CCEDNet Member NORDIK Institute, Algoma University’s community-based research organization with ongoing goals of increasing employment and promoting community resilience is hosting a series of nine workshops geared to Social Enterprises, Social Entrepreneurs and new business start-ups.

The Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (SEE) Northern Region Partnership workshops will be held at the Sault Community Career Centre every Wednesday evening from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. from Wed Aug 2 until September 27th. They will cover a variety of topics including Social Enterprises 101, Business Planning 101, Market Research and Financing and Capital 101. Open to everyone, a dedicated team will support the learning of these topics through interactive sessions geared at entrepreneurs and enterprises who are starting or expanding a business and taking that next step to apply for funding. These sessions will also be broadcasted online.

“Within the last three years, NORDIK and SEE have been instrumental in capacity building, training and support for social enterprises and entrepreneurs, starting from the conceptualization stage, to educating them on skills and components of owning and managing a business, to the process of writing a funding application in the Northern Ontario context,” says Sean Meades, Acting Director, NORDIK Institute. “These nine weeks of workshops will build on our previous efforts and help educate participants in learning about Social Enterprise and how one can begin a business that can help tackle community problems.”

Social Enterprises engage citizens and spark community change through developing innovative ideas and employment opportunities while responding to social, cultural and environmental needs. They differ from other small businesses in that they use the “triple bottom line” (People, Planet, Profit) to assess success, and their governance structure often reflects community or collective control, such as with cooperatives or non-profits.

“One needs to be very prepared to take on any business, especially a Social Enterprise, and these workshops will help interested Social Entrepreneurs understand the various aspects of business as it applies to their venture,” says Erika Luoma, SEE’s Project Lead and Communications Coordinator. “Our project is dedicated to developing supports and resources to allow social enterprise to succeed and these workshops will help us do just that.”

For more information on the workshops, please visit the SEE website, www.seethechange.ca

Originally Published on Sault Online, July 31 2017