3pm Eastern Time

Contrary to popular belief, entrepreneurship is not a solo sport. “Backbone organizations” such as incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, and local first alliances are crucial hubs for building capacity and community around local economy innovation. To be most effective, these backbones require an ecosystem of partners to sustain the organization as well as support the entrepreneurs they’re incubating.

In this webinar, Kelly Ramirez, CEO of Social Enterprise Greenhouse in Providence, RI, will share her comprehensive model for mapping ecosystem assets. The model identifies a range of potential partners to build pipeline, increase business acumen, expand the market, provide capital, and more. Kelly is joined by Donovan Woollard (Radius Ventures, Vancouver) and moderator D’Artagnan Scorza (Social Justice Learning Institute, Los Angeles), who offer their own expertise building backbone organizations to serve social enterprises.

You'll Learn

• How to identify new partners, build right relationships, and leverage resources
• How to integrate unusual partnerships into your work serving social enterprises
• How to utilize and build your local ecosystem to foster innovation for good in your place

Who Should Attend

• Directors and staff of incubators, accelerators, technical assistance hubs, co-working spaces, and other organizations that service social enterprises
• Social entrepreneurs looking to grow their business network and map their ecosystem assets
• Others interested in learning how to best leverage local assets to support entrepreneurs and innovation in their place

Speakers

• Kelly Ramirez, CEO, Social Enterprise Greenhouse, Providence, RI
  Kelly is the CEO of Social Enterprise Greenhouse, and the founder of the SEEED Summit. Kelly teaches courses on Social Enterprise at Providence College, Salve Regina University, and in the Leadership Institute at Brown University. This year she opened the doors to Rhode Island’s first social enterprise co-working, education, and community space.
• Donovan Woollard, Director, RADIUS Ventures, Vancouver, BC
  Donovan is the managing director of RADIUS Ventures, an impact venture accelerator at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business, which helps a cluster of local food and sustainable transportation ventures become market- and investor-ready. Donovan previously established Transom Enterprises to help launch and grow responsible business initiatives.

Register for the Identifying & Leveraging Partnerships webinar

Source: BALLE

1pm to 2:30pm Eastern Time

Register by 9a.m. ET on Monday, April 27, 2015 to receive log-in information.

Published in January 2015, Dollars & Sense: Opportunities to Strengthen Southern Ontario's Food System encompasses the first research of its kind in Canada on the economic and environmental impacts of food production in southern Ontario, where roughly 98 percent of the province's food is produced. This keystone report, produced by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the Metcalf Foundation, and the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, looks at a number of scenarios to study the potential impacts of shifts in food consumption and production.

Join two of the report's authors, Dr. Rod McRae and Dr. Atif Kurbursi, and moderator Beth Hunter, Program Director with the McConnell Foundation, for a special 90-minute webinar on April 27th to discuss their findings and understand the research process behind Dollars & Sense and its extensive background reports. This webinar will be of particular interest to policy makers, community leaders, funders, academics, and others who want to learn more about this new resource and how it can inform government policy discussions. This conversation is an opportunity to deepen understanding of the findings, discuss policy options and implications of the research in other regions.

More information on the Dollars & Sense webinar

Register for the Dollars & Sense webinar

Download the Dollars & Sense report

Speakers

• Dr. Atif Kurbursi, Professor Emeritus of Economics at McMaster University
• Dr. Rod McRae, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University
• Moderated by Beth Hunter, Program Director, J.W. McConnell Family Foundation

This event is free for all to attend thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Metcalf Foundation, the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation.

12:00pm Eastern Time

Homelessness is a major issue in Canada, affecting 200,000 people every year and costing $7 billion to the economy. If we include people who are vulnerably housed (those in unstable, poor-quality housing or couch surfing) as many as 520,000 Canadians lack safe, affordable and supportive housing.

In 2014, the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing's (MCII) SIB Advisory Services team determined that an alternative funding mechanism could help mobilize capital to address homelessness in Canada. They released these findings in a report titled "Housing First Social Impact Bond Feasibility Study."

Now that the concept feasibility is established, the next step is launching a Housing First SIB. With the support of the United Way Innovation Fund, the MaRS SIB Advisory Services team is offering pro bono technical assistance to potential outcome payers through a call for partnerships.

This webinar will walk interested parties through the problem of homelessness in Canada, the SIB model as it might apply in this case, and through the process of applying to be a partner in this groundbreaking work. The MCII SIB Advisory Team has received many inquiries about the recent call for partnerships and we are offering this webinar and Q&A for interested parties. Representatives from all levels of government, foundations, corporations, etc. are welcome to attend!

Please feel free to submit any questions you have ahead of time via email to jwalker at marsdd.com and we'll make sure they're addressed!

Register for the Homelessness Social Impact Bond webinar

With new generations of local financial institutions, community foundations, and supportive public policies, pathways have opened for trillions of dollars to move from Wall Street to Main Street. Innovative leaders are changing the way that capital works, moving away from a system that perpetuates inequality and toward place-based models that instead catalyze local job creation, build community wealth, and foster vibrant local economies.

This webinar features three pioneering local economy leaders who have built ecosystems for place-based investing through community foundation initiatives and local investment clubs. Hear their stories of impact, learn messaging that works in making the case for community capital, and take away concrete ideas for how you can implement similar models in your own community.

Who should attend & key takeaways:­

Leaders and staff of community development corporations, economic and community development organizations, foundations, and business incubators will learn how to apply these models in their place to leverage assets, access capital, and make the case for community capital and impact investing.

Social entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders looking to support their communities in innovative ways will learn the goals and metrics these new funding models use so they can better position themselves to participate, invest, or attract capital.

Speakers:

• Jessica Norwood, Emerging ChangeMakers Network, Mobile, AL
  Jessica has created a local investing club that helps community members in the Black Belt develop personal wealth while strengthening their local economy. She is a 2014 BALLE Fellow.
• Sandy Wiggins, BALLE & RSF Social Finance Community Foundation Circle, Nationwide
  Sandy works with community foundations to shift their business models toward increased impact investing. He consults with RSF Social Finance, the Democracy Collaborative, and others across the country and is BALLE’s Board Chair.

Register for the Community Capital webinar

Source: BALLE

The Government of Ontario's hybrid legislation consultation is an issue with far reaching implications for nonprofits. Join this webinar to get a summary of what you need to know about hybrid legislation and how to participate in the consultation. Hear about ONN's position on hybrid legislation, join in discussion, and get your questions answered.

Date:  Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Time:  12:00-1:00pm
Cost:  Free
Presenter: ONN Senior Policy Advisor Lynn Eakin

Register for the Social Enterprise / Hybrid Legislation for Ontario webinar

About the Hybrid Legislation:

The Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services is conducting a consultation on a potential framework for social enterprise legislation (also known as dual purpose legislation or hybrid legislation) where the goal is to enable social good and private profit through private sector investment.

This is an issue that affects the nonprofit sector and ONN encourages you to share your voice! Hybrid Legislation is complicated and has implications for the work of the nonprofit sector and its ability to provide social good and build community wealth. This briefing is intended to help Ontario’s nonprofit sector make sense of this issue and gain a greater understanding of the implications for your organization and our sector.

Source: The Ontario Nonprofit Network

October 15th 17:00 to 18:00 [GMT (London) Time]

RETHINKING PARKS, NESTA, UK
Public sector funding for discretionary services like parks is projected to fall by 60 per cent or more over the next decade. Program Manager Lydia Ragoonanan will talk about the approach used through Rethinking Parks to create conditions for innovation and to enable new business models to come to life. The partnership is working with 11 teams to develop, test and measure the impact of new approaches to raising income or reducing costs for public parks. Lydia will draw on insights and experiences from these project teams as well as Nesta's wider work.

PLAYTIME IN AFRICA, MMOFRA FOUNDATION, GHANA
Amowi Phillips, board member of Mmofra Foundation will describe the pioneering effort she and others are making to rethink child-centered green space in urban Ghana. A prototype two-acre park benefiting children of all backgrounds in Accra is underway as the first project under this "Playtime in Africa Initiative". Creative harnessing of local and global early support has put eco-sanitation, off-grid water and solar power on the site. Amowi will share and invite next stage strategies to construct, maintain and manage a culturally inspired natural learning landscape in an urban African context.

About The New Barn-Raising

The New Barn-Raising is an initiative to encourage the exchange of international best practice around sustaining community and civic assets such as parks, recreation centers, libraries, neighborhood stores, senior centers, museums and theaters. These are places and spaces characterized by a high degree of accessibility, popularity and sense of belonging to 'the people'.

The term New Barn-Raising refers to how different groups (business, citizens, foundations, non-profits groups, politicians, social entrepreneurs, social investors, taxpayers and unions) can all pull together to support assets.

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