On May 29th, those of us in the first cohort of social entrepreneurs at the School for Social Entrepreneurs-Ontario (SSE-O) will graduate. That means a graduation ceremony, which of course gives all of us graduates a chance to invite some friends and family. For me, this presents a really interesting opportunity. Last June, I was in the audience when my twin fourteen-year-olds graduated from middle school. Next month, they get to come cheer on mom.

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both” -- L.P Jack

Gendered pronouns aside, the quote above serves as an excellent example of that certain type of inspiration that leads to novel ideas.

Selling is at the heart of any successful business.

This doesn’t happen very often, but our entire family spent much of this weekend reading and making plans; plans for getting back into the studying groove now that Spring Break is over, plans for summer vacation (can father and kids still do the annual canoe trip to Algonquin?) and for me, plans to test a second social enterprise idea. It was this idea that led to me doing some intensive reading, and while doing this reading I noticed an interesting pattern. We talk about a lot of things in the social enterprise space, but one thing we don’t talk about is selling.

Although we may have many varying definitions of social enterprise around the world, they all share a basic purpose: to operate a business that creates a blended-value outcome. They seek both financial success and social impact. It’s a business venture addressing a social, cultural or environmental issue!

If we can begin by agreeing on that basic premise, and if we can agree that social enterprises are created to contribute to healthy local economies and communities, then we should be able to agree that social enterprise is not just about the object, it’s about the activity it generates. It’s all about the impact; it’s viewing social enterprise as a means. It’s a verb not a noun!

If you’re a social enterprise operating in Canada, whether as an individual sole proprietor, partnership or an incorporated company, you need to be thinking about HST.

What is HST?

HST is a sales tax that you collect on behalf of the government. It is NOT income tax or corporate tax. Those are separate types of tax that you pay on your profits.

So many organizations are still challenged to measure outcomes. Despite much interest, activity and outputs-based evaluation remains the norm. Knowing this, does encouraging the next step, i.e. valuing outcomes in financial terms, really seem like the right thing to do?

Use this 7-point checklist when seeking feedback.

Our cohort of fellowship students at Toronto’s School for Social Entrepreneurs recently had the opportunity to do our second round of Dragons' Den-type pitches to teams of business leaders assembled by the school. I’m just reading the feedback now. This got me thinking about feedback in general. More specifically, it got me thinking about how to optimize the experience of seeking feedback as a new social entrepreneur.

Part 4 of Mike's 5-part leadership series

Collaboration has surely become one of the all-time great buzzwords. Seemingly everyone aspires to be collaborative. Unfortunately, for every successful collaboration, there are dozens of "partnerships" and "alliances" that fail to achieve their potential.

In this fourth part of our series on social enterprise leadership, we share insights into how great coalitions are developed, and how they can provide structure to implement diverse strategies simultaneously, and the resilience to undertake long-term, complex projects—typical of those undertaken by social enterprises.

You’ve got a great idea for a business that would help make the world a better place. Or you think your nonprofit could sell some services to bring in additional revenue. In other words, you might have a social enterprise in the making. But where do you start?

In Ottawa, you start with the Collaborative for Innovative Social Enterprise Development (CISED). CISED helps individuals and organizations at every stage of their social enterprise, linking them with advice, training, financing and technical resources.

You might say Heather Johnstone is your typical Vancouver North Shore anthropologist-turned-farmer-turned-social-entrepreneur. Only she doesn’t quite see herself that way. “I’m a farmer,” laughs Johnstone, who’s been managing the North Shore Neighourhood Houses’s Edible Garden Project for the last three years, “not a business person.”

And then she proceeds to casually mention her goal to have her project’s social enterprise, the Loutet Farm, “sustainably self-sustaining within five years,” tossing in words like “break-even” and “profit margin” in the same breath. Despite her protestation, it turns out Johnstone’s got some social venture chops after all.