B Corporations have been making a lot of noise in 2012. Today, Canadian enterprises shared the spotlight, as B Lab – the non-profit behind B Corps - announced the 39 Founding Canadian B Corporations (Press Release, PDF). SocialFinance.ca also received an email from Vale Jokisch, Director of Services, B Lab to share with the community in Canada. Read more to see a video of co-founder Jay Coen Gilbert on B Corps, as well as a surprise!
SocialFinance.ca produces a weekly round up featuring social finance related news, insights, job openings, and events. We source the content for these round ups from Twitter, an RSS reader, and directly from our community of social finance practitioners. Below is our round up for the week of January 30.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Certified B Corporations and announced the presence of the official Canadian B Corporation Hub at the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing. Shortly afterwards, I had the opportunity to attend the B Corp Champions Retreat in Pennsylvania. As I looked around the conference room, I was inspired by how these individual entrepreneurs would be the pioneers for this new sector economy. I was also quite aware of the Canadian B Corp presence and found myself wondering (amongst others) why there weren’t many more.
I remember reading the story about the unique partnership that created Grameen Danone in Building Social Business by Muhammad Yunus - and that set off fireworks in my head! Inspired by these joint-venture possibilities, I looked at what we were doing at DreamFund Holdings and explored innovative hybrid business and investment models we could leverage to address our most pressing social issues with market-based solutions. We call them DreamFunds.
While we all eagerly await the materialization of recommendations made by the Canadian Taskforce on Social Finance to unlock more investment into this space, our social issues are mounting and our social entrepreneurs find themselves stuck in the missing middle.
"CSR won't lead us to sustainability."
Kelly Baxter, Executive Director of The Natural Step Canada, spoke these words at an excellent event I recently attended through the Toronto Sustainability Speaker Series.
I was pretty taken aback. I shuffled in my seat nervously, felt blood rushing to my cheeks. I had come so far to believe in the power of CSR and its potential for solving societal problems. Jotting down her words anxiously, I wondered, "Am I completely off the mark? Is the work I'm doing taking us in the wrong direction?"
See More
Your Guide helps social entrepreneurs learn how to attract financing for their social ventures.
See More
See More
See More
Your Guide to Social Finance
SocialFinance.ca hosts an online guide that helps social entrepreneurs learn how to attract financing for their social ventures.
GET INVOLVED
