Volunteer Canada

For the past few days I have been in the Ottawa area attending the Imagine Canada/Volunteer Canada forum on Business & Community.  During this time I have had the opportunity to meet with social change agents in the non-profit sector and their funders (corporate and government).  While the conversations were interesting the needs of these organizations are great, there was a distinct gap in the dialogue.  I feel that missing from the table were Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (who make up approximately 80% of Canada's business market-place) and For-Profit Social Enterprises (there was representation from non-profit social enterprieses).

I recently tweeted some research that we had done by UnCommon Innovation on the state the financial services sector.  The focus on the study was on how advisors are talking with their clients about charitable giving.  What came out loud and clear is that advisors are looking for tools and resources to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with their clients about philanthropy.  These tools and resources can come from a number of places, the most knowledgeable place would be the charitable sector itself.