Since 1977, NASCO's Cooperative Education & Training Institute has been widely recognized as one of the most important training and networking opportunities available to members, directors, staff, and managers of group-equity cooperatives. The annual NASCO Institute is always a one-of-a-kind opportunity to network with hundreds of cooperative leaders and employers, to caucus about pressing issues, and to work on building an inclusive and accessible cooperative movement.
Choose your own Future
Currently, cooperatives are facing uncertainty as all of us are in this new reality. We are focusing on our commitment to a brighter future. Cooperatives are full of imagined possibilities and real solutions to problems of the present and the future. This year we will bring together cooperators to bring to life the future we want to see.
Cormac Russell has recently released a book called Rekindling Democracy- A Professional’s Guide to Working in Citizen Space in which he stipulates that organizations and professionals are not the solution to community problems, it is citizens who must be at the center of any authentic and powerful democratic response to challenges.
Tamarack Institute has booked two virtual workshops with Cormac Russell who will lead participants through a learning journey to show how, as professionals and organization, we can shift to citizen-centred community development approaches from top-down institution-centred ones, and how we can challenge the status quo in order to reboot democracy.
Option One: The Three Lane Hi-way- A Professional’s Guide to Working in Citizen Space (Dec 2 2020)
Morning Session: Growing the led by the people space & The Hydraulic Relationship Presentations; Group work and deep dive discussions make this an energizing and liberating experience.
Early Afternoon Session: Tools for precipitating Citizen-led action and community building Explore the power of questions, learning conversations; asset portraits. Here you will deepen practice, hone your skills and learn from peers.
Late Afternoon: The Eight Touchstones: A Framework for Place-based Community Building The framework enable you to workout in practical terms how you are going to make this real in a back home context. You will develop a clear pathfinder framework to guide your future community building efforts.
Option Two: A Professional’s Guide to Working with Young People in Citizen Space (Dec 3 2020)
Morning Session: Growing the led by the people space with young people in key contributing roles
Using a mix of presentations, group work and deep dive discussions on how to support youth citizenship but also how best to support the wider community to recognize and include the gifts of young people.
Early Afternoon Session: Tools for precipitating Citizen-led action and community building
Explore the power of questions, learning conversations; asset portraits. In particular we want to explore ways that young people can be supported in community building roles within their own neighbourhoods.
Late Afternoon: The Eight Touchstones: A Framework for Place-based Community Building
You will develop a clear framework to guide your future community building efforts ensuring that young people feel central, without feeling overburdened.
Join the third annual Community Wealth Building Summit. This one-day summit is the premier UK event for uniting, informing and inspiring the community wealth building movement.
This year’s summit will showcase how community wealth building is being used to rebuild and reform local economies reeling from the impact of Covid-19. It will provide insight into policy and practice from city mayors, national and local governments, communities and practitioners in the UK and beyond; helping us all to build fairer, sustainable, and more resilient local economies in these unprecedented times.
This year’s event will present opportunities to hear from global thought leaders who are progressing community wealth building policy and from emerging and established practitioners
The summit will help you to:
Learn how community wealth building can and should be placed at the heart of the Covid-19 recovery effort;
Understand how community wealth building represents a break from failed economic planning;
Increase awareness and understanding of the ideas behind community wealth building and the places where they are being applied.
In 2018, the Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy Co-Creation Steering Group released its report, Inclusive Innovation: New Ideas and New Partnerships for Stronger Communities. This comprehensive report contains 12 key recommendations that would help communities tackle their toughest social and environmental challenges through skill development, unlocking private capital, increasing market access, and regulatory changes. In other words – it would be a game changer!
The federal government has committed to developing a Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy (SISF Strategy) and, in 2018, announced a $755M Social Finance Fund and $50M Investment Readiness Program. BUT, the Social Finance Fund has yet to be rolled out, after a very successful 2-year pilot, the Investment Readiness Program is set to expire in March 2021, and there has been little action on the remaining recommendations.
The game has not changed….YET.
We have a window of opportunity to push the government to implement a comprehensive strategy, expand the Investment Readiness Program, and accelerate the Social Finance Fund. Over the spring and summer, several mobilizing efforts, including by the People-Centred Economy Group, Impact Response, the National Impact Investment Practitioners table, former members of the SISF Steering Group, and others, have urged the federal government to accelerate SISF as part of COVID recovery. This is a critical moment for a concerted push for continued action by the federal government to ensure that SISF is part of budget 2021.
On November 2 we heard from social innovators about how SISF supports their work, why they’re pushing for action now, and how you can be part of a campaign that will help you have your voice heard on this strategic issue!
Guest Speakers:
Béatrice Alain, Executive Director, Chantier de l’économie sociale
Victor Beausoleil, Co-founder & Executive Director, Social Economy Through Social Inclusion
Rosalind Lockyer, Founder & Executive Director, PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise
Wendy Keats, Executive Director, Co-operative Enterprise Council of NB
Raissa Marks, Government Relations Director, Canadian Community Economic Development Network
Sunday, October 25, 2020 is the date of the 40th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures. Kali Akuno and George Monbiot will speak addressing the topic “Land as a Commons: Building the New Economy.” The virtual event will take place from 1pm to 4pm Eastern Daylight Time. The two talks and the live-streamed discussion following will be free to all registered.
The topic is land access, the problems generated by a concentration of ownership, and ways of creating a more fair and equitable system. The Schumacher Center’s own response to the inequities in land access is to call for a voluntary gifting of land into regional community land trusts where its use can be allocated through lease agreements in a socially determined manner outside of market forces.
A growing network of Canadian organizations and professionals are exploring Social Acquisitions for Business Recovery (SABR), a strategy that sees conventional enterprises transition into social purpose enterprising forms (like a co-op, a social enterprise, a charity, a non-profit, or any combination of the same).
Every month, we convene the network to do four things: connect, inform, collaborate, and learn. This month's theme will be: Designing an Inclusive Recovery. We will be exploring ways that social acquisitions can be leveraged to build back better, more resilient, and more inclusive.
Join at 11am EDT on October 22 2020 to hear about hard work being done and opportunities being created to Activate and Design SABR solutions, participate in some engaging social innovation activities that will spark your creativity, and as always, forge powerful new connections with Canadian professionals who are leading the charge in Social Acquisitions for Business Recovery. All are welcome!
Since 1977, NASCO's Cooperative Education & Training Institute has been widely recognized as one of the most important training and networking opportunities available to members, directors, staff, and managers of group-equity cooperatives. The annual NASCO Institute is always a one-of-a-kind opportunity to network with hundreds of cooperative leaders and employers, to caucus about pressing issues, and to work on building an inclusive and accessible cooperative movement.
In 2018, the Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy Co-Creation Steering Group released its report, 
