SCALE INSTITUTE
Research and innovation for the social change sector.
SCALE INSTITUTE
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION FOR THE SOCIAL CHANGE SECTOR
Providing research, development, and educational programming in the areas of social innovation, social enterprise, social procurement, and social finance.
Vision: The economy will shift towards more generative models of social enterprise, social innovation, social finance and social procurement.
Mission: To Build a strong social economy ecosystem focusing on research, development and testing of innovative solutions.
OUR STORY
Scale Institute Society was founded in 2020 as an arms-length charity within the Scale Collaborative family of organizations. The family shares a common vision of a thriving, connected and abundant social change sector.
Scale Collaborative is the umbrella organization and the core delivery organization. It delivers the Thriving Non-Profits Journey and coordinates the related organizations and delivery infrastructure. It also builds and maintains the shared platform 1 that enables delivery across all of the organizations.
The Thriving Non-Profits Journey is the core delivery pathway and the primary way partners and participants engage. It integrates program delivery, executive coaching, consulting, investment readiness, and access to capital.
Thrive Impact Fund is a legally separate investment fund, with its own strategy and governance. It provides investment to qualified investees as they progress through the Journey’s investment readiness pathway.
Scale Institute Society is a legally separate sister charity, with its own mandate and governance. It develops tools, methods, and sector contributions that strengthen the Journey and the practices that support it.
theDock—Centre for Social Impact provides delivery infrastructure and is a strategic hub in the local market. theDock provides an efficient footprint and meaningful capacity to expand delivery without major incremental space or infrastructure investment.
HOW WE OPERATE
Scale Institute is a registered charitable organization with a diversified funding portfolio including philanthropic grants, government programs funding, project contracts, and private sector sponsorships.
We work on a project-to-project basis and focus where the needs in the social economy sector are greatest.
OUR BOARD
From co-founding a youth social-impact internship program, designing & teaching experiential-learning sustainability-focused curriculum, embedding community engagement & impact practices within the mining sector, to empowering young Canadian innovators to channel their sustainability-motivated tech-ingenuity to develop solutions for freshwater.
Since moving to Victoria in 2016, Kariann has embraced cold water dipping which has helped her to ground and connect to this land that she and her family are grateful to now call home – the traditional, unceded territory of the Lekwungen-speaking people.
She is inspired by the work of Scale Institute and is a proud member of the board since 2019.
As a public speaker, facilitator, and lecturer, Joanna focuses on the intersection of entrepreneurship, impact, youth, and future of work. She was the founding Managing Director of the Centre for Social Innovation & Impact Investing, co-creator of the award-winning Coast Capital Savings Innovation Hub, and previously steered the ship at The Next Big Thing, Canada’s only full inclusive youth entrepreneurial program.
Find her lecturing about entrepreneurship and innovation at Simon Fraser Beedie School of Business and at Emily Carr University; mentoring youth led start-ups such as SmartSweets, Blume, WizeMonkey, GrantMe; and driving conversation around social impact and innovation as the chair of the Scale Institute. Joanna’s work focuses on building changemaking ideas from concept to reality, to big impact.
She has the unique ability to build deep relations among stakeholders with diverse interests, including business, government, community and NGOs, and has recently run a number of large scale purpose-driven campaigns. Her most recent work focused on reconciliation, joining the leadership team at Reconciliation Canada to deliver the Walk for Reconciliation, in both Vancouver and Ottawa, bringing together over 150,000 people from all backgrounds.
Michelle is a trained coach through the Coach Training Institute and most recently decided to complete the Evaluation for Social Change program at Simon Fraser University, as part of her determination to create positive social and systemic change.
She is grateful to be living and raising her family on the traditional, unceded territory of the Lekwungen-speaking people. In her spare time, you can find her hiking or skiing with her family, selling photography prints from her travels, and walking her very large Bernedoodle.
PARTNERS AND FUNDERS
Scale Institute appreciates the generous support of these partners and funders:
