Logo and graphic design development for BC Social Enterprise Network

Positions available: 1The goal of this project is to develop logos, letterhead, email signatures, and promotional material for the BC Social Enterprise Network, and its October conference in Vancouver: the BC Social Enterprise Summit. Social enterprises are revenue-generating businesses with a twist. We define social enterprises as businesses that sell products or services in the marketplace to achieve social, cultural, or environmental purposes. They reinvest their profits to maximize their social mission and are democratically controlled by their members. Social enterprises may be operated by non-profit organizations, charitable organizations, co-operatives, or other social-purpose businesses. Visit the Canadian Social Enterprise Directory for examples. The BC Social Enterprise Network is an open, not for profit and non-governmental association of social enterprise practitioners and their organizations. We meet virtually to share practices and developments, peer learning, and discuss building the sector and its eco-system. The BC Social Enterprise Summit will focus on an inclusive, strategic discussion to unite and build the social enterprise sector, with representatives of Indigenous, rural, and urban communities from all regions of BC; and with an outreach strategy to achieve cohesion beyond the Vancouver event. This will involve virtual sessions convened by specific regions, before and after Summit day. There will also be a tour of social enterprises based in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Online Legal Structures 'Wizard' for Social Enterprise

Positions available: 1 ‘Social enterprise’, for the purpose of this specific project: - is an ongoing business venture that sells a good and/or service; is created with a primary aim of achieving an environmental, social, and/or cultural impact; and operates in Canada. The goal of the project is to produce an online 'wizard' that assists Canadian non-profits and charities to choose an appropriate legal structure for their social enterprise. By answering a series of clear and concise questions, the users will be working through a decision tree that results in a recommendation regarding the optimal legal structure to house their venture. The content for the wizard will be supplied to the student. The wizard will be housed on the website centreforsocialenterprise.com Students focused in these study areas would add value to the project: - Website coding and application design.

Promotion of National Social Enterprise Directory (Level UP)

Positions available: 1‘Social enterprise’, for the purpose of this specific project: - is an ongoing business venture that sells a good and/or service; is created with a primary aim of achieving an environmental, social, and/or cultural impact; and operates in Canada. We are in the process of creating a website that acts as an online searchable Canadian directory of social enterprises. Users will be able to search the directory by location, social cause, and other characteristics: 1. as a shopper, to find goods and services being offered by social enterprises e.g. someone wants to buy baked goods from an Edmonton bakery that is also hiring folks with employment challenges; and/or 2. as a social enterprise, to network with others in their field e.g. a bakery social enterprise in Edmonton wants to connect with another social enterprise bakery in Canada to chat about a specific challenge or to trade best practices, key suppliers, etc To enhance this project, we seek a social media savvy person to promote the Directory to Canadian social enterprises so that they can add their venture to this free online directory. We would also like the student to draft email templates that we can use to promote the project to organizations so that they can share the news with their own non-profit membership base. If there is time, we would appreciate a plan on how to reach out to potential social enterprise customers, so that they can connect with and use the Directory once we have a critical mass of social enterprises listed in the Directory. Students focused in these study areas would add value to the project: Marketing and communications / Social media.This work would be supported by the Executive Director of the BC Centre for Social Enterprise, via Zoom, phone, and email.

Online National Social Enterprise Directory (Level UP)

Positions available: 3 ‘Social enterprise’, for the purpose of this specific project: - is an ongoing business venture that sells a good and/or service; is created with a primary aim of achieving an environmental, social, and/or cultural impact; and operates in Canada. The goal of the project is to produce a website that acts as an online searchable Canadian directory of social enterprises. Users will be able to search the directory by location, social cause, and other characteristics: 1. as a shopper, to find goods and services being offered by social enterprises e.g. someone wants to buy baked goods from an Edmonton bakery that is also hiring folks with employment challenges; and/or 2. as a social enterprise, to network with others in their field e.g. a bakery social enterprise in Edmonton wants to connect with another social enterprise bakery in Canada to chat about a specific challenge or to trade best practices, key suppliers, etc Because there are no resources to support the website after launch, it will be designed to enable the social enterprises themselves to update and enhance their own listings. A best practice in this area is ‘Google My Business’. The website will be user-friendly, attractive, and responsive to PC’s and mobile devices. It will be powered by a database infrastructure that is robust enough to handle future growth in the number of active social enterprise listings and future search fields; and have the ability to easily import existing social enterprise data from commonly used databases. The front end of the site will include a verification system to block spamming, and to deter entities that are not social enterprises from adding their own directory listing. Students focused in these study areas would add value to the project: - Website design - Databases and coding - Marketing and communications (including SEO) . In order to enhance the project and provide meaningful support and learning opportunities to the students, experts from a company that pre-dates Google -- 1st on the List Promotion Inc. – will lead a Guidance Committee. This volunteer Committee will be available at key points in the planning and implementation process to provide feedback to the students in areas such as: - URL and platform choice - user interface considerations - search engine optimization - website security - general design and functionality - scale- and compatibility-related tech decision points Also supporting the project on a pro bono basis is Matt Ros, a Vancouver-based software engineer who currently works for Rise People, where he helps to build Human Resources software for small businesses. Matt holds a degree in Computer Science from Duke University.