We spoke with Regent Park entrepreneur Gail Lynch, CEO and Experience Designer of ZERO Cocktail Bar, about building a non-alcoholic bar and her experience as a Black woman entrepreneur. 

It’s been almost a year since we announced the official opening of the CSI Community Living Room - a community experiment that provided a platform on which community initiatives could thrive, a new innovation in our 10th year in the Regent Park community.

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!

Community wealth creation is a new way of developing local economies by strengthening community infrastructure. And while the strategy might be new, its core principles are ancient. People need people. Trust does not happen overnight. Community is built through organic, everyday interactions. We know this. The "Our Neighbourhood Project" operationalizes it.

Through the leadership of organizations like the Centre for Social Innovation, community bonds have become much better understood by the coop and nonprofit sectors. Now organizations like Tapestry Community Capital are helping professionalize the delivery of these tools and campaigns.

Last Fall, the City of Kingston asked our Social Innovation Specialist, Jo Reynolds, to lead a process exploring community investment in response to COVID-19. Here's what happened.

Building social capital and linking with social ecosystems is the foundation of strengthening any community, and it is particularly true in Regent Park. Denise Soueidan-O'Leary, our Regent Park Community Manager, wrote about how Our Every One Every Day: Toronto Our Neighbourhood Project brought community members together.

In 2018, when SKETCH Executive Director Rudy Ruttimann saw that commercial rent was projected to rise 4.5% annually in Toronto, she knew it was time to act. If the rent increases continued SKETCH could no longer afford to stay in Toronto by 2023.

With profound gratitude (and more than a little surprise) it is our great honour to share that we’ve raised more than $1.9M using Community Bonds to help build the next economy.