From Canada with love

Posted by Brenton Caffin on 9 April 2010 | 0 Comments
Tags: Social innovation, Canada, public policy,

Social innovation with lashings of maple syrup. CEO Brenton Caffin gets up close and personal with social innovation and public policy in Canada... and discovers we've got a lot to share and a lot to learn.

Social innovation – the art of finding new ways to address unmet social needs – is not a new phenomenon; society has been innovating ever since we harnessed fire, created cities, developed agriculture and invented the wheel.

In recent years, there has been a renewed focus on new ways in which society can explore new solutions to its many challenges. Governments around the world are increasingly keen to understand the role of public policy in supporting greater social innovation.

So it was that in late March I attended an international roundtable on social innovation in Ottawa, courtesy of the Canadian Government. The hosts were the Policy Research Initiative (an internal government think-tank) and the Public Policy Forum (a cross-sectoral forum for discussing major policy issues). The roundtable was a response to Canada’s Federal Ministers’ growing interest in social innovation and the need therefore to understand what could be done to support its growth and development.

Attending were around 30 senior leaders from the public and not-for-profit sectors, academics and social entrepreneurs. A small number of international visitors were also invited to share their experiences, including Christian Bason (MindLab, Denmark), Louise Pulford (Social Innovation Exchange/Young Foundation, UK), Colleen Ebinger (RootCause, US), Pierre Valette (European Commission) and myself.

The key questions for the day included: What is social innovation? How does social innovation arise? What roles are played by the various sectors, including Government? What can be done at an institutional level to improve the chances of success?

Tim Draimin, Executive Director of Social Innovation Generation (SiG) Canada has posted an excellent summary of the day’s discussion here.

It was encouraging to see such a high-level and cross-sectoral group dedicate a significant amount of time and effort not only to understand the issues and concepts, but to grapple with the more applied task of working out what could be done to facilitate the growth of a social innovation ecosystem in Canada.

It was recognised that social innovation is an important means by which we can explore, refine and scale business models that reconcile our social, economic, cultural and environmental needs. The challenge for government is to evolve its role from direct service provision to becoming both an enabler and commissioner of outcomes. Giving other sectors – especially the third sector - the time, resources and latitude to experiment with new models will be critical.

There are some interesting lessons for those of us dedicated to promoting social innovation at a national level. We need to operate at two levels: at ground level, we need to support the growth of individual innovations and innovators as and where we find them – this is in part what our Bold Ideas, Better Lives Challenge is all about. However just as important is the work that is required at a policy level to create the infrastructure to make social innovation more impactful; the tax environment, new legal and corporate structures, finance for social innovation, social procurement, to name but a few. Some of these issues were canvassed here in Australia in the recent Productivity Commission report into the role of the Not-for-Profit Sector and in the recent announcement by the Federal Government to provide $7.5 million to pilot approaches for developing a Community Development Financial Institution sector in Australia. Meanwhile, together with colleagues we are exploring issues around tax-deductible status for social innovation organisations here in Australia.

It is great to see the Canadians beginning to wrestle earnestly with these policy questions as we and many other countries do the same. Canada and Australia have a strong tradition of collaboration and knowledge sharing given the many parallels between our two jurisdictions. I look forward to continued dialogue as we share our learning about what works.