Internal and external pressures are demanding that pure profits can no longer be the sole motivator for business. Rather than just traditional wealth creation, business has the opportunity to use its scale, resources, and innovation imperative to be a catalyst for a better world and to reinvigorate and empower business at the same time.Standard Life engaged JS Daw & Associates to help strengthen and deepen its existing community investment (CI) program.

The YMCA has been serving Calgary for over 112 years, and it is part of the fabric of our community. The YMCA Calgary (the Y) offers health and wellness programs, community outreach and newcomer programs, day and residential camping, leadership development and childcare. Since the Y offers such a wide range of programs and serves so many demographics, their communications have often lacked an overarching story about their impact and value in our community.

“All In for Youth” is a Calgary-based initiative and partnership focused on school completion. Facilitated by the United Way of Calgary, the five-year collective action initiative aims to reduce the high school dropout rate in Calgary by 50% by 2017 and to prototype a new way of working to drive social change. This exciting but complex cross-sector partnership was established with the intention that it would end in its current form in June 2017.

For almost 60 years, Brookfield Residential has been crafting homes and communities for Albertans. Struggling to define a social purpose for their community investment program, Brookfield Residential engaged us to help them better define their role in the community, engage their key stakeholders and make a bigger overall impact.

A&W and the MS Society of Canada’s “Cruisin’ to End MS” day is an extremely successful ongoing year partnership that has raised over $6.5 million for Multiple Sclerosis and increased awareness about this disease and its high incidence among Canadians.The initiative is driven by point of sale fundraising in each restaurant as well as a number of other creative, locally developed initiatives.

Math Minds is an innovative form of collaboration, where alliances are forging unique outcomes, crossing boundaries, and building potential long-term solutions to improve numeracy in Canadian society.  In 2012, Canadian Oil Sands initiated a bold partnership with leadership organizations representing education, public library and children-serving agency to collaborate on how to promote deep, meaningful and significant improvements in early mathematics learning.

Canadian Oil Sands (COS) engaged JS Daw & Associates in efforts to simplify, and deepen the value and impact from their community investment program. Rather than making many small donations to a number of non-profits, COS realized that by concentrating their community investment dollars around a single cause, they could have a much more substantial impact on the community.