s Board
Christine Landry – Project Coordinator, Community Futures Manitoba and Treasurer of CCEDNet’s Board
Drew Whatman – Communication and Engagement Co-ordinator, SEontario.org
Geoff Ripat – Program Manager, Spark
Indu Krishnamurthy – Community Credit Counsellor, Montreal Community Loan Fund and CCEDNet Board Member
Katie Schewe – Recruitment Coordinator, Spark

Marianne Jurzyniec – Financial Services Manager, Affinity Credit Union and Co-Chair of CCEDNet’s Emerging Leaders
Matthew Thompson – Communications Manager
Michael Toye – Executive Director
Norman Greenberg – Employment Development, Connections Clubhouse and Chair of CCEDNet’s Policy Council
Paul Chamberlain – Ontario Regional Director
Ryan Gibson – Research Affiliate, Rural Development Institute of Brandon University and Chair of CCEDNet’s Membership Committee
Ryan O’Connor – Communications Coordinator
Sarah Leeson-Klym – Learning Events Coordinator
Wendy Keats – Executive Director, Co-operative Enterprise Council of New Brunswick and CCEDNet Board Member

Art Lew

Investing in Place: Economic Renewal in Northern British Columbia by Sean Markey, Greg Halseth and Don Manson

This book draws on experiences in rural British looking at the historic exploitation of natural resources and how that helped the economic development and the establishment and growth of communities/regions. The book suggests rural regions can no longer use the same thinking that propelled historic success and provides insights into creating place-based economies.

The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen

Sen brings forward a philosophical framework that will support political and social action for the reduction of injustice in the lives people live. Sen’s philosophical foundation is based on a comparative justice system rather then the current philosophical foundation used to justify government action based on the concept of perfect institutions dispensing perfect justice.

Art Lew

Brendan Reimer

Carol Madsen

Caroline Lachance

Christine Landry

Drew Whatman

Geoff Ripat

Indu Krishnamurthy

Katie Schewe

Marianne Jurzyniec

Matthew Thompson

Michael Toye

Norman Greenberg

Paul Chamberlain

Ryan Gibson

Ryan O’Connor

Sarah Leeson-Klym

Wendy Keats

How It Works

Deadline to submit has been extended to August 4, 2014

Eligibility Requirements: