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Unleashing Local Capital is a new and innovative local financing program that supports communities in establishing Opportunity Development Co-operatives (ODCs) that pool capital within a designated community using RRSP eligible shares. This lunchtime webinar will teach you everything you need to get started, as well as provide an opportunity to ask questions and discuss your local business development project.

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If you are involved in local business, community economic development, or are an entrepreneur this webinar will provide you with some excellent new information and insight into how local financing can be used to build strong and vibrant communities.

Register now

For more information contact Paul Cabaj, Director of Co-operative Development at pcabaj@acca.coop

Opportunity Development Co-operatives can be used to finance:

• Expansion, renovation, and upgrading of existing businesses
• Revitalization projects of a once-bustling main-street
• Succession planning that will keep an important business in the community
• New businesses

Opportunity Development Co-operatives also:

• Keep wealth in communities
• Let you invest in your community
• Connects you to a local business and the local economy in a meaningful way

Introduction to the ULC Guide for Community Leaders from Alberta Coops on Vimeo.

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Join enp Canada for a Google Hangout featuring:
Bridgespan, Habitat for Humanity, and ReStore

Watch our four panelists and moderators from Axiom News host a virtual “hangout” to discuss their experiences & share their wisdom related to scaling social enterprise.  Building upon the themes of our recent inquiry into scaling social enterprise, each panelist will offer their unique perspective and together they will answer questions posed by viewers.

What is a Google Hangout? How does it work?

It’s easy…  Just click on the link to our hangout at the start time,  then watch as our four panelists & our team of moderators engage in a 45 minute conversation about scaling.  You do not need a Google plus account to access the Google Hangout.

How do I ask a question?

If you have a question you’d like our panelist to address, please tweet us @enpCAN or add it to the event homepage anytime between now and the Hangout. This will give our panelists an idea of what you’re interested in and a give us a chance to prepare a response.

I can’t make it, will you be posting this online?

Yes! We’ll be posting the conversation as a follow up story in our newsroom, it will be in our resource library (tagged with “growth & evolution”) and, it will be on our youtube channel.

Meet the Panelists

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Abe is a consultant at the Bridgespan Group, where he has helped a variety of domestic and international organizations develop strategic plans for scaling their social impact to help break cycles of intergenerational poverty. Abe’s past clients range from mid-size NGOs to large national networks to a multilateral development agency to a leading corporate foundation. He has worked in economic development, public health, global development, education and youth development. He is the co-author of Transformative Scale: The Future of Growing What Works, published in the February 2014 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review.

The Bridgespan Group is a non-profit adviser and resource for mission-driven organizations and philanthropists. Bridgespan collaborates with social sector leaders to help scale impact, build leadership, advance philanthropic effectiveness and accelerate learning.

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Vanessa is the executive producer of DreamRider Productions, a social enterprise energized by a mission to inspire students to do their part to conserve water and energy and to reduce, reuse and recycle waste. To actualize its mission, the enterprise creates, produces and delivers live theatre productions to students in Greater Vancouver. The program has worked far beyond what its originators dreamed as students have gone home and made significant changes in their and their families' lives.

After working yearly with more than 70,000 students of all ages in more than 200 Greater Vancouver schools, DreamRider is now launching the Planet Protector Academy, an interactive, curriculum-linked program for Grade 3-6. The key impetus for the new program is to expand DreamRiders’ social impact to a broader audience.

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Heidi is the regional development manager for two ReStores locations in southern Alberta. In 2012, the Calgary ReStore reached $1.7 million in sales, the highest of all Canadian Habitat for Humanity social enterprises for that year. Established in 1991, the Habitat for Humanity ReStores sell new and used building supplies, home furnishing, appliances, and décor donated by corporations or citizens.

Heidi, who has worked with the two southern Alberta stores for about a year, attributes the Calgary store’s phenomenal 2012 success in part to rigorous documentation of incoming inventory, as well as clearly and constantly articulating the purpose of the enterprise. The goal for the southern Alberta stores is $3 million in sales in 2014.

Profits from ReStore are directed to the non-profit, Habitat for Humanity Canada, to support the building of more homes for families who are struggling. The social enterprises’ impact also includes shrinking the public’s environmental footprint by reducing and reusing building supplies and home and office items.

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David, with Common Good Solutions, has been using entrepreneurship as a tool for change for over 30 years. He has worked with Aboriginal Peoples in Canada’s North, youth and business development organizations, and all levels of government to develop sustainable entrepreneurial projects in recreation, the arts, environment and business sectors.

David has a special passion for working with young entrepreneurs. He is also an active volunteer, having been a member of the Social Economy and Sustainability Research Network Subnode, which focused on food security in the Atlantic provinces. He is the founding and current president of the Atlantic Council for Community and Social Enterprise, and sits on a number of national committees to further develop the policy environment for investment and capacity growth in the sector.