It's a BIG world; Go Get It !

Sunday, February 27, 2011

So Fine Canada on the Environment

So Fine Canada on the Environment - Not What You Think!

Today's show had quite a bit of colour but not all green, well not the way most people would expect on a radio program dedicated to the environment. And like all of our guests, today's group were outstanding in representing their social finance businesses and their colours varied from grey(parking) to yellow/white (straw for paper) to blue (ocean kayaking).

Because of technical issues, Matt Bowes of Gabriola Sea Kayaking opened the show with a winning discussion of participatory sea kayaking and taking 'tourists' to our provincial and national parks so that they could witness the need for support and upkeep in those parks: our wild spaces need money too ! Kudos to Matt for stepping up when technology failed us and filling in with great comments and enthusiasm. Check out his and Jen's fabulous looking  BLUE site kayaktoursbc.com

Fortunately for So Fine Canada, skype finally began working and we got Bryan Slusarchuk of Greenscape Capital on the line to enthuse about - parking lots! The greening of parkades is their number one ambition and money-maker. Greenscape is the business leader in this GREY arena and they make money and help others with retrofits, energy reduction, alternate energy sources and lower costs. It's an unusual but very profitable way to help the planet and people should check out their site and consider investing in this TSX listed business group TSX.V: GRN.

Finally, So Fine Canada wrapped with an amazing look into an alternate YELLOW/WHITE paper substance- straw with Canopy Planet. Nicole Rycroft is their very effective E.D. and Canopy counts itself as having 700 corporate partners in their efforts to reduce logging through the use of the markets. People continue to use paper but how we do it and with what will determine the way forward. See the initiatives that Canopy has put forward saving 400 million trees and utilizing the remainder of wheat chaff (straw) as a new source.

As the show wrapped, emails and phone calls came in with people commenting about the things they hadn't considered before. Thank you Matt, Bryan and Nicole for helping So Fine Canada keep on its mission to inform and promote everything to do with social finance in the country.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Social Impact Bonds explained

Amazing ! Cool ! Simplistic but totally understandable - A Presentation on Social Impact Bonds

If you haven't seen an explanation of Social Impact Bonds, I suggest you take a look.

You'll be seeing many more of them in the very near future and I think that once people are familiar with them, investing won't be far behind.

Not convinced ? Try this Presentation

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Social Finance and Connecting

Social Finance and Connecting: Not just your money

 On Sunday Feb. 20th, So Fine Canada will be highlighting our ‘more than just profit’ attitude of running a business and solving social problems; our solutions will come from our connecting.

Guest Vickie Cammack of Tyze Personal Networks will be speaking about the organization she co-founded to “build real-life personal networks for those who have been marginalized.” Tyze is a mission-based business that ‘builds connections between our formal and informal systems of care’. Most Canadians will become people in need of ‘care’ at some point in their lives and will benefit from a coordinated network of support. The rapidly aging population will not be able to afford to purchase all of their care needs, nor will governments be able to supply them. Thinking now and finding solutions to help people care, connect, and contribute is the organization’s aim.

Julie McDowell of ClearlySo will be explaining her organization’s convening of ‘The national marketplace for social business, enterprise and investment’. An international membership-based business, Clearly So provides members with information and opportunity to connect and Julie will be discussing the benefits of membership here in Canada and ClearlySo’s contribution to social finance in the country.

Kirsten Daub of Cafe Etico will be talking about the fair trade marketplace and Co-Development Canada, the  non-profit international development agency based in British Columbia that builds partnerships between Canadians and Latin Americans. It’s aim is to foster learning, social change, and community empowerment and to do it with coffee.

Listen in this Sunday Feb. 20th to learn how to create community, connect in our lives and make money to keep it all going.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Everybody's Home Town

April 2010 issue
"My Home Town" by Ray Robertson - Everybody's Home Town

I came across an old issue of Canadian Geographic, last April's as a matter of fact, with a terrific essay and great photography of the author's home town Wallaceburg, Ontario. I've never been to Wallaceburg; I don't have to go; I grew up in my own home town.

The essay captured everything I remember of 'back home': the river; the land; the people. It talked of the hay days and the bust days but mostly, it listed everything that anyone from a small town has ever seen or touched in their town with all of it etched in memory, completely forgotten until someone else writes it down but there it is - your town.

"The bar where everyone buys that first beer. The church where you learned to believe. The tattoo parlour you were warned away from... the cemetery where the town buries its dead. The hockey arena and the baseball fields and the parks. The weekly euchre gatherings.The hospital where your mother passed away; where your daughter had her tonsils removed.... And the river that runs through all of it, "

People say that I didn't grow up in a small town 'coz I was sent home each summer and so missed the winters, the falls and the springs. Some years, I was home. Some years, I was just visiting at odd times when summer was a distant past or something to look forward to. And 'some years', are the ones right now that I've missed, year after year and season after season, because now I live so far away, that I don't go home anymore but it's not just the distance.

Robertson's essay reminded me to go home in my mind. He gave me all the prose, all the synapses popping and sizzling to the exact point where I can feel the breeze and hear the poplars sway and squint into the light while the cicadas wind up for a good one.

Lucky to be able to write like that. Kudos to Ray Robertson.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The State of Social Innovation

The State of the (Social Inno) vation

Felt like I had to borrow that american reference just to emphasize how important the current issue of The Philanthropist is to social innovation. A tome on 'us'; it's the most comprehensive summary of where we are that I've ever read. I keep it on my e-reader, which people may know, is never far from me.

This week on So Fine Canada, I'm going to have the opportunity to speak to the editor, the supporter (big time) and a contributor and then, we'll talk with a fantastic successful social enterprise, the Potluck Cafe. Imagine, everyone and everything (well, it feels that way) regarding social innovation in just 423 pages! Unbelievable (I mentioned that it was a tome).

While it might take you a bit to get through, I suggest you keep it handy. Clear thinking, the most recent issues, points being raised worthy of a lot of discussion and free! Get one! current issue Vol 23 No3

This Sunday , go online to So Fine Canada and listen in for Don Bourgeois, Tim Brodhead and Nora Sobolov plus Heather O'Hara. More interesting than the State of the Nation address any day (my opinion of course).

Monday, February 7, 2011

Paul Martin and the Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship -Cape Fund

Paul Martin and the Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship (Cape) Fund

Yesterday on So Fine Canada, I played an interview with the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin. He's an excellent man, very generous of character and extremely committed to Aboriginal Leadership and social finance. I appreciate his stories of how he got into supporting Aboriginal businesses and the development of a $50 million dollar fund to help those businesses succeed. For anyone interested in reading about how to access that fund and the criteria click here.

We also talked about the two businesses under investment and a third soon to come online. I'm looking forward to the announcement on that one as I like what the other two businesses are doing, so I'm positive that the next one will also be great. Take a look at One Earth Farms and also Manitobah; I think you'll be equally impressed.

It's easy for me to be positive about what I see around me in terms of Aboriginal Leadership; there is a lot going on in BC and the country. What's missing is more wide-spread recognition of how good these businesses are and what they are doing for the future, for all Canadians. It's a case of when one of us succeeds, we all succeed. For too long, First Nations people were not able to succeed in their own right but they have decided to change this and like anyone moving forward, a little help goes a long way.

If you need more examples, consider the Women in Leadership Aboriginal Awards WIL -Aboriginal Women in Leadership coming up in March. The previous years have been astounding for what women Aboriginal leaders have been able to achieve. I leave each time brimming with admiration having heard some of the most remarkable stories of my life. They impact me and encourage me and show me ways to be hopeful. And many of them run band businesses that make money too.

Just love that.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Higher Internet Fees = Lower Small Business Profits

Stop the Meter campaign
Higher Internet Fees = Lower Small Business Profits

It's not rocket science that when costs go up, profits goes down and the slim lines that most sme's operate under means they cannot pass on increased costs to the consumer; the consumer will just go elsewhere.

So while the corporate internet giants are out lobbying for a bigger and bigger share of the telecommunications market, Canadians are getting wise and researching this 'need' to have a metering of the internet. The larger players are interested in having the price of the internet services they provide (one estimate is as much as a 300% increase -for shame) be billed by the gigabyte, meaning Canadians will now have to monitor their usage or pay big . And just like our cell phone costs, as compared to other nations, Canadians are already paying far too much and this impacts small businesses and how they operate.

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