A New Year’s Resolution for Entrepreneurs – Give back!
A New Year’s Resolution for Entrepreneurs – Give back!
Funding earmarked specifically for young entrepreneurs who are ‘socially-minded’
Calgary, Alberta (December 21st, 2011) – The Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) and Trico Charitable Foundation (TCF) have teamed up to help young entrepreneurs become more socially-minded and positively impact their communities.
“The idea is to give young and aspiring entrepreneurs the sense that doing something, no matter how small, that brings benefit to their community is within their grasp whether they run a business of 1 or 100 people,” says Michele Fugiel Gartner, Program Manager of Trico Charitable Foundation.
The Trico Charitable Foundation is supporting CYBF in developing programming and funding for young entrepreneurs who are seeking to incorporate socially-minded values into their business activities and outcomes.
What is socially-minded entrepreneurship? According to Christi Millar, Director of Alberta, CYBF, there is actually a spectrum. “A socially-minded business could be a for-profit business that serves a social need; a for-profit business that encourages or even requires community volunteerism from its staff, or a business that has an ingrained value (and publicly expressed purpose) to giving back to the community financially either altruistically or tied to business outcomes (ie. sales).”
The organization has funded a number of businesses that fall in various areas of that spectrum. DeliverGood (www.delivergood.org) is a for-profit business that matches charities and not-for profits who need ‘stuff’ with people and companies who have ‘stuff.’ Eligeo (www.eligeoit.com) is an IT consulting firm which dedicates human and financial resources for philanthropic efforts, particularly volunteerism. Blanc Cosmetics (www.blanccosmetics.com) donates a portion of each sale to the charity Operation Smile.
Socially-minded entrepreneurship is delivering real, and measurable results not just for the community, but the bottom line for many organizations, says CYBF – whether they are corporate, charitable or somewhere in between.
It’s that ‘in-between’ that was most intriguing to CYBF when they committed to being the medium to recruit, vet and finance for-profit entrepreneurs on Trico Foundation’s behalf through the partnership.
“CYBF doesn’t just look at a potential entrepreneur’s individual bottom line and instead provides our financing based on a full picture including character, not just collateral.” says Millar. “This funding allows us to go even beyond that and extend our funding variables to consider the triple bottom line – which is defined as people, planet and profit.”
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For more information contact:
Ceilidh Price
403-462-7895
ceilidh.price@gmail.com
About The Trico Charitable Foundation
Established in 2008, The Trico Charitable Foundation is dedicated to provoking innovation and building capacity in social entrepreneurship. Through Enterprising Non-Profits Alberta, the Social EnterPrize, and our partnership with the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, we provide education and support for social entrepreneurs – in both the for-profit or non-profit sectors. Our vision is to grow a
community of sustainable, entrepreneurial organizations. For more information please visit www.tricofoundation.ca
About the Canadian Youth Business Foundation
The Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) is the ‘go to’ place for youth entrepreneurship. As a national charity, we are dedicated to growing our nation’s economy one young entrepreneur at a time. We look at character not collateral, when providing youth, age 18-34, with pre-launch coaching, business resources, start-up financing and mentoring, to help them launch and sustain a successful entrepreneurial business. www.cybf.ca
