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FEBRUARY 2019 BCBUSINESS 43 P H I L A N T H R O P Y SOURCE: THE GIVING GAP: WHAT STOPS CANADIANS FROM DONATING MORE TO CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS?, ANGUS REID INSTITUTE G O O D I N T E N T I O N S Almost one third of Canadians believe they should be contributing more to charity, according to a 2017 survey of some 2,000 people Thinking overall about your level of financial donations for charitable causes, which of the fol- lowing best describes how you feel? n I'm comfortable with my level of charitable contributions n I probably spend too much giving money to charitable causes n I feel I should be doing more to support chari- table causes 65% 30% 4% a philanthropic facilitator network, to Ryan Holmes, founder of Vancouver-based social media management firm Hootsuite. (In 2017, Holmes and Padda joined forces in the League of Innovators, a national charity that is essen- tially a business incubator for young entrepreneurs.) "We're building things using a business model to make the world a better place," he says, smiling. "As my kids are growing, I see that there's a bigger purpose than just me and making capital. I find that it's easy to put these pieces in place while you're building a business." While impact investing is growing in popularity, so is another related model for blending business prin- ciples with social good: the social enterprise, a sort of boots-on-the-ground version of the new philanthropy— except that it's not really new at all. For years, non-profit organizations like Goodwill Industries International and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul have resold used clothing and other household items to fund their out- reach programs; the YMCA and YWCA are engaged in similar pursuits. So what exactly is a social enter- prise? "For me," says Marcia Nozick, CEO of EMBERS, a non-profit based in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, "a social enterprise is a business whose purpose is to produce good. It has a double bottom line: a social and an economic mission." Founded in 2001 by Nozick, a for- mer Winnipeg music instructor and the author of No Place Like Home: Building Sustainable Communities, EMBERS was initially set up as a staffing agency serv- ing the temporary employment needs of some of the city's more difficult-to- place residents. "The idea came from a community member who said, 'All of my friends go to these temp companies and they're exploited. They pay them minimum wage. Then they charge them for boots and they charge them for travel,'" Nozick recalls. "At the end of the day, they're lucky to get $40." Working mostly with construction companies, EMBERS Staffing Solutions provides labour, charging the firms and directly paying their clients a decent wage—workers draw an actual paycheque, not a watered-down per diem. "It was a community solution to a social problem," Nozick says, "but it was also a business solution for us." Although it had been used in the U.S., EMBERS's initial model was a first in Canada. It can claim a measur- able impact: in 2017, EMBERS Staffing Solutions found temporary work for 1,900 clients, paying out $6.4 million in wages and benefits. (Nozick and her 30- member team also provide venture capital for fledgling east-side entrepreneurs—called the EMBERS Venture Program, it's helped kick-start roughly 800 small businesses—and are partnering with Corrections Canada to help recently released prisoners move back into the workforce.) There's a soft Calvinist underpinning to Nozick's approach. "I feel that nothing is worth anything unless you sacrifice," she says. Even if a client is on welfare, EMBERS charges a nominal fee for participating in its Build a Business course, for example. "Work itself is a transfor- mative process," Nozick asserts. "I think working is really important for people, and not just for the income. It gives a sense of purpose. It builds self-esteem, competency." Her clients need "skin in the game," she says. So does Nozick: EMBERS rolls all profits back into its programs. M I X E D M E S S A G I N G Not everyone embraces philanthro- capitalism. Critics contend that quan- tifying social good is difficult, maybe impossible; even trying to assess a measurable social impact can be a problem. Another pitfall: off-loading social service delivery onto the private sector absolves government of its his- torical responsibility—an attitude that some feel underlies a stark difference in giving patterns between Americans and Canadians. By now, it's a cliché: in return for paying higher tax rates, Canadians expect government to provide a robust social safety net; our southern neigh- bours don't necessarily have those expectations. Whatever the underly- ing reasoning, Americans out-donate Canadians two to one as a percentage of gross domestic product. For Canada's roughly 86,000 reg- istered charities, this is hardly cause for celebration. According to 30 Years of Giving in Canada, a joint 2018 report issued by the Rideau Hall Foundation and Imagine Canada, a nationwide advocacy group for charities, the outlook is bleaker than ever before. Donation rates are falling, and the newest generation is less likely to give to charity. But when it comes to those in their 20s and early 30s, that may not tell the whole story. "I see a very engaged NUMBERS MAY NOT ADD UP TO 100 DUE TO ROUNDING