The Collider - Volume 2. Issue 2.

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ROOM & EVENT SPACE

Our spaces are multipurpose, functional and beautiful. Whether you’re hosting 2 or 200 in NYC or TO, you’ll find what you’re looking for at one of our locations. socialinnovation.org 2

O p eo pvlee r 21,800 eve nts atte n de d in 20a1t CS I 4

Photo by Erin Kang

etingsS I e m 0 26,00p e n d at C h a p i n 20 1 4

RENT MEETING

Cover photo by Solana Cain. Cover text designed by Misha Frolov of Playground.

The Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, drops by CSI NYC’s two-year anniversary party! Photo by Sonia Cacoilo.

Table of Contents CS I doietsy, The C 24 pag e

Our biggest year yet!

2014-2015 in review

By Adil Dhalla CSI Canada welcomes a new Chair of the Board

ders of all In 2014, CS I hosted sleathe wo rld. ros stripes fro m ac

CSI Member Yvonne Bambrick’s book: The Urban Cycling Survival Guide

Goodbye, Eli!

The redevelopment of Honest Ed’s in Toronto

Harnessing self-interest for collective impact

By Tonya Surman Soc

Changing the education system from the ground up

By Tricia Davies, The Public Good

ia m e etsl In novatio n F pag e in1 ance, 0

How to invest with impact

By Karim Harji, Purpose Capital

Accessing capital: Ontario Catapult Microloan Fund

Agents of Change

CS I gets Hu ng ry, page 34

Imagining the future of food

By Aruna Antonella Handa, Alimentary Initiatives

CSI Members working in social finance

The Regent Park revitalization: growing a healthy community

By Mitchell Cohen, The Daniels Corporation

Soshent: The all-in-one application for social enterprise

Farewell to the late Brenda Zimmerman

By Liz Rykert, Meta Strategies

Community Bonds buy Social Innovation a new home!

How does a nonprofit buy a building?

With the right financing partners

By Heather Simpson, Alterna Savings

42 Our year in review 46 Our values

@csiTO // @csiSL // #csimember centreforSI

centreforsocialinnovation

centreforSI

Centre for Social Innovation

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Our biggest year yet!

2014-2015 in review

The experience was illuminating on so many levels. Some of my favourite outcomes, and there were many, include:

Check out page 46

Crystallizing our vision of a world where we put people and planet first.

Updating our values and asking ourselves what we are willing to stand for.

Affirming our ability to connect people—to other people, resources and tools—as the essence of what we do.

The year was also a hard one because the reflection and consolidation went against our fast-moving and opportunistic nature. Near the end of it, some of the restlessly

Adil Dhalla Centre for Social Innovation Director of Culture

We manag e 162,000 asq total of ft

tries? Was our work actually changing the world? Good questions, but collectively, exhausting.

Forty-five days after we lifted the moratorium on doing new projects, we purchased a 64,000 sq. ft. brick and beam building at 192 Spadina Ave. in downtown Toronto (see

“ First and foremost, we want to do what we do, better.” entrepreneurial staff even said they were getting bored!

More importantly, it raised so many questions. How sound would our business model be five, ten and twenty years from now? How do you effectively structure an organization that operates in two coun4

CSI New York City. Photo by Sandy Nicholson

p. 18). I think it’s fair to say we were raring to go! The reflection process of the last year gave us greater organizational capacity, resolve and confidence. The building is a giant strategic leap forward for the organization and our ability to support social innovation.

Another area we wanted to strengthen was our core technology in order to better connect members of our community with each other, and to measure our impact and our community’s impact on the world. So we grew our tech team from one to six tech whizzes just in the last year.

Another thing I personally geeked out on was the introduction of nametags for members. We’ve always designed our spaces for collisions and serendipity, from communal kitchens to lounges to having as few walls as possible. This year we took it one step further by making it easier to know someone’s name. This can foster more than just connections — it builds belonging and trust.

Reflecting on the past ten years, we thought a lot about our members and alumni and all of their incredible accomplishments. We’re not short on stories, and we needed to find better ways to share them. So we commenced a project to overhaul our websites; every week we entrusted a staff or member with our Facebook page so they could share a week of their life with our followers; we made an awesome video that tells the story of CSI; and we made this: our latest edition of The Collider.

The Collider is an earnest attempt at telling you what’s happened in the last year, how we’re doing (see p. 42 for our financial story), and of course, why we believe social innovation is awesome!

CSI Hookup connected 177 people this year. More on Page 28.

Headshot credit: Cloë Ellingson

“First and foremost, we want to do what we do, better.” That’s the opening line of our 2014 strategic plan, the same year we turned ten. Like any milestone, it was a mixed bag of celebration, business as usual and reflection. After almost 40% growth each year for the last seven years, however, we were ready to slow things down and really understand what we had on our hands. To honour that last point, our CEO, Tonya Surman, famously decreed, “No new projects for one year!” and “This year we shine the jewel.”

CSI Canada welcomes a new Chair of the Board CSI Canada is delighted to welcome Marie Moliner as the new Chair of the Board.

We also express our immense gratitude to Eric Meerkamper, one of CSI’s co-founders and Chair of the Board for over a decade.

Headshot credit (Marine Moliner): Kevin Masterman

CSI Canada is guided and governed by a dynamic group of board members who bring their insights, wisdom and energy to the growth of this social enterprise.

Eric brought his strategic vision, passion and considerable business acumen to the table. “We always saw the potential to harness the social capital in the community,” explains Eric. “CSI is truly a unique and wonderful place and group of people, and I couldn’t be more proud to have been a part of it.”

Under his leadership, the board guided the organization through the creation of four Toronto locations and our expansion to New York City.

CSI has grown 40% per year, over the last seven years.

Eric continues in his professional role as President of RIWI Corp.—a global data capture company—and joins Margie Zeidler, Mary Rowe, Sandy Crawley, Patrick Tobin and Jini Stolk on the CSI Emeritus Council.

Eric is passing the baton to an incredible leader, Marie Moliner, who has been on the CSI board since 2012. Marie is a public-sector entrepreneur, with 25+ years of proud public service. She is the Regional Executive Director for the Department of Canadian Heritage, where she focuses her work on building strong cultural and social infrastructure that enable Ontarians to

actively participate in their communities.

“Over the past ten years I have marvelled at the magic created by CSI staff and members,” Marie enthuses.

“As the new Board Chair, I am now more than a CSI groupie... I am a proud advocate, a Community Bond investor and ambassador for the CSI family. What a rush to be part of generating community wealth while changing the world, one infectious innovation at a time.

It remains such a privilege to be at the table. I look forward to actively participating as CSI staff and members generate great ideas, execute them at the right time, in the right way, and, dare I say it, with LOVE!”

Goodbye, Eli! In every community, people come and people go, but few will leave CSI with as deep a legacy as Eli Malinsky. Eli was one of the first staff members at CSI, and after 10 years, he’s our longest serving staff next to none other than CSI’s co-founder, Tonya Surman.

Legend has it that he approached her at CSI’s launch party, and asked if there were any opportunities to work here. True to character, she immediately found a way to act on his invitation and a put a camera in his hands. “Take pictures,” she said. Thus began his decade-long journey at CSI, during which he basically played every role in the organization at least once.

Eli brought the commitment to excellence, rigour and insight while Tonya brought new ideas, the entrepreneurial provocation and business savvy. It was a yin-yang match made in heaven that laid the foundation for CSI’s ambitious growth.

Most recently as our Founding Executive Director of CSI NYC, Eli and his family courageously moved to New York City to lay the groundwork for our vision there. After 2+ years, he’s ready for his next big challenge having done exactly that. CSI NYC is a beacon for social innovation in New York City, home to 250+ organizations.

Make no mistake though, expanding to a new city, let alone New York City, has been a rollercoaster with a steep learning curve and a need for relentless scrappiness. Perhaps that’s what we’ll miss most about Eli—no matter the challenge, it felt dwarfed by his passion for our work.

As Chair of the Board, Marie will be guiding CSI through its next stages of growth. It now operates 162,000 sq. ft of space with dozens of staff, partners and stakeholders, serving 1017 social mission organizations. CSI will benefit tremendously from Marie’s depth of experience.

We are so delighted to have Marie assume the role as chair, as much for her commitment to fun and creativity as for her profound commitment to ensuring that everyone is included. She brings a strong focus on governance and accountability and is simply perfect as the next chair of the board.

Of course, there are many more reasons to miss Eli so we thought it would be fitting to provide a recipe—Eli has been champion of the annual holiday cookie competition multiple times (a fact, he does not let you easily forget). Anyone who has been around long enough may know him for his cookie masterpieces, but they’ll definitely know him for the game he talked up. His smacktalk on the email listservs is the stuff of legends.

Eli, we know your new work will keep you close, and that you’ll always be one of us. But if we get desperate, we’re going to follow this recipe to clone you: A dash of sarcasm 4 tablespoons of smarts A [occasionally annoyingly large] cup of analysis 2 really good dance moves 1.5 ounces of an exceptional sense of humor 1 pair of librarian glasses An extra dash of sarcasm We’re really going to miss you!

Headshot credit: Yvonne Bambrick

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Harnessing selfinterest for collective impact I am obsessed with systems. Improving them, bypassing them, or changing them altogether. It’s not exactly rocket science to understand why. If we intend to make change that lasts for generations, we need to address the roots (or systems) of our current problems. Not to say that addressing the symptoms of the problems are not important as well, but I’ve always been a sytems kind of gal.

Because of this, I want to share an observation that I’ve had on how to get the most out of systems change. It starts with the notion of self interest.

In nonprofit circles, when we talk about changing the world, there is often a perception that we are talking about a selfless act, a sacrifice we must all make. But the initiatives and projects I’ve seen succeed have rarely been selfless, and have rarely been achieved through self-sacrifice alone.

On the contrary, we are self-interested creatures and always have been. At its core, self-interest is a survival mechanism (as we secure food and shelter, for example), and as we ascend higher along Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it becomes about belonging, esteem and self-actualization. From my experience, initiatives succeed when self-interest is met, and initiatives flourish when self-interest is recognized and leveraged.

For example, in 1999, I worked as the founding Partnership Director for the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment, a cross-sectoral part6

Tonya Surman Centre for Social Innovation Co-Founder and CEO nership of 11 organizations working on issues relating to toxic substances in everyday items, such as perfumes and baby bottles. Organizational collaborations are often a hotbed of power struggles, ego, inefficiency and conflict so we built the Constellation Model of Collaborative Governance: a model that recognizes ecosystems, balances power, and leverages complexity. The constellations are self-interested action teams that work collectively at the ecosystem level to achieve their converging interests—in this case, a healthier environment for children. This model led, in part, to a new legislative framework to manage chemicals and the banning of BPA in baby bottles in 2008, which then triggered a global market transformation in plastics.

The Constellation Model

CSI Summits reveal the needs and opportunities in the community.

Photo by Chris DePaul.

leverages the power of self-interest to achieve collective impact. Put another way, the model leverages the real energy that people bring and aligns it in a way to achieve a coordinated impact. It does this by designing a solution which is powered by our energy—the energy of self-interest.

in systems. We know that people will act when they’re moved to act— when it’s a fit for their own needs, capacities and interests, and not just for the greater good. By tapping into self-interest, we are able to tap into the energy. This is the energy that can, when designed and aligned, power a movement for change.

The success of CSI’s model is also a manifestation of self-interest. Essentially, members who might otherwise be working in subpar offices pool their resources to access better facilities and shared services, and to form a community of social-change agents. The Community Bond—our innovation in social finance, which we used to buy two buildings—is the perfect example of self-interest: we needed a loan and so we offered people a way to invest their capital in something they believed in while earning a return and making a difference. A winwin-win!

Let me be clear though, self-interest left unchecked can be dangerous. Self-interest is the energy that creates action in a system, for good or bad. In the social mission sector, we want to harness this energy for good. It’s not always easy to create and manage systems that balance the self with the collective. It requires greater vision and thoughtfulness than, say, simply pillaging the earth’s resources until there are none left.

How do you design an effective model that leverages self interest’s capacity for good? In the groups I’ve worked with, we started with a structure that recognized self-interest as the energy that creates movement

Watch Tonya talk about self-interest at socialinnovation.ca/about

We should reward ingenuity and initiative in service of self-interest. The challenge is doing it at no one else’s expense and, ideally, to everyone’s benefit. This is the work of the social innovator.

Read more about the Constellation Model at socialinnovation.ca/constellationmodel

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E M HO

THE CENTRE FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION

PEOPLE CHANGING

THE WORLD SOCIALINNOVATION.ORG

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CSI is always a whirlwind of activity with hundreds of events taking place each year. In 2014, we decided to bring some focus to our own events, enlisting the help of our members.

We focused on three areas in which everyday citizens are making an impact: Social Finance, Civic Innovation, and Food. First, we reimagined our monthly networking event Six Degrees of Social Innovation—we kept the networking but added talks, panel discussions and presentations into the mix. In addition, we organized other complementary events such a Food Fight and Turnout Toronto, and gave our members a platform to share their expertise in these three topics on our blog and social media. Beyond convening, we developed innovative new tools and services for our community, and launched a $4.3M Community Bond offering for our new building!

The result? Mind. Blown.

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SOCIAL FINANCE

Social Innovation meets

finance The ubiquity and influence of the financial system that shapes our economies and societies also makes it one of the most potent tools for social change. We’re witnessing the rise of “social finance,” which concerns itself not only with financial returns, but also with social and environmental returns—the triple bottom line. From microfinance to social impact bonds to community bonds to crowdfunding, the relationship between money, people and social change is being questioned and redefined.

Many of CSI’s members are working in this exciting field, including DarcMatter, HiveWire, Solar Share, ZooShare and Finance for Good, among others. CSI has also acted as both innovator and convener in this area. For instance, in 2014, CSI bought a new building

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in downtown Toronto [insert fist pump], partly financed with CSI’s own innovation in social finance, the Community Bond. CSI also distributed $190K in microloans to growing social enterprises through the Ontario Catapult Microloan Fund. We piloted Soshent, which helps connect social enterprises in Ontario with appropriate funding, accelerators and supports. We convened our monthly networking event Six Degrees of Social Innovation in Toronto and NYC around the theme of Community Finance. And, last but not least, experts in social finance from our community shared their thoughts on our blog and social media.

Th h ad e C S I c o re co l lec m m u Social innovation and finance have ve n ues otfive an nnuity in 20 $250 Mal collided, and social finance is rapidly 14 becoming a game changer.

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Tonya Surman speaking about Community Finance at CSI’s event Six Degrees of Social Innovation, September 2014.

Photo by Chris DePaul

SOCIAL FINANCE

How to invest with impact Impact investing is an approach to investing that intentionally seeks both financial returns and social impact. As part of a broader, aligned strategy around allocating your assets to the issues you value, impact investing can direct capital to local or international investment opportunities that aim to address specific social or environmental issues.

While foundations, governments and high-net-worth individuals are often the most prominent examples of impact investors, there is increasing appetite and demand from the average retail investor seeking to align their assets with their values, and more and more opportunities— from community bonds to crowdfunding—are being created to satisfy this demand, in effect democratizing the investment landscape.

Karim Harji Purpose Capital CSI Member, Co-Founder and Director

Here are a few points to consider as you explore how to invest with impact.

through these types of questions in a systematic and diligent way can help guide your choices.

1. Know Yourself The financial industry uses the phrase “Know Your Client” to describe the set of processes to capture the preferences of their clients, such as risk tolerance, investment horizon, etc.

For your own impact investing, this concept also implies understanding what you care about, including the issues, sectors, geographies and target populations that are most aligned with your values.

For example, what impact are you most interested in, and what goals would you want to target? Some sectors, such as affordable housing and primary health care, offer multiple pathways for impact on individuals, families and communities. How much do you know about the targeted issue or sector, and what is the best way to improve your knowledge of the critical needs and opportunities? As you build an informed strategy, working

2. Know Your Portfolio One of the easiest ways to get started is to find out what’s in your portfolio today. Your advisor or financial institution should be able to provide this information, so ask them!

Specifically, ask about the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data for your specific investment holdings. Whether you realize it or not, your investments already have some type of impact on the issues that matter to you, whether it’s positive, neutral or negative. This assessment of what your money is already doing will undoubtedly raise some questions and issues to consider. For example, are you opposed to investing in any companies in the resource extraction sector, or would you consider those that are leading the way in sustainability efforts? A guiding principle is to ensure that you are “doing no harm,” meaning that

your money is not currently harming causes close to your heart. A common strategy is to exclude any companies that that are making the world less healthy (alcohol and tobacco producers) or less secure (weapons manufacturers).

3. Use a Portfolio Perspective As an investment approach, impact investing can be applied across a range of asset classes, sectors and regions. Just as in conventional investing, there will not be one “perfect” impact investment that will check off all your boxes with regards to your beliefs and the financial return/risk profile you seek. Having the right mix of investments to balance your specific risk/return/impact factors requires an iterative and informed approach.

Recently, divestment from oil and gas holdings to create a “fossil-fuel free” portfolio has become a popular strategy for the “do no harm” camp.

Beyond doing no harm, your investments can also be intentionally deployed towards creating social impact in the areas you care about most.

Popular examples include the Calvert Community Investment Note (U.S.) or CSI’s Community Bond (Canada).

The goal is, over time, to get closer to your ideal asset mix at the portfolio level, and everyone has to consider their unique circumstances around how to best do this.

4. Be Informed As a relatively new field, impact investing is still dealing with some challenges around improving the range of opportunities, availability of data, and how to measure impact.

There are a number of structural barriers and myths that continue to persist, such as the notion that adding impact to the traditional risk/return equation will require sacrificing some financial returns.

There is now a range of academic and market data to show that this simply isn’t true.

On the contrary, there is some evidence that business models that integrate a broader range of social and environmental considerations can be better businesses relative to their peers, and less prone to the volatility of traditional markets.

Whether you are keen to get started or just to earn more, sites such as the Responsible Investment Association, the U.S. Social Investment Forum, the Global Impact Investing Network, and SocialFinance.ca all offer a wealth of information and guidance.

Whether you realize it or not, your existing investment portfolio is having some type of impact on the causes that matter to you. You’re likely already spending a significant amount of time and effort in deploying your time, knowledge and experience towards the issues you care about most. Impact investing is an approach that brings intentionality to how you align profit and purpose.

So the next time you walk into your financial institution or sit down with your investment advisor, ask them how you can put your capital to work in a way that considers people, planet and profit.

Learn more at purposecap.com

Disclaimer: This information is not intended to be, and does not constitute, financial or investment advice. It is general in nature, and not specific to you. None of the information is intended as an offer, or solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell, or as a recommendation, endorsement or sponsorship of any security, company or fund.

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Accessing Capital: Ontario Catapult Microloan Fund In May 2013, the Centre for Social Innovation, in a groundbreaking collaboration with government, corporate, nonprofit and cooperative players (how often does that happen!?), announced the launch of the Ontario Catapult Microloan Fund to provide loans of $5K - $25K to growing social enterprises.

So far, CSI has provided nine loans to eight social ventures, totaling $190K in funding.

Tot wo rtahl fu n d is $3 5 0 K

Catapult offers low-interest loans (5-8%) to social enterprises with existing revenues looking to grow their businesses. Anyone can apply to Catapult, but you must be a CSI member by the time you receive your loan. Applications are reviewed on the 15th of each month.

Apply at socialinnovation.ca/catapult

MEET THE CATAPULT RECIPIENTS SurveyGraph

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Grew their business by making software improvements and covering salaries.

“We make it easy for you to quickly run sophisticated surveys and get powerful reports, helping you better engage with your customers and users.” surveygraph.com

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The Hammer Active Alternative Transportation (THAAT) Grew their business by buying two bullet cargo bikes and trailers. “We specialize in human-powered, sustainable, emissions-free deliveries between local businesses in Hamilton, Ontario, using cargo bikes, trikes and trailers. We are a values-driven social enterprise.” thaat.coop

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Fresh City Farms

Grew their business by customizing their warehouse and developing an e-commerce platform. “By cultivating delicious food right around your corner, and partnering with other quality local artisans, we aim to provide you with a food experience that respects our bodies, our planet and our shared tomorrow.

We deliver local, organic food right to your door.”

freshcityfarms.com

ZOOSHARE a n

Toronto Tool Library

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Grew their business by purchasing a laser cutter for their Makerspace and supplementing salaries. “We loan specialized tools and provide workshops to community members to transform homes and community spaces. Why buy tools you use just once or twice a year? Join the sharing economy and access thousands of tools for just $50/ year!” torontotoollibrary.com

i n v e s t m e n t wi t h p o o t e n t i a l

Zooshare Biogas Co-Operative

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Grew their business by hiring a sales person and amplifying their marketing. “Our biogas plant will recycle manure from the Toronto Zoo and food waste from Canada’s largest grocery chain into renewable power for the Ontario grid.

The project is funded, in part,

by Ontarians like you, through our ZooShare bond, earning a return of 7% each year for 7 years.” zooshare.ca

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SOCIAL FINANCE

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Twenty One Toys

Grew their business by contracting staff for a successful $52,000 Kickstarter campaign that increased manufacturing capacity. “We believe toys can do serious things, and that they are underused tools in the classroom, the boardroom and beyond. Our guiding principle is that play is a unique medium to foster abstract thinking, advance difficult conversations, honour diversity, and encourage positive risk taking.”

twentyonetoys.com :)

Catapult received a Runner-up Social Finance Innovator Award for Most Promising Collaboration in Canada

7 aweso m e C partn e rsa! tapu lt

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GrantBook

Peekapak

Grew their business by hiring a new staff member and building organizational capacity.

“We equip grantmakers with the skills, tools and mindset to maximize the net value of their grants for the benefit of the social sector. Because we have philanthropic sector knowledge and technical skills, we’re able to optimize grantmaking systems through process improvements and technology solutions.”

Grew their business by building inventory and hiring a full-time operations manager.

“We aim to inspire children to be more inquisitive and creative thinkers, to help build the next generation of bold and innovative changemakers. Our hands-on monthly subscription box offers parents a convenient way to spend quality time with their 3-7 year-olds, while educating and developing their creativity.”

grantbook.org

peekapak.com

OUR 2014 PARTNERS Catapult is led by CSI and supported through generous financial and in-kind contributions by the Ministry of Economic Development Employment and Infrastructure (MEDEI), Alterna Savings, TD Bank Group, Microsoft Canada, KPMG and Social Capital Partners.

Alterna Savings: CSI’s microfinance partner extraordinaire!

Susan Henry Alterna Savings Manager of Corporate Social Responsibility

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Alterna Savings has been leading microfinance work for 15 years. With cooperative principles at its core, we have seen firsthand the impact that supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs can have on building and strengthening the communities where we live and work. The opportunity to partner on CSI’s Ontario Catapult Microloan program has meant that these same tools can now be offered to social enterprises and entrepreneurs who are using their passion to establish business models that are making the world better. We are proud to be a part of it!

Headshot (Susan Henry) by Alff Henry, Exposure Photography

Photo Credit: Nicole Van Der Tuin

First Access, CSI Member Profile First Access is a data analytics company that can reliably predict risk for individuals who have never had a bank account or credit score, using their prepaid mobile data. A private, for-profit social business founded in 2011 in New York City, the company’s mission is to reduce the cost of lending and borrowing in informal markets.

First Access cloud software is accessible to any type of retail financial institution and allows loan officers, credit committees and other employees to request and retrieve instant scores from any phone, anytime,

anywhere in the world. First Access risk models have the highest reported accuracy of any in the developing world, and have been validated for business, housing, agriculture and distributed energy loans, in collaboration with institutions serving over 30 million people.

First Access recently closed on a seed round with investors like Acumen Fund, The Social Entrepreneurs Fund, Nigel Morris (co-founder of Capital One), and have hired new staff. firstaccessmarket.com

CSI Members working in social finance Finance for Good Finance for Good works collaboratively with organizations to build social finance products that meet their needs and will succeed in the market.

financeforgood.ca DarcMatter DarcMatter is an online investment platform that provides investors institutional-level access to private investment opportunities.

darcmatter.com The Sustainable Economist A financial planner who helps people invest their money in socially responsible, green, and impact investments.

sustainableeconomist.com

Purpose Capital An impact investment advisory firm that mobilizes all forms of capital to accelerate social progress.

purposecap.com HiveWire A full service crowdfunding agency that builds platforms, conducts data research, and offers professional consulting services.

hivewire.ca ACCESS Community Capital Fund A Canadian charity that helps individuals without collateral or credit history obtain an affordable loan to improve their standard of living through entrepreneurship.

accessccf.com

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SOCIAL FINANCE

ATTENTION Innovators

Capacity Builders

Spending too much time trying to find and apply for the right business development and funding support?

Spending too much time trying to attract the right social enterprises for your programs?

WE HAVE A SOLUTION!

Soshent: The All-in-One Application for Social Enterprise Soshent will connect social enterprises with the money, smarts, tools and people they need to succeed. This CSI-led ecosystem will connect entrepreneurs to the services of over 25 financiers, funders, accelerators and educators with the goal of placing 100% of applicants into their next step for success. This all-in-one application will create a more efficient ecosystem of intermediaries who are fueling a movement of investment-ready social enterprises across Ontario.

LAUNCHING SOON

Learn more at soshent.net POWERED BY 16

g our d in jo inpinartn e rs?

Inte restelis t of g rowingisit sos he nt.n et V

Partners in development 10 Carden Street Access Community Capital Fund Ashoka Canada Business in the Streets

SPACE

CatalystX

PEOPLE

Catapult Microloan Fund Conseil de la cooperation de l’Ontario Enterprising Nonprofits Enterprise Sociale Futurpreneur Impact Hub Ottawa

SOSHENT CONNECTING FOR IMPACT

Impact 8 @ MaRS

MONEY

Imagination Catalyst @ OCAD U Ontario Nonprofit Network Ottawa Community Loan Fund PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise Pillar Nonprofit Network Ryerson Social Venture Zone

TOOLS

SMARTS

School for Social Entrepreneurs Ontario Social Capital Partners Social Venture Partners tailoredUX Toronto+Acumen York Enterprise Development Institute Youth Social Innovation Capital Fund

SECTOR ARCHITECTS 17

OUR new home 18

1 92

S pa

dina

Ave n u

e!

Our Vision for Our New Home CSI bought 192 Spadina with a clear vision: to ensure that we could maintain affordability and create a long-term home for social innovators in the downtown core of Toronto.

We’ll develop 192 Spadina into a vibrant, warm and welcoming collaborative workspace and meeting & event space for people who want to change the world. The building will boast a café, a makerspace and a ton of places to convene and create.

But we want to go even further... We want to see what can be achieved when we focus our collective resources, energy and expertises on specific issue areas.

We’ll begin to experiment with convening our members around solutions. Imagine bigger and smaller organizations, intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs working together to innovate, experiment and disrupt by building new markets, new mindsets and new systems. Imagine, perhaps, a floor of the building dedicated to climate change solutions? An R&D lab for social innovation? A social enterprise accelerator?

We are just beginning to imagine what’s possible. What do you think? Let us know... adil@socialinnovation.ca Photo by Chris DePaul

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SOCIAL FINANCE

Community Bonds buy Social Innovation a new home!

On Halloween 2014, CSI marked a new milestone: we bought a 64,000 sq. ft. building at 192 Spadina Avenue! It’s the second building we own and our fourth Toronto location. It’s conveniently located across the street from CSI Spadina near Queen and Spadina, and, well, it’s a beauty. Exposed brick, wood floors and beams, oodles of natural light, this building was just screaming for CSI. Buying a building meant several things for CSI: more space, protection for ourselves and for our members from the rising cost of rent, bigger offices to accommodate larger organizations, and, when the mortgage is eventually paid off, a surplus to reinvest in social innovation. It also meant we’d need to come up with some serious cash on top of our mortgage with Alterna Savings and Citizens Bank. So, we turned to our community with the Community Bond to raise $4.3M to buy the building.

WE DID IT

The Community Bond is an interest-bearing loan that allows a nonprofit to leverage its community of supporters to pursue its mission, build its resiliency, and create more vibrant communities.

We launched the campaign CSI issued $2M in Community Bonds for CSI Annex to 58 in mid October of 2014 to communi ty investors who have help us transform our new earned $510,000 in profits since location into a home for social 2010. innovation, offering a real from 227 investors who believe estate investment with social in our mission to support and impact. facilitate social innovation.

News of our Community Since taking possession of 192 Bond spread, and we were Spadina Ave, we have attracted featured in InsideToronto, new tenants, refined our longMetro and the Toronto Star. term strategy for the financing Tonya Surman, Co-founder and development of the and CEO of CSI, has started a tradition of doing cartwheels building, and made necessary repairs and upgrades. Gradually, in every new building we buy we will convert parts of the (that’s two cartwheels so far!). building to the CSI model, with In the end, we raised $4.3M 20

287 investors, including the original CSI Annex bondholders

To use fo r you Co m m u n ity Bo c h e c k o u r ow n n o n p r n d s at co m mt ou r g uide boofit o u n itybo n ds.ca k

shared facilities, meeting rooms, event spaces, offices and coworking for changemakers.

Community Bonds allow citizens to invest in the projects they believe will make a difference, all while earning a financial return. Thank you to our incredible investors who believe in what we do, and to all those who helped spread the word about our campaign! socialinnovation.ca/ communitybond

“ The investment in a Community Bond solidifies my personal connection to CSI...CSI has become essential to my professional growth, but also in connecting with people to work on a level I hadn’t imagined was out there.

It’s created possibilities.”

Paul Dore, CSI Member 47% of investors are CSI members

Photos by Chris DePaul & Timna Ben-Ari

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PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS

IN

invested

$4.3M INTO CSI COMMUNITY BONDs

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Solar Share’s bonds finance solar projects that convert energy from the sun into clean electricity. The Ontario government will buy that electricity for twenty years.

INVESTMENT BY BOND TYPE

Series C (4% return) $10,000+

82% Series D (4.5% return) $50,000+ or $1,000+ for members

We’re aren’t the only ones tapping into the power of citizen finance to support innovations that benefit people and the planet. Here are just a few others in Ontario...

ZooShare’s bonds are financing the construction of a biogas plant that will recycle manure from the Toronto Zoo and food waste from Canada’s largest grocery chain into renewable power for the Ontario grid.

DAYS

15%

More bond-fuelled innovations!

3% Series E (3% return) $1,000+

West End Food Co-op, which connects local farmers to local eaters and produces self-sustaining initiatives that work for the community, has issued their own Community Bond.

Love cheese? Not quite a Community Bond but much more delicious, Montforte’s subscriptions are paid back, with a profit, in fresh cheeses and other foods.

The money raised has gone towards the development of their sustainable farm outside of Stratford, Ontario.

LEARN MORE at socialinnovation.ca/communitybond 21

SOCIAL FINANCE

How does a nonprofit buy a building?

With the right financing partners Heather Simpson Alterna Savings Director of Accounts When CSI was looking to purchase the new building at 192 Spadina, it made sense to approach Alterna Savings. They held the current mortgage on CSI Annex, and the team knew that they were going to have to access some of its equity to make the new building purchase. Alterna Savings, like other financial institutions, often shares deals of this size with a

financing partner in order to minimize risk and achieve the best possible outcome for members. It was a complex deal, and a partner that understood the CSI model was vital to it being successful. For this reason, Alterna Savings found the perfect partner in Citizens Bank of Canada (a subsidiary of Vancity Savings Credit Union).

Alterna Savings’ experience with CSI Annex, combined with the location of the building, CSI’s management experience, and both Alterna Savings and Citizens Bank’s confidence in the CSI model, were all key to making the deal happen. Alterna Savings and Citizens Bank

were able to leverage both the equity in CSI Annex and the potential income in the 192 Spadina building to come up with the financing that CSI needed to complete the purchase. The deal is a perfect demonstration of the 6th and 7th co-operative principles espoused by all Credit Unions—co-operation among co-operatives and concern for community—and reflects why CSI has chosen to partner with Credit Unions.

Photos by Chris DePaul and Timna Ben-Ari

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OFFICES

DESKS PRINTERS

COFFEE

COLLABORATIVE

WORKSPACE

AVAILABLE HERE SOCIALINNOVATION.ORG 23

THE CITY

CSI doesTHE CITY In 2014, the then mayor of Toronto brought the world’s attention to Canada’s largest city for all the wrong reasons.

A group of CSI staffers discussing Toronto’s political woes over drinks saw an opportunity to channel people’s frustration into action. So the idea of Turnout Toronto was born: a civic engagement fair in which a wide array of civic champions connect citizens with opportunities to make their city even better. Turnout Toronto started at CSI Annex and around 400 Torontonians showed up. The concept spread and was replicated by the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Toronto Public Library. All told, five Turnouts took place in 2014, with about 1,500 attendees and 125 civic champions showcasing their projects and inviting residents to get involved in shaping their city.

Civic champions embody a zeal and passion for creating the most liveable cities possible. Faith Popcorn was wrong!

We aren’t cocooning. We are embracing our city, taking matters into our own hands, and crafting solutions out of our direct experience. Parents changing the school system, wheelchair users building ramps to retail spaces, cyclists and citizens reclaiming our streets. As CSI

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NYC member Tricia Davies suggests in her article (p. 27), innovation in nonmarket-based systems comes from the ground up—from citizens who simply give a damn. They are leveraging the power of technology, community and our ever-so-powerful sense of belonging.

During the month of October, we held panel discussions at our monthly Six Degrees of Social Innovation events in Toronto and New York City, where speakers shared their bold ideas to make their city even better. Our members authoured blogs on our website, and each week a different member working in civic innovation took over the CSI Facebook page.

The programing and events were designed to spark conversations, challenge perceptions, spur action, and form meaningful connections. There’s nothing quite like seeing hundreds of artists, activists, entrepreneurs, innovators, politicians and other citizens under one roof, figuring out solutions to the challenges we face. From new volunteers to new collaborations to new ideas, our community is catalyzing civic innovation.

Civil Engineer Luke Anderson co-founded the StopGap after a mountain biking accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

StopGap’s brightly coloured accessibility ramps adorn many streets in Toronto, making local businesses with single stepped storefronts more accessible. The ramps are built with materials donated from hardware stores and assembled by volunteers. The project has shown that a simple ramp can make life easier for parents pushing strollers, couriers using dollies, and people using mobility aids. It’s also helped broaden the conversation around the human right to equal access.

Photo by Solana Cain

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THE CITY

CSI Member Yvonne Bambrick’s book: The Urban Cycling Survival Guide Bicycles are pretty popular amongst CSI members—in fact, the demand was so great at CSI Spadina that our members managed to get the City of Toronto to pilot the very first on-street bike-parking corral outside our front door. If you’re not already riding a bike, perhaps the appeal of predictable travel times, door-to-door transportation, freedom of movement, fun, health benefits, saving money and free parking are enough to finally motivate you to give it a try.

Whether newbie or veteran rider, long time member Yvonne Bambrick has written the ultimate guide to riding a bike in the city, any North American city, and CSI alumni Spacing magazine recently reviewed it. The following is an excerpt from the Spacing ‘Sky’ issue review by Heather Jackson.

“Yvonne Bambrick’s thorough Urban Cycling Survival Guide delivers exactly what its subtitle promises: ‘Need-to-know skills and strategies for biking in the city.’ Bam-

brick covers all the basics from how to choose a bike, what to wear, and rules of the road to hazards to avoid and bicycle maintenance. She also covers specifics such as cycling while pregnant, pedal-powered rides for the elderly, and biking with your dog. Each chapter is detailed and unbiased as Bambrick presents the reader with all options, giving readers the ability to make informed decisions about urban cycling.

Each chapter is packed with clear explanations, advice, checklists, diagrams, and references. In ‘Gearing Up’ Bambrick explores every type of bike imaginable, plus a few bikes that even I—a selfproclaimed bike nerd—hadn’t thought about. ‘Navigating the Streetscape’ includes helpful pictures illustrating the blind spots of a car and large truck. And the chapter on ‘Common Cycling Setbacks’ has a checklist of what to do if you’re in a collision.

This is a useful read for beginners, fairweather riders who are considering winter

Cover by Marc Ngui

cycling, parents who want to cycle with kids, and even experienced cyclists who want to brush up on cycling etiquette and rules of the road.”

For more information: ecwpress.com/urbancycling and yvonnebambrick.com/media Cycle Toronto is another CSI member working on making our streets safer for cyclists!

The redevelopment of Honest Ed’s in Toronto CSI is proud to be a part of an exciting and ambitious initiative to reinvigorate the Honest Ed’s site with 1,000 rental apartments, the preservation of Markham street, pedestrian streets and a permanent public market. CSI is exploring a role with the introduction of a micro-retail initiative, providing access to market and incubation support to up-and-coming entrepreneurs testing the retail market.

CSI is delighted to be partnering with Westbank and Henriquez Partners Architects. No doubt a long road ahead, but the kind of bold vision that we think Toronto deserves.

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Changing the education system from the ground up The most potent innovations are simple in design, efficiently produced and accessible to all. Whereas commercial enterprise is wired for innovation— staying ahead of the competition provides a natural incentive to innovate with success defined by profitability and market share—civic innovation, by contrast, focuses on improving how government operates, interacts with and serves its communities.

Civic innovation seeks to capitalize on government assets or behaviors to serve the public more efficiently and effectively. Success is defined by a government that is open, accountable and inclusive in designing services that bring benefits to everyone.

Public education tries to innovate. But in large urban areas such as New York City, creative change faces many hurdles.

The sheer size and scope of our public education system is enormous: more than 1,800 schools scattered across five boroughs, employing 135,000 pedagogical, administrative and custodial staff serve 1.1 million students between the ages of 4 and 21. The NYC Department of Education’s operating budget for the current fiscal year is $25.7 billion. And, as in most urban areas, it’s a large and politically fraught bureaucracy with education experts, elected officials, parents, advocacy groups and private corporations all arguing over how best to deliver quality education to children.

Unlike the corporate sector, the civic or public sector does not have the luxury of “selling” innovation to consumers willing to pay for it. Private

Tricia Davies The Public Good CSI Member,Founder and Principal schools can charge what parents are willing to pay for innovations. Private tutors, test prep and extended learning programs that charge fees can also afford to innovate.

Charter schools are a response to public demands for alternative approaches to K-12 education. While charter schools receive government funds, they are not obligated to follow the same terms and conditions of the regular district schools. They can innovate in the number of hours their employees work since they don’t have collective bargaining agreements with teachers. They can also select who they want to attend their schools through applications and lotteries. No one is guaranteed a spot in a charter school.

NYC public schools are funded based on strict formulas with some allowances for additional services to high-poverty schools and kids

cation requires dedication and extraordinary resourcefulness.

Fortunately, there are parents and teachers who are passionately committed to bringing

“Principals, teachers, parents and students—the people whose daily lives shape and are shaped by public schools—know best what their communities require and how to improve the quality of learning and engagement.” with special education needs.

But teachers and principals have to work the system and navigate the maze of constraints in order to meet their students’ basic daily needs.

Achieving something truly innovative in public K-12 edu-

creativity and ingenuity to delivering education based not on financial rewards, but on the goal of inclusivity and universal benefits. Principals, teachers, parents and students—the people whose daily lives shape and are... (continued on next page)

27

THE CITY

shaped by public schools—know best what their communities require and how to improve the quality of learning and engagement. Their innovations most often start from the ground up.

One successful example is a local New York City movement to rid school cafeterias of toxic Styrofoam trays. These trays clog landfills, taking hundreds or even thousands of years to decay. As recently as six years ago, the Department of Education (DOE) was purchasing 850,000 Styrofoam trays per day!

Parents from several Manhattan schools petitioned the DOE to create “Trayless Tuesdays,” while also campaigning to educate other parents and schools about the environmental and health risks of Styrofoam. A few schools also committed to raising the funds, through parent donations, to pay the difference to the DOE to purchase biodegradable sugarcane-based food trays. At East Village Community School, Helen Greenberg, a fearless parent advocate for healthier schools, began selling fresh popcorn as an afterschool snack to help finance the biodegradable trays.

In 2012, the movement celebrated a citywide victory. The New York city council introduced a resolution to phase out and eliminate the use of Styrofoam food trays

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in public schools. A year later, the NYC DOE issued a solicitation to purchase compostable plates to serve over 150 million meals per year in school cafeterias. Many schools have now converted to environmentally friendly organic food trays. Eventually, they will become the norm in all city schools.

Another such grassroots innovation evolved in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, where a school administrator, Victoria Armas, built a public middle school from the ground up.

Her visionary school, City Knoll Middle School, incorporates daily mindful breathing for teachers and students alike. Using a program called MindUP, they engage in mindful breathing four times a day.

Nothing fancy, electronic or expensive here, but Armas’ commitment to embedding an age-old practice—breath meditation—in a novel setting can benefit everyone in the school.

To address the difficulty of efficiently sharing innovative ideas and information with disparate school stakeholders, two Brooklyn public school parents, Rachel Fine and Lisa Ableman, with support from City Councilmember Brad Lander, built an online network, PTAlink. This network is an independent, non-commercial web-

site for teachers, parents and advocates to find resources and ideas for building school capacity. The goal: to ensure all NYC public school parent organizations have equal access to the information and support they need to engage families and enrich their schools. By recognizing a need articulated by parents and teachers throughout the city, these innovators designed and launched a low-cost tool to meet the challenge of sharing ideas across the public school system.

On a recent evening, as we sat around the dinner table, my kids, who attend a public elementary school across town from CityKnoll, excitedly told me about a new feature of their day at school-— mindful breathing!

Imagine: simple, innovative ideas that work to benefit everyone in public education!

The Public Good provides strategic planning and capacity building services for the public sector and its business partners. Our mission is to advance opportunities for success in the most diverse environments imaginable.

thepublicgoodconsulting.com

Th co h e re ha o rts ve sinc bee n e2 5 01 2

Great cities are the product of engaged and active citizens: the types of people who insist on rolling up their sleeves to make their city a better place. We wanted to support them in their endeavours, so we focused our 5th Agents of Change cohort on City Builders.

Agents of Change is a program created to give dreamers, doers and innovators a helping hand, providing them with free CSI membership and tailored services designed to amplify their impact.

This iteration of Agents of Change: City Builders, we partnered with 29 amazing organizations in Toronto and New York City. After an exhaustive selection process, we whittled down the list of over a 150 applicants to 32 incredible

changemakers. In addition to the free membership for one year, they received access to all the supports and services we offer our community, from promotional opportunities to mentorship to microloans. They attended an exclusive session with each of our partners to learn from their experiences, along with a monthly peer circle.

rted o p sup cts Agents of Change is all about turning ideas into 've projeate. e W 91 d real-world impact. to

Interested in partnering? We’re exploring climate change, health and food for future Agents of Change programs! Email aoc@socialinnovation.ca 29

THE CITY

Meet our Agents of Change: City Builders!

Azeeza for Women A social enterprise designed to address the issue of violence against women through health and fitness training.

Building Roots/ Food Forward An emergent initiative of Food Forward, a grassroots non-profit organization, where Torontonians meet to create a better City through food.

Building Up A social enterprise that installs energy and water efficient retrofits in low income housing, training and employing the marginalized residents of these buildings to carry out the work.

Building Roads Together/ Farahway Global Reducing mental health disparities and promoting inclusion and empowerment by building capacity for people to lead peer walking groups.

The Drop Distribution A cargo cycle fleet operating year-round bringing the best of the city to consumers’ doors.

Five/Fourteen A social service agency providing services and support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer and otherwise gender-non-conforming youth and young adults in and from foster care in Ontario.

Toronto Needs a Creative Director A project to establish an office of Creative Direction within Toronto’s City Hall.

Shape My City Bringing the power of networks to people, ideas, projects, and organizations, helping to build a better Toronto.

StopGap Foundation Helping communities discover the benefit of barrier free spaces and providing support to create them through their Community Ramp Project outside storefronts across Toronto.

The Storefront Theatre A performance space in the Bloorcourt area in Toronto, born out of a vacant storefront and converted into a thriving theatre venue.

Techsdale Helping Rexdale youth learn web, app and game design and development, in order to maximize their capacity for creative self-expression, their employability and their sense of agency.

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Photos by Solana Cain

Credit Do Aims to break the cycle of financial exclusion specific to youth’s patterns with credit cards, work opportunity and affordability of college.

Safe Passage Project Corporation Addresses the unmet legal needs of immigrant youth living in New York by ensuring they know about the legal options and services available to them.

TYTHEdesign Equiping civil servants and nonprofit professionals with the capacity to integrate design thinking processes into the way their agencies design and deliver services.

NWNY A cross-community nonprofit dedicated to empowering young women immigrants, particularly low-income women and single mothers, living in New York City.

Appigi A directory and data tool for social service professionals used to ensure their clients are safe, healthy, housed, educated, and employed.

PopUp Forest: Times Square An ambitious project to put a slice of real nature in the heart of NYC.

BK Farmyards A collective of urban farmers dedicated to the advancement of social justice through urban agricultural production and training.

White Roof Project Painting the roofs of low-income and non-profit buildings white to promote environmental education, advocacy and community building while reducing the summer temperatures on the inside.

Akimbo Building an inclusive workforce by connecting underserved individuals to professional opportunities.

#YesWeCode A national initiative committed to training 100,000 low-opportunity youth to become high-level computer programmers.

CHAMPION Network A 1-year membership-based employment program for young adults who are looking to learn, grow and flourish in their careers.

Photos by Sebastian Cruz

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THE CITY

Drive Change

CSI has been our home, our champions, our network, our mentors and our community.

Jordyn Lexton, Founder CSI Agent of Change Drive Change is a social enterprise food truck that provides formerly incarcerated youth with hands-on business experience in order to reduce recidivism. Accolades: Won Rookie of the Year at 2014 “Vendy Awards� // Earned 3rd place at Harvard Social Enterprise Conference // Served over 22,000 customers // 24 employees all formerly incarcerated.

Photo by Scott Lynch

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THINX

We haven't even scratched the surface with what we can do and who we can know at CSI. Miki Agrawal, Co-Founder CSI Agent of Change

THINX is a solutions company in the feminine hygiene space for women all across the world. Accolades: Winner of The Disruptive Innovation Award // Winner of the Crowdfundx Challenge // Winner of The Grommet Challenge // Finalist in the Mass Challenge Incubator

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FOOD

CSI gets HUNGRY

Food is an ode to culture. It’s a source of celebration, of science and debate.

But the current industrial food system is unsustainable and its consequences are far reaching, from health, human rights, economics and the environment. If we are what we eat, what does the future of food say about us?

the food ecosystem came together to share their food and dazzling ideas with attendees.

In another November CSI food event, we applied our Turnout Toronto model to Food Fight Toronto held at CSI Regent Park. Hundreds of innovators, researchers, producers, entrepreneurs, farmers and omnivores gathered to share At November’s Six Degrees of Social and taste the future of food. Online, our Innovation in Toronto, philosopher and entrepreneur Dr. Aruna Antonella Handa blog and social media sizzled with the insights of our members working in the gave a talk entitled Eating Innovation: good food sector.

Cultivating the Future of Food. Local Toronto chef, Cookie Martinez, prepared cricket kebabs with golden berry sauce, We ate, we learned, we debated, all Thai spoons and crittles (cricket brittles). while challenging the food industrial At NYC’s SIX, farmers, food start-ups, complex with a vision of a more just and policy advisors and others rethinking sustainable food ecosystem.

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CSI Alumni Real Food for Real Kids was one of over 30 food fighters at Food Fight Toronto at CSI Regent Park in November 2014. The event brought together innovators, researchers, producers, entrepreneurs, other disruptors and hundreds of citizens to showcase and taste the future of food.

Photo by Chris DePaul

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FOOD

Imagining the future of food Predicting the future is risky business. I think it’s more fruitful to imagine the future we would like to see, and then get busy strategizing how to realize it. I imagine a future of food in which everyone on the planet has enough good food to eat. By “good” I mean nutritious, delicious, aesthetically pleasing, sustainably and, where possible, locally produced food.

The UN reports approximately 3 billion out of 7.3 billion people are malnourished with roughly one third of those chronically undernourished and the rest overweight or obese. According to Statistics Canada, self-reported obesity and overweight people number 13.8 million with just over 400,000 of these being children. Toronto-based PROOF estimates 12.2% of Canadian households experience some form of food insecurity.

The current food system is broken. The wonderful news is that a rosy future of food is entirely achievable.

The chief barrier to healthy diets is poverty. Charity is not the answer. We need deep thinking and collaboration to change the socio-political-economic realities in which families with two incomes are still too poor to feed themselves. Jane McGonigal

to address complex global challenges. Let’s play!

Aruna Antonella Handa Alimentary Initiatives CSI Member and Founder real-world scenarios. Together with colleagues at the Institute for the Future, McGonigal has been piloting hybrid games— online games that include real-world activities—in a bid to generate solutions to problems like the inequitable food system. This strategy could increase understanding of the complex factors that delivered the inequitable distribution in the first place, as well as foster collaboration and yield a plethora of solutions execut-

“The chief barrier to healthy diets is poverty.” makes the argument that the skills gamers develop through play—such as optimism, a sense of productivity, and cooperation—could be valuable in this quest. The trick is transferring these skills to

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A futuristic place setting from the Fungi Mutarium & Fungi Cutlery projects conceived by LIVIN STUDIO in collaboration with Utrecht University. Both the edible agar agar fungi dish called “FU” and the cutlery were designed by the Studio. Photo credit: Paris Tsitsos, 2014.

able in local communities for global benefits. The game Evoke, which empowers people all over the world to come up with creative solutions to social problems, is an early example. We’ve barely begun to tap the potential of gaming

We also have to make better use of under-utilized resources. The UN reports that the planet currently produces enough food to feed everyone; around 2,700 calories per person. Leveraging technology to better distribute food so that waste, estimated at about 30% of global output, can be minimized, is the approach of Montreal-based Provender. That company connects farmers with restaurant owners for a just-in-time harvest of exactly what is ordered. This concept is replicable and scalable.

Harmonizing our two-tier food system to address the disparity between those who can afford a healthy, fresh diet and those who cannot, could include mobile fresh-food markets that travel to food deserts (places in which there are no local grocery stores or produce stands). FoodShare is piloting this effort in Toronto, and, in the process, untangling a web of local regulations and paving the way for similar enterprises.

Designers and artists are also stepping up to the plate.

“Ghost food” by artists Miriam Songster and Miriam Simun convinces your brain you are

eating something you are not through the use of powerful scents. Katharina Unger, founder of Vienna-based LIVIN Studio, is working on an agar-fungus combination that eats plastic while producing edible biomass.

Decentralization of food production is also key, by reversing the trend toward monolithic factory farms in favour of family-sized farms.

Shorter distances from field to table increase transparency and traceability of production, giving consumers more control over their food. Small, sustainable farms look very attractive indeed once we use the triple bottom-line (social, environmental and economic) to assess costs.

Vertical, intensive farming (think high-rise farms), using sustainable techniques pioneered by Columbia emeritus professor Dickson Despommier and developed by the likes of Will Allen and Growing Power in Illinois, help expand food production on a small land footprint in increasingly dense cities. Due to minimal land requirements, the cultivation of edible insects like crickets—a healthy, ecologically sound protein source—is also best done in urban centres, where shipping costs can be minimized, and already

Early model of Kubo Dzamba’s Cricket Reactor, a habitat for the urban cultivation of micro livestock, i.e. nutritious crickets.

Photo credit: Michal Labnik 2013.

stressed rural land resources can be spared. Tiny Farms in Silicon Valley is pioneering methods that leverage digital technology to bring the prices of food grade bugs down from current rates of $30-40/lb in North America to $3/lb.

“Everything old is new again.”

There’s a deepening trend to re-value the things we previously got right in our food culture, as witnessed by the recent popularity of cookery workshops on canning and preserving at food hubs like Toronto’s the Depanneur.

These returns to basics will go hand in hand with cutting-edge innovations.

While plants genetically modified to tolerate pesticides deserve their questionable reputation, I think that we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Science and technology are our partners in the future of food. 3D Printing has proven exceedingly useful for prototyping and producing made-to-order articles such as prosthetics for a growing child. The reality of 3D Food Printers at home will come into its own if there are

foodstuffs we can print that we cannot otherwise make, and if those foods are not just novelties, but rather delicious and nutritious products. A step in that direction is Chloé Ruterveld’s Edible Growth, 3D printed shapes that develop into edible baskets of growing mushrooms and sprouts.

It’s great fun to contemplate the future of food: Jetsonian machines that pop out our heart’s desire, a “smart” refrigerator that suggests recipes based on its contents, 3D-printed living delicacies, cruelty-free meat from a vat in a lab. On the other hand, it can be discouraging when we think of the growing disparity between the (broadly speaking) two tiers of food consumers: those with a fresh healthy diet and those without. I remain wildly optimistic.

Human ingenuity is a beautiful thing. As William Gibson famously said, “The future is here. It’s just not very well distributed.”

Aruna Antonella Handa, PhD, is a writer-researcher and founder of Alimentary Initiatives, a future food think tank.

alimentaryinitiatives.com 37

FOOD

The Regent Park revitalization: growing a healthy community Nine years ago, our company was selected as Toronto Community Housing’s (TCH) development partner on the revitalization of the 69-acre Regent Park CSI’s annual member-only event, Party in the Park, in Regent Park, 2014. community in Toronto’s O Photo by Chris DePaul u r pa r R t Downtown East. eg e nt n e rs in Park beyo n

a d ! nd

Mitchell Cohen The Daniels Corporation President

By its very nature, a revitalization is a disruptive process. Bulldozers knock down homes, community centres, park benches and playgrounds, and, in an instant, a lifetime of memories is erased.

Subsequently, over the course of many years, new buildings replace the old, and owners of new condominiums share new sidewalks, streets and community facilities with tenants returning to a neighbourhood that bears little resemblance to the one they knew.

would guide the physical transformation, and a playbook that would guide the creation of a healthy social infrastructure, more formally known as the Regent Park Social Development Plan.

With the playbook in hand, we set out on day one to meet as many residents as possible, as well as to hear and understand the perspective of local social service agencies in respect to the revitalization.

We heard, for example, the anger over the loss of community garden plots that had brought a small measure of food security to hundreds of families over several generations. We also heard the frustration of having to travel out of the neighbourhood to a grocery store.

Another important lesson was that the history of Regent Park was deeply rooted in people gathering over food, coming together at a host of community events to share culinary history and creations from diverse cultures around the world.

It was clear from the outset that the real measure of success would not be the quality of the new homes, but rather whether an inclusive social fabric could be woven in which tenants and owners feel at home with each other and in their community, sharing the physical, cultural and economic That initial listening process was critical, benefits generated by the revitalization. and informed many of the social infrastructure initiatives and investments that Although achieving this vision was going have been implemented in concert with to be an enormous challenge, years of TCH and the local community over the intense consultation between local resipast nine years. dents, the City of Toronto and TCH led to Through that process, we identified, the development of a zoning by-law that 38

for example, arts and culture, as well as active sports and recreation, as critical ingredients to a successful revitalization.

At the top of the list, however, was an understanding of the importance of food as the glue, the most important tool in the “social cohesion toolbox.” Simply put, food breaks down barriers and brings people together.

With that in mind, the TCH/Daniels partnership determined that garden plots would become part of the design program for every new building, and that an investment would be made to support the development of gardening committees in each building. The response to gardening plots has been incredibly positive and continues the long-standing tradition of gardening and growing food within the community.

We also sought out and secured a major grocery store within the first building in Phase One, providing an opportunity for residents to walk down the street to get their groceries.

Along with TCH, local agencies and hundreds of local residents, we encouraged the city to incorporate physical infrastructure into the design of the park; infrastructure that would bring tenants and owners together around growing, eating,

sharing and learning about food security and healthy food choices.

After years of consultation and construction, a greenhouse, community bake oven, gardening plots and an orchard of fruit trees have now been built and planted, literally setting the table not only for growing food but for growing relationships between people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures.

Now that the table has been set, it is very exciting to see

the number of local residents and agencies bringing their best to the party, including the folks at CSI Regent Park who are spearheading a Community Potluck program.

It is also thrilling to see so many others making plans to use the new physical infrastructure to teach and to learn, to bake bread and break bread together, to use food as a foundation on which to grow a healthy new community.

Let the growing begin.

CSI’s Turnout Toronto hosted 500 people for a civic engagement fair at CSI Regent Park. Photo by Chris DePaul

Foodie Members LOLIWARE CSI NYC alumni LOLIWARE is flipping the disposable cup industry on its head with its biodegradable and edible cups designed to complement a variety of beverages. Imagine sipping on a drink while snacking on your cup! Not hungry?

You can always compost it. Made entirely of vegan, biodegradable ingredients, LOLIWARE is a tasty alternative to disposable cups destined for the landfill. LOLIWARE has been featured in TIME, WIRED, Entrepreneur, The Oprah Magazine, and others.

loliware.com

Iroquois Valley Farms Offering a uniquely corporate and indefinitely scalable opportunity to benefit from the production of healthy and nutritious foods, Iroquois Valley Farms makes impact investments in

local and organic agriculture, supporting sustainable food production and the mid-size family farmer. They’ve purchased over 2,500 acres of farmland, all of which is certified organic, or in transition to organic production. The farmland is leased through long-term tenancies to farmers independently operating their own family-farm businesses, earning investors a return while making a difference.

iroquoisvalleyfarms.com

Cultivate Toronto Formed in 2009, Cultivate Toronto reconnects communities with local food by turning Toronto’s backyards into a sustainable source of fresh, organic food. Fuelled by a passion for healthy living, local organic produce and environmental responsibility, their Community Shared Agriculture Program contributes to sustainable urban living through providing the freshest, tastiest, urban-grown produce to GTA residents.

cultivatetoronto.com

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for a day

Come try us out for a day Work at one of our coworking locations for free, Monday-Friday between 10am-5pm.

Internet, coffee, tea, and community included! Sign up at socialinnovation.org Photo by Juliana Bechara Parente

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Photo from the 2015 Dogs of CSI Calendar

Farewell to the late Brenda Zimmerman

By Liz Rykert, President of Meta Strategies The social innovation community has lost a great thought-leader. In December 2014, Brenda Zimmerman died in a car accident.

No one was prepared for the deep loss felt instantly throughout her network of friends, family and colleagues.

I remember Brenda giving a presentation about complexity theory when, a few minutes into it, my good friend Pat Thompson whispered in my ear, “This is so exciting. I feel I should be putting on my seat belt.” It is a moment we both remember vividly.

Brenda Zimmerman’s career started with a degree in Zoology. She then became a Chartered Accountant. Her ideas about complex adaptive systems really crystallized when she returned to school to do an MBA and PhD at York. Brenda became a professor and the Director of the Health Industry Management Program at Schulich.

She wrote her PhD thesis on the subject of “Chaos, Strategy and Equilibrium,” and used her knowledge of complexity science throughout her academic career to explore changes in healthcare systems, hospitals, public policy and social innovation. She co-authored a number of books, including Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed, and Complicated and Complex Systems: What Would Successful Reform Medicare Look Like?

Brenda Zimmerman

thing she had been working on with Margie Zeidler. “Brenda was one of the people who was so important in helping us all learn and recognize the science behind the work,” Tonya recently said.

“I will miss her intellect and capacity to make these ideas accessible to everyone.”

Brenda was one the world’s great social innovation thought leaders. We will miss her dearly, but her work lives on through us.

Brenda’s work found the balance between rigorous study, poetry and human vulnerability. Her work in complexity theory laid the foundation for social innovation practitioners as they look for patterns to better understand how they can be impactful in the world. Brenda’s thinking sat squarely at the beginning of a bigger social innovation movement in Canada with Getting to Maybe, co-authored with Frances Westley and Michael Quinn Patton.

The nine principles of working with complexity

She had a remarkable way of introducing us to the science of complexity. At the end of Brenda’s day long session back in 2004, Tonya Surman announced the opening of the Centre for Social Innovation, some-

3. When life is far from certain, lead with clockware and swarmware in tandem. Balance data and intuition, planning and acting, safety and risk, giving due honour to each.

1. View your system through the lens of complexity in addition to the metaphor of a machine or a military organization.

2. Build a good-enough vision. Provide minimum specifications, rather than trying to plan every little detail.

4. Tune your place to the edge. Foster the “right” degree of information flow, diversity and difference, connections inside and outside the organization, power differential and anxiety, instead of controlling information, forcing agreement, dealing separately with contentious groups, working systematically down all the layers of the hierarchy in sequence and seeking comfort.

5. Uncover and work with paradox and tension. Do not shy away from them as if they were unnatural.

6. Go for multiple actions at the fringes, let direction arise. You don’t have to be “sure” before you proceed with anything.

7. Listen to the shadow system. That is, realize that informal relationships, gossip, rumor and hallway conversations contribute significantly to agents’ mental models and subsequent actions.

8. Grow complex systems by chunking.

Allow complex systems to emerge out of the links among simple systems that work well and are capable of operating independently.

9. Mix cooperation with competition.

It’s not one or the other.

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Overview of CSI Members

Our Year in Review The Centre for Social Innovation is fast approaching adolescence in organizational terms. We are an 11-year-old nonprofit social enterprise, definitely out of the start-up phase, but still ambitiously growing to meet the needs of this dynamic and multifaceted social innovation movement. Sometimes it feels as though our feet keep outgrowing our shoes. The way that we manage this growth is by leaning into three core principles:

Top 10 Areas Member Organizations Work In 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Growth with Grace Lots of people talk about scale, but what does it really look and feel like? For CSI, our strategy has been one of leap, consolidate, repeat. This approach has resulted in 40% growth each year for the last seven years. Concretely, the purchase of 720 Bathurst in 2010 was a giant leap for us and required a couple years to recuperate and consolidate. Then in 2012-13, we opened both CSI Regent Park and CSI NYC. After this, we entered into our “year of no new projects.” We realigned, recalibrated and dug into our core business model. With a goal of achieving a break-even point for each of our business units, we realized that we needed to find a long-term, sustainable home for CSI Spadina. This is what led us, very quickly—45 days after the end of our year of no new projects—to buy 192 Spadina. Indeed, 2014-15 has proven to be another growth year, now operating 162,000 sq. ft. of space in five locations with 50+ staff including TechSoup Canada, a project of CSI.

Education Community Development Arts & Culture Health & Well-Being Environment Children & Youth Civil Society Equality & Human Rights Civic Engagement Urban Issues

Top 10 Tactics Members Use for Social Change 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Building Community Wealth Given that we are in the real estate business, we have learned that ownership is vital to our success. It hasn’t been an easy journey, but it was made possible with the help of our amazing bank partners, Alterna Savings and Citizen’s Bank of Canada, and money raised through our Community Bonds campaign from our community. In total, we have raised $6.3M in bonds to help us finance the purchase of 720 Bathurst and 192 Spadina in Toronto. This community investment has resulted in over $25M of real estate assets being put to work for people and the planet. Our strategy to build community wealth enables CSI to provide stable and affordable rents in the long run to our growing community, while building assets for 25 years down the road.

Education & Training Community Engagement Mentoring & Coaching Public Awareness Research Capacity Building Technology Advocacy Arts Product Development

By the Foot

Whether we’re renting or buying a building, space is the foundation on which we build community and catalyze innovation. Space to collaborate, to be yourself, to get creative, and to make change happen.

162K

TOTAL SQUARE FEET MANAGED

BY CSI

28,000 SQ FT.

36,000 SQ FT.

10,000 SQ FT.

24,000 SQ FT.

64,000 SQ FT.

CSI SPADINA

CSI ANNEX

CSI REGENT PARK

CSI NEW YORK CITY

192 SPADINA AVE

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Consolidated Statement of Operations

Diversify and Partner CSI thrives through the strength of its partnerships. These enable us to achieve greater social outcomes through projects like the Ontario Catapult Microloan Fund (a partnership of the Ontario Government, TD, Alterna Savings, Microsoft, KPMG and Social Capital Partners) and our Agents of Change program.

These partnerships often include sponsorship of our spaces or programs, grants from the government or agencies, or consulting and speaking revenues. In 2014, we met our target of generating 20% of our revenues through partnerships.

2014-15 has also deepened our knowledge of what it takes to operate in the United States.

CSI in NYC is a wholly owned LLC. In autumn 2014, we confirmed our 501c3 status and are now building out a local and independent board of directors to respond to the local community and opportunities. Learning to be a U.S.-based charity is a whole new experience.

As we move into 2015-16, we are looking to strengthen our base, invest in our properties, hone our business model, and focus our energy and resources on accelerating the impact of our members. This year, we will create a wholly owned for-profit capable of driving our technical R&D. We will also explore how we can better scale our model to support even more members... In short, there’s never a dull day at CSI!

— Tonya Surman, CEO

CSI CANADA Revenue

2013-2014

2012-2013

Space & Membership

$2,841,084

$2,387,775

$514,372

$401,404

$1,280,598

$1,191,755

Incubated Projects (ONN, STEPS)

$843,380

$731,643

Other

$198,932

$49,492

Total

$5,678,366

$4,762,069

$3,023,952

$2,545,054

Programming

$309,762

$229,784

Online Services

$464,643

$344,675

Incubated Projects

$880,952

$597,374

Administration

$376,050

$271,333

$5,055,359

$3,988,220

2014

2013

Space & Membership

$1,063,634

$26,948

Grants & Sponsorship

$ 253,142

$0

Other

$36,894

$4,596

Total

$1,353,670

$31,544

Space & Membership

$543,399

$343,691

Programming

$146,912

$0

Administration

$361,492

$256,479

$1,051,802

$600,170

Grants & Sponsorships Online Services

Expenses Space & Membership

Total CSI NEW YORK CITY Revenue

Expenses

Total

$25M REAL ESTATE ASSETS OWNED

BY CSI

OUR REVENUE GROWTH SINCE 2010

$8,000,000 $7,000,000 $6,000,000 $5,000,000 $4,000,000 $3,000,000 $2,000,000 $1,000,000 $0 2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

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44 Designed by Geoff Doner, bureauofpowerandlight.com

To All Those Who Make CSI Possible, Thank You Toronto Board of Directors

Eve Rotstein, Program Manager

Marie Moliner, Board Chair

Fatemeh Tizhoosh, Community Animator, CSI Regent Park

Bernie Li, Treasurer Alice Klein André Sorensen Jeb Brugmann Tim Draimin

Editor of this magazine

Brian Iler, Board Secretary

New York City Board of Directors Scott Rechler, Board Co-Chair Tonya Surman, Board Co-Chair Lyler Resner

Global Staff Tonya Surman, CEO Adil Dhalla, Director of Culture Fulvio Ciano, Director of Technology Karine Jaouich, Director of Finance and Special Projects

Editor-in-Chief of this magazine

Mary Rowe

Barnabe Geis, Communications Architect Chris DePaul, Communications Animator

Kyle Shantz, Community and Communications Animator

Partners, Funders & Other Lovers 10 Carden Street Access Community Capital Fund

Newman’s Own NYC Centre for Economic Opportunity Ontario Nonprofit Network Ottawa Community Loan Fund

Leah Pollock, Partnership Manager

Alterna Savings

Liz Phillips, Leasing Coordinator

archiTEXT

PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise

Matt Guthrie, Facilities Manager

Artscape

Pillar Nonprofit Network

Maylene Earle, Community Animator, CSI Annex

Ashoka

Pratt Center

Ashoka Canada

Orysia Jones, Community Animator, CSI Regent Park

Project for Public Spaces

Autodesk

Province of Ontario

Sacha Kumar, CSI Annex Community Manager

Be Social Change

publicLAB

Blackstone Charitable Foundation

RCN

Sare D’Alimonte, Community Animator, CSI Spadina

Booth Ferris Foundation

Rockaway Waterfront Alliance

Brooklyn Community Foundation

Shilbee Kim, CSI Regent Park Community Manager

Rockefeller Foundation

Business in the Streets

RXR Realty

Shona Fulcher, CSI Spadina Community Manager

CatalystX

Ryerson Social Venture Zone

Centre for Urban Pedagogy

School for Social Entrepreneurs

Stefan Hostetter, Community Animator, CSI Spadina

City of Toronto

Social Capital Partners

CivicAction

Timna Ben-Ari, Executive Assistant

Social Venture Partners

Citizens Bank of Canada

Spacing

Conseil de la cooperation de l’Ontario

tailoredUX

New York City Staff Dave Gise, Managing Director Danni Lee, Meeting and Events Space Rentals

Daniels Corporation

TD Bank Group

David Suzuki Foundation

The Centre for Popular Democracy

Farah Malik, Accounts Manager

Elizabeth Keane, Accounts and Office Administrator

Dell

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation

Guy Parks, Technical Projects Manager

Distl.

Evan Shulman, Program Manager

Toronto Community Housing

East Scarborough Storefront

Toronto Public Library

Echoing Green

Toronto+Acumen

Enterprise Sociale

Transportation Alternatives

Enterprising Nonprofits

Westbank

Evergreen Cityworks

York Enterprise Development Institute

Hamid Yusufi, Accounts Assistant John Napoleane, Developer Karim Rizkallah, Tech Infrastructure Lead Kevin Hurley, Special Projects Manager

TechSoup Canada Jane Zhang, Executive Director, TechSoup Canada/Director of Online Services at CSI Chris Siewah, Accounts Manager Donna Won, Business and Data Analyst

Kirtan Shrestha, Assistant Accounts Manager

Futurpreneur GOOD

Youth Social Innovation Capital Fund

Jess Potter, Accounts Manager

Hot Docs

Josiah Osagie, Bilingual Accounts Manager

HR&A Advisors Imagination Catalyst @ OCAD U

Allies Forever

Joyce Hsu, Communications Lead

Impact 8 @ MaRS

urbanspace Property Group

Toronto Staff

Nicola D’Cunha, Communications Coordinator

Impact Hub Ottawa

Harbinger Foundation

Ben Marans, Director of Shared Spaces

Yaël Thibus, Bilingual Accounts Manager

ioby

Ontario Trillium Foundation

Jane’s Walk

Canadian Alternative Investment Cooperative

Matthew Stern, Knowledge Lead Paul Jara, Lead Developer Sharon Lovett, Business Analyst

Heather Farquharson, Director of Partnerships Joanna Reynolds, Director of Social Enterprise Brian Chang, Building Coordinator, 192 Spadina

DECAs CSI’s Desk Exchange Community Animators — the force that breathes vitality into our spaces and our frontline baristas for social change. We love you.

Brittney Drysdale, Community Animator, CSI Annex Erin Kang, Events Coordinator

Designer of this magazine

KIND Snacks Kiva Zip

Zapier

Heritage Canada

KPMG

CSI Emeritus Council

McGraw Hill Financial

Sandy Crawley

Microsoft

Erik Meerkamper

Mission HUB

Mary Rowe

Municipal Art Society of New York

Jini Stolk

New York Cares

Patrick Tobin

New York City Partners

Margie Zeidler

45

OUR TEAM VALUES WHAT WE STAND FOR

We are bound by one shared vision: to put people and planet first. Everything we do, every decision, exchange, system, product and offering must move us closer to impact. We are determined to make the world better.

We believe in the synergies of connection, the explosive potential of partnership, and the transformative power of movements. No one can do it all. We must work together. Collaboration is in our DNA. It isn’t just nice—it’s imperative.

We’re serious about not taking ourselves too seriously. Happiness, joy and play remind us that the process and the product both matter.

Changing the world is hard work. You may as well have fun doing it.

We are a dynamic group of bootstrapping entrepreneurs who navigate chaos and embrace opportunity. We will not forget that being resourceful, nimble and humble make us who we are. We are innovators.

We won’t pretend to be something we aren’t.

Authenticity and transparency keep us grounded in truth. You may not like what you see, but at least you will know exactly who we are. We bring our values & vision to this work.

CSI is a place for solutions. We default to optimism. We will always design our work, our systems and our world to get to yes.

When we have to say no, it’s because we are saying yes to our mission.

Don’t let the blue jeans fool you. We embody excellence, experience & expertise every day.

We do our homework, hone our craft and get the job done. We are both gritty and great!

Core to the human experience is a sense of belonging. We will be absolute in our pursuit of inclusivity, diversity and openness. We will often smile and sometimes even hug you if you let us.

We really love each other. We all have a role in co-creating our amazing community.

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We believe that change happens when people decide to make a difference. We don’t sit back and wait for things to get better; we shape the world in which we live. We’re ready to lead with you!

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A COWORKING SPACE

COMMUNITY

and launchpad FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE CHANGING THE WORLD

JOIN US socialinnovation.org 48