Marketplace Impact: Social Enterprise Forward shared social enterprise stories and outcomes while nurturing conversation between engaged suppliers, purchasers, and community members across Canada. Participants engaged in community discussion and networking between sessions that reflected on the current state of the social enterprise sector and how we got here and looked ahead to the next decade of social enterprise development.

During the event Buy Social Canada also launched a new free resource, the Guide to Social Enterprise, which supports individuals and organizations to plan, sustain or grow their social enterprise activity and impact.

Did you or a colleague miss the event? You can view the session recordings here.

Key takeaways

Collaboration is key

“Quick alone, but further together.” – Mike Toye, CCEDNet

Every speaker at Marketplace Impact: Social Enterprise Forward emphasized that social enterprises and the community intermediaries who work with them need to collaborate to ensure success. This includes promoting each other and the sector through collective action and shared language. It also means purchasing from each other, sharing advise and learnings, and providing constructive feedback to help each other improve.

Marc Soberano of Building Up said it well when he encouraged social enterprises to contract each other in the start-up phase to help each other learn and work out the kinks before taking your enterprise into the competitive market. This is helpful both because you have a supportive purchaser who wants to help you learn and improve, but also because it means you can represent social enterprises to a higher caliber when you start contracting with public or private sector purchasers.

Stable funding is a cornerstone issue for future sector development and sustainability

When asked what was needed for sector success, stable, consistent funding came up every time. Currently in Canada, funding and programs that support social enterprise are fragmented, often short-lived, and likely to see frequent changes in scope and application.

Jessica Mulder, Chair of the Social Enterprise Committee at FoodShare Toronto, identified that “there is often pressure on social enterprises to jump at every opportunity because it’s tied to funding,” but that the sector really needs sustained funding so that social enterprises don’t have cycles of boom and bust/grow and contract that are opposed to their mission and make business operations more challenging.

Purchasers have a role to play in social enterprise success

In addition to stable funding, social enterprises also need more procurement opportunities from private and public sector purchasers, and from individual consumers.

Marc Soberano of Building Up said it well when he explained that “social procurement and social enterprise are a way to use money more intentionally.”

Jessica Mulder advocated that public sector organizations have an obligation to educate their staff on social procurement and encourage them to find social enterprises they can buy from.

Steady procurement contracts also ease the boom and bust of inconsistent funding and increase business sustainability.

We need to find a common message to promote the sector

In the social economy space, there are a multitude of terms used to describe the same things. Mike Toye of CCEDNet advocated that the social enterprise ecosystem needs to find and reinforce a “common message” that distinguishes social enterprises from other businesses and demonstrates the value we bring.

Tracy Barry of GROW Women Leaders also shared her surprise when she came to Canada over a decade ago and realized that social enterprise was not a well-known term here, unlike Africa and Europe. A common message and promotion of the sector would help educate more people about what social enterprises are, and why they should buy from them.

Social enterprise is the business model of the future

Social enterprise is the business model of the future. This is something Buy Social Canada has often said, and our conviction and belief in this statement was reinforced during the event.

As Mike Toye said, social enterprises create community transformation, individual impacts, reconciliation, and inclusion through reinvestment of profits into purpose.

“Where most people employ people to run their business, employment social enterprises run their business to employ people.” – Marc Soberano, Building Up

“We’re working within the current system to change it for the better. Social enterprise is an incredibly viable, powerful tool to do so.” – Tori Williamson, Buy Social Canada

Final thoughts

In the next decade our communities will continue to be challenged with complex and compounding issues.  Social enterprise is the business model of the future that puts people and planet before profits.

Social enterprises are already succeeding and creating important change in their communities, but the ecosystem still needs support to continue to grow and sustain. Funding for social enterprises and the organizations that support them needs to be consistent and stable for years to come. Purchasers need to prioritize buying from social enterprises whenever possible. Social enterprises need to continue to share their stories and demonstrate the value they bring, while delivering excellent goods and services.

As the social enterprise ecosystem and becomes more well-known and understood in Canada, we will continue to learn, iterate, and improve processes so we can buy and sell with impact, and create healthy, vibrant communities.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this invigorating event.

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More resources to take action

Everyone:

• Find free resources to continue learning
• Find and purchase from Certified Social Enterprises
• Subscribe to the monthly Buy Social Canada newsletter
• Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn @ Buy Social Canada
• Connect with us directly at info@buysocialcanada.com

Social enterprises:

• Explore social enterprise certification
• Connect with purchasers and social value suppliers at Buy Social Canada engagements

Purchasers:

• We want to support you on your Buy Social Journey! Explore Social Purchasing Partnerships
• Work with us to design and implement social procurement that achieves your strategic and community goals
• We also offer social procurement consulting and support for Community Benefit Agreements and construction and infrastructure projects
• Register for an upcoming cohort of the Social Procurement Professional Certificate