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“WE ESSENTIALLY ARE INVOLVED IN SOCIAL FINANCE, WHICH IS MAKING SURE THERE
ARE FINANCIAL OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO ORGANIZATIONS WORKING TO DO GOOD IN THE COMMUNITY”
— JANE BISBEE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOCIAL ENTERPRISE FUND
that span a wide range of sectors across the province, from arts and cultural organizations to environmentally focused startups, to low-barrier, inclusive employers and social services agencies.
The key characteristic shared by all of SEF’s clients is their mission: to have positive impacts on the communities where they operate.
“We’re looking for businesses — and I tend to think of non-profits as businesses that are trying to move the needle for good in the community — that are doing things to help make this a more sustainable community, a better economy for everybody, not just certain parts of the economy,” Bisbee says.
And while the distinguishing feature of social enterprises and non-profit organizations is to do good for social or environmental causes, their economic impacts are worth noting as well. Across the province, there are more than 26,000 non-profit entities, who employ more than 300,000 people, and contribute nearly $5.5 billion in gross domestic product to the Alberta economy.
But since many non-profits don’t operate in the same way that more traditional business entities might, explains Bisbee, they often aren’t able to access the same kinds of supports. As a result, their potential economic impact is often overlooked.
“There are rules that banks abide by that sometimes don’t work well for our kinds of clients — often only
Growing Greener Innovations
Photo courtesy of Social Enterprise Fund
because their processes internally look different,” she says.
Instead of looking at social enterprises in the same way a bank would, SEF takes a more comprehensive and flexible approach to analyze an organization’s readiness for financing. Bisbee and the team at
SEF ask hard business questions to any group that comes forward to determine what kind of economic and community impact it will have, how well it’s researched its market gaps and opportunities, and whether or not it has the skills and knowledge to make its plan work.
“The kind of paperwork I might get is probably a little different than what a regular bank officer would get. We have to figure out how to understand people who come with a different lived experience to our doorstep,” she says.
One example, Bisbee explains, is Grengine, formerly Growing Greener Innovations — an Alberta- based green tech startup developing solar-powered generators to solve global energy poverty.
Connie Stacey, the company’s founder, came to the idea quite by chance after a noisy, diesel-powered generator threatened to wake her sleeping toddlers.
“I was off for a walk with my twin boys — they were about three months old — and I went by a house being built that had a diesel generator running,” she
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