Social enterprises are informally defined as organisations that make money and deliver social or environmental benefits. They may be not-for-profits supplementing donations they receive by engaging in profit making activities or profit-oriented companies working partially not-for-profit. There are around 25 thousand social enterprises in Canada.

Social Innovation Generation (SiG), a national project partnered with the MaRS Discovery District from Toronto has completed some of the first research to quantify the sector. According to SiG about 20 per cent of social enterprises in Canada have been in existence for 20 years or more. More than one-third of Canadian social enterprises have been started in the last several years.

Story from the past

Some of the oldest social enterprises in Canada are based in Toronto, the country’s most populous city and the capital of the province of Ontario. Toronto is home to more than 2.8 million people. One of the most venerable organisations is St. John’s Bakery, an unincorporated social enterprise that has been working for more than 20 years. Run by the St. John the Compassionate Mission St. John’s Bakery specialises in handmade organic breads and handmade sweets. The bakery is funded partially by the Toronto Enterprise Fund, a funding partnership between United Way of Toronto and the three levels of local government created to support inclusion of marginalised social groups. As you can read on the Bakery’s website, their workers include: “people with Disabilities, people Struggling with Addictions, people with Emotional and or Mental Illness, people New to Canada and Single Parents”. The company’s main goal is to become self – sufficient.

It is not surprising that Toronto social enterprises created in the 80s found keen followers two decades later, at a time when the social economy concept started to flourish all over the world. Currently social enterprises play an important role in meeting two of the challenges faced by the city, namely integration and poverty. In one of the most multicultural cities in the world, in which almost 50 percent of the population was born outside of Canada, the enterprises fight to reduce exclusion of unprivileged groups, particularly immigrants. In 2012 roughly 800,000 people in Toronto relied on a food bank. Modern social enterprises work to strengthen local communities and make the city as sustainable as possible.

Let’s make a space

In June 2004 a group of 14 founding tenants opened the Centre for Social Innovation – one of the first co-working spaces in the world. Its address 215 Spadina Avenue is well known in the city as is its main goal of helping social and economic innovation projects to focus on their mission and grow by providing them with a friendly, all-included space and the chance to establish a network of similar entities.

For the last ten years Toronto has been creating an alternative business culture of continuous social innovations and entrepreneurship. Today it’s a mainstream movement, constant part of everyday life of Toronto’s citizens.

The CSI was meant to be the catalyst for social change in the city. At the beginning it was a project undertaken by a group of friends (Tonya Surman of the Commons Group, Margie Zeidler of Urbanspace Property Group, Mary Rowe of Ideas That Matter, Pat Tobin of Heritage Canada and Eric Meerkamper of DECODE) with similar values who didn’t know what exactly they wanted to do only that they wanted to give exposure to the things that mattered most to them. The initial funds came from the Zeidler family who paid for the leasehold improvements. The operational costs were covered by grants from The Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Harbinger Foundation. Tonya Surman volunteered for 6 months to makes things happen. In June 2014 CSI Spadina opened its doors to 14 founding tenants.

Over the next 10 years the Center for Social Innovation project shaped the whole culture and character of social entrepreneurship in Toronto. Its organisational model is called „a constellation model of governance” and it emphasises the role of small action teams – constellations – that work together on a particular issue within a broader framework and under a shared vision. They work to meet the interests of the individual constellation members. Social economy in Toronto is spread over several community networking centres, of which every one has its own unique character and conducts its own original projects. No matter to which network they belong, people of Toronto practice social change every day. They want to be good at including those who have been excluded and creating sustainable communities at the same time.

215 Spadina Avenue, Toronto

The Centre for Social Innovation Spadina occupies more than 2300 square meters of the Robertson Building at 215 Spadina Avenue in downtown Toronto.
It is a restored warehouse with natural light, it has a living, breathing bio-wall in the front entrance and a garden on the roof. Bio-wall is an indoor ecosystem designed for air quality improvement. Live plants provide oxygen and raise indoor humidity levels. They also help to make offices quieter and more pleasant (other notable installations can be seen at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and at the north campus of the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto.) CSI Spadina is ideal for freelancers, consultants, creative types and other small organisations with a social mission. They can become a full-time or part-time tenant choosing from the various kinds of membership.
One of Spadina’s members is HiveWire, a triple bottom line enterprise helping organisations use crowdfunding through the application of innovative technology. Triple bottom line enterprise means that the company is seeking an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental and financial.

In practice Hive Wire develops taylormade crowdfunding systems according to their customer’s needs. One of them is a project made in cooperation with CSI: a Catalyst crowdfunding platform (http://www.csicatalyst.org). “It is the only crowdfunding platform based in a real world dynamic community of social innovators” – incentivises the description. All together Spadina is home to 180 social innovation businesses (also to Cycle Toronto (http://cycleto.ca/) and The Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival (http://fringetoronto.com).)

When it comes to supporting social enterprises, Toronto is buzzing with activity. Not only do we have the HiveWire in the city, but we also have a trio of superhero funds: Social Venture Partners, Venture Capital for Social Enterprise, and Social Capital Partners. With these champions on their side, social enterprises are sure to soar.

MaRS Discovery District

MaRS Discovery District (MaRS Discovery District) was opened in 2005, not far from the Spadina Avenue. It is one of the world’s largest innovation hubs, occupying a near 140 thousand square meter complex. MaRS work is supported by network of private and public sector partners to help entrepreneurs launch innovative companies with broad economic and societal impact. The long list of the founders and supporters is available on the website.

Most of MaRS’s projects are incorporating an advanced technology. From the legal point of view it is an independent registered charity. The main areas of interest are work and learning, health and energy. The philosophy of the organisation is based on the belief that entrepreneurship is the key to making positive changes across the world.

In 2007 in partnership with J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and the University of Waterloo MaRS created Social Innovation Generation (SiG)(http://www.sigeneration.ca/)
Its mission is to address Canada’s social and ecological challenges and foster a culture of continuous social innovation. SiG also works together with federal and provincial governments, the private sector, and academic institutions. One of its projects is the SiG Knowledge Hub – a website designed to provide learning resources about creating conditions for social innovation and to highlight examples in Canada and around the world. As an example of important social innovation business SiG gives social enterprise Roots of Empathy from Toronto.

The company offers an evidence based classroom program that is proven to be an efficient tool to reduce levels of aggression between children and raising their social abilities and empathy. It is one of the most replicable solutions offered by social enterprises in the world, already introduced eg. in Ireland or Barcelona, Spain.

The Centre for Social Innovation Annex

In 2010 The Centre for Social Innovation bought a second of its buildings at 720 Bathurst Street in downtown Toronto. The space is made up of five floors and totals 3345 square meters. It offers a variety of permanent and part-time workspaces. The first floor is a community gathering place, with event spaces and the CSI Coffee Pub. The second and third floors contain private offices: private desks and Hot Desks (shared desk spaces). Floors four and five have larger private offices and themed incubation spaces for specific community projects.

At Annex their headquarters have enterprises like The Plaid Zebra, (www.theplaidzebra.com) – free online ‘Unconventional Lifestyle Magazine”, Canada Mongolia Chamber of Commerce (http://www.wimmongolia.org) or office of Erin L. Armstrong, bookkeeper that keeps the books of many CSI members from all three locations.
Perhaps most importantly the building was bought thanks to CSI’s own innovation in social finance: the community bond (http://communitybonds.ca/). It allowed CSI to raise $2 million in order to buy and renovate the future CSI Annex building.

Digital Media Zone at the Ryerson University

The Digital Media Zone (DMZ) is the University hub of digital media innovation and experimental learning. It is a Canadian business incubator and startup accelerator. It is also home to SoJo (www.thesojo.net), an internet platform that connects young entrepreneurs from Canada. It’s a network of people who are looking for new contacts and inspiration. SoJo provides not only contacts but also a different type of tools which make not only entrepreneurship but also everyday life easier. You can learn here about self-organisation and project management. For free. SoJo was launched in 2012 by Kanika Gupta, student at the RU.

The Centre for Social Innovation Regent Park

The next step was to purchase space at 585 Dundas Street East in the Regent Park, Canada’s largest public housing community. In September 2012 CSI Regent Park occupied the third floor at the Daniels Spectrum building. Before the opening members of CSI met with local residents to introduce themselves and to gain trust and interest in cooperation. They didn’t have to wait long for the desired community interest. Today tenants at Regents Park speak a total of 85 languages.

Today The Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto operates over 93,000 square meters of space across four locations in two countries (recently a CSI was opened in New York).
According to some surveys conducted between CSI members (where multiple choices were allowed), 25 per cent of the members are charities, 33 per cent social purpose businesses, 35 per cent non-profit organisations, 23 per cent arts focused projects, 23 per cent environment focused projects. The survey found that in terms of employment figures and transportation among employees 80 per cent of tenants hires less than 3 people, 4 per cent drive to work, 37 per cent bike, 8 per cent never leave the CSI. Of the 700 tenants David Suzuki Foundation is said to be the most famous.

Over 10,000 people come through the Centre annually and the high volume of traffic allows for valuable exchange of ideas regarding the future of social collaborative projects through which the area continues to develop; indeed there is a constant debate on social innovation, theory of change, evaluation, collaborative consumption, networking, technology and social entrepreneurship. In this unique way Toronto develops its own system of tackling its social problems through economy and innovation. They don’t make much noise about it, many actions and initiatives never appear in any media, things just happen engaging thousands of people. For good.