Social Finance

In the fall, I posted a brief for the House of Commons Finance Committee on social enterprise and social finance policy development.  The final version, along with others that were submitted can be found here.

The Finance Committee is expanding their work and is now looking at charitable tax incentives.  The crowdsourcing of the last brief proved to be quite successful so I would like to try it again.

Attached is a draft of the submission for the Finance Committee. I will be sending in the final version on January 14th. Please share your thoughts and comments on this blog post. If you would like your name added to the reference list of this paper please let me know so that I can ensure that appropirate credit is made.

My career has been shaped in the charitable sector. It spans two countries, several sub-sectors and a lot of fundraising time. When I decided to launch my own company it was at the begining of the formal social enterprise discussion in the States. I realized early on that what the charities value as their business and revenue models is not what the traditional markets value.  This seems obvious, when charities talk about their business, they talk about the lives that they have saved and how they do it on so few dollars.  When companies talk about their business, they talk about profit and commodities and consumers.  So it was with great interest that I read this past week's issue of the Globe & Mail on renaming the sector from non-profit to Social Profit.

The latest revision of the briefing to the Finance Committee of the House of Commons is below.  I have included references to the Manitoba Corporate Tax Credit for Social Enterprises and the British Columbia's advisory committee on Social Entrepreneurship.

Thank you to those who have shared their thoughts, research and ideas on what should be included in this brief to the House of Commons Finance Committee.  Attached is a draft version of the document. I have not completed the bibliography and it needs to be tightened up but your feedback is most welcome, especially on the recommendations that are being presented to the committee (page 5).

If you have written a brief for a House Committee before, please share how you think this document should be laid out.

Thank you for your contributions!

Yup, you read that correctly, I am exploring an ideation space. I'm calling this space My Tickle Trunk.  Thank you Canadian children's show icon - Mr. Dressup! Read more »

I recently tweeted some research that we had done by UnCommon Innovation on the state the financial services sector.  The focus on the study was on how advisors are talking with their clients about charitable giving.  What came out loud and clear is that advisors are looking for tools and resources to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with their clients about philanthropy.  These tools and resources can come from a number of places, the most knowledgeable place would be the charitable sector itself.

Guest Blogger: Michele Frugel-Gartner is the Executive Director Social Venture Partners Calgary. Prior to this role, Michele was employed with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and participated in Rotary Internationals Group Study Exchange to Saitama, Japan where she studied the role of philanthropy and Japanese civil society.  She received her M.A. degree in International Studies and Diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and is an alumna of the Asia Pacific Leadership Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu, HI.

Note about this post: Michele and I are on the planning committee of the Innovation Exchange.  This blog originally appread on the Social Finance site.  It has been reposted with permission from the author.

A year ago, I started quietly along a path to understand the legal and regulatory structures and challenges of social enterprise. It was a quest for knowledge and was parlayed into a course on public policy for nonprofits. For six months, I diligently read everything published on the topic with the hopes that my knowledge in the topic would expand and I'd be able to influence the topic. Starting out slowly and independently, I never imagined how quickly the ball would start to roll. Read more »