Together: Respecting the Future is now on-line. http://socialinnovationbc.ca/
You can access and comment on the draft report using Google Docs. To download a full copy of the Draft Recommendations click here.
This draft report represents the current thinking of members of the BC Government’s Advisory Council on Social Entrepreneurship on how best to address our province’s tough social challenges now and in the future. We have chosen Bill Reid's Spirit Canoe as our enabling metaphor. This mythical canoe which is on the back of every twenty dollar bill holds a variety of diverse occupants, not always in harmony, who have to work together to navigate the challenges of their environment.
Here is an excerpt from the opening paragraph:
We are convinced that status quo responses to complex social issues are neither sustainable nor responsible. We believe that transformative change is necessary, but also recognize that there are no simple solutions. We are not experts; however, we have been exploring the nature of the challenges we face and the possibilities for addressing them together. Now it is time to share these ideas with you and invite you to be involved in this journey to discover and uncover positive ways forward.
The Advisory Council has identified three critical areas for consideration:
- Bridging across all sectors: To find solutions we require deliberate collaboration and collective actions. Let’s combine our problem-solving abilities with discipline and intentionality and make sure our diverse perspectives, skills, resources and experience come together on shared projects. The onus cannot simply be on one sector or one group to figure it out.
- Using money wisely: Let’s get serious about funding social innovation, diversifying our revenue sources and leveraging existing resources to find, implement and spread ground-breaking solutions. We need to attract new funds to scale up proven solutions, and to develop more robust systems to measure the effectiveness of our solutions.
- Engaging everyone: Let’s encourage all British Columbians to contribute their best ideas and then support them to test, prove, implement and spread the most promising ones. Local knowledge and individual ingenuity among young and old is the “x” factor. Let’s usher in a renaissance of problem solving across the generations to eliminate our toughest challenges, prevent them from happening again so we can attend to new and emerging ones
The website also offers a Resource Section plus a Primer on Social Innovation prepared by James Tansey a member of the Advisory Council.
Whether you live in BC or elsewhere your comments are most welcome and will be considered for the final draft which is due March 31st, 2012.
Related Posts:
BC Government Establishes Advisory Council on Social Innovation.
