De Clarke/ Cortes Currents -On Tuesday, October 14th the Cortes Island Foundation invited island nonprofit and public service organisations to attend a Social Profit Forum hosted at Hollyhock. This all-day event was well attended and featured presentations by two representatives from “local economy” projects with successful track records: Tara Janzen from the Shorefast Institute for Place-Based Economics and Andrew Greer from Purppl, a consulting group that advises clients who wish to establish “regenerative enterprises.”
Ms Janzen gave a slide presentation describing the successful economic re-invigoration of a small Newfoundland island called Fogo. Mr Greer offered some tools for turning social profit goals into specific business plans and strategies, using examples from the Okanagan area.
Attendees were invited to come up with ideas and concepts for place-specific economic development on Cortes Island, with the goal of providing living-wage jobs that would allow — among other things — local kids to grow up and remain in their home community instead of having to leave in search of gainful employment. The theme of the day was how to create a local economy that provides employment, investment, and income to benefit the community, rather than importing labour and goods and benefiting distant shareholders.
The full event title was From Edge to Opportunity: Collective Pathways for Social Impact. It attracted representatives from almost all the islands’s non profit societies and projects, including CCEDA, the Fire Department, FOCI, the Housing Society, the Cortes Food Coop, the Women’s Centre, the Food Bank, and more. The crowd filled most of Olatunji Hall, one of Hollyhock’s larger venues.
