Social enterprise is a powerful vehicle for lasting positive change
Businesses that place purpose at the heart of their operations are taking dedicated strides toward healing the climate, people, and society’s collective wounds.
At Connect Money Impact 2023, moderator Hamish Khamisa, Founder and President of Sparx Publishing Group, joined panelists Kelly Terbasket, Co-Founder and Program Director of IndigenEYEZ and kinSHIFT; twelve-year-old Katherine Krieger, Leader on Project MiniForest and member of the Better World Club; and Mike Greer, Executive Director of Elevation Outdoors to offer vivid first-hand perspectives and insights into what social enterprises look like across various industries and capacities.
Each of their stories demonstrated that purpose can be embedded in a successful business model as part of the movement for social change.
Setting Out on the Journey
In the session, Hamish Khamisa shared the moment that kickstarted him on his path: asking himself “how do I make a difference through research and content?” In answer to this, he created Sparx Trading, a free tool for DIY investors, and eventually the purpose-driven marketing agency, Sparx Publishing Group, which produces Make The World Better Magazine, a publication that features the stories of organizations and individuals that are doing what “better” means to them. Hamish recognizes that “better” has a very broad definition and that, from a business standpoint, he puts his reputation on the line with each organization placed in the magazine. From his perspective, however, social enterprise requires risks to achieve healing and change.
Hamish then invited everyone else to share their stories about the moment that inspired them to dedicate their time to running a social enterprise.
For Kelly Terbasket, her pivotal moment came when she was working a government job up north. While working with communities, she became overwhelmed with the band-aid solutions that were being put on racism issues. The resulting feelings of helplessness made her want to quit her job but instead sparked something greater. Kelly wrote a program and pitched supporting the champions in the communities who were doing good work and showing leadership. However, facing the challenge of no capacity-building government funding, she left and started IndigenEYEZ, where the support of one funder helped start it all.
Katherine Krieger’s idea for starting MiniForest came out of a shared desire to do good. Along with other students, she wanted to start a climate change club; however, they found it was too big of a lift for students. So they decided to narrow the scope and start a biodiversity club. They presented Project MiniForest to the mayor, got funding, and came up with a plan for distributing the budget wisely, and learned many lessons along the way, including public speaking and how to pitch successfully.
For Mike Greer, it was important that he have control over his destiny and where he wants his business to go, and social enterprise empowered him to do precisely that. Two years into business, he has an interesting model of social enterprise. Kelowna Bike Rentals is owned and operated by two charities: Elevation Outdoors (of which Mike Greer is Executive Director) and CRIS Adaptive.
Facing Obstacles
While all of these organizations are out to do a world of good and have already accomplished great things, there are still many obstacles that hinder their ability to spread social good as far and wide as we all need it to go.
Funding, competition, knowledge gaps, and feeling alone on the journey to use social enterprise to heal our damaged systems are some of the common hurdles many impact-minded entrepreneurs and organizations face.
In addition to the challenge of being a 50/50 partner with another charity and facing increasing competition in the e-bike market, Mike Greer has first-hand experience with how knowledge gaps and unfair perceptions create roadblocks in running a social enterprise. In the charity sector, making money and being financially responsible seem to be trigger words for funders.
“Yes, we are a charity, but we can charge people money for doing things,” Mike said. Despite that, the concept of making money as a charity is not smiled upon by stakeholders, since it’s not what charities are made to do — yet, the truth is that the more money a charity has, the more opportunities they will have for doing more and better initiatives. As a result, Mike finds himself constantly needing to paint the picture to funders of why money is needed for supporting their work and community.
Additionally, Mike explained that the accounting time takes longer when running a social enterprise, and it requires more understanding and commitment from the Board of Directors, especially when presenting annual reports. In some ways, he feels it changes the dynamic with a funder as many still want to be seen to be “saving the day” instead of “investing in the future long-term success of our community.”
Kelly Terbasket has seen and experienced many challenges in her work at IndigenEYEZ, which provides leadership and facilitation training. That’s why she’s on a mission to be a network for change facilitators. She has seen many non-Indigenous consultants go into Indigenous rooms, train, and leave, rather than Indigenous consultants doing this work — a prime example of the inequities and challenges Indigenous people and other underrepresented communities are facing.
The truth is, there is inequity in the opportunity to be a social entrepreneur. For Kelly, in the beginning, she did not have much money and was mission drifting. Then she met Andrew Greer, our Co-Founder and Managing Director, and he helped her understand the concept of social enterprise. This demonstrates the critical importance of raising awareness of social enterprise, connecting entrepreneurs, and finding ways to level the playing field so these inequities do not become obstacles to collective healing.
As Kelly Terbasket said, “We need to lift up our social entrepreneurs, we need partnerships.”
Moving Forward, Together
Despite these challenges, a lot of beautiful, healing work is being done and valuable connections are being made to lift up each other’s work and initiatives and to give space for typically unheard voices.
Katherine Krieger and Project MiniForest are making progress toward their goal of helping places that are in need of biodiversity. So far, they’ve primarily been planting native species, trees, flowers, and other plants in Mission Creek, at the college. In this way, Katherine has been taking tangible steps toward her hopes for a beautiful world: “I wish for there to be no war in places where trees could grow instead, and for a world where squirrels could jump from tree to tree without touching the ground.” Her innocence and passion as a young activist gave the entire audience hope for the next generation of leaders.
As a community, we can help fulfill Katherine Krieger’s hopes by supporting Project MiniForest via signing up for their newsletter, participating in planting events, and buying their seed packets. You can also follow them on Instagram at @betterworldclub_kelowna.
To lift each other up, raise awareness, and truly put social enterprise to good use as a tool for healing, we can also do our part to learn about the impact of colonization. To do this, we can sign up for the online training KinSHIFT offers. Payment goes toward their learning programs and donations are always a valid way to help uplift social enterprises like KinSHIFT and IndigenEYEZ. As Kelly said, regarding the Syilx Indigenous worldview of connection to the land and everyone sharing one skin, it is extremely important that we support Indigenous social entrepreneurs who always embed healing of people and planet into their business models.
Mike Greer also invites donations to Elevation Outdoors, along with other avenues of support, such as sponsoring a seat in the program, volunteering, and buying tickets for film festivals.
There are many ways we can all use our dollars and our time, resources, and connectedness to make a difference. Together, we can transform our systems and use social enterprise to help everyone heal and thrive and build a better future for all.
This is the fourth in a series of blog posts about Connect Money Impact 2023 created for Purppl by Sparx Publishing Group, a purpose-driven full-stack marketing agency on a mission to make the world better.
The Sparx Publishing Team
