Canadian CED Network

The Spark service of the Canadian CED Network invite you to attend the Fall 2012 Strengthening Non-Profits Workshop Series.

Workshops

Click for descriptions and facilitator bios

1. Effective Proposal Writing

2. Coaching Employees for Interpersonal Wellness

3. Developing Effective Program Evaluations

4. Time Management and Goal Setting

Cost per workshop:

CCEDNet members: half-day $25, full-day $50

Non-Members: half-day $75, full-day $125 | Join CCEDNet

Questions? Please contact Sarah Leeson-Klym at 943-0547,

 

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Workshop Descriptions

Effective Proposal Writing

September 27 – 1pm to 4pm – United Way Learning Centre, 580 Main St

Back by popular demand! An effective grant proposal presents a compelling case for your organization and your project or program. It convinces your potential funder that your goals are aligned with theirs and makes them want to support your work by awarding you a grant. This workshop will provide practical tips on:

  • Writing in a positive, audience-focused style
  • Providing the information that funders want to know
  • Presenting your organization and project in the best possible light
  • Presenting maximum information in minimum words
  • Developing long-term relationships with your funders

Facilitator: Nan Colledge
Nan Colledge has over 25 years experience in non-profit management, and has raised funds and written numerous grant proposals for a variety of charitable organizations. She was the General Manager of the West End Cultural Centre for seven years during which time she completed a major capital project. She currently works as the Community Program Manager at Assiniboine Credit Union.

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Coaching Employees for Interpersonal Wellness

October 11 – 1pm to 4pm – United Way Learning Centre, 580 Main St

Do you want to help your employees or volunteers turn things around quickly and efficiently? Does poor performance or lack of skills cause interpersonal conflict and stress in your workplace? Coaching is considered one of the top leadership skill sets in many organizations today. This successful approach for supervisors yields fast results in a short period of time with employee learning and development. This workshop will emphasize both the need to do one’s work well and will provide people in supervisory roles with coaching language and tips they can employ to encourage change and learning, reducing workplace stress and interpersonal friction.

Facilitator: Joyce Odidison, MA, PCC Conflict Analyst, Strategist and Coach
Joyce is President and CEO of Interpersonal Wellness Services Inc., an Organizational Development and consulting firm that provides executive coaching, respect at work, wellness, and coach training for leaders and employees. Joyce Odidison offers a wellness concept from the heart that inspires her clients to be respectful, vibrant, productive, and well. She has proven results working with even the most resistant and hard-to-reach clients and employees. Joyce is the world’s leading Interpersonal Wellness expert and creator of the innovative Interpersonal Wellness System model®, the Interpersonal Wellness Quotient® Personal Assessment Instrument, and the 8 Levels of Wellness for Business and Life Workshops, Retreats and Coaching packages.

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Developing Effective Program Evaluations

November 1 – 9am to 4pm – United Way Learning Centre, 580 Main St (*lunch will be provided)

This session will focus on creating evaluations that are internally useful for organizations but also get the information funders need. Strong organizations want to be good self-evaluators, ensuring that programs are accomplishing goals and maintaining organizational mission, not just fulfilling deliverables. The morning will focus on the ‘what and why’ of evaluation, as well as looking at some examples of useful evaluation models. After the catered lunch break, the focus will shift to small groups, working through your specific evaluation questions. This will be an important learning event for directors, program coordinators, or anyone wanting to gain better evaluation tools.

Facilitator: Javier Mignone, University of Manitoba, Department of Family Social Sciences
Javier is an associate professor in the Department of Family Social Sciences, University of Manitoba with Masters Degrees in Psychology and Health Services administration, and a Ph.D. in Community Health Sciences. He has worked in the areas of health information, program performance and program evaluation for the Capital Health Authority in Edmonton and for Alberta Health. He teaches program evaluation at the University of Manitoba and is one of the lead organizers of an annual Summer Institute on Program Evaluation. He conducts research and development projects on intercultural health, health information, and program evaluation with indigenous partners in Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, Dominica and Canada as well as doing research on HIV/AIDS prevention and social development in India and Canada.

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Time Management and Goal Setting

November 29 – 1pm to 4pm – United Way Learning Centre, 580 Main St

Are you feeling pressed for time? We dare you to make time for time management! In this workshop, participants will learn how to make the most of their time by organizing their workflow, learning how to plan effectively, setting achievable goals, and delegating work to other people if available. Specific learning objectives include:

  • Better organize yourself and your workspace for peak efficiency.
  • Understand the importance of, and the most useful techniques for, setting and achieving goals.
  • Identify the right things to be doing and develop plans for doing them.
  • Learn what to delegate and how to delegate well.
  • Take control of things that can derail productivity.

Facilitator: Lisa Lewis
As the owner of Beyond Excellence, Lisa has put her extensive business and management experience to work for her clients for more than fourteen years. Lisa helps her clients achieve their goals by implementing proven technologies and solid management programs. With these skills and her outstanding abilities as a presenter she has motivated and delivered value to small, medium and large businesses and is in demand as a consultant on a variety of projects.

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The Fall 2012 Strengthening Non-Profits Workshop Series is hosted by the Spark Service of the Canadian CED Network with support from United Way Winnipeg 

 

 

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During Québec’s provincial election campaign, the Chantier de l’économie sociale has asked political parties to confirm their commitments and positions on the social economy.  Specifically, the Chantier has asked them to respond to eleven proposals, taken from the document Pour un changement de logique économique.  Their answers will be shared with all the Chantier’s members and social economy partners in all regions of Québec during the election campaign. 

The proposals contained in the document « Onze propositions pour une économie sociale et solidaire » represent a synthesis of documents assembled by the Chantier from several sources.  They reflect the concerns of social economy practitioners who are active in all regions of Québec and in numerous economic sectors.  They build on a news-monitoring service carried out by the Chantier to identify projects underway in local communities throughout Québec and opportunities for the creation or expansion of collective enterprises.  Finally, these proposals also draw upon the experiences of other countries, especially those learned from the international monitoring carried out by RELIESS and those presented at the International Forum on the Social and Solidarity Economy (FIESS) which brought together social and solidarity economy and government representatives from 62 countries last October in Montréal. 

The 11 proposals address seven areas:

  • Ensure full recognition of the social economy in government strategies and institutions
  • Reinforce the contirbution of the social economy to local development and a better quality of life in our communities
  • Trust workers to protect employment and respond to the needs of the next generation of entrepreneurs
  • Increase communities’ role in the use and stewardship of natural resources
  • Contribute to the creation of decent jobs and poverty reduction
  • Increase public and private investment for sustainable social and economic development
  • Fully recognize the diversity of Québec’s economy as a lever for sustainable development and social justice

The Chantier is convinced that Québec needs the strength of collective entrepreneurship and that it is essential for these issues to be discussed during the election campaign. 

Download Onze propositions pour une économie sociale et solidaire  (French only)

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The Social Enterprise Council of Canada (SECC) has added their voice to the international efforts to stop Salesforce.com’s attempt to trademark the term “social enterprise” in the US, EU and Jamaica.
 
This move was sparked by Social Enterprise UK’s Not in Our Name campaign, which seeks to protect the social enterprise term on behalf of the global social enterprise sector.
 
The SECC’s press release states, “The idea of trademarking the term social enterprise is no different than trying to trademark other terms that are part of our every day language, such as non profit or economic development.”
 
Brendan Reimer, CCEDNet’s regional coordinator, adds that, “Social enterprises have existed as a community economic development tool for more than a century in Canada… Social enterprise is not a term that the private sector, or any company, can just claim the rights over.”
 
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BC Ideas is a collaborative online competition, where social entrepreneurs enter their ideas and programs to gain funding and support. This competition seeks innovative solutions to health, social and environmental challenges facing BC communities today, and in the future.

Over $250,000 in investments will be distributed to support creative solutions to health, social, and environmental challenges in communities across BC. Funding will be determined through an online competition.
 

Deadline for nominations:  September 12, 2012

Find out more >>

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Improving the lives of Canadians—and contributing to a more resilient society—requires breakthrough ideas and approaches, game changing strategies and collaborations, and continuous innovation.

To support this work, and to commemorate its 75th Anniversary, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation is launching the McConnell Social Innovation Fund.

The Fund has three components—one for early stage innovations; a second for scaling up successful social innovations and for mature organizations diversifying program and business models; and a third for multi-sector collaborations, including ‘change labs’.

To learn more about the Fund and about opportunities for support, click here.

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Last week, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation announced $17million in new funding from the United States federal government.  The funds support LISC’s comprehensive approach to making life better for people in hard-hit neighborhoods by bringing better health, stronger schools, new businesses, and good jobs to low-income communities. 

Here’s what’s being funded:

  • $8.4 million from the Social Innovation Fund will help struggling families who use our Financial Opportunity Centers in 19 cities to find jobs, increase their income and get out from under debt.
  • $5 million from the Department of Education will help make sure low-income kids aren’t consigned to schools that are failing and falling apart. It will help expand the number of high-quality public charter schools and attract private capital to build such schools.
  • $3.5 million from the CDFI Fund will help us put grocery stores in food deserts and help cash-strapped charter schools make ends meet.

Established in 1979 by the Ford Foundation, LISC has 30 urban and rural offices throughout the US dedicated to helping community residents transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy and sustainable communities of choice and opportunity — good places to work, do business and raise children. LISC mobilizes corporate, government and philanthropic support to provide local community development organizations with:

  • loans, grants and equity investments
  • local, statewide and national policy support
  • technical and management assistance

In collaboration with local community development groups, LISC staff help identify priorities and challenges, delivering the most appropriate support to meet local needs.  LISC is Building Sustainable Communities by achieving five goals:

  • Expanding Investment in Housing and Other Real Estate
  • Increasing Family Income and Wealth
  • Stimulating Economic Development
  • Improving Access to Quality Education
  • Supporting Healthy Environments and Lifestyles

 

Read more…

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This summer, a House of Commons Special Committee on Co-operatives is studying the situation of co-ops in Canada.  As part of the Committee’s consultations, CCEDNet prepared a brief that highlights the important contributions co-operatives make to Canadian communities, and makes the following recommendations:

  • the creation of an independent, national, cooperative development fund
  • measures so that co-operatives are eligible for existing federal business development programs and policies
  • the renewal of a co-operative development program
  • the re-estasblishment of a standing interdepartmental committee on co-operatives
  • the transfer of responsibility for co-ops from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to Industry Canada

Read the Brief

 

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Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Original article  (reproduced with permission)

By Stacy Mitchell

When policymakers debate anything having to do with economic development — approving a new big-box store, say, or handing out tax breaks to large companies — most don’t imagine that the decision will have any effect on such things as voter turnout or the prevalence of chronic disease.

But a growing body of research is finding that scale and ownership of business matter in ways that extend far beyond economic outcomes.

A study recently published in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, for example, found that people who live in communities where small, locally owned businesses are the norm are healthier than those who live in places where large corporations predominate. “We find that counties with a vibrant small-business sector have lower rates of mortality and a lower prevalence of obesity and diabetes,” conclude the study’s authors, Troy Blanchard, Charles Tolbert, and Carson Mencken.

They surmise that a high degree of local ownership improves a community’s “collective efficacy” — the capacity of its residents to act together for mutual benefit, to solve problems, and to further local goals. Previous research has identified a strong relationship between collective efficacy and population health, because high-functioning communities tend to build initiatives and infrastructure that foster healthier choices and prevent disease.

Another study, by Blanchard and Todd Matthews, found that counties dominated by a few big firms have lower levels of social capital and less engaged citizens than those in which economic activity is dispersed across many locally owned businesses. “We find that residents of communities with highly concentrated economies tend to vote less and are less likely to keep up with local affairs, participate in associations, engage in reform efforts or participate in protest activities at the same levels as their counterparts in economically dispersed environments,” they conclude.

Sociologists Stephan Goetz and Anil Rupasingha have linked this decline in civic participation to Walmart specifically.  With each Walmart store that opens, social capital erodes, their research finds. Communities with more Walmart stores have lower voter turnout and fewer active nonprofit organizations. In their latest study, published in June, they’ve documented a correlation between Walmart and the presence of hate groups.

Still other research has linked the regional market share of large retail chains with higher rates of poverty, infant mortality, and crime.

Why is local ownership so nourishing to the social and civic fabric of communities? There appear to be at least three main reasons.  One has to with local business owners themselves. Their personal and financial interests are tied to the community’s well-being and, as a result, they are often active in various civic endeavors. While small business owners gain prestige and influence by contributing to community improvement, corporate managers garner status by advancing the company’s interest, even at the expense of the community.

Anther reason is that cities with a strong entrepreneurial culture and local control of economic resources have more capacity to solve problems on their own and are more resilient and adaptable in times of distress.  Those that are dependent on outside corporations have little ability to marshal resources to overcome challenges.

Yet a third way local businesses nurture social capital is by creating environments that foster social ties. People shopping at farmers’ markets and traditional Main Street business districts are more likely to run into neighbors and engage in a greater number of conversations than those navigating the aisles of a big-box store, studies have found.

But as compelling as this research is, so far it has had virtually no impact on public policy.  Economic consolidation has continued at a furious pace, unchecked by local and federal policymakers, and often even subsidized by our tax dollars. All the while, it has become much more difficult to start and sustain a small business.

Once a core theme of American political discourse, debate about the democratic value of dispersed ownership and the appropriate scale of enterprise largely ceased in recent decades as the ideology of bigger-is-always-better took over our politics.

It’s time to resurrect that discussion. Nowhere does it have more relevance or urgency right now than in cities like New York, Chicago, and Seattle, where giant retailers like Walmart and Target are gunning to unroll dozens of “urban” stores, often under the pretense of improving distressed neighborhoods and alleviating health problems like obesity. By undermining local businesses and shredding the civic fabric, however, their presence is likely to have the opposite effect.

—

Stacy Mitchell is a senior researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, where she directs initiatives on independent business and community banking. She is the author of Big-Box Swindle and also produces a popular monthly newsletter, the Hometown Advantage Bulletin.

 

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In response to the federal government’s invitation for pre-budget submissions, CCEDNet has recently submitted a list of recommendations to bring a CED perspective to the 2013 budget. Our submission, which was sent to the Standing Committee on Finance, outlines how community economic development helps sustain economic recovery and enhance economic growth. CCEDNet includes recommendations for how the federal government can support community enterprises that contribute to job creation and economic productivity. Our brief also explains how CED approaches can help navigate the challenges of skill shortages in Canadian communities. All pre-budget submissions, including CCEDNet’s will be available on the Finance Committee’s website, once they have been translated. 

>> Read CCEDNet’s pre-budget submission

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New Partnership to Unite Co-operators from Coast to Coast  

The bonds between co-operatives in Canada will soon be strengthened by the creation of a pan-Canadian, bilingual association that will represent co-operatives, credit unions and mutuals. Members of the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a new organization in partnership with the Conseil canadien de la cooperation et de la mutualite (CCCM).

Described by leaders of both organizations as “historic”, the decision paves the way for the appointment of a transition committee to work out the details of the creation of the new association. 

>> Read more

(Source: CCA News Brief)

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Call for Applications
The Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) is accepting applications for its First Nations, Métis and Inuit Co-operative Development Program for projects that can start this fall.
Small grants are available to help Aboriginal communities explore the potential of co-operatives to meet their needs. The program is targeted to groups in the beginning stages of a new co-op. Applications can be submitted by an incorporated organization such as a band, a tribal council, friendship centre, an existing co-operative, or a provincial co-op organization to manage the funds on behalf of the group that is examining the co-op idea.
Funding is available for a variety of purposes, including:
  • Consultations between First Nations Métis and Inuit communities and existing co-operatives or co-op experts to discuss potential projects. This could include visits to existing co-ops or to bring co-op people to a reserve or community.
  • Pre-feasibility and feasibility studies to examine a business idea
  • Training for new staff and board members.
Grant requests should be in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 per project.
Projects receiving funding are selected by a Steering Committee including representatives of Arctic Co-operatives Ltd., the Canadian Co-operative Association, the Assembly of First Nations, the National Association of Friendship Centres, and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.
Deadline for proposals:  September 15, 2012
Please note: The application deadline for grants for projects beginning in 2013 will still be December 15, 2012.
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The Canada Revenue Agency has issued new guidance for charitable organizations carrying out community economic development activities. 

This guidance explains the Charities Directorate’s interpretation of the relevant common law (case law or court decisions) and legislation (the Income Tax Act). It sets out the criteria the Charities Directorate uses to determine whether an organization that engages in community economic development (CED) activities that further charitable purposes may be eligible for registration as a charity under the Income Tax Act.

Read more>>

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