Collapsing economies, unemployment, healthcare woes, unprecedented climate change, increasing inequality - it's hard to escape bad news nowadays. We all know that there are big, wicked problems that need fixing, and we come across them every day. Social innovation is a great way to address these problems.

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The global financial crisis has led Ireland's banks to expand funding for social enterprise. Now, banks in the United Kingdom are poised to follow suit.

In late November, London's Finance Times reported that Britain's banks could commit £1.5 billion to Prime Minister David Cameron's "Big Society Bank" as part of a "charm offensive" to "end the war between politicians and bankers that has raged since the crash of 2008." Leading the project is John Varley, chief executive of Barclays.

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In 2008, the United States financial crisis sparked a domino-like global recession throwing millions out of work. Triggered by a lax and liberalized regulatory system, the crisis sounded the death knell for the G7’s leadership and catapulted the G20 into prominence as the world’s new governance framework for global economic management. It also fed a US climate of electoral revolt.

Have lessons been learned and acted upon in the wake of the crisis? Two new documentaries say, no, the conditions that created the opportunity for the crisis have not been addressed yet.

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As Harvard's corporate strategy guru Michael Porter points out, over the past century the boundaries between business and social issues have undergone dramatic changes. One hundred years ago, a large business enterprise might have been the social patron, providing housing, education or other forms of welfare for its company town residents. But over time the scope of corporate responsibility retreated.

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Canada has a rich history of social enterprise, especially seen through the lens of Quebec’s social economy or the broader community economic development movement. Less well developed is a nationally scaled social enterprise and social finance movement, which has not had the benefit of supportive and comprehensive national public policy. In that sense, Canada trails behind other jurisdictions like the United States or the United Kingdom.

I was very fortunate in April to have learned a lot about the UK’s experience when I travelled there to attend the 2010 Skoll World Forum. The forum coincided with the start of the UK election and, as it turned out, I was trapped in the UK for a second week due to the Icelandic ash cloud. Like my prolific UK-reporting colleagues Robin Cory and Al Etmanski, I had an unanticipated, intensive and policy-rich exposure to the UK scene.

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As enterprising activity by charities and nonprofits grows, an early question asked by budding social entrepreneurs is “Where should the social enterprise be housed?”

Unfortunately Canada’s regulatory regimes for both charities and nonprofits were not developed acknowledging or anticipating the emergent enterprising character of the charity and non-profit community.  While there are appropriate and compliant ways to organize enterprise or business activities within a charity or a non-profit (or in provinces where rules allow, to place it in a for-profit subsidiary), too often a complicated “work-around” or “retrofit” is required.  As well, social entrepreneurs face a regulatory maze of competing rules, which need to be reviewed, monitored and reconciled to ensure both federal and provincial compliance.

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