A message of advice caught our attention in a report of new social housing under construction in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
As a framework for the enterprises that have combined to finance and build the housing, the executive director of a charity states (heavily paraphrased): “If your personal dream is to start a charity, don’t rush in. It’s expensive and you probably don’t need to do it.”
U. S. President George H.W. Bush’s famous phrase “a thousand points of light” captures the wish of “small” government politics1 to praise at least, if not fiscally support, free enterprise social/charitable objectives.
Unfortunately, concerns for the abuse of charitable status causes governments everywhere to govern how a legally constituted charity operates. They do so by imposing strict — and potentially expensive — controls and oversight.
Against these constraints is an impetus for “small” governments to make it easier for charitably-minded individuals and groups to lift social responsibilities away from government, either partially or entirely.
In Canada, the federal government has helpfully outlined a range of possible individual and group initiatives that can be wrapped into the term “social enterprise,” laying out how a legally constituted charity is but one end of a chain of possibilities. Read more at this Government of Canada website: Start, build, and grow a social enterprise
In Winnipeg, Executive Director Tyler Pearce explains how a carefully crafted legal relationship can allow mutually-supporting and productive relationships between two or more social enterprises. Pearce’s charity, Local Investment Toward Employment (LITE) is managing the fund raising end of things. In turn those funds are being used to support Purpose Construction, a social enterprise, which is providing hands-on practical training in the building trades.
Who might find “social partners” thinking useful?
As noted at the Canadian federal website, the range of social enterprises is by no means standardized across a country of provinces, which have individual authority over aspects of business entities. Within the U.S., the term “social enterprise” is also used with familiarity, though inevitably involving businesses with different legal structures.
Cross the Atlantic, and the phrase “social enterprise” seems little used, if at all. But the use of phrases such “public private partnerships” in the homebuilding industry implies similar legal advantages that can be crafted between partners with at least some shared charitable intent.
Read more in the Winnipeg Free Press: Cash infuses social housing project
