We’re delighted to share our 2016/17 Annual Report.

In the second year of our planned three-year initiative, LEDlab continued our social enterprise incubation program working with community partners ReBuild, The Binners’ Project, Hives for Humanity, and Knack. We also supported a listening project to better understand the needs of low income entrepreneurs and makers. The outcomes from these projects are listed in detail in our annual report.

Outside of our annual cohort program, LEDlab works with a wide network of civic and community partners to identify barriers and potential solutions for systemic innovation. This year we worked closely with the City of Vancouver and more than 30 businesses, residents, and organizations to facilitate the co-creation of the DTES Community Economic Development (CED) Strategy, which was passed by City Council on November 30, 2016. We also partnered with Potluck Cafe on an income assistance policy research project to surface legislative barriers to social hiring and are engaging with the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation about potential solutions.

In 2016/17, LEDlab activities contributed to:

»» 5 Master’s students from 5 disciplines completed 6-8 month internships with DTES non-profit social enterprise initiatives

»» 80 new leads for social enterprise business development

»» $91,815 of income generated for DTES residents

»» 643 hours of training provided directly to DTES residents

»» 58 partnerships formed or relationships strengthened among DTES organizations

»» 9 capacity building workshops engaged 101 participants in 274 hours of programming for social enterprise and nonprofit organizational representatives

»» 133 hours of facilitation and strategic planning support provided to the DTES Community Economic Development Strategic Action Committee and Urban Core

»» $23,000 in kind office, workshop and meeting space sponsorship at SFU’s Charles Chang Innovation Centre benefitted inner city organizations

We hope you find our progress to date interesting. Be sure to sign-up to LEDlab’s Newsletter to stay updated on all our activities!

LEDlab Field Book

We are pleased to announce the publication of the LEDlab Field Book!

This field book looks at the Local Economic Development Lab partnership and funding model, and discusses organizational structure and accountability, budget, and our evaluation framework.

The field book was born from the regular incoming requests for information we receive about our program model. It is intended for universities, municipalities, non-profits and community development organizations that wish to replicate the LEDlab model, which is at its core a university-community partnership that leverages a large Mitacs research grant for social change.

Take a look for yourself and let us know your thoughts!

Be sure to sign-up to LEDlab’s Newsletter to stay updated on all our activities!

Lease Signed on New Income Generation Hub in DTES!

In late February EMBERS was confirmed as the successful new tenant of a City-owned commercial property at 57 East Hastings St. referred to by many in the neighbourhood as “The Lux” space. The Lux property was identified by the City of Vancouver last fall as a site that could be used for a collaborative Income Generating Hub, and was put to an open Request for Proposals process.

Urban Core, a network of more than 40 agencies and non-profit social enterprises, worked with EMBERS to craft the vision for the Income Generating Hub, and joined EMBERS as formal Co-Applicants on the RFP. In fact, Urban Core’s Resource Hub Committee had been working on an Income Generating Hub idea through a volunteer network for more than nine months. The early idea for the Hub came in part from the research study that the Local Economic Development Lab undertook with Urban Core in 2015. A rationale for the Hub was outlined in a Briefing Note from Urban Core to City staff in early 2016.  In October, the Local Economic Development Lab convened a design workshop with Urban Core members to identify what micro-enterprise and employment services might be offered at the Hub.

Moving forward, Urban Core will form an Advisory Committee to support EMBERS in operationalizing the project. Johanna Li, Director of EMBERS Ventures, worked with Urban Core members and potential partners of the Hub during the RFP phase, and will be leading the work of operationalizing the project moving forward.

Below is a short interview with Johanna about the vision for the Hub.

1. What is the innovation happening at the Income Generation Hub?

The vision for EMBERS and Urban Core for the Low-Barrier Income Generation Hub is to create a safe and welcoming space that fills the current gap around employment in the DTES. This Hub will meet people where they are at but will also provide individuals an opportunity to move along the employment continuum should they choose to. Our approach is innovative in its use of multiple partners working in true collaboration using existing programs and expertise to meet the needs of the community while always taking a business approach to these complex problems. EMBERS sees our role in this as curators and connectors. We will harness the vast amount of knowledge and expertise in the community towards meeting our collective goals.

2. What is EMBERS’ role specifically?

As the main operator of the Hub EMBERS’ key roles will be to curate the programming by working with the many partner organizations, finding further funding for program, overseeing onsite staff, creating suitable employment opportunities in the community by working with local businesses, BIAs and community organizations and generally overseeing the daily operations of the Hub.

3. How will this new initiative improve the incomes and lives of DTES residents?

As mentioned there is currently a gap in employment services in the DTES. Many individuals are willing and able to work but not in the typical, mainstream full-time model. The Hub will create opportunities for individuals to earn much needed dollars in ways that suit their current situations. This may mean finding work for someone for 2 hours a week or helping them better sell a product they have created through self-employment training. Being able to earn money and to be connected to community organizations can vastly improve the lives of residents and provide the possibility for them to move along the employment continuum.

4. Why is collaboration so important to the success of the Hub?

Collaboration is key to the success of the Hub as no one organization possesses all the skills, knowledge, expertise and resources to operate such a space all on their own. The DTES community is full of organizations that already do amazing work around creating income generating opportunities for the vulnerable. The role of the Hub will be to pull all of this together under one roof so that all the resources can work together in compliment towards their shared goals. Not only will this reduce redundancy and replication but it will use the power of collective action to ensure the success of the Hub.

5. What are next steps?

The next steps will be to develop the specific programming with our community partners, create the physical space for the Hub and to find further funding to support all of this.

Stay tuned for updates on the new Income Generating Hub over the next few months! We will continue to post updates on the project as it evolves.

Be sure to sign-up to LEDlab’s Newsletter to stay updated on all our activities!

The Evolution of LEDlab

Kiri Bird is Manager of the Local Economic Development Lab, a role she has played since 2015. Kiri was hired for an internship with what would become LEDlab by Ecotrust Canada and RADIUS SFU while completing a Master’s in Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. 

Happy New Year and Welcome, 2017!

Much has changed since I began this journey in January of 2015. I think back to the eight themes that emerged from our early consultation work, which I conducted during my internship with Ecotrust Canada and RADIUS SFU. How many of them still hold true today? How have community needs and priorities changed? How has the lab’s ability to respond to these needs changed?

I love the New Year because it’s a time to pause for reflection and set intentions for what’s to come. Below are my thoughts and reflections on the evolution of our work as we head into the final 18 months of our program.

Where We Are Now

I can’t speak about ‘where we are now’ in January 2017 without acknowledging the devastating gravity of the fentanyl crisis. With more than 755 deaths registered in BC in 2016, the effect is staggering and heartbreaking. Every time I hear an ambulance, I cringe knowing that it is likely responding to an overdose. When I see the number of lives that have been lost, I also wonder how many more lives have been saved thanks to first responders and overdose prevention sites. The DTES Market has been orchestrating an incredible community-driven, crowd-funded response to the opioid crisis. If you don’t know about this important initiative, you can learn more here, and consider donating if you can.

To be perfectly frank: some of our partners working on the front lines report that things in the DTES are getting worse. People seem to be more housing insecure, and more food insecure than a few years ago; Income Assistance rates are stagnant, while the cost of living has increased; the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen in cities across Canada; and the effects of inequality might be showing up most acutely on the streets of neighbourhoods like the DTES.

Despite the gravity of the situation, for those of us working on community economic development in the DTES there is some hopeful energy and good momentum. The newly adopted DTES CED Strategy represents a very important step towards the shift in policy, practice, and culture that needs to take place in order to create opportunities and improve the lives of low-income DTES residents.

One important aspect of the CED Strategy is the future of the committee who co-created the strategy: the CED Strategic Action Committee or CEDSAC. The dedicated committee members who worked on the CED Strategy continue to have discussions about how CEDSAC can develop into an organization that will support and enhance community economic development in the DTES, including implementation of the CED Strategy.

What Changes Have Happened?

The most dramatic changes that I have personally observed and experienced over the last two years are the following:

1. A willingness amongst agencies, social enterprises, and other community groups to work together and collaborate. The structure (more connected) and behaviour (abundance mindset) of the network has changed.
2. New emergent intermediary organizations are forming – that is, organizations working between and amongst community groups and organizations without a personal agenda, that actively facilitate connections and relationships.

The first change can be exemplified by a number of large collaborative grants and RFP responses that have been submitted this year. Broadly speaking, there seems to be recognition that the complex problems we are working on can’t be solved by any one organization. When I first began work in this community I was told repeatedly, “there are people who just don’t work together!” Instead, I now hear, “there’s an energy to work together that hasn’t existed down here for decades!”

The second trend is slightly more nascent (of course there have been intermediaries in the past) but in particular, there are two new groups forming which propose to connect, support, and enhance the work of various agencies, advocacy groups, and community leaders all working towards poverty elimination/social inclusion/a transformed economy in the DTES. One of these is CEDSAC; the other is a proposal for a new collaborative income-generating hub, which recently went to RFP.

LEDlab’s Evolving Role

When we began this work, we were given clear instructions to ‘help put money in the pockets of DTES residents.’ We worked with grassroots organizations like the Binners’ Project and the DTES Market to build and enhance viable options for creating low barrier employment in the neighbourhood. You could say that we dedicated our resources (students, networks, time) to building the capacity of individuals and individual organizations.

As the neighbourhood and system around us evolves, we find that momentum is building around intermediary organizations that are operating at an inter-organizational or institutional scale. I now believe that we can add the most value to the neighbourhood by focusing our resources on these evolving intermediary organizations, and enhancing structures that bridge between sectors, and across scales.

What I know now that I didn’t fully appreciate two years ago, is that creating the systems changes (yes there are multiple) that we hope to see for the DTES will require the whole community. Within the broader movement, it’s important to be able to understand what your unique offering is, and how you add value to the whole. Recently SiG put out an article about ‘Mapping the Field of Systems Change’ that included a schema and a number of definitions for different roles within the field of systems change. Everyone can’t do everything, but we can find ways to meaningfully partner, to specialize, to share information and resources, to help each other understand, and to contribute where it makes sense on an individual and organization level and for the system as a whole.

Our intention for 2017, as we head into our final cohort, is to continue to refine our value proposition to the DTES community. The priority in the coming weeks we will be to ask and listen to what is needed of us, and to act in service of the work that is unfolding. We will remain committed to the co-creation of our program model, and continue to adapt in order to respond to what we are called to do.

Be sure to sign-up to LEDlab’s Newsletter to stay updated on all our activities!