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Your week in CLICK, CSI’s daily newsletter about the world of social innovation

The internet is an impossibly huge place with endless pieces of useful information. Who has time to find it all? Literally no one! But that is what we try to do with CLICK. Every weekday, we send our subscribers an email containing the news, research, analysis, and opportunities that we think will best help them start their day. This daily email has been wildly popular, you can subscribe here! To give you a sense of what you are missing, here is some of the most popular CLICK content from last week:

HEAD START – What’s happening now

How Canada lifted nearly 300,000 kids out of poverty in a single year
Dylan Matthews covers anti-poverty measures for Vox. So he decided to go to Canada for The Impact, Vox’s podcast about how policy shapes people’s lives. He wanted to figure out: Did the Canadian child benefit deliver on that promise? How do parents spend these cheques? How has the child benefit affected the lives of real families? And what can the US presidential candidates who have signed onto an American version of a child benefit learn from their neighbours to the north?

The Body Shop to hire the first person who applies for any retail job
The results were striking: Monthly turnover in the distribution center dropped by 60%. In 2018, the Body Shop’s distribution center saw turnover rates of 38% in November and 43% in December. In 2019, after they began using open hiring, that decreased to 14% in November and 16% in December. The company only had to work with one temp agency instead of three.


IT’S UP TO US – Change happens at CSI

In this era of “reconciliation”, Indigenous land is still being taken at gunpoint. INVASION is a new film about the Unist’ot’en Camp, Gidimt’en checkpoint and the larger Wet’suwet’en Nation standing up to the Canadian government and corporations who continue colonial violence against Indigenous people. You can organize a community screening of this film! Simply download the film here, make a Facebook event using this graphic, and download and print the poster designed by Gord Hill and plaster around your town. Click here to access subtitles of the film in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese — as well as find some sample questions you can use to get a discussion going.


CSI SOLUTIONS – Putting People and Planet First

Street Voices and Business in the Streets will help you monetize your art
Toronto is a magnet for artists across the country, but it’s also a city where it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a living as an artist. While nearly 70% of the city’s artists moved here from somewhere else), 73% of Toronto artists have thought about leaving the city.

Here are some of the reasons why:

  • 80% of artists do not believe they can make a living wage
  • 50% of artists make less than $30,000 per year
  • Nearly 1 in 5 artists have been renovicted

Are you an artist with a desire to learn about business to sell your art? CSI members Street Voices and Business in the Streets are collaborating to deliver an 9 week program to teach aspiring artists the business side of their craft alongside pairing them with mentors that have experience in the creative industry.


GO FOR IT – Accelerate your impact

Grants of up to $25,000 are available to support innovative community-based efforts to reduce residential waste and increase participation in the City of Toronto’s waste diversion programs. A priority will be placed on investing in actions that address multi-residential buildings, multi-lingual communities, equity-seeking groups and Neighbourhood Improvement Areas.

The grants support the City’s Long Term Waste Management Strategy and reflect its guiding principles:

  • working with community partners
  • enhance access to waste diversion programs
  • increasing public engagement
  • working together to deliver services.

DREAM JOB ALERT – Come work in our network

South Riverdale Community Health Centre is a non-profit, multi-service organization that provides primary healthcare, social and community outreach services with an emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention primarily to people of East Toronto. They are hiring an Information Management Coordinator to support the usage of the electronic medical record systems and provides extensive training to staff in order to facilitate providers’ documentation, quality improvement, performance management, program evaluation, research and accountability. In addition, this position is responsible for funder-compliant data collection, quality and analysis to support the organization and its decision making processes.


SAVE THE DATE – Upcoming events

February 22: Participate in the Coldest Night of the Year walkathon, a national family-friendly walk which takes place in over 145 cities all across Canada on the same day and time. The event raises funds to support people experiencing homelessness, mental health challenges, food insecurity and extreme poverty.

February 23: The House of Good Deeds welcomes you for a fun afternoon of sorting international coins for charity, and then playing a special version of Bingo with the coins for wonderful prizes! Children 7 and up are definitely welcome.

February 23: Do you have questions about what it’s like to be a lawyer and/or an entrepreneur? Join Caryma S’ad over Montreal-style bagels and cream cheese for a conversation about setting and executing career goals.

February 25: Join CSI and an esteemed community of activators and collaborators who support women entrepreneurs as we celebrate women entrepreneurs who put people and planet first.


EXCERPT – Images from the world of social innovation

Black History Month Longread: “This is people’s souls”


These are just a handful of the dozens of links we sent out last week! Think this looks like a pretty good way to start your day? Sign up for CLICK now!

Keep Reading
A group of children sits on the floor listening to a book being read aloud at the CSI Community Living Room in Regent Park
You might be familiar with CSI’s two coworking locations (Spadina and Annex), but did you know about our third Toronto location? The CSI Community Living Room is located on the ground floor of the Daniels Spectrum Building at 585 Dundas Street East in Regent Park, a culturally diverse and vibrant neighourhood in transition. It officially opened in late March of this year - here’s what you should know!
TWO MPSs at the IRP Funding Announcement
"The Centre for Social Innovation provides a co-working space in Toronto for people who want to change the world. With 2000+ members working hard to make the world more sustainable and to fight inequality, CSI is helping grow and develop the social finance sector in Canada. " - The Honourable Karina Gould
People cheering on an award winner, who has gone up on stage to receive the award.
Today, CSI celebrates the 18th anniversary of opening our doors as Canada’s (and maybe the world’s!) first coworking space. Of course, we’ve evolved over the years to become so much more than just that - we are a curated, tight-knit community who cares deeply about making the world better for all. To celebrate the past 18 years of partnership and social innovation, we picked just 18 milestones (from the thousands of star moments) to share.
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