TIMMINS –
It was an important day for businesses and non-profit organizations looking to stay in Timmins for the long haul.
Indeed, there was much excitement Thursday surrounding Kidd Operations’ day-long Working Toward Sustainability Conference and Training at the Timmins Native Friendship Centre.
“This was in direct response to community input and request for skill and capacity development around sustainability for the non-profit sector,” explained Rod Ryner, regional co-ordinator for the Cochrane District Social Planning Council. “Kidd Operations, with help from Clearlogic, performed community consultations and heard that this is what is needed now. They approached us, and we collaborated to organize community economic development and planning leaders to take part in the conference today.”
Among the many speakers on Thursday was Helen Burstyn, Ontario’s special advisor for social enterprise, and the former chairwoman of the Trillium Foundation. She also serves as director of Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Toronto International Film Festival and the Canadian Journalism Foundation, among others.
Local non-profit leaders, such as the Timmins Food Bank and Spruce Hill Lodge, were also on hand to share their challenges and successes.
Carole Belanger, Kidd Operations’ community relations co-ordinator, said the goal of the conference was to connect local social entrepreneurs with experts in the field such as Burstyn.
“It’s great to talk high-level information about sustainability and social enterprise, but we wanted to be able to connect our local non-profit sector with real life examples of how people are doing it,” said Belanger. “People don’t think they can do it, they see it as running a business, and they have all these ideas about social enterprising. That is just one way to achieve sustainability – it may not be the right way for each organization. But this is the beginning of this dialogue, again, which was in direct response to what our local sector have been telling us.
“They’ve been asking, ‘You guys, as funders from the private sector, as well as from the public sector, like the Trillium Fund and others, want us to be sustainable with our projects, but we don’t know what that means.’ We are providing this opportunity to engage the non-profit sector in this type of dialogue to give an opportunity to start developing the skills to become a self-sustaining organizations.”
Another guest speaker, Ethel Côté of the Canadian Centre of Community Renewal, told the crowd that Ontario’s non-profit sector is a giant, $50 billion industry.
Belanger said it’s the responsibility of resource-based companies like Kidd Operations to take the lead on the idea of long-term community sustainability. In her words, it’s “a community commitment that goes beyond the one-time photo op.”
Non-profit “is a sector that hires thousands and thousands of people, and generates billions of dollars of revenue as a sector,” explained Belanger. “We wanted to ensure that, when we reach the end of our life of mine on or around 2020, the non-profit sector here is vibrant and self-sustaining, and not financially dependant on donations all the time to keep going and can continue to do their valuable work and contribute to the long-term well-being of Timmins.”
La Maison Verte in Hearst was represented by guest speaker Manon Cyr on Thursday. Ryner pointed to the organization as a prototype of how non-profit groups can achieve long-term and self-relying success.
La Maison Verte is led by a community women’s group that aims to provide jobs for local women, as well as “grow quality greenhouse plants for reforestation, human consumption and landscaping.”
Over the years, the organization has developed a successful seedling enterprise, which has generated a number of clients and revenue over the years.
However unintended the success of the seedling side-business was for La Maison Verte, Ryner said the project has allowed the organization to expand and fund a number of projects related to its mission.
“That organization has been going for 25 years, in our region in Hearst, and the organization is exemplified in the documentation and the learning models that have been produced to teach social enterprise,” said Ryner. “They actually talk about La Maison Verte, so we’re really privileged to have them here.”
Others involved in setting up Thursday’s conference included the Leadership Training Network, the Timmins Native Friendship Centre, the Cochrane District Social Services Administration Board and the Timmins Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s really exciting,” said Ryner. “Social enterprise really is about blurring those traditional divisions between the private and public sectors. That’s what it’s about.
“It’s really important that, in this day and age, business moves forward with a social conscience, and the people doing social missions need to be doing it in a business-like way. That really describes social enterprise.”
