Over the last 5 years, our success in finding high quality, loyal and productive community hires for our franchise clients has led us to ask ourselves 2 questions. First, "Why shouldn't our goal at SCP be to have every medium and large sized corporation implement a community hiring program as a fundamental part of their recruitment strategy for entry-level employees?"; and second, "What needs to change to make this happen?"

The answer to the first question is easy. This is our new aspiration. We are inspired by the possibility and the impact that would be created for job ready individuals who face employment barriers if every company adopted a community hiring approach in their hiring practices. Our challenge over the next ten years is to make this aspiration a reality.

The answer to the second question is of course much more difficult, but we believe it comes down to accomplishing two things. First of all, we have to prove the business case to employers. Instead of employers doing this for philanthropic or corporate social responsibility reasons, we believe community hiring yields numerous business benefits by enabling companies to access an untapped labour pool of more loyal and productive employees who are grateful for the opportunity they've been given. As a result of these learnings, we are now working with 3 large FP 500 customers on a community hiring pilot project (described here on our website) that we think will provide us with the hard data to prove this belief.

Second, we have to make a community hiring program much easier for companies to implement. Currently in Ontario, employment placement services for community hires are delivered through 1,200 fragmented community service agencies. That number multiplies significantly for all of Canada. That means if you are a large bank or corporation with multiple office locations across the country, you have to deal with a different community agency in every location to meet your hiring requirements. This is a very unwieldy, costly and ineffective way to find quality employees.

In the short run, as part of the community hiring pilot, we can solve this challenge by providing corporations with a single point of contact for all of their community hiring needs across multiple locations - thereby relieving them of the burden of developing separate programs at each location. In the long run (meaning the next ten years) we will work closely with community employment service organizations, the government, and other workforce solution providers to deliver a much more efficient and scalable delivery channel for corporations to participate in community hiring.

While it may take us the next ten years to accomplish these goals, we believe the end result --- hundreds of thousands of job opportunities for disadvantaged populations --- will make it all worthwhile.

Community Hiring: The Business Case from Social Capital Partners on Vimeo.

Community hiring is one of the most interesting trends in the area of corporate responsibility. Simply put, it is the practice of employing job-ready individuals who have experienced difficulty entering the workforce.

Bill Young, President of Toronto-based Social Capital Partners is a pioneer in this area and also the subject of the most recent episode of Corporate Responsibility with Impakt. The video features Bill explaining what community hiring is, how it works, and why it’s valuable for businesses. It also illustrates community hiring in action at Active Green + Ross and a self assessment questionnaire developed by Social Capital Partners to help franchised businesses assess their readiness to implement a community hiring program.

"It is exciting for SCP to be a part of the Corporate Responsibility with Impakt video series. I see this as an opportunity for Canadian business leaders and franchisors to learn about the value of community hiring, and see it as we do – a win for the business and for the community,” says Mr. Young, featured in the video.

“In continuing this initiative with Grand & Toy, our goal is to showcase – in a practical, user-friendly way – leading examples of innovation, trends and best practices in CSR,” says Paul Klein, Founder of Impakt and host of the series. ”We believe this second video will be a useful tool for HR managers and other organizational leaders looking to improve the business performance of their organizations in a way that also supports the community.”

About Impakt: Impakt was founded in 2001 to help corporations align business and social outcomes. Its services include developing social purpose programs, building and optimizing partnerships between corporations and non-profit organizations, and benchmarking and leveraging strategic partnerships. For more information visit: www.impaktcorp.com

Two social entrepreneurs that SCP has worked closely with over the few years have been recognized for their leadership in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2010 awards.

Janice Abbott of Atira Property Management was named recognized as the Ernst & Young Social Entrepreneur Of The Year 2010 for the Pacific region.

For more information on the Pacific Awards, see this press release and this news article from BC Business Online.

 
Marty Donkervoort from Inner City Development receives Special Recognition in the category of Prairie Finalist for Entrepreneur Of The Year 2010.

For more information on the Prarie Awards, visit the E&Y website.

An article in Yonge Street Media describes how Bill Young established SCP, and references our evolution and current work with franchises and large corporations.

2010 has been an exciting year for SCP thus far, and this newsletter includes:

• video and written profiles of an Active Green and Ross franchise owner and employee
• our second blog series on "How We Do What We Do"
• a video of a talk on SCP's successes, failures, and lessons
• a paper on some of SCP's most important learnings from working with social enterprises
• video discussion with myself, Paul Martin and John Tory
• a quick update on recent operational developments

In the last year, Doug Moody has expanded his business, garnered positive press for implementing a community hiring program into the AG+R franchises he owns, and has finally begun to feel rewarded by his work.

At the same time, Lee Johnson is building a promising career as a trained mechanic.

From helping Doug integrate a social component into the very core of his business to bolstering the career of a young mechanic, read about the range of impacts Social Capital Partners has had on these two lives.

In a engaging eight minute interview with CBC, Bill Young explains each chapter of the SCP history and the learning outcomes that have emerged from each. In explaining how market forces can be harnessed to solve structural social challenges, Bill asserts that "this is not altrusim...this is about a business opportunity that does good at the same time. Right now, the dots haven't been connected yet. We need to rethink the system."

Listen

Elisa Birnbaum from SEECHange Magazine interviews Bill Young on his motivations for founding SCP, and the opportunities and issues along the way.

Bill Young is not your momma’s chartered accountant. For one thing, he’s funny. For another, he actually jumped that ship early, spending 20 years in the private sector at the helm of highly successful entrepreneurial organizations. In 2001, he decided to do something completely different. Setting out to prove that market forces can effect social change, that hybrid businesses - boasting social and financial missions - can provide employment opportunities for people facing barriers, he started Social Capital Partners.

Bill spoke at the MaRS Discovery District on March 3rd 2010 about SCP's experiences over the last decade of trying to grow and develop the field of social enterprise in Canada. He covered SCP's successes, its failures, the lessons learned along the way and what we hope to accomplish over the next ten years.