Start co-operating.

Are you interested in starting a co-operative? Do you work for a co-op or a credit union and want to learn more about the co-op sector? Does the idea of co-operation interest you?

That's why we're here. Come and learn all about the co-op sector, co-operatives, how and why to start one, and how the BCCA can help you as you think of ways to build a co-operative economy.

Learn about co-op business basics.

Learn about the history of co-ops, different kinds of co-ops ranging from consumer co-ops to worker co-ops to nonprofit co-ops at this workshop.

Participants will also explore how to take their idea towards the development of a co-op, including:

• The co-op development path
• Assessing a business idea
• Feasibility and business planning
• The nuts and bolts of starting a co-op
• Support and assistance from the BCCA and the co-op sector

Access co-op development support.

If you are representing a group that is exploring co-operation as a business idea, taking a Co-ops 101 course allows your group to register with the BCCA as an "Emerging Co-op" and access ongoing BCCA support, including access to co-op development experts, ongoing advice, discounted training and education, and more. 

Attend via interactice webinar.

BCCA workshops are offered via online interactive webinar. You can attend from the comfort of your home, your office, or your iPad, anywhere in the world.

Register for the event here

This webinar will feature the work of CleanStart, a non-profit social enterprise providing eco-friendly junk removal and job programs for residents with barriers to employment in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver. We will also hear from Exeko, a progressive Montréal based social innovation agency using creativity, art and philosophy to promote social inclusion through cultural and intellectual mediations addressing homelessness and Aboriginal youth among others. 

Discover how CleanStart, once small start-up, is moving to the next phase of expansion through the creation of comprehensive job training programs, social media outreach and flexible employee supports to marginalized individuals facing barriers to employment. Hearabout the significant impacts they have made working with affordable housing and homelessness communities across Vancouver through their social return on investment model.

Learn about Exeko’s idAction Mobile program, a philosophical and cultural caravan that tours the streets of Montréal to engage citizens, in particular those experiencing homelessness. On board are books, newspapers, eyeglasses, art supplies, documentary films and writing kits, all offering the means of civic participation through access to information on current events, while providing a safe space for knowledge exchange, discussion, artistic play and self-discovery.  

Register for the event here

SPEAKERS:

Laura Barreca: Operations Manager, CleanStart, Vancouver (BC)

Nadia Duguay: Co-Founder & Executive Director, Exeko, Montréal (QC)

* This webinar will be delivered in English only.

12:00pm - 2:00pm Eastern Time (9:00am - 11:00pm, Pacific Time)

Innoweave is pleased to partner with Accelerating Social Impact to offer a National Social Enterprise Feasibility Planning Workshop.

The workshop is designed to help leadership teams of 3-4 (including board members) start to explore a concrete opportunity or idea for creating a social enterprise by:

Assessing the market for their potential product or service Identifying potential customers Developing potential pricing structures
Identifying next steps to become launch-ready The Innoweave Social Enterprise workshop builds on the Innoweave Introduction to Social Enterprise webinar.

Register for the Social Enterprise Feasibility Planning Workshop

Teams may also view this pre-recorded webinar.

Event details:

When: Tuesday, November 17th and Thursday, November 19th, 2015
Participants are required to commit to both days (the workshop content will be spread over these two sessions).

Where: This distance workshop will be hosted via Cisco WebEx. A link to the meeting and workshop documents will be provided to successful applicants.

Deadline: Applications are due by Wednesday, October 28th, 2015. Space is limited. Successful applicants will be notified by Wednesday, November 4th, 2015.

Participating organizations will also be eligible to apply for implementation funding in January 2016 to engage a coach to help them with development following the workshop. To learn more about Innoweave Implementation Funding, click here.

If you have any questions, please contact us at info at innoweave.ca.

12:00pm - 2:00pm Eastern Time (9:00am - 11:00pm, Pacific Time)

Innoweave is pleased to partner with Accelerating Social Impact to offer a National Social Enterprise Feasibility Planning Workshop.

The workshop is designed to help leadership teams of 3-4 (including board members) start to explore a concrete opportunity or idea for creating a social enterprise by:

Assessing the market for their potential product or service Identifying potential customers Developing potential pricing structures
Identifying next steps to become launch-ready The Innoweave Social Enterprise workshop builds on the Innoweave Introduction to Social Enterprise webinar.

Register for the Social Enterprise Feasibility Planning Workshop

Teams may also view this pre-recorded webinar.

Event details:

When: Tuesday, November 17th and Thursday, November 19th, 2015
Participants are required to commit to both days (the workshop content will be spread over these two sessions).

Where: This distance workshop will be hosted via Cisco WebEx. A link to the meeting and workshop documents will be provided to successful applicants.

Deadline: Applications are due by Wednesday, October 28th, 2015. Space is limited. Successful applicants will be notified by Wednesday, November 4th, 2015.

Participating organizations will also be eligible to apply for implementation funding in January 2016 to engage a coach to help them with development following the workshop. To learn more about Innoweave Implementation Funding, click here.

If you have any questions, please contact us at info at innoweave.ca.

3pm Eastern Time | Noon Pacific Time

Local economy leaders across the country are recognizing that in order to achieve our vision, we will need to rewrite the policies that shape our economy — policies that today often work against local, values-based businesses.  Many BALLE fellows and local economy leaders are already taking action, rewriting the rules in their own places to reorient the banking system, implement mission-based procurement policies, advocate smart land-use planning, and more.

Join BALLE for a preview of a new policy platform crafted by the Institute for Local Self Reliance in partnership with Localist leaders and BALLE Fellows. Stacy Mitchell of ILSR, Rebecca Melançon of the Austin Independent Business Alliance and Local First Policy Committee, and Eric Griego, BALLE Fellow and former New Mexico State Senator, will share the new policy platform along with tips for how to use this and other tools to elevate the public conversation in your own place.

In this webinar you’ll learn:

• The core issues leaders are tackling across the country
• How to set policy priorities and actions to achieve them
• Shared resources for moving Localist policy forward.

Register for Transforming Policy to Build Strong Local Economies

Speakers:

Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self Reliance

Stacy is co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and directs its Community-Scaled Economy Initiative, which produces research and analysis and partners with a range of allies to design and implement policies that curb economic consolidation and strengthen community-rooted enterprise. Much of Stacy’s work has focused on two pivotal sectors of the economy: retail and banking.  Among the first to raise the alarm about the rise of mega-retailers in the 1990s, Stacy is a nationally recognized leader in the movement to counter their power.

Rebecca Melançon, Austin Independent Business Alliance & Local First Policy Committee

Rebecca was a founding member of the nonprofit Austin Independent Business Alliance (AIBA) and served as vice president from 2002 until 2009 when she joined the staff of AIBA as Executive Director in March 2010. As an advocate for local business, she has served on Austin’s Comprehensive Plan Task Force, the Travis County Economic Development Subcommittee and hosts the Local Business Conference in Austin. Rebecca is a member of the Local First Policy Committee that worked with ISLR to craft the policy platform previewed in this webinar.

Moderator: Eric Griego, Fast Forward Consulting, former NM State Senator

Eric puts his two decades of experience in economic development and public office toward collaborating with local governments, foundations and community leaders to redevelop key parts of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to create jobs and grow local businesses in some the state’s hardest hit communities. His Doctoral research and consulting work focuses on redefining community health to include economic resiliency, vibrancy and diversity. Eric served as an Albuquerque City Councilman, Assistant Cabinet Secretary for Economic Development, and a State Senator for four years.

Across Canada and around the world, people are rising up to shape new economies.  Recognizing that the ecological, social and even financial costs of our current economic system are unsustainable, innovative leaders are finding different paths forward.

As part of the third annual New Economy Week, this session will challenge us to explore how we can scale promising social innovations towards larger systemic change. 

The contributors will share big ideas and concrete examples of real solutions to further explore perspectives that they and others shared in Voices of New Economies, a report produced as part of Cities for People by One Earth and the Canadian CED Network.

The session offers inspiration for new possibilities that can bring us closer to a just, sustainable, and democratic society.

SPEAKERS

Hosted by Dagmar Timmer, Managing Director and Co-Founder of One Earth, the session will begin with an introduction by Michael Toye, Executive Director of the Canadian CED Network and Vanessa Timmer, Executive Director and Co-Founder of One Earth. It features insights from the following Voices contributors:

• Marianne Jurzyniec, Governance Liaison Manager, Affinity Credit Union

"We know youth are our future therefore investments to educate, mentor, and most importantly to ensure they are contributing to the decisions of today are invaluable.”

• Sean Geobey, Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo's School of Environment, Enterprise and Development

"Wealth comes from our capacity to invest materially, socially, and intellectually in the creation of institutions and infrastructure that support collective efforts to try and make the world a better place.”

• Lis Suarez Visbal-Ensink, Executive Director, FEM International and Co-Director, ETHIK BGC

"The capacity to choose what is best for you and yours and embrace it, not to take what you can because it is your only option, or the only thing you can afford.”

• Pallavi Roy, Researcher, Centre for Urban Energy, Ryerson University

"The energy sector, which has traditionally been highly controlled, has immense potential to be revolutionized through new economic practices.”

• Victoria Wee, Computer Science student, Stanford University

"Young people are the ingredient x to really carving out the future that we want.”

• Nabeel Ahmed, Network Co-ordinator, Social Enterprise Toronto

"At the core, new economies have to be focused around people and protecting public interests, not falling prey to short- term, profit-driven private interests." 

• Alexa Pitoulis, Managing Director, OpenMedia

"How we interact with media has changed dramatically in the last 20 years.  Local ownership and control over Internet infrastructure is a key component to thriving new economies of the future."

WATCH THE RECORDING!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Voices of New Economies, a compilation of perspectives on advancing more sustainable, just, democratic and inclusive economies prepared by Cities for People, OneEarth and the Canadian CED Network, with support from the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
• New Economy Week
• New Economy Coalition