![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/wp-content\/uploads\/socialphoto1-300x216.jpg\")
<\/a> Sherry Smart is a client of Ottawa-Carleton Lifeskills. It’s starting a catering company to generate income and give its clients a new activity.<\/p>\nTo help generate income, Stoyles is working on creating a company that will sell a service \u2013 legal training courses — and funnel its profits back into her organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized It\u2019s ridiculous that I\u2019m going with my hand out to law firms asking them for donations when we have expertise that they might pay for in a course,\u201d Stoyles says.<\/p>\n
The company will be what\u2019s called a social enterprise \u2013 a business that both earns money through sales, and serves a social benefit.<\/p>\n
Some social enterprises are owned by non-profits, as Stoyles\u2019 will be, while others are private businesses that have a philanthropic goal as part of their mandate.<\/p>\n
While the trendy moniker \u201csocial enterprise\u201d is new, the concept isn\u2019t. Businesses from Salvation Army thrift stores to local theatre troops generate income through sales for a social good.<\/p>\n
But less traditional variants like Stoyles\u2019 centre are now emerging more and more frequently across the country.<\/p>\n
In Ottawa, a project called CISED — the Collaborative for Innovative Social Enterprise Development \u2013 is encouraging non-profits and private businesses alike to become social enterprises.<\/p>\n
CISED began three years ago as a partnership between seven different local organizations, including the Ottawa Community Loan Fund, the Causeway Work Centre and Algonquin College.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s working not just on the supply of social enterprises in the city, but on demand for them too, by encouraging governments and large companies to set aside parts of their procurement budgets for these socially minded businesses.<\/p>\n
So far, CISED has piqued the interest of about 40 or 50 non-profits, says Jonathan Wade, who works for the project as a \u201csocial enterprise sector developer.\u201d Interest from the private sector has been more muted.<\/p>\n
CISED is armed with $5,000 grants, which allow non-profits like the justice centre to hire a consultant for market research, a feasibility study or a business plan.<\/p>\n
But some of those 40 or 50 non-profits are further along the way to generating revenue than others \u2013 while some have dropped out entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree years as a time frame is not uncommon to start a business and a lot of charities will just get bored or tired or under-impressed with the slow rate of change,\u201d Wade says.<\/p>\n
The toughest discovery for most non-profits, Wade says, is that a lot of social enterprises simply won\u2019t ever be profitable \u2013 only about 15 to 20 per cent will be, by his estimate.<\/p>\n
What all social enterprises can do, however, is further the mission of their parent organizations, while recuperating some costs.<\/p>\n
For example, one Ottawa non-profit that runs a day-program for developmentally challenged adults is teaching them responsibility, teamwork \u2013 and baking skills — by putting them to work in its own catering company.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see they\u2019re really happy. It gives them something to do and they know they have to do a good job at it because it\u2019s for sale,\u201d says Kimberley Gallant, a program director at Ottawa-Carleton Lifeskills.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of our guys actively participate in the catering and some just like being there with people, and hanging out, and seeing the activity,\u201d Gallant says.<\/p>\n
Canadian social enterprises face an additional barrier in CRA regulations, which see businesses either as for- or non-profit. There\u2019s no in-between. The UK created a separate legal entity called a Community Investment Company in 2005. \u201cCanada is a really late player in the game,\u201d Wade says.<\/p>\n
As for Stoyles at the Canadian Centre for International Justice, she says she\u2019s hopeful that a social enterprise that sells legal training can be successful \u2013 and profitable.<\/p>\n
All lawyers have to do continuing legal education, and they\u2019ll be especially drawn to the centre\u2019s company, Stoyles says: \u201cWe also offer this bonus that the fees that they would have to pay anyway are going toward charitable work, and not another for-profit corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The centre is already offering two courses in international justice on a trial basis, which are bringing in about $20,000, annually. There are no costs, since the instructors, experts in their field, are volunteers. With a new company, Stoyles hopes to increase that revenue figure to $200,000 eventually \u2013 and in her wildest dreams, even higher.<\/p>\n
Right now, she\u2019s waiting on a consultant\u2019s market research to back up her plan.<\/p>\n
For Stoyles, the dream of a successful social enterprise is a bulwark against shrinking donations from foundations.<\/p>\n
But it required a change of mindset: \u201cIt\u2019s a tough shift if you\u2019re a charity person or a not-for profit person to think in dollars and cents. You have this sense that it sullies your work a bit to think of money\u2026 \u00a0But it\u2019s really just a matter of realizing there\u2019s some value in some of the things you\u2019re doing and that there might be an audience where there\u2019s no ethical dilemma in charging money for the services that you offer,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When she helped found a non-profit organization to bring perpetrators of genocide to justice, Jayne Stoyles didn\u2019t expect to find<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2441"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2685,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441\/revisions\/2685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/wp-content\/uploads\/socialphoto1.jpg\")
<\/a> Sherry Smart is a client of Ottawa-Carleton Lifeskills. It’s starting a catering company to generate income and give its clients a new activity.<\/p>\n