What if social purpose businesses became a defining feature of local economies across Canada?
Imagine communities where social purpose businesses are increasingly at the heart of the economy, and where businesses, governments, financial institutions and community organizations work together to tackle local social and environmental challenges.
This is the idea behind Local Purpose Economies, something we have begun exploring at the Canadian Purpose Economy Project.
Recently, the Project brought together practitioners and thought leaders through the Festival for Re-Imagining the Economy to explore what it could take to deliberately grow Local Purpose Economies across Canada. Our Growing the Local Purpose Economy consultation summary captures what we heard.
What might a Local Purpose Economy look like?
One participant offered a wonderfully tangible aspiration:
“In my neighbourhood, I can meet 50% of my needs through social purpose businesses.”
Think about what that would mean.
Instead of a handful of social purpose businesses operating independently, there would be a growing density of them – businesses contributing to community well-being through their core business and the problems they exist to help solve.
And around those businesses would be an ecosystem helping them thrive.
Chambers and business associations could introduce social purpose to businesses at scale. Business Improvement Areas could help create concentrations of social purpose businesses within neighbourhoods. Credit unions and other locally rooted financial institutions could support them through financing, procurement, partnerships and community investment.
Municipal governments could be particularly important. They know their local business and community networks and can convene and connect them. They also have policy, procurement, economic development and funding levers that can help accelerate social purpose business.
The goal isn’t to create a whole new ecosystem. Many of the ingredients are already there. The opportunity is to connect them more deliberately.
Starting to experiment
We are beginning to explore what this could look like in practice.
On Vancouver Island, the Project and 14 chambers of commerce are working together through the Vancouver Island Purpose & Business Collaborative to help local businesses define, strengthen and embed their social purpose. It is giving us an opportunity to learn how a network of local business organizations can help grow social purpose business across a region.
These are early experiments, not blueprints. And I think that matters.
A Local Purpose Economy in Burnaby won’t necessarily look like one on Vancouver Island – or in Winnipeg, Montreal or Halifax. Different communities have different challenges, institutions, businesses and opportunities.
What happens when purpose takes root?
Bring the different players in a local economy together around a shared ambition, and something powerful emerges: an economy in which more of the businesses at its heart are contributing to the well-being of the communities they call home.