Modernizing Canada's Social Enterprise Sector

About this talk

Some of the biggest challenges for Canada's Social Enterprise sector include that their funding models and donor efficiency expectations cause them to starve their investments in technology and technology/marketing skills.

This is putting them at serious disadvantage to their "competitors for attention" i.e. e-commerce, in the digital space. Coupled with a demographic shift from Boomers to Millennials (and therefore Digital Natives) as their source for new funding, we are seeing a serious funding gap on the horizon (reference stats available from Imagine Canada). This will badly damage the social sector with major effects on the quality of life and our society in Canada.

The commercial sector has been more effective at lobbying government for incentives to expand their investments in technology and, to some extent, in training. The nonprofit sector needs to adopt the same techniques and lobby for funds to invest in technology and particularly in training given so much of the tech they need is accessible in the cloud. They also need to transform the mindset of their donors to focus more on results and less on "overhead". A national conversation on these topics is sorely needed.