Executive Director - Economic Development
Financial management tips and insights from Walter Hossli, Executive Director of Momentum, founding member of CCEDNet and one of the most experienced CED leaders in Canada.
For the past 20 years, Walter Hossli has been the driving force behind the Calgary CED organization Momentum. Momentum serves about 4,000 low-income Calgarians annually in 20 programs including, trades training, micro loans for business start-up, professional immigrants’ accreditation, financial literacy and matched savings programs.
But it wasn’t always this way. In 1991, Momentum had a budget of just over $300,000 and was caught in the project funding treadmill common to many CED groups. By learning to cost properly, diversifying funding sources, building surpluses and reserves and creating a strong organizational culture, Momentum’s annual revenues grew to over $5.2 million in 2010, with reserve funds of over $1.6 million.
In this session, Walter shares the lessons he’s learned over the last 20 years and tips on how strong financial management can catalyze organizational passion, performance and independence – and ultimately better results for communities.
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This event is free of charge. Space is limited.
A feature webinar discussion with Mike Lewis on Resiliency – a next step for local economies in the transition to a low-carbon future.
Twenty years ago, Mike Lewis was already one of the leading voices for community economic development in Canada. As editor of Making Waves, he saw first hand how local action can help turn around impoverished neighbourhoods and communities. But as his work expanded internationally and across sectors, the emerging spectres of climate change and peak oil cast community renewal in a new light.
In his new book, The Resilience Imperative, Lewis and co-author Pat Conaty of the new economics foundation draw on their wealth of experience to show how energy, food, housing, finance and other sectors familiar to CED practitioners can be reinvented at a more local and regional scale, buffering communities from the economic shocks that the global transition to lower-carbon economies will likely entail.
The Resilience Imperative is firmly grounded in extensive research carried out by the BC-Alberta Social Economy Research Alliance. With endorsements from David Suzuki, Bill McKibbon, Hazel Henderson, Gar Alperovitz, Robin Murray and many others, The Resilience Imperative offers practical solutions for a cultural shift to solidarity, co-operation and sufficiency in a future that respects the earth’s ecological limits.
Michael Lewis, Canadian Centre for Community Renewal, has been engaged in community economic development (CED), development finance and the social and co-operative economy for over 35 years, Mike is a prolific author, and respected practitioner who’s been involved in entrepreneurial development, network building, strategic assistance to CED organizations and curriculum design for community resilience.