Jan 10: Innovating for Social Good

On Tuesday, Jan 10 Art Sampson introduced the speaker Randy Hendriks (but not before he apologized for being late). 

Randy has had an interesting career. He is presently Executive Director, Social Impact Enterprises at Innovation Factory where he provides “oversight and guidance to Social Impact Enterprises ongoing projects, organization team members, impactstore.ca, non-profits and social enterprise consulting clients, and grass-roots community groups seeking mentoring and guidance.” 

Randy's path to this position has been interesting. He did Civil Engineering at Mohawk College before getting a Bachelor of Theology degree at the University of Ottawa and then a Doctorate in Theology at Acadia University. Along the way he was a campus chaplain and a pastor before working with Wells of Hope in Niagara. At Wells of Hope he often dealt with the Rotary Club of Niagara on the Lake. 

Randy spoke to us about business models for Social Innovation where common good is a key component of a company's operations . Examples include the Gameen bank which makes micro loans to women and the local 541 Eatery & Exchange which uses a button system to allow customers to pay meals forward.

He spoke about new funding options for social enterprises including crowd funding and the SVX stock exchange. In the new models for successful innovation, enterprises need to be sustainable, have measureable goals, have partners and be fiscally prudent.