social delta

Consulting and support for social enterprise in Canada

Category: Socent News (Page 3 of 3)

Make it easy for gift buyers to find your social enterprise

December 2, 2014 /

SEontario  invites any Ontario based Social Enterprise [SE] to tell them about their products and/or services available this holiday season.

All through the month of December the good folks at Social Enterprise Ontario will be updating their Social Enterprise Holiday Gifts page, tweeting, and sharing via their news section different offerings from great Ontario SE’s like yours.

Please fill out this online form  to let them know a little about your social enterprise and the products/services that you’d like highlighted.

They officially launched the page on Monday, Dec. 1st, 2014.

Get your products and/or services listed on this gift giving directory as soon as possible, as the page will be updated and maintained all through the Holiday season.

If you are looking to buy gifts from social enterprises…be sure to follow @seontarioweb on Twitter, and visit the Social Enterprise Holiday Gifts page for gift ideas.

Federal Government supports for Social Enterprise

November 26, 2014 /

The Canadian Business Network (CBN), created and maintained by the Canadian Federal Government, offers a wide array of support to start-up businesses.

Recognizing the unique needs of social enterprise, they have created a dedicated portal for entrepreneurs using  businesses to address a social need.  This social enterprise portal offers links to resources available across Canada  from community based support organizations and from various levels of government.  The links and resources include technical support on everything from how to do market research or write a business plan,  to funding support for start-up costs or human resource needs.

The Federal Government, in trying to make the CBN accessible to non-profits, co-operatives and solo social entrepreneurs, sought the input from many of us in the social enterprise community. This portal is a concrete step to acknowledge social enterprise and to ensure that programs run by the government (and others) are available for those of us wishing to use business to bring about social change.

Social Delta is of course willing to help you and your social enterprise understand, access and apply any of the resources  made available on the CBN site.

Just contact us to see how we can help.

 

Earned revenue for charities is more than private donations

August 7, 2014 / / 0 Comments

In 2012, Charities earned more revenue than they were given by individual donors.

According to the recently released Blumberg’s 2012 Summary of the Canadian Charity Sector, earned revenue by charities was $17.7 billion, (up 3.8% from 2011) while receipted donations summed to only $14.3 billion.

Fundraising is also a costly business (and this I know, as I was a fundraiser for more than 17 years). Of the only 975 charities who reported to have paid fundraisers, those fundraisers generated $471 million, while getting total compensation (primarily set salaries) of $110 million. In other words, the equivalent of 23% of donated funds was used to manage the donor programs.

This impressive data collection project underlines the fact that charities are generating more revenue than they are gifts, and this is a sign of how they are investing their time, resources and efforts to sell products and services in support of their mission.

2012:

  • 75,232 active charities
  • $17,562,376,314 in non-government earned revenue
  • $182,195,300 in government revenues (up 36.5% from 2011)
  • $14,283,486,806 in donations

2011:

  • 73, 793 active charities in 2011
  • $16,953,792,416 in earned revenue in 2011
  • $133,474,682 government revenues in 2011.
  • $13,867,060,684 in donations

NOTE: To create the summary, Blumberg’s Law compiled the data from all the T3010’s submitted to the government by charities for the 2012 year end.  The T3010 does not offer sufficient detail to describe the types of business activities in which charities are involved, and there is also the possibility that each of the T3010’s is not perfectly accurate as they are prepared without audit.

Social Enterprise Advertising

July 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

I welcome any attempt by a social enterprise to advertise their products or services. When I was reading a recent copy of my community newspaper, I was delighted to see an article on Cigbins, a social enterprise started by three creative University of Ottawa students with whom I’ve worked. Their company collects used cigarette butts and recycles them into one of a number of useful products, such as insulation, thereby helping to clean up the scourge of litter while making something of value in the marketplace. The sale of the final product pays for the initial service. Moreover, the company has partnered with a local charity, Causeway Work Centre, to provide employment and training opportunities for individuals with mental health concerns.  This article, written by Michelle Nash at Metroland media, is a wonderful form of free advertising, although of course, getting articles written about your business is not always easy, or replicable.

Meanwhile, the Ottawa Carleton Association for People With Developmental Disabilities (OCAPDD) took a more direct approach. In the very same newspaper edition, they placed a 6.5″ X 5″ advertisement to sell the garlic that they grow on their farm near Bells Corners. I’ve attached a scan of their advertisement to endorse not only what they are doing, but how they are doing it.

silversprings0001

Can Non Profits intentionally make profits?

April 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Non profit organizations do not have the benefit of issuing tax receipts for donations, unless they are registered charities. This means that non profits running a social enterprise are at a significant disadvantage if they are trying to access funding from donors, philanthropists, foundations and many government programs. For many (non-charity) NPO’s, earned revenue is almost a necessity in order to fund their social, cultural, environmental or recreational programs.

The question is  whether a non profit organization can run their business so as to intentionally make a profit?

The answer up until now has been a resounding no. Many non profits believe that so long as they re-invest any profits (that is to say the excess of revenue over expenses) in the social mission, then they are OK. However, the CRA does not believe that this so-called “destination of profits test” is a sufficient argument. Indeed, the Canada Revenue Agency in their February 2014 Non-Profit Organization Risk Identification Project Report states: “It is the CRA’s position that a NPO can earn profits, but the profits should be incidental and arise from activities that are undertaken to meet the organization’s non-profit objectives. The earning of profit cannot be or become a purpose of the organization, even if the profit is earned to fund non-profit objectives.”

To paraphrase: if a non profit organization intentionally makes a profit year over year, even if that profit is reinvested in the organization’s mission,  they run the risk of losing their tax exemption.

Social Delta recommends the research work of the BC Centre for Social Enterprise, as they’ve written several position papers on this policy issue and others relevant to social enterprise operations run by non profits.

 

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