Over the fall and winter of 2017/2018, a group of social innovation practitioners set out on a listening and learning journey across Canada with a key question: how might we work collaboratively to unlock the potential of social innovation in Canada?

The engagement team heard loud and clear from over 750 practitioners from across communities and sectors from coast to coast: there is a strong desire to better work together, but the field is distributed, disconnected and not very well coordinated. There are bold ideas but they are not scaling. Individuals and organizations working to affect social and environmental change are seeking greater capacity-building and other supports that will help them better align for impact.

Results from the engagement process, summarized in this “Findings from the Field” document, catalyzed the opportunity for this new initiative we’re calling Social Innovation Canada.

This important document is a record of what we saw and heard, and how we got where we are today. A huge thank you to everyone who participated.