Community bonds, public lands, RRSP's, tax incentives and preferential mortgages - this is what will strengthen social enterprise in Ontario. CSI is looking for some quick and easy wins to move social enterprise forward. What do you think?
Public Policy
Nova Scotia faces a difficult situation in which less than 2% of investment capital placed in mainstream RSPs, mutual funds, and stocks remain in the province. The rest of the investment capital ends up supporting companies operating in the rest of Canada and internationally. Faced with the challenge of match-making local investors with local companies, the CEDIFs were born.
For the last 10 years, Chris Payne has headed up an innovative program to drive hyperlocal investing in the province of Nova Scotia. Chris doesn’t use the term ‘hyperlocal investing’, but it seems apt. Nova Scotia’s Community Economic Development Investment Funds (CEDIF) offer unique opportunities to help local farmers and small businesses gain access to capital on a county-by-county and town-by-town basis, and sometimes even more local than that.
In April 2010, the BC Centre for Social Enterprise released a paper by charities lawyer Richard Bridge, called More Reflections on Legal Structures for Community Enterprise. The creation of the paper was supported by the Illahie Foundation and MCC BC.
Canada has a rich history of social enterprise, especially seen through the lens of Quebec’s social economy or the broader community economic development movement. Less well developed is a nationally scaled social enterprise and social finance movement, which has not had the benefit of supportive and comprehensive national public policy. In that sense, Canada trails behind other jurisdictions like the United States or the United Kingdom.
I was very fortunate in April to have learned a lot about the UK’s experience when I travelled there to attend the 2010 Skoll World Forum. The forum coincided with the start of the UK election and, as it turned out, I was trapped in the UK for a second week due to the Icelandic ash cloud. Like my prolific UK-reporting colleagues Robin Cory and Al Etmanski, I had an unanticipated, intensive and policy-rich exposure to the UK scene.
Jeff Mowatt on Three Business Models for the Bottom Billion
Sep 03, 2010