The University of Waterloo’s Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation is a partnership between leading academics, experts from the public, private, and community sectors from across the country, and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. Nominations are now being accepted for participation in the program’s 2013-2014 offering, whose theme is Young Canadians Innovating for a Resilient Canada.

It will be focused on, but not limited to, individuals aged 22-35 with experience as change-makers, and who want to learn to work for broad system change (political, economic, legal, education, environmental, social, etc). Together, this cohort will collaborate to more deeply understand our national systems, to identify key challenges, and to develop social innovation strategies that can move social and environmental systems in positive directions.

Nominees may come from the private, public, or community sectors, and must have a clear passion for change, a tolerance for risk, a deep appreciation for collaboration, a high interest in learning, and a strong desire for action. If you know someone who fits this profile, please consider nominating them for a spot in this sought after program.

For program information, please click here.

Read the full article here.

“Innovation is not easy. It takes resources – resources that community organizations are rarely able to divert from their programming. Too many don’t have the time to stop or slow down the train, despite the fact that there may be a better route than the one that they are taking. They aren’t able to check if they running on low-efficient fuel, or passing right by their destination. Some aren’t even clear exactly what the destination is, even if they know that it’s somewhere to the North, or South of where they are today.  Finally, when passionate, hardworking leaders do squeeze out the time to look beyond their latest crisis, they often find so many options and choices on how to do things better that it can be almost overwhelming. Some may ask themselves: Where should I start? What option is best for us? How do I decide? Or even, How do I make this this happen?”

To access the full blog post, click here.

On November 2, Social Innovation Generation and Frances Westley—the JW McConnell Chair in Social Innovation at the University of Waterloo and the co-Founder of the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience—launch Inspiring Action for Social Impact Series, a new webinar series focusing on Canadian ideas in social innovation.

• November 2: Frances Westley on Social Innovation and Resilience
• November 9: Stephen Huddart on Managing Social Innovation
• November 16: Allyson Hewitt on Shared Value & what it means for the non-profit sector
• November 23: Cheryl Rose on Community-University Partnerships
• November 30: Tim Draimin on Supporting global learning: Australia/Canada social innovation synergies
• December 7: Al Etmanski on Natural Care
• December 13: Tim Brodhead on Key trends in philanthropy for grant seekers from a SI perspective (Note: this event takes place on a Tuesday)
• December 20: Dr. Ilse Treurnicht on Upcoming Trends in Innovation

If you are seeking creative solutions to big problems, open to exploring and utilizing multiple and cross-cutting perspectives, and eager to develop the habits of thought and strategic skills necessary to make transformative change possible, this program was designed with you in mind.

• Become a more creative and sophisticated systems-thinker
• Learn to better identify, nurture and seize opportunities to address the problems of greatest importance to you
• Build a national, cross-sectoral professional network
• Develop strategic skills and ways of thinking that will make you more effective in all your endeavors
• Position yourself to effectively address major social challenges

The Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation was created by the University of Waterloo in partnership with the Foundation.

Learn more about the program and application process from its website.

“For simplicity, I argue that the journey towards the highly innovative public organisation must be led simultaneously across four dimensions: Creating consciousness of what innovation is and means to the organisation; building capacity to innovate, from political context over strategy and organisational structure to people and culture; mastering a process of co-creating new solutions with people, not for them; and finally, to display the courage at all levels of management to really lead innovation.” from Leading Public Sector Innovation: Co-creating for a better society

Inspiring Action for Social Impact is presented by SiG, in partnership with the Foundation, MaRS Discovery District, PLAN Institute, the University of Waterloo, and The Public Policy Forum.

Find more information about the series and register for the event here.

“We need a society that is both caring, that is, nurturing, generous, and inclusive, and also creative, that is, enterprising, innovative, and focused on solutions.”

Tim’s interview was posted as a preview of the January 2011 issue of Horizons, entitled Innovative Communities: Agents of Change. Read the interview in The President’s Corner or on the Policy Research Initiative website.

The Foundation’s COO, Stephen Huddart, authored one of the journal’s overview articles, entitled Patterns, Principles, and Practices in Social Innovation, which explores various dimensions of the field of social innovation.

Program Manager John Cawley contributed to How Funders are Supporting Social Innovation: Three Examples from the Youth Sector, a multi-foundation collaborative piece on supporting youth-led organizations, where he describes developmental evaluation’s use in social innovation.

Also contributing to this issue of The Philanthropist are Foundation collaborators and grantees Nino Antadze and Frances Westley from SiG@Waterloo, Geraldine Cahill from SiG National, Gabriel Bran Lopez from Youth Fusion, Paul Jurbala and Ian Bird from The Sport Matters Group, Anne Makhoul and Eric Leviten-Reid from the Caledon Institute and Vibrant Communities, Peter Deitz from socialfinance.ca, and Edward Jackson from Carlton University.

It’s Friday the 13th. Feeling lucky? Nervous? Let’s see… massive flooding in Pakistan, the warmest year in recorded history, rumours of a new superbug, the largest oil spill ever, a threatened double-dip recession, and who knows what’s next, other than it’s sure to be something.

We live in turbulent times, the nature of which is to throw up surprises, to be erratic, and to be non-linear. We have a clear choice: reach for that lucky charm and trust that things will calm down, or tune in to what turbulence is telling us – that we need a new planetary operating system. As Peter Drucker wrote thirty years ago, management in turbulent times is about:

1.Surviving
2.Adapting
3.Taking advantage of new opportunities.

Read the entire post here.

“It seems that everywhere you look these days, people are calling upon Canada to invest more in innovation. Here for example is Preston Manning on the topic and here is former Privy Council head Kevin Lynch. Such commentaries typically focus on the roles of business, government and universities – but either barely mention or completely ignore the community or voluntary sector. For those of us who work and volunteer in this sector, this is a regrettable and all-too-familiar oversight.”