Strategy Made Simple — Blog

Posts in Philosophies

Podcast: Animal Assisted Social Enterprise with Kathryn Kimbley

Podcast: Animal Assisted Social Enterprise with Kathryn Kimbley

Kathryn Kimbley is pursuing a PhD studying nascent social entrepreneurs, in addition to running her own animal assisted therapy social enterprise called HumAnimaCIC. She is based in the Midlands in the United Kingdom.

She spoke about her personal story of getting into social enterprise, what it looks like for people to participate in animal assisted therapy, and how social enterprises might be able to incorporate animals into their operations. We also talked about the gaps between academics and practitioners, and the lack of a solid definition of social enterprise.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelDecember 10, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Kathryn KimbleyComment

Podcast: A National Network of Collaboration with Mike Toye

Podcast: A National Network of Collaboration with Mike Toye

Mike Toye is the Executive Director of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCED-Net). Through his work, he attempts to bring together diverse perspectives on Community Economic Development and share successful innovations across the national community.

I got a chance to speak with him while attending the CCED-Net Manitoba Gathering, a national conference where CED academics and practitioners get together and share ideas and perspectives.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelNovember 21, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Mike ToyeComment

Podcast: Teresa Prokopanko - Community Based Social Marketing

Podcast: Teresa Prokopanko - Community Based Social Marketing

Community Based Social Marketing (CBMS) is a system for promoting ideas and advocating within groups of people. It has been used by advocacy agencies to understand where their efforts are most likely to produce the results they are looking for, and whether people are likely to respond positively towards their initiatives.

Teresa Prokopanko is the Composting Coordinator for Green Action Centre in Winnipeg. In this episode she explains how small organizations can use CBSM practices as a framework for their impact campaigns.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelNovember 6, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Teresa ProkopankoComment

Podcast: Organizational Incentives and Structures with Frank Atnikov

Podcast: Organizational Incentives and Structures with Frank Atnikov

Frank Atnikov is the program coordinator of Social Enterprise Manitoba, an initiative of CCED-Net Manitoba. He helps connect social enterprises with resources to help them with developing their business, and coaching them through the stages of starting and growing a social enterprise.

In this episode of Strategy Made Simple, Frank walks us through a different definition of social enterprising, how to align the incentives within an organization with desired outcomes, and when it might not be a good idea to start a social enterprise.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelOctober 23, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Social Enterprise, Frank AtnikovComment

Podcast: Siloh Moses - Aligning Business With Impact

Podcast: Siloh Moses - Aligning Business With Impact

On this episode of the Strategy Made Simple podcast, I interviewed Siloh Moses and we spoke about how to align your business operations with your desired impact. More specifically, we spoke about how to find out what kind of impact your business should pursue, and how to amplify the existing impact you are creating.

Siloh Moses is the founder behind WeWin360, a social good consulting agency. His book Better Than This is available on Amazon.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelOctober 9, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Social Enterprise, Siloh MosesComment

Podcast: Caryn Birch - Non-Profit Supported Startup

Podcast: Caryn Birch - Non-Profit Supported Startup

RaY or Resource assistance for Youth is a non-profit based in Winnipeg, Manitoba that helps youth get into the workforce. They use several social enterprises to provide workforce training for their Level Up program. Caryn Birch is the manager of their newest social startup: Level Up: Gift and Thrift.

Caryn walks us through some of the steps that were involved with setting up a new social enterprise, and what challenges are to be expected for anyone who is thinking about starting a social startup.

Gift and Thrift is a gift shop stocked with artists' works and thrift shop for the downtown community. It is based on the Graham Mall, the main transit hub for the city, just four blocks from the Winnipeg Jets' Bell MTS place.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelSeptember 25, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Social Enterprise, Caryn Birch, RaY, StartupComment

Podcast: Growth and Social Enterprise

Podcast: Growth and Social Enterprise

What do people in the social enterprise sphere think about business growth? I've asked 5 of my previous guests how they think about growth and how that impacts the way their organizations operate.

Guests include:

Carinna Rosales - SEED Winnipeg, an employment focused non-profit

Yacine Bara - Changewealth, a wealth management social enterprise

Philip Mikulec - Peg City Car Coop, a car sharing co-op

Sarah Leeson-Klym - Canadian Community Economic Development Network, a community industry network and advocacy group

Brendan Reimer - Assiniboine Credit Union, a for profit credit union.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelAugust 14, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Social Enterprise, Growth, IdeasComment

Podcast: Systems of Leadership Development with Carinna Rosales

Podcast: Systems of Leadership Development with Carinna Rosales

Carinna Rosales is the Co-Executive Director of SEED Winnipeg. She helps clients develop businesses to work their way out of poverty.

Carinna works at helping to build systems to teach leadership to potential business operators. Her main goal is to help clients build a stable income that can provide for them and their families, while working through the local markets.

We also speak about some of the big challenges of businesses and non-profits that seek to make an impact, and where the leaders of social enterprise movements around the world are likely to come from.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelJuly 31, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Social Enterprise, Carinna RosalesComment

What is a Fair Price?

What is a Fair Price?

Or: Pricing Products for Social Enterprise

There’s a common occurrence when doing freelance design work. You’ll be meeting with a new client. Everything is going well. You’ve established the scope of work. you’ve shared some drafts to get a general feel for what they’re looking for and what they need. Then you bring up your fee for the amount of work they’ve proposed and this new client is shocked and appalled that you would bring up money. “Why would we pay you? We’re bringing you so much exposure!”

This should seem ridiculous to you as a social entrepreneur. You know that your work has costs, and that exposure does not put food on the table, nor does it keep the lights on. There can be exceptions when you have a reciprocal relationship where you provide service to each other, or when you are part of an extended network of support. These are exceptions, not the rule.

Knowing this, you have to price your products and services somehow, so how do you pick a price?

Strategies, PhilosophiesMatthew RempelJuly 18, 2018product, service, development, systems, methodsComment

Podcast: Mobility Collaboration with Philip Mikulec

Podcast: Mobility Collaboration with Philip Mikulec

Philip Mikulec is the operations manager of the Peg City Car Co-op. They provide hub based car sharing in the Winnipeg downtown area. We spoke about how financial capital can be difficult to raise for social enterprise and co-ops, and how we might begin to build systemic source of capital. We also spoke about how the Canadian shared mobility industry is actively collaborative in trying to find solutions to their shared problems.

Strategies, Philosophies, PodcastMatthew RempelJuly 17, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Social Enterprise, Philip MikulecComment

How Small Can A Product Be?

How Small Can A Product Be?

Or: Principles of Minimum Viable Product

One of the biggest parts of business is providing a product or service. Once you’ve decided what problem you would like to try to solve, the next step is developing the solution. Whether your solution is delivered as a product or a service, there will come a point where you have to release your product or service into the market. So, how long should you develop your product before you release? How small can your service be before you start selling? These are important questions, but there is a single key question that underlies all questions of this type.

Where and how is value created?

Strategies, PhilosophiesMatthew RempelJuly 11, 2018product, service, development, systems, methodsComment

What's Different About Awareness Marketing?

What's Different About Awareness Marketing?

Or: Why Should I Care About Marketing Funnels?

If you’ve been paying any attention to social media in the past few years, you will have seen the huge growth of viral awareness campaigns. These were typically started by non-profits and other organizations that require donations to continue functioning. One of the most popular and effective campaigns was the ice bucket challenge that was created by the ALS association.

Awareness campaigns like this are based on a few key assumptions. The first is that people will share information about an issue once they find out about it. The second is that if people know about an important cause or issue, they are more likely to do something about it. The third is that once they want to do something, there is a good chance that they will donate or make some other kind of contribution towards the goals outlined in the campaign.

One of the challenges with these campaigns is that the assumptions aren’t necessarily accurate. Reports on the ice bucket challenge found that (in the UK) only 10% of people who actively participated donated towards the cause. So why did so few who were actively involved not follow through and donate?

Philosophies, StrategiesMatthew RempelJuly 4, 2018definition, success, philosophy, games, strategy, habitat, ReStoreComment

Defining Success

Defining Success

Or: What makes a social enterprise?

How you define success should influence your pricing, distribution, packaging, employment practices, and more. Every aspect of your operations should point back to your definition.

We each have different priorities for our lives. We want different things and we value some things over others. For myself, being able to live close to my family and get intentional time with them each week is something that I value over having a larger home or the chance to live somewhere exotic.

When we choose our priorities individually, we are making decisions about how we use our time and our energy, what kinds of things we spend our money on and the kinds of people we build relationships with. When we find and define what our personal success looks like, it is easier to find the path that leads towards fulfillment.

As a business, making an explicit definition of success is the key to making an impact. By expressing and committing to a definition of success that goes beyond profit you can become a social enterprise.

Philosophies, StrategiesMatthew RempelJune 20, 2018definition, success, philosophy, games, strategy, habitat, ReStoreComment

Podcast: Community Economic Development with Sarah Leeson-Klym

Podcast: Community Economic Development with Sarah Leeson-Klym

Sarah Leeson-Klym is the Manitoba Regional Director of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network. We were able to sit down and have a conversation about how community economic development can impact cities, how leaders emerge, and how we can speak about developing and new framework for economic development. She also shares her personal story of how she got involved in the movement.

Strategies, PhilosophiesMatthew RempelApril 17, 2018podcast, strategy made simple, Sarah Leeson-Klym, CCED-Net, Social EnterpriseComment

A New Definition of Networking

Or: To Network is to give

Networking is hard. You sign up for a conference where you don’t know anybody, you spend all your time scoping out people who might be interested in what you’re selling, and you hand out 40 business cards. Then weeks down the line, still nobody has contacted you back.

There is a better way to network. It starts with changing your mindset.

Communications, Philosophies, StrategiesMatthew RempelMarch 8, 2018networking, network, giving, collaborationComment

How to Respond to Challenges

Have you ever thought that you just need more time for a project? That you need more money, more support, more space or more staff to complete the work appropriately? These are typical constraints that are ever present in work environments. It is typical for every part of life that we have constraints, and it is no different in business or for social organizations.

I would like to argue that our constraints are actually what lead to creativity.

“When we face an obstacle or a barrier or limitation, we don’t see that as a negative, we see that as fertile ground for creativity so that we are forced to think creatively to solve a problem.” – Roger Berrington, Volunteer Executive Director of CanU

Strategies, Productivity, PhilosophiesMatthew RempelJanuary 24, 2018resources, tools, constraint, innovation, creativityComment

Transferable Skills

How skilled do you think you are at your job? How skilled are you at your hobbies? Is your skill level between your work activities and your hobbies connected?

I believe if you find ways to connect the different skills you have, you will be more effective in all areas. In looking at different aspects of your skills, you can find useful perspectives that you already use, but in different areas of your life.

Typically, only soft skills are described as transferable skills. Abilities like public speaking, leadership, time management, and interpersonal skills. I allow the definition to be quite a bit wider than that. I include understanding different organizational systems, competence with specific technical software, and understanding design principles as transferable skills, as well as most other technical skills.

With each new skill that is added to your toolkit, you get a new mindset that can be drawn on. Whenever you are actively using a skill, you may notice that you start to see what you do in a different way. You shift into a different mindset to better use your skill.

Strategies, PhilosophiesMatthew RempelDecember 20, 2017Skill, transfer, strategy, teamsComment