Category Archives: Uncategorized

Reconnaissance Management Consulting Group has been retained to conduct a feasibility study for a new social enterprise in the area of social services for an organization in Toronto.  I am the lead consultant on the project team that includes Kaye Grant (Winnipeg) and  Cathy Lang (Toronto) who both have extensive consulting experience in the social social economy.  We hope to assist this organization to be able to identify the best structure and fit with their current operations and to identify the financial viability of the proposed service offerings so that they are better able to make an informed decision on whether this enterprise will assist them in fulfilling their mandate.

The BUS 3255 course on social enterprise is once again scheduled for the winter term at the University of Winnipeg, Business Faculty. Due to its popularity the enrolled capacity has been increased from 36 to 48 students. The course is also in the process of becoming a permanent course in the business curriculum from its original experimental status. A number of social enterprise practitioners including Richard Doyle, President and CEO of ImagineAbility and Shaun Loney, Executive Director of BUILD, have once again agreed to quest presentations in the course.

The Gathering “Community Economics: Enough, For All, Forever” will be held on October 19 at Churchill High School in Winnipeg. Kaye Grant and I under the auspices of Reconnaissance Management Consulting Group will be co-facilitating a workshop on Social Enterprise Basics starting at 1 PM. Interested individuals can register on the CEDNET website.

The case study “Inner City Renovation: Rebuilding Properties, Lives and Communities” will be presented and discussed at the 2012 NACRA Annual Meeting, October 25-27 in Boston. Both co-authors John Melnyk and myself will be attending the conference and participating on the environmental and social enterprise discussion roundtable. 

This is a Urban and Inner City course (UIC 2030) cross listed in Business (BUS 2030) as well as in Indigenous is Studies (IS 2030). I am currently teaching this course in the Fall term at the University of Winnipeg. The course on Social Enterprise that I developed and taught in the Business Faculty during the the 2012 winter term is scheduled again for the 2013 winter term and is already full (40 students).

CMFN is a charitable non profit organization with 14 member organizations across Canada. They are celebrating their 20 th anniversary as an organization. Faced with current cutbacks in federal funding, CMFN needs to increase the earned revenue portion of their budgets. I will be presenting earned revenue strategies and conducting workshops on idea generation and evaluation, enterprise models including social enterprise as well as marketing strategies during their AGM September 26 & 27 on the east coast of Newfoundland. 

A case study on Inner City Renovation, a social enterprise in Winnipeg’s construction sector since 2002 is being submitted to the North American Case Research Association (NACRA) for consideration in their Case Research Journal (CRJ) publication. The CRJ is distributed directly to libraries, publishers and universities including Harvard school of Business and Economics in the U.S. and Laurier School of Business and Economics in Canada.

The case illustrating various challenges facing Inner City Renovation in 2007 when it lost it largest customer will be a useful tool in business schools offering courses in social enterprise. The case is co-authored by my colleague John Melnyk at University of Winnipeg, Business Faculty and myself, ICR founder and past general manager.

Carrot Common home to The Big Carrot health food store on Danforth Avenue in Toronto is celebrating its 25 th. anniversary.  In 1987, I was assisted The Big Carrot to find a new larger location for their popular store. I introduced Mary Lou Morgan of the Big Carrot to David Walsh who I had met at a CED workshop some years earlier. It gave birth to Carrot Common, a two building two story complex with 21,000 sq. ft. retail store space and 10,000 sq.ft of office space for health care professionals. The Big Carrot is the anchor store in the Common and  has expanded over the past 25 years to take on an even larger presence.

The Carrot Common complex has been an inspiration to various organizations over the years including Neechi Foods Co-op Ltd. in Winnipeg who are about to open Neechi Common on Main St in Winnipeg’s North End later this summer. The 50,000 sq.ft complex will be home to community businesses promoting healthy foods and lifestyles.

Both Neechi Foods and The Big Carrot are worker co-operatives where the workers are the owners of the enterprise. Both are social enterprises with an environmental consciousness providing healthy food and lifestyles as well as employment for their workers.

The  Social Enterprise Centre had its official opening celebration on May 26, 2012. The building at 765 Main Street in Winnipeg’s North End was purchased some months ago by a consortium of three social enterprises (BUILD, Manitoba Green Retrofit and Pollock’s Hardware Co-op). It has undergone significant renovations and is now home to six community organizations in addition to the three social enterprises. The event attended by several hundred people included tours around the building and an opportunity to make a contribution to a mosaic to be prominently displayed in the building. The Centre is the latest development in Winnipeg’s social enterprise sector.