The Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR)’s Legacy Leadership Lab (L3) by the University of Waterloo is proud to announce their first Platinum-level sponsor, the DUCA Impact Lab.
DUCA Impact Lab is supporting the first of five Workshops to be held across Canada over the next 15 months, which will see leaders in social and co-operative enterprise, small business succession, and social finance come together to build innovative solutions to one of Canada’s most pressing small business challenges: business succession.
WISIR estimated back in 2018 that over 700,000 small businesses across Canada were at risk of closure due to a lack of proper succession planning. These closures could prove particularly difficult disruptions for small, rural, and remote communities that may depend on their small businesses to provide necessary products and services and sustain their local economies.
Through funding from the Government of Canada’s Investment Readiness Program, WISIR launched the Legacy Leadership Lab in October 2019, an 18-month initiative that will run five Workshops from coast to coast to help build expert-driven solutions for Canada’s transitioning small business community. During these Workshops, the Legacy Leadership Lab will develop market interventions and prototypes that allow conventional and social finance players, business service providers, and community leaders to facilitate social purpose conversions of existing businesses in their own towns. These social purpose conversions will involve the existing owner exiting the business and a new owner or new owners taking it over, all while converting it into a business model with a social end.
“Small business plays an essential part in fostering vibrant and prosperous local economies – and this is particularly true for smaller communities,” says DUCA Impact Lab Executive Director, Keith Taylor. “Finding better solutions for ensuring viable small businesses continue on as key contributors to their communities when ownership changes is a puzzle worth solving. This is an important social and financial innovation opportunity and we’re very excited to partner with L3 on the initiative.”
“We are thrilled to have DUCA's support for the Legacy Leadership Lab,” says Legacy Leadership Lab Principal Investigator Sean Geobey. “DUCA's leadership in creative financing makes them a natural partner for L3's work. As a Canadian credit union, DUCA is part of a national movement with a proud history of supporting small businesses and social purpose organizations. We believe credit unions like DUCA will play a critical role in helping a generation of leaders transform their businesses for the benefit of communities across Canada.”
The Legacy Leadership Lab Toronto Workshop Presented by DUCA Impact Lab is an invite-only two-day event held at the Ontario Investment and Trade Centre in downtown Toronto on January 29-30, 2020. An opening cocktail reception will be scheduled for the evening of January 28. Please contact Meg Ronson at mronson@uwaterloo.ca if you are interested in attending the reception.
About Legacy Leadership Lab (L3)
L3 is an 18-month initiative by the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience, funded by the Government of Canada’s Investment Readiness program. We are leading five Workshops from coast to coast to help build expert-driven solutions for Canada’s transitioning small business community. During these Workshops, the we will develop market interventions and prototypes that allow conventional and social finance players, business service providers, and community leaders to facilitate social purpose conversions of existing businesses in their own towns.
About Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR)
WISIR is a research institute at the University of Waterloo’s School of Environment, Enterprise and Development committed to generating trans- and inter-disciplinary knowledge about social innovations and the social innovation process (the dynamics of learning, adaptation and resilience). Our approach is to pursue collaborative research and projects that bridge University of Waterloo departments, involve researchers from around the world, and engage those beyond academia. We seek to mobilize this knowledge through a range of new curriculum offerings and training opportunities - both within and outside of a university setting.
About the DUCA Impact Lab
The DUCA Impact Lab has been purposefully designed to test and prove new models of banking and finance to unlock the positive impact and social value banking can have for people, businesses, and communities.
https://www.ducaimpactlab.com/
DUCA Credit Union launched the DUCA Impact Lab in late 2018 to explore and live test new banking solutions that unlock the potential of banking that benefits all. The DUCA Impact Lab brings together a community of experts to dynamically test new ideas, products and services, acting as an ongoing vehicle to explore and tackle challenges currently faced by all participants in the financial system and the underbanked.
For further information:Meg Ronson
L3 Project Manager
mronson@uwaterloo.ca
647-214-0640
uwaterloo.ca/legacy-leadership-lab
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