The inaugural Buy Social Canada Summit was held in Vancouver last month with about one hundred participants from social enterprises, government and the private sector. They came together to talk about the barriers and opportunities for buyers to increase sourcing from social enterprises. The Buy Social Canada certification program was also launched at the Summit – a way to get recognition for your social purchasing efforts, whether you are a buyer or social enterprise supplier. Asked to provide concluding remarks, I called for a national social sourcing strategy (a recommendation I promoted in a paper I wrote for the Federal Government on how to scale up the social finance pipeline). I also described an emerging social sourcing paradigm: Transformational Social Purchasing inspired by remarks from a procurement professional from Vancity Credit Union. Here is the idea summarized in a tool designed to help buyers and their organizations pursue purposeful purchasing.
