SCP brokers relationships and connects the dots between the private and not-for-profit sectors, in order to increase pathways to jobs for people who have experienced barriers to employment.

We do this by bridging the needs of:

• Companies that want to benefit the community, while also growing their business; and
• Community employment service agencies  that support people who have experienced barriers to employment, but are now motivated, trained and ready to work.

To date SCP has done this in three ways:

Social Enterprises:

In our first phase (2001-2006), SCP focused on facilitating financing for, and helping launch and scale up start-up social enterprises (businesses with a social and financial bottom line) which had a specific mandate to hire from groups that were disadvantaged in the labour market. During this period we helped successfully establish 4 social enterprises that continue to grow and remain profitable today.
In 2006, with the goal of creating access to even more jobs, we switched our focus to the Franchise Strategy, which led to the creation of the Franchise Community Hiring Program and our Corporate Community Hiring pilot.

Franchise Program:

Since 2006, SCP has facilitated access to low-interest, socially adjusted financing for franchisees that integrate a social mission into their HR strategy by hiring through community Employment Service Organizations (ESOs). ESOs provide training and employment preparation services to individuals who have been out of the labour market, but are now motivated and ready to work. These agencies also provide candidate screening and referral services for employers.

Corporate Community Hiring Pilot:

Based on our learnings from the Franchise Program, in the spring of 2010, SCP launched a Corporate Community Hiring pilot initiative,  targeted at larger companies. For the next 18 months SCP will be working with 3 of Canada’s largest employers in order to test the feasibility of integrating a community hiring mandate into their HR practice.