This past week I attended another excellent CCVO Connections Conference. The conference featured a number of keynote speakers looking at future trends. Today we’re pleased to share with you a new trend – the changing definition of work and its implications for the non-profit sector.Technological advances, innovative new business models and dramatic changes in demographics have had an immense effect on where, when and how we work.
Millennials And the Future of Community Activism
Because of the huge societal challenges we face, Millennials understand that we have to do more than just “fill the gaps” with donations. Millennials are driving a realignment of roles, responsibilities and resources across the sectors. They believe new approaches to address intractable community issues are needed. So what does this mean?
Millennials & Community
Millennials are an emerging, and very important demographic. One aspect that hasn’t gotten much attention is the different ways that millennials view causes and involvement in community. In order to get millennials engaged and involved in community work, we need to approach them differently than other generations. So what does this look like?
Building Trust in Business - An Overview of Edelman Trust Barometer 2016
Edelman recently released their annual Trust Barometer report. This year was the sixteenth annual report and something we watch every year. It provides critical to insights about the state of business trust in Canada and around the world. This years report was especially interesting, and focused on the inequality of trust around the world.The report begins by introducing three segments of the world’s population:
Cracking the Social Innovation Code, Part Two
Social innovations are new solutions that more effectively meet a critical social need. They lead to new or improved capabilities and relationships and better use of assets and resources. Many people misunderstand social innovation to be an end goal in itself. The fact is social innovation is a means NOT an end. Social innovation is about HOW.An organization’s mission, vision and values should rarely change.
2016: The Year of Social Innovation Action
Just before Christmas I had the pleasure of meeting with a student studying social innovation. Social innovation is a hot topic and our discussion was wide-ranging as we shared insights and ideas. We agreed that social innovation was relevant to all sectors – from nonprofit to business to government. But one issue puzzled us both. While there were lots of social innovation activities – labs, meet-ups, hackathons, networking, conferences, social innovation spaces, research and dialogue – what seemed to be missing was widespread action.
Social Finance: Growing Impact Investing in Canada
This past November I had the privilege of attending the 8th annual Social Finance Conference in Toronto. Social finance is an approach to managing and investing money in organizations (for profit and non-profit) that delivers a social dividend and an economic return. Like Shared Value it uses market forces to drive social AND economic value. As a Canadian I was proud to see so many tangible examples from our country and to learn how this form of community investing is growing and maturing.
Reflections From 2 Partnership Brokers Association Courses!
If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together”–African Proverb It can be said that partnering creates a whole that is significantly greater than the sum of the individual parts, and in the process builds greater value than any one partner could achieve on their own. But what does it take to make a partnership successful?
Trends in Corporate Giving
One of our favourite resources for the latest research and statistics about corporate giving is the Committee for Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s (CECP) website. It is a wealth of information that while focused on the United States, holds great statistics that we can apply to Canada as well.Every year we await the release of their annual Giving in Numbers report. They recently released the full version of their 2015 report.
Job Purposing: Infusing 'WHY' Into Everyday Tasks
Disengaged employees. Every company has them and for a long time, we’ve been lost in terms of motivating them. What if we could infuse purpose and meaning into an individual’s job description?Imagine yourself volunteering for a charity of your choice, and helping them to achieve their goals. Let’s pretend it’s an animal shelter, you love animals and soon you realize that while the work is hard, you are genuinely enjoying it.