Sharing for Social Change Event - June 18'08

Sharing for Social Change

On June 18^th, the Centre for Social Innovation in partnership with Tides Foundation, hosted Sharing for Social Change. With the help of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the United Way Toronto and the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, we welcomed over 240 people to the MaRS Centre to engage in a day of exploring best practices in sharing.

It was a great day and we wish that we could have accomodated more people as we had a waiting list of over 100 people!

Here are some excerpts from Doug Kerr and my opening presentation... more to come on some of the highlights of the various workshops.

A collection of photographs from the event can be viewed here. 

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• From sharing space to sharing administrative systems, from shared service delivery to shared technology, this field of practice is one of the most dynamic and exciting areas in the non-profit sector – not just here in Ontario but across the continent and around the world. Today we have leaders from B.C., Alberta, California and Colorado....

• We are delighted to have, North American leaders China Brotsky and Roxanne Hanson from the Nonprofit Centers Network, a program of Tides Shared Spaces in San Francisco. This network supports the development of multi-tenant shared spaces for nonprofits in the US like....

• Tides' Fort Mason Centre, a former military base that has been converted into a shared home for over two dozen non-profit social, arts and environmental groups.

• Youthville, in Detroit-based member of the network, is a centre for dozens of youth organizations sharing space and programming

• Tides Renewal Centre in Vancouver will open this September and will be a home for social justice and environment organizations located in Vancouver’s downtown east-end.

• We also have some important Canadian thought leaders here - our very own innovative visionary developer, Margie Ziedler from UrbanSpace, who has created the amazing spaces at 401 Richmond Street and at 215 Spadina Avenue.

• Margie's buildings have charted new paths in creating shared spaces for artists, nonprofits and the new media sector – her work has been part of defining what creative convergence looks like.

• Tim Jones of Toronto-based Artscape is a recognized leader in the development of shared space, including the creation of artist live-work spaces and community convergence spaces such as...

• the Green Arts Barns that will bring together work-live arts spaces with community gardens and offices.

• We are excited to welcome people here from all over Ontario, rural and urban areas, cities and town, all exploring shared models

• In Barrie, Common Roof provides a shared space and shared services for human service organizations.

• In Ottawa, Heartwood House gathers 15 community organizations and an art gallery under one roof.

• My Sisters Place is a 38 agency collaborative – a one-stop support system for women who have been victims of violence.

• And there are many more examples like these that you will learn about today.

• Nonprofit organizations are sharing throughout all parts of the sector and increasingly we see exciting trends in cross-sectoral collaboration

• And nonprofits are not just sharing space – Some of the most innovative projects here today have organizations breaking down organizational walls to share things like human resource management, online technology platforms, purchasing programs, financial management systems and even innovative collaborative governance systems.

• We see that it is possible to share without merging, or to merge certain systems but maintain our autonomy. We see that by sharing, we become stronger, more resilient and more able to influence and make the change that we want to see in the world.

• Today we will hear about shared services like....

• The United Community Services Co-op in Vancouver has 150 members access everything from shared management software to bulk purchasing

• The East Scarborough Storefront, is a community hub where over 30 community organizations come together to provide services and support in 12 languages.

• Creative Trust provides fundraising support for working capital to over two dozen small theatre and dance companies.

• We also delighted to have representatives from government, the private sector and our funding community, who are essential partners in this work.

• And most importantly, we have you ... and you are what makes this event come to life

Why does sharing matters now

We have some ideas that we hope that you will ponder throughout the day....

• Sharing matters because, by working together effectively and by building on our core competencies, we can get more done, faster with less.

• by sharing we can benefit from greater diversity and thus greater resilience

• sharing builds the conditions for emergence, innovation and social tranformation.

• sharing enables us to create greater public benefit

• In the last 10 years, with the integration of the Internet into our culture, the costs of sharing has dropped dramatically and our access to tools has increased dramatically.

• Sharing is more practical than ever. Technology has lowered the cost of trying things out and getting things done. This makes it possilbe to take more risks, innovate more quickly and stumble onto solutions more often.

• Sharing is not about merging – it is about how organizations can retain their unique specializations and expertise, but combine forces where needed – where we can create complex and creative spaces – new things will emerge that we cannot even predict. And today this is more possible than it ever has been.

• We are learning that there are limits to growth – most obvious are the ecological and economic limits, but we are also recognizing the limits to our organizational models. Bigger is not always better. Small is nimble. Small is innovative. Small is smart. Yet, in the past, small also meant limited infrastructure, limited reach and limited impact. Innovative sharing has changed this. By sharing resources, it's possible to stay small and have a huge impact at the same time.

• But there is a still a long way to go to work out all of the kinks. Today hopefully, you will gather some strategies to bring your sharing project to life

• We hope that you will see that this event is more than just about sharing for efficiencies and effectiveness, but rather this event is about sharing for social change.

• “Sharing”, “collaboration”, “working together” are the DNA of building systems for change and social transformation

• It is only by creating new models to collaborate that we can achieve ecological sustainability, create healthy communities, find the cure of HIV, stabilize our own organizations and generally make the world a better place.

• We are so delighted that you are here today to begin this work!

• Hopefully you will gather ideas, solutions, clever insights, and generally benefit from the experience of those that have done this sort of thing before.

• Enjoy Sharing for Social Change!