Businesses are powerful tools for increasing the local pool of skills, experience, and influence. By interconnecting the expertise, interests, perspective, and resources of the entrepreneur with those of the community, people get a stronger grip on the future of their town, neighbourhood, or region. CCCR assists nonprofit and for-profit organizations in building and maintaining strategic linkages between business and community. Here are some specific projects and processes we help communities with:
- Co-operatives and Social Enterprises: businesses that aim to make a profit in the course of achieving specific social or environmental benefits for the community. CCCR offers workshops on the following topics: "Introduction to Social Enterprise," "Assessing Readiness," and "Getting Started in Social Enterprise." Find out more.
- Building an Enterprise Development Strategy: the system that community-based organizations use to identify, select, and act on business opportunities, as supporters, partners, or owners. Find out more.
- Joint Ventures: special partnerships that communities can use to gain a real say and long-term benefits from local industrial development. Find out more.
By way of example ...
- In 2006-2008 the CCCR carried out the Development Wheel Project. It was at one and the same time a focussed approach to training, capacity building, and strategic networking for social enterprise developers and an intensive research program aimed to test ways of systematically tracking and evaluating the progress of social enterprise start-ups. Find out more.
- In collaboration with the Union culturelle des Franco-Ontariennes, CCCR has developed training modules and resources with respect to economic literacy, social entrepreneurship, and community economic development to enable Francophone women in Ontario to start social businesses. In addition, various publications, articles, and forums stemming from this initiative are reaching thousands of women across Canada who live in minority communities. Find out more.
- CCCR played a key role in designing and writing the On-line Training Program in Co-op Management of the Conseil cooperative de l'Ontario. This Téléapprentissage (currently available in French only) offers 100 hours of training in four modules: 1) an overview of the co-operative sector, its principles and principal players, 2) co-operative laws and regulations in Ontario, 3) co-operative financial management, and 4) co-operative governance.
Photo courtesy of Local Investment Toward Employment (LITE) and Neechi Foods Co-op, Winnipeg.
