One morning in early 2010 I was sitting at my desk overlooking one of the busiest drug trafficking alleys in Vancouver. I had been Communications and Business Development Associate (the longest title I ever hope to have) for just a few months at Building Opportunities with Business (the second longest named organization I've ever worked for). BOB had been created out of a multi-governmental agreement to support the economic revitalization of the city's Downtown Eastside and improve safety and livability for residents and businesses in the area. With respect to a very healthy illegal drug economy we knew that opportunities for healthier forms of entrepreneurialism and job creation existed, we just needed to figure out how to create enabling conditions and offer support. The organization had been around for just over five years at that point and in many respects it had only been the last two or so that we had found our stride, assembled a great team, and had begun to get really good at what we were doing. A co-worker walked over to me that morning and handed me a memo that our office had just received from Western Economic Diversification (WD), a wing of the Federal Government tasked with supporting a range of initiatives to support economic development in Western Canada. The memo spelled our doom.
A year later staff, including myself, had packed our things and moved on. But a loan fund remained under the governance of the organization, as several businesses were still paying it back.
I was recently hired back on as an independent consultant to work with the current BOB board to continue putting this money to work in the community. I write this partly to vent and partly to share my enthusiasm for nimble, networked collaborations.
Under Paul Martin it was cities, where over 80% of Canadians now live and work, that were likely to drive the future economy of Canada. Cities were clearly the centres of innovation, intellectual property, services, the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) the creative economy, high-tech, online business, the knowledge, arts and culture economies, construction etc. Investment had therefore been made into improving the long stagnant or declining economic conditions of inner cities like Vancouver's DTES so that they were not left behind in the urban economic future. Not to say this was the only area the Federal Government of the time was focusing, but it was an important part of the overall understanding (if not vision) of Canada's economy as it became an increasingly urban country. One of the most urban geographically large countries in the world. I'm a cities guy. I'm fascinated by them. I both love them and am disgusted by them. My fixation on the good or bad aside, they are where the majority of us in Canada now live, and truly do comprise the lion's share of economic activity in our country.
The memo, on Government of Canada stationary at the time, said that WD was re-prioritizing economic development funds to rural areas and that our funding would not be continued. What had changed? The Federal Government had.
Midway through BOB's mandate The Harper Government defeated Paul Martin's Liberals (then under the leadership of Stephan Dion) and, well...priorities shifted. This is not to say that our current federal government has entirely turned its back on cities, WD was gracious enough to let some funding remain in the DTES in the form of a loan fund that BOB had been overseeing. But if one scans the media for talking points on economic development it seems both Provinces like BC and the Federal Government are more apt to talk about natural gas or exporting petroleum resources from Alberta and building pipelines to the U.S. and China than they are the human capital of cities, the knowledge economy, social innovation or creation of low barrier urban jobs. I don't disagree with their right to make policies or strategies or show leadership in this regard, though I disagree with this near infatuation with pipelines, fracking and other extractive exercises.
This is not a sad story though. This is a story about community organizations finding creative ways to adjust and continue bringing impact under changing circumstances.
With government priorities shifting towards this new focus BOB and other CED organizations in Vancouver's inner city have learned how to became increasingly entrepreneurial, collaborative, and creative in the way they go about fulfilling their mandates. One particularly strong example is captured in a recent collaboration between BOB and EMBERS (Eastside Movement for Business and Economic Renewal Society) that combines access to finance and a network of advisory support/mentorship to help businesses that are growth ready but find themselves in a gap - too old for startup or seed funding, but not big enough for traditional lenders or investors.
The concept is called the V Prize and in its pilot year Olla Urban Flower Project, featured here for Buy Local Week, is its first winner.
Recently showcased in BC Business Magazine V Prize began out of a desire to approach business development, in the interest of social impact employment, in a nimble and networked way. The concept didn't want to compete with other local organizations or lenders or duplicate an existing service or program. Instead it wanted to find gaps, create links, and leverage what others were doing through collaboration by bringing the one resource it retained in the wake of losing its core funding. That loan fund previously mentioned.
This is also at the core of tensions between some activists who see it fit to target small businesses as icons of gentrification and local CED organizations who are focusing on creating social capital and leveraging new SMEs for social impact. Some in the area see new businesses as something to leverage, some see it as something to oppose.
According to Mark Shieh, co-chair of BOB, V Prize is about helping existing businesses scale up their ventures and amplify their social impact. "We work alongside social entrepreneurs who are committed to hiring DTES residents with barriers to employment. We invest both financial capital and technical expertise. We hope to grow a network of entrepreneurs and advisors year after year to create meaningful employment in our community."
So we now know how the old BOB ended....how did this new BOB begin?
After scanning the social finance ecosystem BOB recognized an opportunity to partner with EMBERS, who had also been formed several years ago, as it had recently created a social enterprise and small business accelerator called the Grow A Business program, or GAB.
Vancouver is a hotbed for startups, what we see though is that often these startups will have difficulty accessing capital to grow here and they will be acquired by a major company or they will relocate. Ryan Holmes from Hoot Suite wrote a great Op-Ed about it recently in the Sun. While Ryan focuses on tech and creative sector the same challenges ring true for many other types of businesses here, social enterprises and independent retailers for example. Without a comprehensive community economic development strategy or an overarching body like the Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC) to provide resources it has fallen on non-profits and social enterprises to muddle our way through this jungle. Often times this has meant we compete for the same pool of funds, the same RFPs, the same contracts, or the same clients. This is exactly why BOB wanted to take a networked and collaborative approach to leveraging its CED resources and approached EMBERS to develop this initial concept.
Guy Thorburn of EMBERS said to me when I asked him about the new program:
"There is a lot of overlap and unnecessary competition amongst community groups tasked with supporting economic development in the DTES. The V Prize is an example of two of those groups combining resources to best effect for local start-up businesses. By combining BOB's advisor network and cash with EMBERS 1-on-1 Grow a Business program, businesses get access to both community grown capital and hands-on dedicated support"
The hope is that this kind of support will not only aid small businesses and social enterprises in creating stronger models, more feasible models, but also support them to become social impact employers (or increase their employment impact) and integrate with the community, largely low income, that they are a part of.
Through the GAB program EMBERS connects businesses to a dedicated mentor who can take them under their wing for several months and work with that business to create a growth plan. Olla Flowers was one of those businesses in the past year that EMBERS saw great promise in. When interviewing different lenders and non-profits the team at BOB realized that it had a great opportunity to leverage what EMBERS was offering by bringing the loan fund and its extended network of professional contacts to the process with Olla.
Often times accelerators have a core management team that comprises "who you will be working with" it's the same team which often receives equity in the companies they help foster and grow. In some cases that can be golden, in some cases it can end badly. With BOB, neither of these applied. BOB's board worked with Olla and EMBERS to identify specific mentors/advisors in its extended network to bring support to Point of Sale System technology (Patrick Shmeid- Swipe For the Kids), E-Commerce (Matt Friesen, Wantering) and other areas. While Susan Fugman of the Canadian Youth Business Foundation along with Guy Thorburn at EMBERS led the overall growth plan and guided Olla Flowers owner Megan Branson through the process. BOB's goal is to extend that impact, and the organization is looking to expand its network of advisors.
It's an interesting trend to see how community economic development non-profits and other service providers are adjusting with the retreat of government funding into urban CED. In some cases this comes in the form of leveraging market investment and new businesses coming to the area. A good example of this is Mission Possible filling service gaps for community safety and property maintenance needs another is the Portland Hotel Society has also launched several very strong social enterprise concepts in the past few years including the Window, EastVan Roasters, Blue Shell Laundry (which they acquired a few years after it began) and Radio Station Cafe. In some cases, like the V Prize concept, the innovation comes not from starting something new but in leveraging complimentary resources and collaborating with another agency or social enterprise to scale up delivery of services and support. Not to say this is the first time collaboration has happened in the interest of economic development in Vancouver's DTES, but it's an encouraging model that shows some promise.
BOB will be announcing a new intake round for businesses, including social enterprises, interested in V Prize in the New Year. Follow the organization at @bobV6A to find out when.