Centre for Social Innovation - Where Change Happens!

So I've been hearing a lot about 'deal flow' recently, which sounds a little bit too slick for my liking but it is too accurate and important to dismiss. Mostly, it's been a question of whether or not there is sufficient deal flow here in Toronto/Ontario/Canada to justify new investment/instruments to support the social enterprise sector. Of course, this is really a two-way street...the more investment opportunities the more deals that will find their way to the surface, and (hopefully) vice versa.

ThirdSector reports an incredible investment in social enterprise on behalf of the UK government, including a new £10m capital risk fund for social enterprise. In the words of Gordon Brown, “If our economy is to flourish, if our communities are to become more closely knit, and if we are to take care of the natural environment and the resources on which our economic activity depends, we must find new and more equitable ways of doing business."

Just a quick note to share the news that the Young Foundation has just released its latest report.  Transformers: how local areas innovate to address changing social need uses a series of case studies to explore how and why some regions innovate to address local complex social problems. You can access the report here.

The Office of the Third Sector in the UK has just released a number of Think Pieces, which were published on "Social Enterprise Day" 2007. Ahem. "Social Enterprise Day". Yep - got a long way to go on this side of the pond...

I haven't yet read them but the piece titled "How can innovation in social enterprise be understood, encouraged and enabled" looks particularly interesting.

Click here to see the full list and to download.