What are boards, investors and management teams to do when there is tension between the financial and social bottom lines of social enterprises? Social Capital Partners shares learnings gleaned from seven years of investing in employment-based social enterprises. We identify the five most important factors that determine whether a social enterprise will be profitable or require some form of subsidy.
Simply put, our advice is to do everything possible to choose businesses that are not overly complex to operate and to build management teams that have the inherent business capacity to operate them effectively.
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Blame the denominator, not the economy
Over the last couple of years, there have been countless articles warning of Canada’s poor economic performance. The mic drop has increasingly been Canada’s poor performance relative to peer countries on “GDP per capita,” with growth rankings used to draw a variety of sweeping, negative conclusions about Canada’s economy. SCP CEO Matthew Mendelsohn and Policy Director Dan Skilleter draw on economist and SCP Fellow Dr. Gillian Petit's new research to explain why GDP per capita is a deeply flawed measurement for evaluating rich countries - and is easily influenced by a variety of factors having little to do with economic performance or economic well-being.
Non-Permanent Residents and their impact on GDP per capita | Summary
New research by economist and SCP Fellow Gillian Petit estimates what Canada’s GDP per capita would have been over the past decade if Canada had kept our temporary resident numbers stable. She also estimates the expected impact on GDP per capita in the coming years due strictly to planned reductions in Canada's intake of non-permanent residents. Among key findings: Canada’s GDP per capita is misleading and should not be used as if it were the sole indicator of economic well-being. Plus, if we had maintained our temporary resident numbers at two percent of the population in recent years, Canada’s GDP per capita would look much more like our peer countries: a little bit ahead of countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia and a little bit lower than countries like Belgium, Sweden and France.
Non-Permanent Residents and their impact on GDP per capita | Report
New research by economist and SCP Fellow Gillian Petit estimates what Canada’s GDP per capita would have been over the past decade if Canada had kept our temporary resident numbers stable. She also estimates the expected impact on GDP per capita in the coming years due strictly to planned reductions in Canada's intake of non-permanent residents. Among key findings: Canada’s GDP per capita is misleading and should not be used as if it were the sole indicator of economic well-being. Plus, if we had maintained our temporary resident numbers at two percent of the population in recent years, Canada’s GDP per capita would look much more like our peer countries: a little bit ahead of countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia and a little bit lower than countries like Belgium, Sweden and France.