On Monday morning, I had scrambled eggs for the first time in a long time! Why was I having special food? Because I accepted the invitation from Social Traders, QSEC and Impact Boom spend time in conversation with David LePage!

David LePage is a serial social entrepreneur. He’s currently the co-founder, Director and Managing Partner of Buy Social Canada. But he is also the designer, and was the initial Executive Director of Community Impact Real Estate (CIRE). He is a founding partner of the Social Enterprise Institute (SEI). David is also a Principal with Accelerating Social Impact (ASI), one of Canada’s first ever hybrid social enterprise corporations. So he has a wealth of experience on which he can draw to share some great insights.

things social enterprise needs to thrive!

The key insight from David’s key note were the six things he believed social enterprise needs to thrive. These are:

Business acumen
Social value finance
Access to markets
Measurement of impact
Networks of social entrepreneurs and supporters
Supportive public policy

I think he is spot on with his assessment because the world is about systems. You need to put the right systems in place for social enterprise to thrive. The panel that followed the keynote echoed the sentiment.

In addition to David LePage, the panel consisted of Social Traders’s David Brookes, Food Connect and QSEC’s Emma-Kate Rose, and English Family Foundation’s Belinda Morrissey. The conversation was moderated by Impact Boom’s very own Tom Allen.

The presence of Tom should be a clue that I was not the only person from Impact Boom Cohort of 2019 at the breakfast. So we had a bit of a reunion!