At NewPath, our approach to your IT challenges is not narrow, but rather holistic and inclusive of the social organization's overall goals, objectives and culture. TradeStorm is an annual conference & networking event organized by Toronto's NewPath Network and this year, hosted by Rotman NeXus. The conferences is designed to acquaint not-for-profits, NGO's, Charities and Social Mission Organizations alike with the concepts of social enterprise, sustainability, social capital funding, business intelligence and SROI metrics and as a forum for the exchange of modern best practices.  Managers in the Not-for-Profit sector get the opportunity to meet professionals from both the NewPath and Rotman NeXus organizations, build relationships with other Not-for-Profits and share knowledge and ideas in an informal environment.

TradeStorm'06 Conference:

Strategies and Tactics for Sustainability of Non-Profit Organizations

This year, NewPath  partnered with Rotman NeXus , to host the event at the Rotman School of Management (UofT).  The result was a SELL-OUT, standing room only event on February 23rd 2006, that left most participants asking how soon the next event will be held!  Participants from small, medium and large organizations were in attendance and there was a clear and obvious hunger for discourse on the subject of sustainability and alternatives to traditional funding sources.  Networking during the dinner break was in high gear with new connections being made and new ideas exchanged that will impact how we think and run our organizations.

NewPath's objective is to provide a collaborative partnership of holistic service delivery that looks at every aspect of the organization and develops a strategy that is inclusive, congruent and self-sustaining.  This years conference was centred around the Social Enterprise model and applying 'for-profit' strategies in 'not-for-profit' organizations and projects, sharing ideas on how to reduce dependencies on hand-outs, donations, grants and other diminishing and unreliable funding sources in favour of more self-sustaining revenue programs.

Check out some of the presentations:

Bill Young, our Keynote Speaker and founder of Social Capital Partners , delivered a highly informative and inspirational presentation highlighting case studies from SCP's portfolio of Social Enterprises. Successes, failures and lessons learned.

~ Video of Bill's talk (courtesy of iConferenceU )  Requires Password: newpath

Tonya Surman, Co-Founder of the Centre for Social Innovation opened a discussion around models for social enterprise and sustainability which stimulated excellent discussion and interactivity among participants.  

~ Video Podcast with PowerPoint

~ Video of Tonya's Session (coming soon  - courtesy of iConferenceU)

Angie Mackie (The Donnee Group) on Fundraising – Powerpoint Presentation

Lorraine McCallum on Case Studies of Sustainable Non-Profit Models – Workshop Summary

Laurie Mook (Social Economy Centre, UofT) on Social Accounting for Non-Profits – Web Link to Presentation

Phillip Smith (Community Bandwidth) on extending your Program Logic to the Web – Web Link to Site

Rami Tabbah (Ergonaute Consulting) on Improving Usability in a Non-profit's Web Site – Web Link to Site