These days if you attend any nonprofit gathering, it doesn’t take long before the phrases “social innovation” and “social finance” pop up. However, as you listen to the conversations, you begin to wonder whether everyone is talking about the same thing. Are social innovation and social finance something new or just the latest fads? In this…
Contents: Volume 23, Issue 3 (2010)
Primer On Social Innovation: A Compendium Of Definitions Developed By Organizations Around The World
What is social innovation? most simply, social innovation is about new ideas that work to address pressing unmet needs. Poverty, homelessness, and violence are examples of social problems that still need dedicated solution-seeking space. Social innovation addresses these challenges by applying new learning and strategies to solve these problems. For social innovations to be successful…
Les Arrangements Institutionnels Entre L’état Québécois Et Les Entreprises D’économie Sociale En Aide Domestique : Une Analyse Sociopolitique De L’économie Sociale Dans Les Services De Soutien À Domicile. By Yves Vaillancourt and Christian Jetté (with the assistance of Philippe Leclerc). Montréal, Québec: Les éditions vie économique. isbn 978-2-9811342-1-9 Can the social economy contribute to the…
Poverty is now perceived as a critical issue in much of Canada, with recent polls indicating that the majority of Canadians want to eradicate the problem (CCPA, 2008). Place-based, collaborative approaches are making a vital contribution to poverty reduction in communities across the country. Comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs) is the term given to groups of…
Rumblings about transformative partnerships in the charitable and nonprofit sector are resonating across the country. These range from organizations more narrowly interested in collaboration as an immediate means of adapting to the current economic upheaval to others that see the current upswing in interest as part of a more general trend toward increased collaboration over…
If you go looking for the corporate head quarters of sport matters Group (SMG), you will search in vain. There is no office and no name-plate, yet almost anyone working in one of the fifty-plus National Sport Organizations based in Ottawa could steer you to two desks deep within the Sport Information Resource Centre on…
About a year ago I was sitting at my desk as CEO of a national health charity, when I received a call from one of my colleagues. His organization was in a serious cash flow crunch; there was money in the bank from a lottery, but he was waiting for a government contract that had…
Point : Don Bourgeois Charitable gaming is an important fundraising tool for charities. Since 1969, when charitable gaming was legalized in Canada, billions of dollars have been raised to support charitable activities in communities by registered charities, charitable organizations, and not-for-profit organizations with a charitable mandate, such as services clubs. Gaming as a fundraising tool…
I am writing in response to The Philanthropist’s Point/Counterpoint entitled “Social Enterprise Is a Nice Idea, But It Is Not a Panacea that Justifies Rewriting Charity Law” (Vol 23, No 2, 2010). After reading the polite exchange between Bob Wyatt and Don Bourgeois, I was left feeling that both authors somehow missed the fundamental point of…
Although Canada is one of the richest countries in the world, there are many high schools in its urban centres and First Nations communities where fewer than one in five students graduate from high school. Every student who doesn’t finish secondary school is a tragedy. These non-graduates suffer throughout their lives without the basic skills…