As you may know, Bissell Centre has been operating a social enterprise for many, many years; it is called the Bissell Centre Thrift Shoppe and last year its revenues funded itself, its southside donations centre, and our Community Closet which gives away clothing to thousands of people each year.
Bissell Centre is exploring other social enterprise opportunities and options – from small scale social businesses to rather large ones, and I will be reporting on all of our social enterprise activity over the next 12 months.
At this point I want to share with our visitors an excellent Introduction to Social Enterprising that was researched and written by our 2011 board intern, Uno Okon, who came to us from the University of Alberta Non Profit Board Development Program.
The report identifies various definitions of terms that are helpful, the why’s of social enterprise, implications to non profits, as well as provides some case studies. Please feel free to down load it and share it with others.