In case you’re interested in how I stumbled on this cool link, I came via Good.is, then Paper Feet, then Sparkseed.

The Internet is cool.

The success and energy created by Venture4change raised an issue that’s important to socially-minded companies and non-profit organizations alike:

How do we keep the momentum of an event going?

How do we connect and collect the ideas that were generated?

How do we turn them into action?

This community was created to solve that challenge.

Join, make friends, share ideas, contribute!

Here’s what you can do

• Join a forum or group and discuss ideas related to Venture4Change…or to any topic you choose. Don’t see what you’re looking for? create a group
• See someone you know? Make friends. Don’t know me? Make friends anyway. I’m pretty nice.
• Check the activity stream to see what people are talking about
• Add your own blog post or leave comments on what others have written

This site isn’t bug free so please don’t hesitate to let us know if something isn’t working, or if you need help. We’ll keep working to improve and upgrade the site in the coming months, and we expect a big announcement for Capacity Waterloo in the near future as well!

Thanks for visiting!

Trevor

• 67% of Canadian consumers expect businesses to integrate good causes into their day-to-day operations
• 62% of Canadian consumers would switch brands to help support a good cause
• The top 3 causes people care about? The environment, healthcare, and reducing poverty. The lowest? Supporting the arts.
• 59% of Canadian consumers said they are more likely to recommend a brand that supports a good cause than one that doesn’t. That’s up 12% from last year.
• 87% of Canadian consumers would prefer a brand that helps support the livelihood of local producers versus a “designer brand”
• 61% of people say they have taken action because they have been influenced by their children or other people’s children (2008 study).

The report studied 6,000 people in 10 countries, including Canada.

Looking at the country-by-country breakdown is interesting. Question after question, Brazil and India led the way in their social purpose preferences. The U.K. and Germany were lowest but Canada wasn’t far behind.

The stats are good news for businesses but there are lessons here for non-profits too. NGOs are now brands themselves: Product (RED), Greenpeace, WWF, United Way, Care, Habitat for Humanity, Oxfam. They’re global NGOs with big resources but smaller non-profits can build equally effective brands on a local scale. Actually, they have to to rise above the noise. That was the big take-away from Tony’s talk.

“It’s not enough to have a really important mission and a deep passion for it,” says Tony, head of JWT Canada, co-founder of Brandaid Project, and self-confessed “soulmate” of social entrepreneurs. That’s absolutely essential. Don’t go anywhere without it. But in an incredibly noisy marketplace, you need to think and act like a brand. It’s what will make your venture succeed, or fail.

Tony is a big believer that there is a substantial, in-demand marketplace and opportunity for social ventures. Companies are spending money, resources and time figuring it out and getting in to it. But it’s competitive, and non-profit and social ventures need to think like a competitor.

“If I were your agency, I would be asking some very tough questions,” says Tony. “Do you really, really know what you stand for? What is disruptive and unique about your idea and your model? Have you really captured what’s better and different? Have you crystallized that into a compelling brand idea and story? Are you able to work with this and bring the idea alive every time out?” The ability to answer these questions, Tony says, is a huge predictor of success.

Other highlights from the talk:

• Brand ideas are the lifeblood of advertising, and of social ventures
• Consumers are rebelling. They’re now in control of the media and of what they’ll engage in. They have forever changed the way we market.
• People are spending more time online than watching TV
• Business has a role to play in how things can evolve. Tony says part of his personal mission is to “accelerate and catalyze change so it actually sticks.”
• Companies are looking for really important, smart and interesting social change ideas and social ventures to get involved with. But they are going to be doing fewer, bigger things.
• Doing good is competitive – NGOs and new ideas surface every 5 minutes
• -Go ahead – appeal to the emotions. “We make decisions on how we feel and THEN we rationalize.” Build emotional capital if you’re going to build financial capital.

I found JWT’s rebranding for STAND Canada very moving (check out STAND’s video). It’s a great rebranding example (though it would be great to see what STAND’s marketing was like before the rebrand). Tony says STAND was suffering from a failure to crystallize what they stood for. The video was about bringing a story to life, shaking people up, and making it impossible to ignore. A good visual of branding in action.

There’s more to come on Tony’s presentation. Up next: the market for social change

Brandaid started in Haiti and the recent earthquake had a huge impact on Brandaid artisans. Come hear how Brandaid is responding to the challenge.

We’ve all heard some of their fun and famous flavours – Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – but Ben & Jerry’s is perhaps as well known for its focus on doing business while doing good. Community action, sustainable and safe food production, Peace Pops, and the PartnerShop Program. All part of the ice cream maker’s social mission, which has been part of its three-part mission statement since the ’80’s.

“If you open up the mind, the opportunity to address both profits and social conditions are limitless,” Jerry has said. “It’s a process of innovation.” Business as a Tool for Social Change: An Afternoon of Radical Business Philosophy with Jerry Greenfield will be a tribute to innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit, full of anecdotes and the radical business philosophy that is at the heart of Ben & Jerry’s.