“A social enterprise is a business that operates not only to generate profit, but whose core mission revolves around creating measurable impact,” said Priyanka Vasudev, chairperson of the UBC Social Enterprise Conference.
In other words, social enterprises are businesses that aim to drive sustainable development and social progress. Social enterprises aren't new ideas, but they have been gaining popularity over the last decade or so.
On March 12, the Social Enterprise Club hosted its second annual Social Enterprise Conference. The Social Enterprise Club itself started in 2012 with the purpose to create change-makers by bridging disciplines and hosting events. This year's conference theme was “Limitless Change,” a theme the club chose not only to inspire budding social entrepreneurs, but also to help them realize their potential.
The aim of the conference was to connect students with each other and with social enterprises. The club hopes to emulate the idea that change is limitless not to those who stay within the traditional boundaries of their field, but rather to the ones who are willing to take action, break boundaries and pioneer the positive change they wish to see.
The conference featured more than 20 speakers and panelists, five of whom are UBC students. They shared their experiences and inspired attendees to create systemic change by becoming social entrepreneurs.
“Our conference gave students the necessary skills to purposefully incorporate an entrepreneurial mindset into their future endeavours,” said Vasudev.
One of the speakers at the conference was David Lepage, a co-founder and director of Buy Social Canada. Buy Social began in the United Kingdom in 2013 and the Canadian counterpart launched on April 23 of last year at the Canadian Conference on social enterprise.
Buy Social Canada is a partnership between Accelerating Social Impact, Open Door Ventures, Realize Co-op and Common Good Solutions that facilitates relationships between social enterprises and potential customers. Buy Social Canada also provides certification to social enterprises so that the given enterprise can assure clientele of its positive mandate.
UBC has a number of other clubs that promote social enterprise including the Enactus club, which funds a number of initiatives to help non-profits and the community as a whole. Bizkit is another such initiative as it is a consulting project that helps organizations in need. In the past, this initiative has helped the Portland Hotel Society to better serve over 4,000 residents in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside.
Sauder has also been promoting social enterprise and impact investing through its S3i centre. S3i stands for Social Innovation and Impact Investing and the main goal of the centre is to foster initiatives that contribute to solving existing social, cultural, economic, political and environmental challenges. The core research themes at S3i are building a low carbon economy, social innovation and economic development with First Nations with the goal of linking knowledge with action to further the field of sustainability and social innovation.