Social Enterprises in the Canadian West

Abstract

Western Canada has been the source of significant developments in the social enterprise sector over the past fifteen years. Among these developments one must include the formation of Enterprising Non-Profits in British Columbia, the Social Enterprise Fund in Alberta, and the Canadian CED Network in Manitoba. Underlying these more recent developments is a history of co-operative development and earned revenues by nonprofit organizations, reflecting a longstanding blend of entrepreneurship and community solidarity. This article highlights some of the more recent social enterprise developments in three Western provinces, profiling three independent cases that reflect the diversity of social enterprise activity in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba, and providing the results of social enterprise sector surveys that took place in these same provinces in 2014.