WHERE CHANGE HAPPENSCENTRE FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION

WHEN YOU’RE HERE, YOU’RE HOME

For nearly five years we have been trying to explain what the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) does and what social innovation is. We are officially giving up! Sure, we have created a dynamic shared workspace for people with world-changing ideas. And yes, we are home to some amazing incubated projects and an incredibly diverse community of change-makers; the energy is infectious as social in-novators come together under one roof. We are pushing new ideas, new models, and new policies to reinvent the way things work. It is all true! But this just doesn’t begin to get at it.

What we are really about is possibility. We are creating a vision of how the world could be and we’re working every day to bring it into reality. We are building new models, new initiatives and new ideas. We are hybrids. We are inter-sections. We are solutions. We are the inventors of new ideas that are resonating across sectors. We are social entrepreneurs, artists, activists, idealists and pragmatists. We are transforming the marketplace and finding ways to live in harmony with each other and the planet. We are about creating the world that we want, together.

What is social innovation? It’s about ideas that are changing the world to make it better for all of us. It is about working together to create the models and systems that will define our future. And for us, that means prioritizing projects that are collaborative, entrepreneurial and systems changing.

Here is just a taste of what we have been up to for the last five years. We hope this inspires you to be a part of our shared journey.

Tonya Surman Executive Director

OUR THEORY OF CHANGE

Imagine Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Now apply it to social innovation. Voila! The CSI innovation triangle.

We start by creating the physical space. And we do this carefully, designing a space that’s functional, whimsical, inviting and energizing. The next step is community. What begins as a group of people looking for a place to work becomes a community through conscious and careful animation. These layers form the basis for innovation – the serendipity that happens when you mix the right people, the right values and the right environment. Just add a little in-tentionality and you are on your way. The results are unpredictable. And often astonishing.

Or, when we look through the lens of complexity science, it’s all about setting the conditions for emergence. But more about that later…

Salad Club » Every Tuesday and Thursday we have an exclusive club open to absolutely anyone

working for a better world! The one simple rule is to bring two items that could conceivably go

into a salad and then we share: food, ideas and cleanup. It’s a simple recipe: bring a dash from

Column A (a vegetable or fruit), a sprinkle from Column B (protein or grain) and a dollop from

Column C (humour, passion, hunger etc.).

Change Agent: Matthew BlackettMission: To bring democracy to Toronto’s streets.Spacing Magazine has a home at

Change Agent: Matthew BlackettMission: To bring democracy to the city’s public spaces

Spacing Magazine has a home at...

CHANGE AGENTS HAVE A HOME @ CSI

The Centre for Social Innovation has created the space for world-changing ideas.

Over the past five years we have developed unique exper-tise in the design, creation, and management of commu-nity workspaces. Our flagship initiative – located in the Robertson Building at 215 Spadina Avenue in downtown Toronto – is a 23,000-square-foot facility whose tenants include artists, nonprofit organizations, social entrepre-neurs, grassroots community groups, and social purpose businesses. Over 150 social mission groups call CSI their home.

Our shared workspace model offers office amenities to initiatives that are typically under-resourced. Once here, members can connect with a powerful and exciting network of social change makers. The Centre for Social Innovation is an inspiring space that increases profile, provides mountains of social capital and offers an upbeat working environment. By bringing together these diverse organizations, CSI increases their efficiency, effective-ness, and impact.

We have created a space for social innovation to thrive!

HOT DESKS ARE SO HOT

Get out of your pyjamas and into the CSI! We’ve created a number of Hot Desk packages tailored for those who just need an occasional place to work, meet and connect. Hot Desk members benefit from a perma-nent mailing address and full office facilities, including high-speed wire-less internet access, fax machines, meeting rooms and photocopiers. Membership links you to our growing community, sparking new ideas and bringing your project to realization. Hot Desk packages range from $75 – 250 / month. Visit www.socialinnovation.ca for more info!

A COMMUNITY CENTRE FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION

CSI is home to hundreds of meetings, capacity-building workshops, information sessions and community events every year. Over 10,000 people come through the Centre annually! They’re gathering to grow their networks, build their skills, and hatch new ideas for positive change in our city and around the world.

To learn more about events @ CSI or to host your own, visit www.socialinnovation.ca.

Dig our model? Contact us to learn more about our consulting services and our plans for replication – info@socialinnovation.ca

Change Agent: Helena ShimelesMission:

To empower Ethiopian

youth to make a positive differenceYoung Diplomats

has a home at...

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» INSPIRED BY THE STARS: A CONSTELLATION MODEL OF GOVERNANCE

Collaboration has been a buzzword for years. We’ve seen the increasing formation of partnerships, coalitions and strategic alliances. But we’ve also seen an astonishing lack of imagination. Surely there are better ways of coordi-nating movements and activities. Our idea? A constellation model of governance!

Inspired by complexity theory and systems thinking, the Constellation Model strikes a balance between self-interest and shared interest to make social change possible. We know that individual organizations and actors have their own motivations and interests. When groups begin working together, we end up adding layers of protocol and bureaucracy to manage differences. Pretty soon we are bogged down in the process and distracted from our goals – the original reason we came together.

The Constellation Model takes a different approach, emphasizing the role of small, self-selecting action teams that work together on a particular task or issue within a broader framework and under a shared vision. These teams – or “constellations” – operate interdependently, supported by a Stewardship Group but working in ways that serve the interests of the individual constellation members. Leadership rotates fluidly among partners, where each partner has the freedom to lead a constellation that matches its profile and skills, and to sit back from activities that are of peripheral interest. The result is a shift from strained partnerships to open and effective collaborations.

This organizing model is a true social innovation. Initially created, tested and refined with the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment, the Constellation Model has been replicated and adapted to support the Ontario Literacy Coalition, the Frontline Partners with Youth Network, telecentre.org and the Ontario Nonprofit Network. The model’s transferability, scalability and adaptability give it resilience and relevance.

To find out more about the Constellation Model, check out www.socialinnovation.ca.

THE ONTARIO NONPROFIT SECTOR GETS ORGANIZED

The Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN) is a network of networks with a mission to build communication and coordination among nonprofit organizations working for the public good in Ontario. CSI is incubating and co-chairing this initiative to strengthen the efficiencies and voices of the nonprofit sector. ONN is like collaboration on steroids … and with no side effects!

ONN has been working on changes to the Provincial Corporations Act, proposing an economic stimulus package, responding to the new fundraising guidelines for charities, creating an enabling environment for social enterprise and social finance and much more. To learn how you can be involved in ONN, visit www.ontariononprofitnetwork.ca.

ENTERPRISING NONPROFITS

For the past twenty years nonprofit organizations across the country have been struggling with ongoing capacity constraints due to changing funding practices, cutbacks in government service delivery, and increasing demand from citizens and communities.

Social enterprise has emerged as a key innovation to address these challenges. Social enterprise blends the community-oriented values of the nonprofit sector with the market-place strategies of the for-profit sector. The result: stronger nonprofits and healthier communities.

At the Centre for Social Innovation we had been wondering why Toronto was so far behind in developing a vibrant social enterprise sector. So when we discovered the Enterprising Non-Profits (enp) social enterprise funding program in British Columbia, we knew we needed to adapt the model to our city.

In 2008 we partnered with enp-BC and twelve progressive funders to deliver a pilot of the enp program in Toronto. Together, we held five sold-out social enterprise training workshops and awarded $100,000 in grants to sixteen successful applicants. Now we’re turning our attention to an ongoing enp program in the Greater Toronto Area.

CSI is a thought leader in moving social enterprise forward in Ontario and Canada. Our roles as co-chairs of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada and as co-founders of Social Enterprise Ontario are just part of our commitment to this important social innovation.

To learn more about the enp program visit www.socialinnovation.ca/enp.

LOCAL LIVING ECONOMIES

Green Enterprise Toronto (GET) is a movement of 400 locally owned businesses dedicated to the prin-ciples of a local living economy: strong communities, a healthy environment, and meaningful employ-ment. GET believes that Toronto can become a sustainable world-class city by supporting its local, green businesses. Through market research, consumer awareness campaigns and building the capac-ity of locally owned and operated businesses, GET turns this vision into reality.

One of CSI’s first incubated projects, GET is adopting an entrepreneurial approach to the market trans-formation that is key to our survival. Visit www.greenenterprise.net for more.

TOOKER GOMBERG MEMORIAL LIBRARY

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OPEN EVERYTHING

Who knew that the Centre for Social Innovation would have something in common with Linux, Mozilla and Wikipedia? Open source began as a movement to share and co-create programming code. But we wanted to see whether this same philosophy could be applied to cities, to our Centre, and to social innovation itself. The result? Open Everything!

On June 4, 2008, the Centre for Social Innovation hosted the first Open Everything event – a day-long conversation about the art, science and spirit of ‘open’. The conversation ex-plored how openness, participation and self-organization facilitate positive social change. We’ve learned that open source isn’t just for the tech sector – it is an integral part of the social innovation scene.

We’re adapting the principles of “open” to the Centre for Social Innovation, from our physical design to programming and community engagement. Open thinking is changing the way that we organize, empowering people to actively co-create the world we imagine. This is a social innovation that will empower many other innovations to come.

HUGE WINS ON TOXICS AND CHILDREN’S HEALTH

In 2007, CSI was hired to facilitate a national, multi-stakeholder policy consultation on toxics and children’s health for the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE). The six-city consultation process culminated with an appeal to Health Canada to integrate a “children’s health lens” into bio-monitoring and to strengthen the federal government’s Chemicals Management Plan.

The government responded by allocating $25 million to environmental health research. On April 20, 2008, Health Minister Tony Clement declared a ban on bisphenol A in baby bottles. The federal government set a powerful precedent by demonstrating that the precautionary principle can be put into legislative action.

CPCHE is a partnership of eleven leading environmental and health organizations. CSI has helped CPCHE to adopt an “constellation” approach to their work, leading to significant systems change across the country. To learn more about the incredible work of the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment check out www.healthyenvironmentforkids.ca.

INCU

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» FRONTLINE PARTNERS WITH YOUTH NETWORK

In December 2005 a group of people working directly with youth came together to support each other in dealing with the effects of gun violence. It soon became clear that although they were traumatized and heart-broken, frontline youth workers were also fiercely determined to make things right for youth, for themselves and for their communities. But they were struggling to find their feet and fulfill their potential.

Over the past two years CSI has been working with the Frontline Partners with Youth Network (FPYN) to develop a governance structure based on the constellation model. We’ve helped define leadership for the group and we’ve helped secure funding for the network to continue, expand and deepen its work. FPYN now comprises close to 700 people working across the city and across sectors.

FPYN reminds us that social innovation – when it really matters – directly supports the people who need it most. We are honoured to be associated with the project and we’ll continue to work with FPYN to make a difference in our city.

To find out more information about Frontline Partners with Youth Network, please see www.fpyn.ca.

TECHSOUP CANADA

How can the nonprofit sector be better at delivering messages, engaging constituencies and using IT tools to be more effective? TechSoup Canada!

For years, Canada’s nonprofits and charities have been forced to route through the United States to take advan-tage of the TechSoup project. Through a unique partnership between the Centre for Social Innovation, TechSoup Global, the Information Technology Association of Canada, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation, TechSoup has come to Canada!

TechSoup Canada offers donated software from providers such as Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco Systems, Symantec, and Intuit, to eligible nonprofits and charities. TechSoup Canada will also offer a dynamic community for sharing ideas and strategies to support the sector.

Check out www.techsoupcanada.ca to take advantage of the new program and to get involved with Toronto’s Net Tuesday learning events.

design by BFdesign.ca

25% CHARITY 33% SOCIAL PURPOSE BUSINESS

35% NONPROFIT 23% ARTS FOCUSED TENANTS

23% ENVIRONMENT FOCUSED TENANTS 80% TENANTS WITH <3 STAFF

4% DRIVE TO WORK, 37% BIKE, 41% TRANSIT, 8% NEVER LEAVE

MAMMALIAN DIVING REFLEX MOST INTERESTING TENANT NAME

DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION MOST FAMOUS TENANT

SALAD CLUB TUESDAYS BUSIEST DAY AT CSI

MARGIE ZEIDLER OF URBANSPACE FAVOURITE LANDLORD

STATS

GET TO KNOW YOUR CSI STAFF

Camila Bonifaz » Mike Brcic » Colleen Diamond » Getnet Ejigu » Yumi Hotta » Eli Malinsky » Tonya Surman

BOARD MEMBERS

Sandy Crawley, Actor, composer, musician, writer, teacher and director » Brian Iler, Iler Campbell » Alice Klein, NOW Magazine » Eric Meerkamper, DECODE » Andre Sorensen, University of Toronto, Urban Planning » Jini Stolk, Creative Trust » Margaret Zeidler, Urbanspace Property Group

INSPIRED TO CONNECT?

Join our mailing list at www.socialinnovation.ca.

Or come for a visit

Centre for Social Innovation 215 Spadina Avenue Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C7

FUNDERS AND SUPPORTERS

The success of the Centre for Social Innovation would not have been possible without the funders and supporters that have played a vital role in helping the Centre to develop a good idea into a thriving social enterprise.

Tel. 416.979.3939 Fax. 416.979.3936 info@socialinnovation.ca www.socialinnovation.ca

EMERGENCEEMERGENCEThe STory of The

CenTre for SoCial innovaTion

EMERGENCEThe Story of the Centre for Social Innovation

4718127805579

ISBN 978-0-557-47181-290000

For additional copies of this publication, please visit:http://stores.lulu.com/socialinnovation

For more information contact:sssi@socialinnovation.cahttp://socialinnovation.ca

you are free

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

to remix — to adapt the work

under The following CondiiTonS

attribution

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Share alike

If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar licence to this one.

for more informaiton see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/

The Centre for Social innovation catalyzes and supports social innovation in Toronto and around the world. we create community workspaces, incubate emerging enterprises, and develop new models and methods with world-changing potential.

We believe that society is facing unprecedented economic, environmental, social and cultural challenges.

We also believe that new innovations are the key to turning these challenges into opportunities to improve our communities and our planet. We are working together to fi x our future.

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WANT TO HELP?

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foREwoRd

T he Centre for Social Innovation opened its doors in June 2004. At that time, we had incredible pas-

sion, extraordinary vision, and only an inkling of how we would make it all work. It was, needless to say, an adventurous start. At the time, we weren’t aware of any other similar models. It felt like everything we were do-ing was new. We were making it up as we went along, and through hard work, clear vision, and a fair amount of good fortune, we made it work. Our model and our team proved their mettle and within a few short years we were running a 23,000 square foot facility that was home to over 180 members representing missions from arts to environment to education to social justice.

Slowly, as our model grew, we began to attract the at-tention of others who were interested in what we were accomplishing. Some were at the idea stage and inter-ested to know ‘how we did what we did’. Others were already building shared spaces and wondered what they could borrow and adapt to their community. Still others were asking if we would come to their city to establish a Centre for Social Innovation.

What began as an occasional trickle began to gain steam. By our fourth year we were overwhelmed with requests and inquiries about our model. We were, and continue to be, absolutely delighted and honoured by this attention. But we struggled with our own capacity. We are a small social enterprise that has been stretched to the limits evolving our own community and programs.

We tried to share as much information as we could, as frequently as we could, but we began to realize that we needed another strategy to meet the growing interest in creating shared spaces for social innovation...

...so we created this series.Shared Spaces for Social Innovation is about sharing our story and empowering others to learn from our expe-rience. The Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) has al-ways been open with its model. We’ve long preached the benefi ts of shared spaces and we’ve been doing our best to encourage as many new spaces as possible. We fi gured that the best way to open our model – to reveal everything we’ve learned in hopes of supporting the emergence of new and better spaces – was to docu-ment what we’ve done and make it available to anyone who was interested.

It has taken a fair amount of courage for us to let it all hang out and give it all away! Many people advised us that we should be franchising, licensing, and hold-ing our knowledge close to our chests. But this went against our values. Instead, we are putting this whole series into the creative commons for others to benefi t from and contribute to.

We believe that good ideas scale when they are open. We also believe that ideas get better when we share. We look forward to working with you on this journey to create and grow new strategies for social innovation.

a worK in ProgreSS

Of course, the story of the Centre for Social Innovation is still unfolding. And yet the challenge with writing a book is the fi nality of it all. We therefore invite you to participate in our online space. At fi rst, we’ll have pdf versions of the series publications and a set of tem-plates and tools available for download. In time, we’ll make amendments to these books, release additions to the series and create a platform for a community of practice.

oPen SourCing our Model

Shared Spaces for Social Innovation reveals just about everything we’ve learned about creating and growing shared workspaces. We’re telling our story, sharing our research, and offering the tools and templates we’ve created along the way.

but sharing is a two-way street. actually, it’s more like a highway interchange!

While it is truly our pleasure to provide this material, our hope is that you will embrace the Creative Com-mons spirit. This means recognizing our contribu-tion and letting us know what you’ve used, adapted, and developed. More importantly, it means sharing your experiences and tools with other shared spaces.

By contributing to a shared body of knowledge, we’re empowering others to be even more successful, build-ing this fi eld and advancing our own spaces in the pro-cess.

We’re not yet sure what it will look like, and we’re very sure that it won’t be up to us alone to determine. But we’re hoping this effort starts us along a path to an open community of practice that is creating the spaces where people change the world.

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The Shared Spaces for Social Innovation Series is made up of three books:

emergence: The Story of the Centre for Social innovation.

In this book we weave a narrative around our genesis and de-velopment. Starting back when the Centre was just a glimmer in the eyes of a few social entrepreneurs, Emergence follows our growth from concept to operation to scale.

rigour: how to Create world-Changing Shared Spaces.

This book is a manual for those planning or operating a shared space. It reveals the accumulated knowledge of six years of experience and offers a ton of tips, lessons and tools for devel-oping a strong organization and vibrant community.

Proof: how Shared Spaces are Changing the world.

This report shares our most recent research on the impact of the Centre for Social Innovation in order to demonstrate just what shared spaces for social innovation can accomplish.

Each book can be read on its own. Together they provide a comprehensive picture of the Centre for Social Innovation.

looking to build or grow your own shared space for social innovation?

CSI offers tailored consulting, training, and speaking services to help you with challenges from start-up to scale. Get in touch by sending a note to sssi@socialinnovation.ca.

@access new releases and supporting materials.socialinnovation.ca/sssi

identify yourself as part of this growing community. socialinnovation.ca/sssi

download all of our templates and tools.socialinnovation.ca/sssi

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looKing forward

This series starts with the Centre for Social Innovation. But we know there are dozens of like-minded spaces around the world, and we hope to add other stories, experiences, tem-plates and tools over time.

Our vision is a vibrant, shared platform that includes the expe-riences of shared spaces dedicated to social innovation around the world – your experiences. We’re hoping to work with a community of likeminded people that is sharing ideas, strate-gies and… who knows?

Just imagine a network where we can share promising prac-tices, collaborate on joint projects and infrastructure, replicate good ideas and leverage investments from community to com-munity.

Let’s work together to support each other, our members and to build this exciting fi eld!

thank youWe would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to the many people who have made the Centre for So-cial Innovation and this series possible. First, a thanks to the CSI Staff and Board team, whose vision and in-dustry have made the Centre what it is today. Second, a special thanks to our incredible network of partners and supporters, including Urbanspace Property Group, Canadian Heritage, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canadian Alternative Investment Co-Operative, Asho-ka, Harbinger Foundation and the Province of Ontario, Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

A publication like this only comes together with incred-ible dedication. Eli Malinsky has played author, editor, project manager and overall superhero on this project; Shared Spaces for Social Innovation provides only a glimpse of the value that Eli brings to CSI and to this emerging fi eld.

Hamutal Dotan deserves special recognition for her writing on Emergence and Proof – her effortless style perfectly captures the tone of the Centre for Social In-novation. For turning beautiful words into compelling publications, The Movement continues to mesmerize and engage. We’d also like to recognize Margot Smart, who meticulously designed and analyzed the 2008 member survey, which forms the basis of our statistics.

Finally, we would like to recognize our members. They are the reason we do what we do. They inspire us, they motivate us, they ground us and they challenge us. Their passion, commitment and creativity are what make it all worthwhile, and it is truly our honour to sup-port their work.

Now let’s change the world together!

Tonya SurmaneXeCuTive direCTor

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“We’re part of a community that’s building the spaces where change happens.”Tonya surman on the emerging shared spaces sector

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Co-location refers to spaces that are shared among a number of separate organizations. Multi-Tenant Nonprofi t Centers are types of co-location spaces that focus on the nonprofi t sector.

Coworking refers to the sharing of workspace among freelancers and other independent workers. Co-working spaces provide workspace and community to people who are often working on their own.

Community Hubs are shared spaces that provide direct services to the geographic community in which they are situated. Community Hubs co-locate service providers that offer a range of supports such as language instruction, job training, after school programs and drop-in groups.

a Shared SpaceS gloSSary

Hot Desks are temporary, shared workspaces that are typically found in coworking spaces.

Incubators provide programmatic, strategic, administrative and/or fi -nancial support to small projects and organizations.

Social Innovation refers to new ideas that resolve social, cultural, economic and environmental chal-lenges for the benefi t of people and planet.

Even more simply, a social innova-tion is an idea that works for the public good.

SI

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The incentives for cost sharing have been growing. Nonprofi ts and chari-ties are enduring ongoing cutbacks in administrative budgets while facing increasing demands from communities and individuals.

For-profi t and nonprofi t strategies are blending together. Shared spaces – and frequently their members – are exam-ples of how mission-based and market-based approaches can coincide.

There is increasing recognition that the problems we face are too com-plex to be addressed by any single player. Shared spaces connect diverse organizations and individuals, giving them the chance to collaborate, share knowledge and develop systemic solu-tions to the issues they are trying to address.

why are Shared SpaceS emerging?

Shared workspaces are themselves a social innovation – an entirely new way of working. The dominant work-place model has been separate organizations working separately. That may have made perfect sense at one time and it may still make perfect sense in many instanc-es. But it is by no means a universal or desirable ap-proach. The nature of work is changing – and with it the workplace. These changes offer incredible potential for economic, social, cultural, and environmental progress in the coming years.

Real estate prices are soaring world-wide, making it increasingly diffi cult for small groups and individuals to fi nd affordable workspace.

why are Shared SpaceS emerging?The pendulum is swinging from global back to local. While the 90’s promised ‘virtual work’, the new millennium is reinforcing the importance of space.

Alongside new technologies has been the rise of ‘independents’ who work with several clients but who are not bound by the restrictions of any one physical space.

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C

S

our theory of change

a s we’ve built and expanded CSI over the past few years, we’ve developed our theory of change—

it’s our way of capturing how the Centre for Social In-novation creates the conditions for social innovation to emerge.

S  Serving as the foundation is the physical space, the environment which our members see and

feel and touch and inhabit every day. It’s at the very base of the pyramid because it’s what sets the tone for every-thing else: our members want to come to work simply to enjoy the space. The physical space is the container for everything that occurs at the Centre.

IC  The physical space sets the conditions for com-

munity. Community develops as people start to feel comfortable in a space, are happy to spend time in it, and develop relationships with other members doing the same. A kitchen, for instance, isn’t just a place to eat; it can also allow for shared meals and impromptu gatherings, and those, in turn, are the basis of the re-lationships which lead to a real sense of kinship among the members. With some delicate animation, the bonds of community are forged and strengthened, building social capital and a network of relationships.

I  Community relationships allow members to ex-change ideas, to collaborate easily, to fi nd ser-

vices and access knowledge that might otherwise be hard to come by. In short, community is what leads to innovation, because a community of other creative, en-gaged people is what blows away the cobwebs, allows you to see an old problem in a new light, and helps you fi nd creative ways of implementing solutions you might not otherwise have considered. And that—all the myriad ways in which space and community foster social innovation—well, that’s the whole purpose of the Cen-tre for Social Innovation.

22 23

We have witnessed the birth and growth of three dis-tinct but related movements. The fi rst is a movement toward co-location. Co-location generally refers to the more-or-less permanent sharing of space among orga-nizations. Within this fi eld, there is a particular trend toward co-location of nonprofi t organization within a single facility, often known as a Multi-Tenant Nonprofi t Centre. The members in these centres are individual organizations who have decided to share space, often an entire building, as a strategy to save costs and ad-vance their missions. The Nonprofi t Centers Network in San Francisco (nonprofi tcenters.org), a project of Tides Shared Spaces, is the primary organizing body for a network of over 200 such shared spaces, mostly in the United States, and is leading the charge in developing and connecting the fi eld. CSI is a proud member of the Nonprofi t Centers Network.

Sierra Health Nonprofit Innovation Center in the Sacramento area (sierrahealth.org)

a three-pronged movement

T he shared spaces movement is exploding. While various forms of shared workspace have been

around for decades, the idea of shared space as a unique fi eld of practice is more recent, and the past few years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of shared spaces and in the interconnections among them.

The second movement is often referred to as cowork-

ing. Born of ‘independents’ (freelancers, sole practitio-ners, consultants, etc.) primarily in the tech and design sectors, coworking spaces are generally more informal and of smaller scale than co-locations. Many members are motivated by opportunities for social connect-edness; as independents, they are too often working alone.

Coworking spaces provide shared space for part-time members and are popping up all over the globe. This movement, more ad-hoc than the co-location move-ment, is being loosely connected and organized through the Coworking Wiki (blog.coworking.info). While most coworking spaces do not apply a ‘social change’ lens to their work, one notable exception is The Hub (the-hub.net), a global network of coworking spaces now reach-ing into over 20 countries around the world. CSI is an affi liate of The Hub Network.

The third movement is a movement toward incubation of social change projects. Although it’s a fuzzy term, incubation generally refers to support given to early-stage projects and organizations. This support can in-clude programming, trusteeship, shared services, in-vestment and fi nancial back-end services. The past few years have seen an increase in the application of tra-ditional incubation strategies for commercialization to social enterprises.

The Hub, a coworking space, also applies a social change lens to their work (the-hub.net)

National Community Development Institute builds capacity for social change in communities (ncdinet.org)

24 25

the cSi twiSt

T he Centre for Social Innovation is a hybrid of these movements. Like co-locations we provide

permanent, stable offi ce rental to organizations. Like coworking spaces, we provide part-time desk spaces to ‘independents’. Like an incubator, CSI provides pro-gramming and shared services to its members, and of-fers a handful of projects support ranging from strate-gic advice to back-end fi nancial services.

This makes us unique. In fact, there are a few other unique characteristics of the CSI model.

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a SoCial Change lenS

The Centre for Social Innovation is designed to support and foster social innovation. All of our members are selected based on their commitment to that goal, and all of our programming is designed to increase the capacity of social enterprises, non-profi ts, charities, green businesses, artists, designers, creators, and activists to improve the well-being of people and our planet.

a foCuS on SMall

We focus on groups with fi ve or fewer staff. The vast major-ity of our members are one- and two-person operations. It is these small groups that are in the greatest need of shared fa-cilities and administration; it is also these groups that are best positioned to collaborate and connect with others.

PhySiCal deSign

We understand the critical role of physical design in setting the tone of a space and the behaviour of its users. We have developed a very specifi c approach to physical design that has been a key ingredient in our success and in the ‘experience’ of the Centre for Social Innovation.

aniMaTion aS PraCTiCe

Community animation is what turns “a place to work” to a space of social innovation. We’ve been building the practice of animation and developing its role as a central feature of suc-cessful shared spaces.

52% of members describe themselves as working on the environment, 39% in culture, 31% in social justice, and 25% in technology (respondents were allowed to select multiple sectors).

Incorporated for-profi t and incorporated nonprofi ts are equally represented among our members, at 23% each. 25% of members are registered charities, and 24% are unincorporated.

We are a community of the small but mighty: 94% of CSI members have three or fewer full-time equivalent staff.

Two-thirds of members are under the age of 40, doing their best to keep the other third feeling young! Thirty-seven percent of members bicycle to work every day (fewer in Toronto winters!).

So, just who are the members of CSI? It’s an eclectic mix that cuts across sectors and organizational types, ages and skill sets, and it’s an altogether glorious jumble.

Recreation

Professional Association

Public Space

Health & Disability

Law / Advocacy / Politics

Other

Social Services

Community Economic Development

Technology

Capacity Builder

Social Justice

Culture

Arts

Environment

8

10

15

15

17

18

18

21

25

30

31

39

39

52

Sector %

Bike

Drive

Tran

sit

Walk

Other

10%

37%

8%

41%

4%

GettingHere

6

23

23

24

25Don't Know

Incorporated For-Profit

Incorporated Non-Profit

Unicorporated

Registered Charity

Legal Form %

<4

26 27

member SnapShot

i n November 2008 we conducted a comprehensive member survey. The survey comprised more than

one hundred questions, investigating everything from customer service to the effect of membership on organizational revenues. The results include, in addition to quantitative measures, more than 2,000 submitted comments, anecdotes, and suggestions. We are honoured and grateful that so many of our members were willing to share their thoughts and insights with us, and thrilled to now be sharing them with you1.

[1] Throughout this report, unless otherwise noted, any statistics or feedback attributed to CSI members refers to the informa-tion gathered from the 80 respondents to our November 2008 survey, who represent about 30% of our membership.

download the survey and a report of the results:socialinnovation.ca/sssi

28 29

Getnet Ejigu, one of the CSI’s

community animators, and

front-desk-greeter/problem-

solver extraordinaire, has

turned the lights on now,

and put the big urn of

coffee on to brew.

8:20

A couple of others are on the phone, returning

last night’s voicemails.

The lights are off and the hallway is still

It's quiet, for the moment.

An early bird or two can be found at their desks,

going through the morning routine:

steaming mugs of coffee

email

to-do lists

30 31

9:35Bagels! Fresh from Montreal and laid out

on the counter in the kitchen, for any and

all to snack on.

People start clustering round chatting

about their latest projects.

Getnet Ejigu, one of the CSI’s community

animators, and front-desk-

greeter/problem-solver extraordinaire,

has turned the lights on now, and put the

big urn of coffee on to brew.

A couple of others are on the phone, returning last night’s voicemails.

chatting about their latest projects.People start clustering round

9:35

Bagels! Fresh from Montreal and laid out on the counter in the kitchen, for any and all to snack on.

8:20

32 33

1:46

11:01 a.m. The lounge is going full throttle: impromptu consultations by the fridge, a scheduled meeting on the couch in the centre of the space, a strategy session at the round table in the corner. Someone reaches behind the reception desk to grab an ethernet cable—the wireless has been on the fritz but a conference by instant-messenger must go on regardless.

1:10 No more Indian food.12:55

2:12 p.m. Pant, pant, pant, lick, woof, pant. There's a dog in the lounge! One of the tenants felt bad leaving Maisie at home all day and brought her in for the afternoon. (She's friendly, and soon settles down.)

11:00

34 35

How do I make more coffee?

Oh, would you like some of my peanut butter?

I have a thingabout peanutbutter

one of the tenants asks, trying to combat afternoon doldrums

she says while the coffee is brewing

Executive Director Tonya overhears and helpfully steps in, going through the procedure step-by-step.

and then she passes over a spoon for dipping straight into the jar.

6:15

8:00

Voices echo in the aptly named Think Tank—

someone’s having a meeting. A couple of other

members wander up to the rooftop patio for a

chat. Someone else comes out of the bathroom

in a party frock, on her way to a function straight

from work.

One by one, lights start going off at desks

across the floor.

The lights are pretty much all out now. It’s

quiet again—for the next ten or eleven

hours, at least.

36 37

wElCoME tothE CENtRE foR

soCial iNNovatioN

h oused on two floors of the Robertson Building, a historic fac-

tory building in downtown Toronto (located at 215 Spadina

Avenue), CSI is home to more than 180 social mission projects

and organizations. It provides — as all good homes do — physi-

cal shelter, but a great deal more than that as well: security, com-

munity, the wisdom of those a generation older than you, and the

boundless energy of those a generation younger. The organiza-

tions are all small, ranging in size from one to maybe a half-dozen

staff. Some are just starting out, newly hatched in the minds of

their creators and recently liberated from their basement home

offices. Others are well-established, with secure grants or rev-

enue streams and a track-record of years of accomplishment.

What they share: a commitment to systems change; to not just

improving people’s lives but finding new approaches to tackling

social, environmental, economic, and cultural challenges. And,

significantly, membership in a community of like-minded

organizations.

CSI both fosters social innovation and is a social innovation — a

new model for how individuals and organizations committed to

social and environmental progress can pool their energy to both

create a more humane working environment and do more effec-

tive work. And while that sounds like a wonderful goal, one whose

merits are so obvious as to not even require defending, this was not

always the case.

CSI was founded in early 2004, and barely anybody

understood what it was meant to be or do back then. This

is the story of how CSI came to be.

“If you’re in, I’m in…”

“Well if you’re in, I’m in!”Tonya surman and margie zeidler making a pact

how it all bEGaN 38

2C h a P T e r

40 41

a sk those who’ve been involved in CSI from the outset just

why or when it got its start and you’ll get slightly different

variations on a theme each time. This, immediately, tells you some-

thing: CSI is a collaboration, and like all collaborations it draws

on the various experiences, proclivities, and perspectives of its

creators. There is no agreed upon storyline because there is no

single answer to the question of how CSI was founded. Nor, more

importantly, does there need to be. Some key players cite cer-

tain academic trends or developments in workplace culture, others

government research projects, still others economic crises which

forced nonprofit organizations into creative cost-reduction. All are

correct, and none tell the whole story.

But begin somewhere we must, and so we shall start with an orga-

nization charmingly named Spadina Bus. Spadina Avenue — the

street on which CSI is located — is one of the oldest and busiest

thoroughfares in Toronto, home to many historic buildings that date

to the city’s earliest days. In the late 20th century Spadina went

through something of a rough patch, with many of those build-

ings becoming prohibitively expensive to maintain, and some even

regrettably being left vacant. Zoning by-law changes eventually

turned the neighbourhood around — specifically some new regu-

lations which freed the area up for mixed-use development, and

allowed for innovative utilization of the existing infrastructure. As

the King and Spadina neighbourhood was reborn it became a hub

in the downtown core, humming with both commercial and resi-

dential activity. New businesses, and especially “new economy”

businesses based on technology, gravitated to the area, as did the

young people who worked at these firms.

A lot of these old beautiful buildings were fantastic, and were filling with technology and internet companies.eric meerkamper

Spadina Bus was founded in 2000 by Eric Meerkamper, a partner

in DECODE - a strategy firm dedicated to understanding young

people and this new economy. “It was basically a networking asso-

ciation that was created to brand the King and Spadina area of

Toronto as being an innovation cluster,” he recalls. “A lot of these

old beautiful buildings were fantastic,” and were filling with tech-

nology and internet companies. The people starting these busi-

nesses “really loved the authenticity of the buildings,” and young

people began flocking to the neighbourhood. Four-hundred-and-

fifty people showed up at the first meeting of Spadina Bus, a tes-

tament to how invested the neighbourhood’s new residents were

in its development. Though Spadina Bus is now defunct, that first

community of people served as a kind of signpost, an indication

that innovative redevelopment on Spadina — redevelopment which

prized liveability and respected the neighbourhood’s history — was

not only possible but welcome.

Over the next couple of years Eric started wondering not just about

neighbourhood developments but about some other urban issues

as well, and specifically about the role of social mission organiza-

tions. He had been having some conversations with Patrick Tobin, in

the Department of Canadian Heritage (an agency of the Canadian

federal government) about the challenges facing small nonprofits.

“Pat and I…started to speak with a number of not-for-profits, social

enterprises, charities, and so on, to really try to understand what

the key barriers were for growth.” The answer they got? “A lot of it

was space.” Funding is often project-based, not stable, and these

small organizations were trapped because they couldn’t tap into

reliable infrastructure and establish a firm foothold.

Older buildings in the area were filling with technology and internet companies. They felt authentic, there was a lot of space, the price was right.

42 43

DECODE prepared a study for Canadian Heritage on a potential

solution to this problem: providing better space for these orga-

nizations. The report was titled “Establishing a Social Innovation

Centre in Toronto,” and published January 31, 2003.

From his perspective, Pat Tobin too had multiple overlapping rea-

sons for becoming interested in the state of the union at small

organizations. In addition to his conversations with Eric, Pat

had been doing some work with Margie Zeidler, the founder of

Urbanspace Property Group, a mission-driven real estate devel-

opment company. Margie had already opened a co-location for

artists and cultural entrepreneurs in the King Spadina neighbour-

hood, at the building that became known simply by its address

— 401 Richmond. A study released in September 2003 showed

Margie had already opened a co-location for artists and cultural entrepreneurs in the King Spadina neighbourhood, at the building that became known simply by its address — 401 Richmond.

that 401 members were healthier than many comparable organiza-

tions housed independently, and that community focused design

and programming is what made the difference. (401 Richmond has,

in the years since it opened, become an inspiration for many other

cities across the globe.)

Clearly momentum was building around the notion of using shared

space and shared resources to ease the burdens on small organi-

zations, but the concrete path to developing such as space was

not yet clear. Pat came to the conclusion that government perhaps

wasn’t cut out to for this particular task since government, as a

guardian and distributor of taxpayer money, wasn’t necessarily in

a position to accommodate something so new and unpredictable.

The wheels had begun turning, however, and within a matter of a

few months Eric and Pat would become instrumental in the not-

yet-named CSI’s development, and Eric one of its founding board

members.

a nother of CSI’s founding principals was Mary Rowe, who at

the time was president of Ideas That Matter, an organiza-

tion which ran events and issued publications inspired by the work

of urbanist Jane Jacobs. Mary agrees that the origins of CSI are

impossible to pin down: “like all good ideas you don’t really know

where they started…CSI was an amalgam of a whole bunch of dif-

ferent energies and ideas…and different people.” She goes on to

emphasize the way in which this exemplifies the kind social innova-

tion CSI seeks to foster: “I think it’s an emergent idea…in that way

it was a great instance of social innovation.”

King and Spadina Neighbourhood

44 45

Mary, it so happened, knew both Pat Tobin and Margie Zeidler.

According to Mary, Margie was already well on her way to under-

standing just how powerful collaborative spaces could be: “Margie

was developing her ideas around how she was developing an eco-

system of users around her building (at 401 Richmond, the cultural

industries co-location space)…she was constantly watching and

trying to learn from the ecology.” In May 2003 the two went to a

conference in New York on the subject of shared facilities in this

sector. As Mary tells it, Margie got so inspired that one day while

on a break from the conference, while they were sitting together at

a bar, Margie turned to Mary and simply said, “I just think I should

do this.”

Around the same time, Robert Barnard, DECODE’s CEO, came to

Alan Broadbent with a proposal to fund a meeting in Toronto with

three generations of social innovators. Robert had been at a confer-

ence in Geneva in the Fall of 2002 organized by the Schwab Foun-

dation where the idea of gathering social innovators was discussed.

As a major supporter of urban issues (Alan is chair of the board at

Ideas That Matter’s parent company, Avana Capital), Alan agreed

to support and host the event. Mary Rowe and Margie Zeidler were

both at that event and the idea of establishing a social incubator

was floated.

Margie, of course, attended. “It did come up among a lot of the

younger people that they felt isolated,” she recalls, “because they

were working in basements or wherever. They thought it would be

a useful idea to maybe share some simple equipment, like maybe a

fax machine or phones — that was about as far as it got technologi-

cally — but mostly what they wanted was community, they wanted

Like all good ideas you don’t really know where they started…CSI was an amalgam of a whole bunch of different energies and ideas…and different people.mary rowe

to be able to discuss with other people what they were doing.” This

was a subtle but important shift in the conversation, moving from

co-location (housing organizations in the same building) to shared

spaces (having communally-accessed infrastructure and facilities).

At the time, Margie happened to be finishing up renovations of

215 Spadina, an old factory building she had recently acquired to

accommodate the overwhelming unmet demand for space at 401

Richmond (which, at the time, had 200 members on its waiting list).

She had a 5,000 square foot space still available on the ground

floor, and thought that it might, just maybe, have the potential to

serve as just such a shared space.

a t the exact moment Margie was getting excited about the

potential for actualizing the notion of shared space, some-

one else across town was getting similarly energized — specifically,

a woman named Tonya Surman.

Tonya was a former member of Margie’s at 401 Richmond and a

partner in the Commons Group, a consulting firm dedicated to

helping social mission groups build effective and fruitful networks.

Tonya had been building online and offline communities and under-

taking social ventures for fifteen years, in fact, and was becoming

an expert in the field of collaboration, enterprise, and innovative

governance models. Tonya had also been thinking about clustering

and constellations — bringing capacity builders in the social mission

sector together — and had even looked at some office space that

might be used in this capacity.

Tonya and her husband Mark happened to throw a dinner party

one night — only it wasn’t just any night, it was the very night after

Maytree’s social innovation conference took place. And to this din-

Younger people felt isolated… mostly what they wanted was community.margie ze idler

46 47

ner party they happened to invite Philip King, the CEO of an online

fundraising company. Philip had been at the conference and so,

in typical fashion, it came up as a topic of conversation at dinner.

Philip happened (this story involves a charming and jaw-dropping

number of things that just “happened” to be the case) to mention

that his favourite moment of the day involved “this one woman, I

think her name was Margie or something, [who] was talking about

bringing together some nonprofits — she said she basically had a

building, and was thinking about how to bring some folks together.”

Tonya, in her own words, “interrogated him,” and gleaned as much

information about the project as she could. She called Margie the

next day and told her that she’d been thinking about working on a

similar shared-space project. The two got together for coffee once,

and then Margie introduced Tonya to Mary Rowe. The three met a

few times over the next few months, refining their thoughts on the

subject. “Tonya’s an instinctive mixer,” says Mary, and has “a kind of

web understanding of interrelations…at the time Tonya was trying

to concretize these ideas about interrelations that she was seeing in

the technology world.” Tonya, as soon as she heard what Mary and

Margie had been discussing, basically said “let me at it,” in Mary’s

words. “She was ready to jump in with not just hands but hands,

feet, fingers, toes…”

For all three of them, the prospect of combining of social innova-

tion and shared space was becoming ever-more compelling.

i n a moment that would prove instrumental, Eric introduced Pat

Tobin from Heritage Canada to Mary, Margie, and Tonya: the

catalyzing group of what would become CSI had finally all come

together.

Margie and I walked out of the meeting and it was one of those moments that I’ll never forget…Tonya surman

In December 2003 Tonya, Margie, and Pat had a meeting with a

cultural affairs officer at the City of Toronto. Tonya’s eyes invariably

light up when describing, not this meeting exactly, but what hap-

pened right after: “Margie and I walked out of the meeting and it

was one of those moments that I’ll never forget… We walked out

and there was a blizzarding storm, and there was this crazy hail, and

we were standing out…and I don’t even remember what we were

talking about, but there was just this moment where she looked at

me and she said… ‘If you’re in, I’m in.’ And I said, ‘Well if you’re in,

I’m in.’ And it was just this pact.”

The five of them — Margie, Mary, Tonya, Pat, and Eric — held their

first meeting as now official founding partners of the Centre for

Social Innovation in January 2004, decided that they wanted to

move things along as quickly as possible, and set themselves a six

month deadline for getting the operation up and running. Cana-

dian Heritage provided $15,000 for a feasibility study of a shared

spaces venture; the principals, already were convinced of its feasi-

bility, used that infusion of cash to draw up the concrete plans to

back the vision up. Tonya happened to have some time available,

having recently returned to working life after taking time off to have

a baby, and was on the lookout for interesting opportunities. Her

absolute enthusiasm for the project, and her deep knowledge of

collaboration, proved irresistible: the group decided she would

make the perfect executive director of the new venture.

(Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. Tonya and Pat had, as a matter

of fact, gone to meet with a potential executive director. Fortu-

nately, someone else was astute enough to see what, in retrospect,

seems obvious. The founders were having a meeting one day and

Pat raised the issue of establishing a hiring process for the execu-

We wanted to prove our hunch that bringing groups together would spark innovation.paT Tobin

48 49

tive director. At which point, Tonya recalls, Mary Rowe piped up

and said “’Well Tonya, don’t you want that job?” Tonya, of course,

said yes, and then Mary went on: “Tonya, can you leave the room

please?” Tonya stepped out for a few minutes, and about ten

minutes later she stepped back in and was offered the job by her

fellow founders.)

Tonya (whose enthusiasm has abated not one iota in the past six

years) likes to refer to Margie as CSI’s “angel“ — the fairy godmother

of the whole operation, as it were. Her conceptual and material con-

tributions were, simply, what made CSI possible. Entirely in keeping

with her character, Margie speaks far more humbly of her own role

than others do about it: “we gave the rent at a good deal,” she says

modestly, “it wasn’t half of other people’s rent, it was just a tiny bit

lower — but we didn’t require that they start paying rent until they

had members.”

CSI was created on a cost-recovery model, that is, on a plan accord-

ing to which there would be enough revenue from the rents to

cover operating expenses. Thus, the primary financial challenge

was getting started in the first place. Margie lays out the problem

CSI would otherwise have faced: “Landlords typically don’t like

members who are very nebulous — they don’t like members where

there are multiple members; they don’t like members that don’t

have three years worth of financial statements to show; and so on.”

Why then was Margie so eager to get on board? “In a sense I kind

of considered myself the member, because it was an organization I

co-created, because it was something I wanted to try.”

Urbanspace Property Group underwrote the build-out of the space

and the start-up for CSI tenancy, including partial support of the

salary of the Executive Director and half the salary of an administra-

tor for the first year, as well as an interest-free loan of $52,000 —

An initial investment totaling over $250,000. Tonya, meanwhile put

in buckets of sweat equity: she brought her successful consulting

practice and its revenue into the Centre, and continued to take on

consulting work until CSI’s fourth year of operation — essential to

making the Centre work financially. Both were hooked on the idea

of what might be possible.

Other financial start-up schemes, you might think, could have been

found: government assistance, grants, or private donors might

all have gotten CSI off the ground in alternate universes. Maybe.

But as Pat had considered earlier, the barriers — born of the fact

that CSI was a new kind of enterprise and didn’t fit neatly into any

funding model anybody recognized — proved insurmountable. In

their initial quests for funding, in fact, nobody wanted to touch the

project, since it didn’t fall into any recognizable or existing funding

categories. “It was the brokenness of the boxes,” says Tonya, “that

was the problem.” Margie’s and Tonya’s contributions of money,

time and labour allowed CSI to circumvent all those roadblocks

and enabled the space to go from idea to execution with lightning

speed.

Tonya developed marketing materials in January and February and

the founding members sent an email out, relying on all their exist-

ing networks, announcing the availability of member spaces in the

now-named Centre for Social Innovation. At the same time, Tonya

and the board also fleshed out financial projections, pricing mod-

els, space designs, member recruitment guidelines, and a whole

host of other documents that were essential to starting up. The

Centre was registered as a nonprofit on March 22, 2004.

•C

A

NA D A •

REGISTERED N

ON

-PR

OF

IT3/222004

“Trust me, it’ll look like this in three months.”Tonya surman reassuring a soon-to-be member

buildiNG thE spaCE 50

3C h a P T e r

52 53

d eveloping the facilities and developing the community hap-

pened simultaneously, and each had — or attempted to

have — an effect on the other.

“There were things that were difficult,” remembers Margie, “but

we stuck to the decisions we’d made. For example, we wanted to

make it very open and visible and airy and light, and people imme-

diately wanted to put filing cabinets in front of their glass walls to

block themselves off so they couldn’t be seen, or put drywall up

instead of glass.

There was a bit of fighting about that, and so it had to be laid down

in the leases.”

Design, in short, mattered an awful lot to everyone involved. There

were some design principles which Tonya and Margie viewed as

indispensible: they were part of the very character of the Centre

they were trying to build not just physically but psychologically.

part of that was to bring light into the centre but part of it was also to create community.

This particular Centre happened to be housed in a heritage building, an old warehouse with exposed brick and wood floors, which were, it goes without saying, pretty to look at. But they weren’t the essentials: those materials were the specific manifestation in this case, but others might have served the same purpose. It’s the purpose — the effect those materials produce — which matters.

54 55

“It has to be open, I think,” says Margie. “Even though members

have their own individual spaces, we’ve tried to open up…to have

the doors be glass and have some parts of the walls be glass, to

bring light into the hallways and also to increase visual communica-

tion between people in their suites and people in the hallways. It’s

a security thing too: if everyone’s locked behind their doors you

don’t know what’s going on — the more people can see each other,

the better.” This approach to design is rather like taking a mixed-

use block of your neighbourhood — the kind of space Jane Jacobs

is famous for advocating — and bringing it indoors. In fact, Margie

even borrows one of Jacobs’s metaphors to describe the interior of

CSI: “eyes on the corridor,” a play on Jacobs’s slogan of “eyes on

the street.” Buildings and workplaces, like neighbourhoods, func-

tion best when they are held in common.

“There has to be lots of light, and I think that’s just common to any

working condition,” Margie continues — light is how you achieve

openness. North America lags behind Europe on this matter: in Ger-

many, she points out, there’s a rule that “you cannot place a worker

more than fifteen feet away from a [natural] light source. Here the

cores in these [office] towers are typically sixty feet deep…execu-

tives get the best space and the walls go up and so everybody else

is sitting in the dark…that’s inhumane. I don’t think people should

be anywhere where they can’t have access to natural light.”

Margie (who can talk for longer, and far more interestingly, on light

than anyone you’ve ever met), continues: “Somebody did a calcu-

lation once: even on the darkest day the intensity of light outside is

something like ten times what we can recreate in an interior space

with even fantastic intensity of artificial light — it’s just the quality of

it, the distribution of it, etc. is so much greater.”

openness & lighT

“…light is how you achieve openness…i don’t think people should be anywhere where they can’t have access to natural light.”

56 57

Equally essential to creating and sustaining this

sense of community are common spaces. Every-

one coming into or out of their office in CSI has

to pass through the common area, and much like

the living room in your house, it contains all the

essentials for a comfortable break: an arrange-

ment of couches, a rug or two, a coffee table

piled with newspapers, a few plants and knick-

knacks that have been picked up over time.

Did you check out that new dumpling place down the street?

How was your son’s birthday party?

Know any good grant writers?

it’s a space which allows for a melding of the personal and the professional which crystallizes the kind of interaction typical of csi.

w alls, in fact, can be the biggest barrier to light, which is

why the ones in CSI don’t go all the way up to the ceiling.

“All the offices are on the perimeter,” Margie points out, “where

the windows are, and if you put [walls] up, that’s the end of the

story — you get no more light.” Though they were counter-intui-

tive and took some getting used to, these partial walls had other

benefits. Prime among these was their use in supporting good

air circulation, and doing so affordably. Without these open walls

people in the interior of the floor space wouldn’t have gotten any

air, and the cost of building out the duct work would have been

prohibitive. Compared to traditional office towers, with un-open-

able windows and artificially controlled environments, “if you put

trees outside, so you’re getting more shaded light, and you can

open your windows to get some breezes, and you can use fans

(which reduce heat by about 4º C in summer), you can do without

air conditioning and you can also lower your heat load because

you don’t have as much artificial light and therefore you don’t

need as much cooling. It’s simple — people have forgotten.”

The walls not going all the way up to the ceiling had another effect,

and another intention, that was at least as important: it’s a design

feature that fosters community. It is impossible to maintain insular-

ity, to keep entirely to yourself, when you can’t help but overhear

your neighbour’s conversations sometimes, and you know that they

can’t help overhearing yours. The goal wasn’t to be invasive (pri-

vate phone booths are available for confidential calls, for instance),

but to generate a sense that all the members were somehow in

something together.

presence

The walls not going all the way up to the ceiling had another effect, and another intention, that was at least as important: it’s a design feature that fosters community.

58 59

In keeping with the open-concept ethos which underlies

both the space and the philosophy of CSI, the kitchen

has no walls, and blends seamlessly into the cosy couch

area. The cupboards are stocked with dishes and utensils,

the coffee pot is always on, and recycling bins are clearly

labelled.

There is much wisdom in the old adage that bonds are

forged and friendships formed over the breaking of bread.

It is wisdom that holds to this day, and it was over shared

meals and communal lunches that CSI’s members first and

most strongly developed connections to one another. Cof-

fee klatches in the morning, a communal salad bar at lunch,

an impromptu glass of wine to celebrate the end of a long

week — the kitchen is the heart of CSI like it’s the heart of

any home. All the small but essential meetings, which char-

acterize the texture of a day at CSI and are its life’s blood,

would be impossible without it. “That’s the magic sauce,

says Tonya, “community is built around food.”

The kiTchen

of course, of all the various kinds of common space, kitchens are most important. margie and Tonya, quite sensibly, knew from the beginning that their new space couldn’t do without one.

60 61

w hile Margie and Tonya were working on the physical infra-

structure of CSI, Pat, along with the other founders, were

working on developing its membership. (Though CSI is technically

a landlord, renting out space to the small organizations which are

its members, people use landlord-member language far less than is

typical when describing the Centre. It’s designed, and experienced,

as something far more intimate.) The group used their collective

social networks to recruit potential members, sending out emails

to advise everyone they knew that space would soon be available.

Representatives of forty organizations came out to the two informa-

tion sessions the founders held, and twenty-five of those submitted

applications for the fourteen available spots.

Tonya, eager to flex her muscles as the newly installed executive

director, made it her mission to personally bring in some of CSI’s

Networks, and just plain networking, were essential in getting the right members in the space.

first members. She had, in addition to the general email which the

founding group had sent out, called friends who were running the

kinds of organizations she wanted to see in CSI. One in particular

was Paul Bubelis, executive director of the Sustainability Network,

a capacity-building organization that works in the environmental

sector. He recalls getting a call from Tonya, who introduced CSI,

he remembers with a laugh, with the words: “I have an idea. Bear

with me.” She pitched him and another contact, Chris Winter, at the

Conservation Council of Ontario, and both agreed to take spots at

the Centre.

Pat, recalls Tonya, “was instrumental in filling the space with people.

He was the one that made sure we had multicultural communities

here, he was the one that made sure arts groups were brought in.”

In fact, each of the founders brought their own experiences, com-

62 63

munities, and perspectives to the selection process, advocating for

the groups and potential members with which they had already

had positive experiences. Tonya fought to ensure space for envi-

ronmental groups while Margie, like Pat, went to bat for arts orga-

nizations. Mary Rowe, the complexity expert, was committed to a

mix, and wanted to ensure that the members who were ultimately

selected came from as wide a variety of backgrounds as possible,

and Eric made sure there were a couple of for-profit members, fur-

ther enhancing this diversity.

The selection process itself was an exercise in breaking traditional

workplace models in which factors far beyond a potential mem-

ber’s ability to make rent were taken into account. Selection criteria

included consideration of an organization’s social mission, its physi-

cal fit in the available space, its reach and profile, and its innovative

nature. The founders were also mindful of wanting to create the

right balance in the group of members as a whole, making sure

that they came from a diverse array of backgrounds and were at

different stages of maturity. Selection ended up being weighted

one-third in favour of emerging organizations, which were still in

their formative stages of development, and two-thirds in favour of

more established, sustaining organizations.

Sandy Crawley, executive director of the Documentary Organisa-

tion of Canada, heard of the Centre via the email the founding

members had sent out, and was the very first member to move into

CSI; he also wound up joining the board of directors. Before CSI,

he says, “we were located in a little cubbyhole of an office up in a

building on College Street.” When the email landed in his inbox,

therefore, he was intrigued enough to attend one of the informa-

tion sessions and take a tour of the facilities.

“Facilities,” of course, was something of a loose term — the Centre

at that point consisted of a gutted, completely raw space. There

were exposed brick walls, some fantastic wooden floors, and pretty

much nothing else. Of course, this is a great improvement over

what had been there previously: Tonya recalls the “horrible” drop-

ceilings and the “awful, disgusting drywall disaster” with a shud-

der. Folding chairs were set up amidst the construction debris and

Tonya and Margie spoke to prospective members at two meetings

in February and March. The information at the meeting, like the

space itself, was bare bones but effective at conveying the key

ideas: Tonya distributed a one-sheet rundown of the rental costs,

and a copy of the floor plan Margie had drawn up.

One-third in favour of emerging organizations

Two-thirds in favour of more established, sustaining organizations.

“Trust me,” paul remembers her saying at the meeting, “it’ll look like this in three months.”

download our member selection criteria:socialinnovation.ca/sssi

download our member selection criteria:socialinnovation.ca/sssi

64 65

S andy had never encountered terms like “clustering” before,

but got hooked on the idea and, like Paul and Chris, decided

that he wanted to take one of the spaces. Flashing back to that

early meeting, the message Sandy took away was that:

The Documentary Organisation of Canada moved in June 1,

2004 — just a year after the conferences in New York and Toronto

which sparked the idea of building CSI in the first place. (This isn’t

to say that there was a direct causal link between the conferences

and the foundation of CSI — innovations are never born out of such

simple connections. But there was something in the air, a shift in the

gestalt, which helped CSI along and which CSI itself then helped

strengthen in turn.) The founders had met their first major goal, and

had members coming in to CSI right on the six-month schedule

they had set themselves.

“They weren’t ready,” laughs Sandy, “but we moved in anyways.

The phones didn’t work for a month on and off…there was a table

saw outside the office — it was a quite a go.” Plastic sheets cur-

tained off the Documentary Organization’s office, and sawdust was

flying as Sandy settled into his new desk.

it could be social enterprise, it could be not-for-profit, but the thing was — you had to want to change the world.

“Are we expected to run this place as well?”jini sTolk to Tonya surman, asking about governance

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T he fledgling CSI needed organizations that were healthy

enough to be responsible members — but after that it was

creating an exciting mix of people that was important. Among the

organizations that moved in were not just arts-based groups like

the Documentary Organization, and environmental groups such

as the Sustainability Network and the Conservation Council, but

humanitarian organizations like the Stephen Lewis Foundation

(which developed so successfully that it eventually outgrew CSI

space and moved into its own office down the street).

Jini Stolk had just started the Creative Trust (a collaborative group

whose membership includes dance, music, and theatre companies)

when CSI was putting out feelers for members. “I had moved from

my home to a desk in someone else’s office,” she says, when she

heard about the new space. Pat Tobin put her in touch, and like

Sandy at the Documentary Organisation of Canada, Jini came in for

an information session and a tour. The meeting, she remembers,

was held in CSI itself, which at the time was “absolutely raw, unfin-

ished warehouse space.” Tonya’s presentation was “about a vision

for a space where people from the various nonprofit sectors, and

social enterprises, might share space and common activities.”

Though this sounded great, says Jini, “I did have one question,

which was: “‘I’m really busy running my own organization — are we

expected to run this place as well?’” Worried about the “horrors

of co-op or collective, which would have sent me over the edge of

workload” Jini was essentially concerned that membership in CSI

would add a whole new layer of responsibility rather than alleviate

pressure. This was also something Tonya and the other founders

had been discussing — just what the respective roles of CSI and

the member organizations should be. “Tonya said that this immedi-

ately clicked with her,” Jini remembers of that meeting, “and that

[CSI] would need to be professionally managed and facilitated…in

a friendly and enabling environment.”

Tonya still recalls this exchange as well, calling it “the defining

moment of our governance.” CSI would not be a co-op but a com-

munity, in which members could join in as little or as much as they

individually wanted.

CSI steered away from the co-op route in another respect: it was,

from the outset, treated as and run like a customer service-oriented

business. Not only were members free to partake in as little or as

much of the social and organizational life of the Centre as they

wished, they were freed from the routine daily duties that could

hinder their efficiency and hamper their success. The Centre itself,

rather than any members’ collective, assumed responsibility for

basic office functions: it would take care of everything from copiers

to cleaning, phone lines to parties. Yes, the members have to put

away their own dishes and would be expected to take responsibility

for their own messes, but the vast majority of mundane, time — and

money — consuming details would be cleared off their desks. Cru-

cially, this would allow CSI to afford its members the latitude and

ability to enhance and program the space they shared, since mem-

bers were freed of the need to expend energy on the space’s basic

maintenance. Members would be encouraged to self-organize

things like a weekly Salad Club or the occasional meditation ses-

sion.

The Centre would allow its members to focus on leading health-

ier lives and give them back many of their own internal resources,

which they could put where they belonged — towards achieving

their social missions.

Members would be encouraged to self-organize things like a weekly Salad Club or the occasional meditation session.

70 71

Staff and memberS brought vitality to the Space every Single day.

72 73

Of course, running a high quality customer service operation requires

service providers: CSI needed staff. Annie Hillis was the Centre’s

very first staff member, hired to assist in the implementation of the

space — everything from member recruitment to leasing photocopi-

ers. Annie helped with all the nitty-gritty details that are essential to

getting an organization up and running and took her leave when the

Centre opened; she was replaced by another key early staff mem-

ber, Audrey Vince. Audrey implemented organizational systems and

helped the members troubleshoot any problems, creating a sense

of order and security in the early days. And Audrey, a year or two

later, was replaced by Maria Pazo, whom members remember for her

vibrancy and energy — for epitomizing CSI’s sense of fun and com-

munity. “This place wasn’t run by the founders,” Tonya makes a point

of saying, “it was run by the staff. They, along with the members,

brought the vitality to the space every single day.”

The organizations which joined csi in 2004 were of similar staff sizes and at similar stages of development, but had different experiences to share. and so, says jini, “it was just easy to talk to people and ask questions and start having lunch together.” The members started to take a familial interest in each other’s work, she goes on: ”The mail would come and it would be just loaded with cheques for the stephen lewis Foundation…it was exciting.”

Once the matters of organization and governance were settled Jini,

like Sandy, not only signed up her organization with CSI, she joined

its board of directors. The founders wanted to hear from members

and made a point of including member voices in the board. (These

members joined the board as individuals rather than being nomi-

nated by their peers to officially represent the members as a whole.)

Jini still smiles when remembering those first couple of months:

“I loved having the new people move in — that was always really

fun… They had to be very flexible. If you were too buttoned up,

then this wasn’t the place for you.”

T hough members began moving into CSI in June 2004 the

space didn’t host its official launch party until October. Eli

Malinsky, an acquaintance of Tonya’s husband Mark, came by to

check out the new space and reconnect with Mark, who he hadn’t

seen in a while. He remembers being immediately impressed: “I

came in and I looked around and I said ‘This is it... It’s a smart idea,

it’s a necessary idea, it’s an idea that should have been done a long

time ago.’” He was pursuing his Masters degree at the time, and not

in the market for office space of his own, but CSI stuck in his memory.

In the spring of 2005 CSI, wanting to develop its community and the

relationships between its members further, put out a job posting for

a Program Manager. At this point, Tonya freely admits, CSI hadn’t

yet figured out — beyond establishing the physical space — how to

bring about the bigger-picture goals of collaboration and innova-

tion. The Centre hadn’t, in other words, landed on quite the right

strategy for actualizing that part of its vision (“the methodology and

the practice were virtually non-existent,” says Tonya), and the hope

was that a new staff member might help with this.

74 75

Eli heard about the opening and asked Tonya to have lunch to dis-

cuss the position. After they met, he laughs, he “insisted on get-

ting the job, basically.” He got it, too, and started in September

2005. When Eli joined the staff CSI had what he describes as a

very friendly work environment, “friendlier than most,” in fact,

“but looking back it wasn’t hyper-dynamic and any formal collabo-

ration was more or less nonexistent.” Eli’s mission was to try and

boost communal engagement within CSI, and his first attempt was

to offer some programming around topics in which the members

expressed interest.

These, as it turns out, didn’t go all that well; though many of the

members had any number of subjects about which they wanted

to learn more, only a couple of them showed up for any particular

event. Says Eli: “People want to learn what they want to learn when

they need to learn it… Unless it’s really pressing for you you’re not

going to try to accommodate it, so it’s mostly a matter of schedul-

ing and juggling that amongst other priorities… They were inter-

ested and they were saying they were interested but it wasn’t as

important as finishing the day-to-day tasks that they had to do.”

What all of these early programming experience pointed to was that,

while CSI had fulfilled its first appointed goal — to create a shared

space that would lighten the load of its member organizations — there

was still a lot of room to grow, and lots of untapped potential in terms

of developing networks to connect those members.

This prompted a seemingly small change of course, but one that

would prove profoundly significant, towards what CSI calls “com-

munity animation.”

76 77

animation, aS oppoSed to programming, iS all about enabling community rather than directly trying to create it.

78 79

“animatorS are the people who build the culture,” addS tonya, “and the culture iS the point.”

Animation, as opposed to programming, is all about enabling com-

munity rather than directly trying to create it: it’s a philosophy of sup-

porting and fostering an environment in which collaboration emerges

naturally rather than intervening to try to instigate collaboration by

sheer force of will.

Rather than working directly to form new relationships between

members the Centre decided it would act as a facilitator, clearing

logistical questions (like those pesky phones and fax machines and

internet connections) off small organizations’ desks, thereby freeing

them up to pursue their goals as creatively as possible.

Animation, explains Eli, “is the idea that we are curators of an envi-

ronment — a physical environment, a social environment, a psy-

chological environment — and that the magic is taking serious your

responsibility to curate those three things.” The goal is to “spark

instigation” among CSI members rather than for CSI to be that insti-

gating force itself.

in short, csi shifted gears and decided to focus on creating the conditions for innovation — to provide the atmosphere and the infrastructure and the opportunity — and let member organizations take it from there.

“Why write a plan when you should just open the doors?” mary rowe, exuding entrepreneurial confidence

mary rown urging Tonya surman

lEaRNiNGs 80

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o ne of the catchwords at CSI is “learnings.” Like all sensible

people, its staff and members knew from the beginning that

there would be some unexpected realizations along the way, and

also some false starts, and that paying attention to these and inte-

grating the insights garnered along the way would be essential to

CSI’s continual growth and development.

In fact, the learnings go back to before CSI even opened its doors.

Mary Rowe, reflecting on CSI’s establishment, says: “I remember

Jane Jacobs saying that you can accomplish anything if you don’t

care who gets the credit…and I think that’s really critical here.” She,

and many others involved in founding the Centre, are convinced

that without this collaborative approach, in which the core group

avoided ego-driven battles, didn’t pursue media attention, and

didn’t compete for rank in CSI’s hierarchy, not only typifies CSI but

is essential to its having gotten off the ground.

Mary herself is responsible for one of the most important learn-

ings of all — one which is built into the very DNA of CSI. “She was

the complexity guru,” Tonya emphasizes, “she was the one who

planted the seeds of complexity theory from the get-go. She was

amazing.”

She was also, by all accounts, the no-nonsense voice who could

cut through organizational Gordian knots fearlessly. One of the key

learnings at CSI, after all, is that traditional models for organizing

work needn’t necessarily be followed: that collaboration rather than

hierarchy, flow rather than regimentation, can be both more effec-

tive and provide a healthier working life. Tonya goes on: “[Mary]’s

the person who, when I walked in and I said, in one of our meet-

ings, ‘should we do a business plan?’ — thinking that that’s what a

consultant does, a consultant writes a plan — said ‘well, who are

you selling what to, and why in God’s name would you write a plan

when you should just open the doors?’. She was right.”

The process of canvassing for and selecting members was also a

very valuable learning opportunity. “First contact matters,” Tonya

points out, “that was one of the most important learnings. How you

define a culture happens in the first moment of contact.” Related to

that is the significance of what might be called mythology: the way

in which an organization figures in the minds of its founders, mem-

bers, and the surrounding neighbourhood, communities, and city

in which it is embedded. “The story of the beginning is the story

you will tell for years to come,” Tonya goes on to say.

And once the doors were open, the learnings continued in earnest.

Eli Malinsky, reflecting on CSI’s initial programming, says that sev-

eral key insights emerged from those early efforts. One was that

“given our small numbers, what we had to do was open up learn-

ing opportunities beyond the doors of CSI — we couldn’t expect

fourteen members to pack the room.” This pointed to and rein-

forced CSI’s ambitions to both expand its membership and physical

space, as well as to have some greater interaction between CSI

members and the social mission sector at large. And the other, as

we’ve already seen, is that you can’t force people into community,

much less do so on a schedule. Providing avenues by which people

can start talking to one another — be it via an informal and sponta-

neous lunch gathering or an internal listserv on which members can

ask each other for advice or put out calls for bits of work that other

member organizations might be able to do — is far more congenial,

and far more effective, than relying on a steady stream of work-

shops to build community.

84 85

Jini Stolk highlights the significance of these informal means of

communication, and the kind of learning-by-osmosis which started

happening once the members had spent a bit of time together

in the space: “For me personally and for our members it’s been I

think a real benefit — an unexpected benefit — to be able to see

my organization…in the context of the nonprofit world and of the

social innovation and social change world. [Before moving in] it was

relatively easy to avoid having a lot of interaction with people in

other sectors — your sense of yourself in relation to the landscape

at large was really hard to see. It’s helped me to verbalize and ana-

lyze things that I had not really thought much about before but just

accepted.”

There have been, fortunately, relatively few challenges from CSI’s

point of view in terms of managing its members. Eli says, grate-

fully, that the “CSI is blessed with the least imaginable amount of

office politics. I don’t know how it happens. All things considered

we spend relatively little of our time dealing with emotional and

interpersonal problems. We deal with them, but given the nature

of this it’s shocking how little.” The snags that do arise tend to be

practical rather than cultural or interpersonal, and thus, while some-

times difficult, have clear solutions.

w hen CSI was founded there were, as there are in any new

venture, lots of questions to which the founders had no

easy answers. Perhaps the most significant, says Eric, was that “we

didn’t know going into this was the level of interaction that could

be expected from the members.”

As Eli points out, some of the earlier thoughts on how to make this

happen didn’t entirely pan out, but over time a consensus emerged

that laying the groundwork for collaboration, innovation, and sys-

temic change was far more effective than trying to create it via

direct intervention.

One day, several years after the Centre opened, Tonya and Eric sat

down to try and refine and condense this learning into a readily

comprehensible form. “Tonya and I literally did this on a napkin in

[local bistro] Peter Pan,” Eric recalls. On the napkin in question was

a diagram in the shape of a pyramid. The CSI pyramid has three

levels, with space at the base, community above it, and innovation

at the peak. What this pyramid captured was that shared space

is the essential foundation for building community, and commu-

nity the foundation for creating innovation. The CSI is the pyramid

as a whole: not aiming at innovation itself, but a holistic ecosys-

tem in which innovation was supported and from which it naturally

emerged.

Tonya and Eric called this CSI’s Theory of Change, and though

seemingly simple, it represented the distillation of four years’ worth

of experience, experimentation, successes and failures, and con-

tinual fine-tuning.

Creating a shared space to foster a community of social mission organizations was all well and good in theory, but what would it look like in practice?

“We needed to become something more.”eli malinsky musing on the expansion

sCaliNG 86

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88

T he Centre for Social Innovation has been a restless organiza-

tion from the outset. Though it started in a relatively small

space, some of the founders hoped from the beginning that it

would soon outgrow those five or six thousand square feet, both

literally and metaphorically, and take on new members and new

projects. More importantly, it became clear that growth was a busi-

ness imperative. Scaling up was necessary if CSI was to generate

enough income to be self-sustaining: at full capacity the Centre

was only bringing in about 60% of the revenue it needed. By 2006,

says Eli, “we knew we wanted to expand. We had a waiting list of

forty organizations, and we knew that in order for us to achieve our

vision — which was being much more than shared space to fourteen

organizations — we needed to become something more.”And,

when the time came, the perfect opportunity presented itself.

CSI considered buying or leasing a building externally, and began

looking at some candidate spaces. Almost immediately they ran

up against the problem any relatively new venture does: though

appealing, these real estate opportunities would be challenging for

an organization that didn’t have much by way of an accumulated

surplus. Right as they were wrestling with this question, says Eli,

“we received word that the fourth floor [of the Robertson Building;

CSI was located on the ground floor] had opened up, and it was just

fortuitous magical timing.” Much bigger than the first floor space

CSI already inhabited, taking over that new terrain gave CSI the

opportunity to really come into its own. Once again, Urbanspace

stepped up to underwrite the entire build-out to CSI’s specifica-

tions.

Eli, the detailed-oriented pragmatist of CSI family (Tonya, by con-

trast, is its fearless visionary), explains the expansion in the mat-

ter-of-fact terms anyone running an enterprise needs to respect:

“I think it was clear that there was more market demand than we

could satisfy, and so just like in a typical entrepreneurial business

case you’ve got to be a complete idiot if the market’s asking you

for something that’s going to be profitable and you’re not finding

a way to respond.”

That wasn’t, however, the only reason to grow. The other “was a

sense that whatever collaboration and dynamism we had with four-

teen would be multiplied and magnified with more.”

90 91

The fourth floor space gave CSI the chance to offer not just more

but more kinds of workspaces: in addition to full-sized offices there

were spaces for permanent desks, including lockable storage, that

were ideally suited for one- or two-person organizations. There was

also — and this became key to the development of the atmosphere

and culture of the fourth floor — an area set aside for a robust “Hot

Desk” program, in which individuals can buy access to workspace

for a set number of hours per month. And the heart of the fourth

floor is the huge, open-concept reception, lounge, and kitchen

area which hums with activity at pretty much any hour of the day.

In fact, CSI’s Noise Policy describes it as “ the place to talk, laugh,

meet, connect, ramble, introduce, hula hoop, party and engage.”

(Yes, there actually is a hula hoop hanging there, ready for anyone

to use.)

The fourth floor opened in March 2007 and reached full occupancy

within four months. It became clear soon after that CSI was not

just expanding its physical footprint — its culture was evolving too.

Because it contained organizations that were, as a rule, smaller and

less established than those on the first floor, and because a sig-

nificant percentage of the members were Hot Desk members who

came and went according to the demands of their schedules, the

fourth floor was from its beginning a much more fluid and fast-

paced environment than the first. Founding first floor member Jini

Stolk puts it this way: “I kind of tend to think of the fourth floor as

the kids…there seems to be just a lot of wacky, slightly untamed

energy up there — it just seemed to me to be a bit more like the

Wild West.” Eli Malinsky echoes this sentiment, though in slightly

different terms: “The fourth floor is a dynamic community of a wide

variety of people and sectors coming in and out of the space in a

very fluid way, with lots of programming and excitement, and lots

of energy and public-ness about all of it.”

The way that many members describe the cultural differences

between the two floors is that the first floor is like the grown-up

and the fourth floor the teenager of the CSI community. “Teenag-

ers” isn’t meant pejoratively here: it’s rather a way of capturing the

fourth floor’s tendency to attract more of the brash experimentalists,

the ones willing to throw something at the wall and see if it sticks.

It’s louder and more rambunctious. The first floor, by contrast, is

calmer, and its members more tightly-knit. The pace is slower and

the atmosphere more placid. As Tonya puts it: “There’s a steadi-

ness that exists down here [on the first floor]. Upstairs there’s a

diversity and a vibrancy and a life, but a lack of stability. Way more

emerging [organizations] upstairs, way more transition, way more

noise — but life.”

T he opening of the fourth floor ushered in another major shift:

with so much more physical space, and so many more mem-

bers, it became clear that one support staff person wasn’t going

to be enough. The increased revenue brought in by the additional

rental space was enough to cover the cost of some additional staff

members, and gradually, over the next couple of years, the Centre

hired several community animators. Each community animator had

specific areas of activity (communications, administration, etc.), but

all were responsible for enlivening and activating the space. It can

sound kind of ephemeral, but it’s really rather simple when you

put it in concrete terms — and, fortunately, one of CSI’s animators

has done just that. Yumi Hotta has been an animator based on

the fourth floor of CSI for quite some time now, and she recently

described that experience in Rabble.ca, a Canadian online magazine:

download our noise policies:socialinnovation.ca/sssi

93

Community can’t be reduced to a formula, but if it could it would

look something like what she’s describing. Or perhaps like some-

thing Mike Brcic describes when he explains why, after a life of

choosing not to work in offices, he made an exception to take a

position at CSI: “The main thing for me was being involved in a

community of people who share similar values, who are inspiring

and inspire me and inspire each other.”

a further sub-group within CSI was created in the summer of

2009, when the Centre opened a third space in the Robert-

son Building. The 3,000 square foot area (referred to by its location

in the building, Suite 160) has nine offices, two meeting rooms,

and five permanent desks. Plus, of course, the essential ingredi-

ents for a vital and happy group of members: a common space,

an open-concept kitchen, lots of natural light, and an aesthetically

appealing design.

The majority of the members in Suite 160 have relocated from CSI’s

fourth floor, and are now occupying offices that are bigger and qui-

eter than the spaces they had there. Colleen Diamond, Executive

Assistant and Project Coordinator at CSI, was given the fun, and the

responsibility, of managing the renovation of Suite 160 in prepara-

tion for its new members — a sign of just how much trust the found-

ers now put in the Centre’s staff.

Interestingly, the opening of Suite 160 has helped change the

dynamic of CSI as a whole, and recalibrated the relationship

between the floors. “Now that we’ve got this new space on the

first floor, there’s this new energy [in the original first floor space],”

says Tonya gladly, a kind of redistribution of collective engagement

across the spaces.

As a Community Animator, I work with hundreds of members every day. They are activists, artists, social entrepreneurs and nonprofits. And very few of them know what I actually do. I think most people see me as a regular office manager or receptionist. Not completely unjustified, as a good portion of my job goes to fixing everything from grumpy printers to scraped up biking knees to clogged toilets. But here’s the kicker -- that’s just part of my job. There’s more, it’s just harder to see.

So what’s the more that makes me a Community Animator? The more is facilitating the space to create and expand a strong community. The daily tasks (the printer, the toilet, the knees) are really a way for the Community Animator to have conversations with community members. And the real magic is in the conversations themselves. These unstructured, day-to-day interactions allow me to gather information to connect people, create events & programs to engage the community, and maintain an incredible workplace experience for everyone.

I’ve connected people to everything from volunteers to graphic designers to grant databases; we’ve had events & programs on everything from conversations on the impact of current politics on social innovation to yoga to accounting for self-employed persons.

“These projects, by nature, work under the surface.”A familiar refrain from the sTaFF and Founders

thE hiddEN dEpths 94

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96 97

T hough CSI is thought of first and foremost as a physical site,

the Centre does not just create an environment in which orga-

nizations can flourish. It spends a considerable amount of its time,

energy, and resources on trying to better understand the principles

it exemplifies in the physical space—like collaboration, network-

building, systems change—and putting this understanding to work

in helping to get some new projects off the ground.

Since its very inception people have often described CSI as an incu-

bator, but in its earliest days this wasn’t actually the case. After a

little while though, the Centre decided to take this felt sense of

nurturing to heart and begin experimenting, to see what an incuba-

tor for social change might really look like. Its first experiment was

to support the work of green entrepreneur Chris Lowry by fostering

the creation of Green Enterprise Toronto (GET), an initiative that

helps strengthen the community of sustainably-minded indepen-

dent businesses and customers in Toronto. Playing things by ear

and learning as it went, CSI offered GET trusteeship, bookkeeping

services, coaching, and management support. Once GET was up,

running, and on stable footing, CSI repeated the success, work-

ing to help build projects like TechSoup Canada (which provides

technological assistance to nonprofit organizations), Frontline Part-

ners with Youth Network (which connects frontline youth workers so

that they can support and learn from one another), and the Ontario

Nonprofit Network (which facilitates the sharing of knowledge and

development of coordinated policy initiatives amongst nonprofits

in all sectors across Ontario).

In all cases, these projects met the Centre’s increasingly strict incu-

bation criteria: they are based on networks, focussed on systems

change, and embody an entrepreneurial, bootstrapping spirit.

CSI’s distinctive kind of incubation is perhaps best thought of as

something like venture capitalism for social change: the Centre

tends to play a more active role than a typical incubator. It sits on

projects’ advisory committees, provides management oversight,

leverages its networks and relationships, and ultimately brings

whatever it can to the table to ensure success. And it’s working.

The incubated projects have attracted constituencies, funding, and

momentum, and CSI has already seen a number of these initiatives

leave the nest—a sure sign of success.

The Centre also has a natural attraction to policy advocacy, due to

its essentially systems-changing nature. Through Tonya’s consult-

ing, CSI led a multi-stakeholder policy consultation on toxics and

children’s health in 2007, one which ultimately helped produce a

ban on Bisphenol A in baby bottles in Canada, triggering a market

transformation. Meanwhile, CSI’s work on the Social Entrepreneur-

ship Summits of 2007 and 2008, and on the Social Enterprise Coun-

cil of Canada, has been instrumental in building a movement of

practitioners and decision-makers who are beginning to create the

conditions that will enable social enterprise to thrive.

Since one of the defining and distinctive characteristics of CSI is

the way in which it fosters networks and collaboration, these sub-

jects have been central to its research and theoretical work as well.

The Centre has explored questions around the impact of networks

with a year-long Think Tank on network evaluation, releasing a

book entitled Network Evaluation: Cultivating Healthy Networks

for Social Change. It has also been a leader in investigating how

open source thinking is changing our landscape with its pivotal

“Open Everything” event in 2006, which was later replicated in a

half-dozen places from Singapore to Berlin. And then, a little closer

NETWORK EVALUATION

cULTIVATINg hEALThy NETWORKs fOR sOcIAL chANgE

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the centre for social innovation

& canada millennium scholarship foundation

5436097809869

ISBN 978-0-9865436-0-990000

Networks are increasingly prevalent in the social change sector. Many of us have invested time and resources in network development on the assumption that networks are important vehicles to advance our goals. But how do we know if our networks are really working? And what can we do to improve their performance?

In 2007 and 2008, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation and the Centre for Social Innovation con-vened a diverse group of social change practitioners for a series of meetings on network evaluation. Together, we explored the unique character of networks and devel-oped a Framework for evaluating their health and impact. This book contains the results of our exploration.

The Canada Millennium Scholarship Founda-tion was created by an Act of Parliament in 1998 with a 10-year mandate (2000-2010) to

improve access to post-secondary education and recog-nize exceptional merit, as defined by academic excel-lence and community leadership. In this time, the Foun-dation disbursed more than $3.2 billion to students across Canada.

The Centre for Social Innovation catalyzes and supports social innovation in Toronto and around the world. We create community

workspaces, incubate emerging enterprises, and develop new models and methods with world-changing potential.  For more information visit: www.socialinnovation.ca

98 99

to home, CSI co-hosted “Sharing for Social Change” in 2007, con-

vening 230 practitioners to explore how collaboration might build

more resilient social mission groups.

More recently, CSI has found itself playing a leadership role in con-

vincing funders and policy makers to see the potential of social

enterprise with its replication of the highly successful Enterprising

Nonprofits (ENP) program. Based in Vancouver, the original ENP

supports the ongoing growth and success of selected nonprofits by

providing them with grants to help underwrite their business devel-

opment. CSI brought this innovative micro-granting program to

Toronto, and convened twelve funders to support social enterprise

in Toronto. Crucially, ENP doesn’t just hand over a cheque and leave

nonprofits to their own devices: it offers skills training, programming,

and networking opportunities to help the nonprofits along the way,

and screens applicants thoroughly to ensure they have the best pos-

sible chance of success.

Like its incubation activities, all these initiatives hold a few things in

common: they all rely on networks, work across sectors, and demon-

strate entrepreneurship in action.

These projects are at once integral to CSI and incredibly easy for the

casual observer to miss. They are integral because they exemplify

the spirit with which the Centre was created, and are instances of its

social innovation principles in action. But if you don’t have reason to

be directly engaged in one of them you might never know they were

there.

CSI is continually refining its social innovation programming and

clarifying its social innovation work. It has made the most of oppor-

tunities as they presented themselves, experimented, and tried

things out along the way to separate the truly effective ideas, tools,

projects, and methodologies from the ones that are merely good in

theory. Because in the end, it’s the practice of social innovation that

makes a difference – and it’s the practice of social innovation that CSI

is dedicating itself to.

all theSe initiativeS hold a few thingS in common: they all rely on networkS, work acroSS SectorS, and demonStrate entrepreneurShip in action.

“Our calling is pulling us into the broader community.”eli malinsky sees a need for CSI to extend its reach

what’s NExt 100

8C h a P T e r

102 103

T hough CSI, like all healthy organizations, is continually honing

its practices and fine-tuning its operations, it is also looking

into the future. By its nature an organization that embraces uncer-

tainty and emergence, there is never perfect clarity about what the

coming years will bring. But CSI also knows when a framework or

plan has landed. And recently, a new framework for understanding

the Centre’s trajectory has landed.

“We’ve really always prided ourselves on this idea of local knowl-

edge and the importance of understanding context—we’ve always

rejected the idea of franchising,” explains Eli. CSI knows Toronto,

and knows that the city isn’t satiated—there is a great deal of pent-

up demand for shared workspace in the social mission sector. CSI

has had a members’ waiting list for as long as it has existed, a wait-

ing list that now numbers several dozen organizations.

What was at one time a vague intention became suddenly clear

in December 2009 as CSI came face to face with an opportunity

to purchase a building in the Annex neighbourhood of downtown

Toronto. Having explored the market and rejected a few potential

spaces, it became clear that 720 Bathurst Street had all of the ingre-

dients for success: size, character, condition and location. The next

part – the hard part – would be structuring and closing a deal on a

super tight timeframe.

But once again, CSI proved its mettle. Within four short months, the

Centre for Social Innovation secured a City of Toronto Loan guaran-

tee, a mortgage for 75% of the building’s projected value, and $1.7

million in private debt financing. On May 18, 2010, the Centre for

Social Innovation took possession of its newest project: the Centre

for Social Innovation Annex.

This morning we removed the conditions on the building and handed over the non-refundable deposit of $150,000... Closing date will be May 18th. Brian, Alex, Dean, Janna, Karine — a special thank you...

There will be champagne here at CSI at 4:30 today if you can join us...

This is me screaming a giant OH MY GOD!!!!!!

Tonya

We are now the proud owners of 720 Bathurst St.

board@socialinnovation.ca; staff@socialinnovation.ca

Tonya Surman

The first aspect of growth for csi is physical and locally rooted: the creation of more shared spaces for social innovation in Toronto.

104

And this segues nicely into the second area of growth CSI envi-

sions: working internationally to advance the field of shared spaces

to support social innovation. Of course, this very book is a step in

that direction. CSI would like to support a global community of

shared space practitioners, allowing each one to share its learnings,

tools, knowledge, and strategy, and stimulating the overall devel-

opment of the sector. A related goal is to network shared spaces,

building connections between them that will eventually lead to the

development of shared tools and the free flow of ideas and services

that are changing the world.

The third major area of growth involves a deepening of the under-

standing and practice of social innovation. Resting on the knowl-

edge that local, contextualized knowledge is essential, CSI will

focus on social innovations that are possible and needed at home.

“We are focusing on prototyping new methods and models that

are achieving real impact in the world” says Tonya, “and we want to

start right here at home.”

In Toronto, there is an increasing focus among urban leaders

on civic entrepreneurship and on the ways in which citizens can

actively co-create solutions to the myriad challenges facing our city.

“This appetite for change speaks volumes about how we can work

together to fix our future. People are hungry to be a part of the

solution. We just need to find a way to leverage their passion.”

And so, CSI is shifting from developing the conditions for change

to actually going out into the world and creating change using the

tools of innovation and collaboration to tackle real-world problems.

“How can we become more intentional about fostering social inno-

vation in our communities?” asks Tonya. “What will it take to gener-

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“How can we create a city which creates the conditions for social innovation emergence?” “Who would

benefit from a global platform for local action?”

“How can we share our models and methods for social change?”

“How can we be more intentional in fostering social innovation in Toronto?”

“What would a global community of shared spaces focused social innovation look l ike?”

“How can spaces benefit from working together on shared tools and knowledge?”

“How can we bring more members into our community?”

“How can we improve the operations and impact of our spaces?”

106 107

all in all, it’S a full Slate for a growing organization that’S foStering Social change… and having Some fun along the way.

ate and apply the new ideas that will break the log-jam and achieve

systems change? The dream is to build a series of innovation labs

within CSI in which citizens and organizations can proactively col-

laborate, innovate and create models that will change the world.

“We’ll also be reflecting on and sharing the results of our experi-

ence globally,” explains Eli, with the aim of “creating an interna-

tional dialogue around social innovation.” In partnership with col-

leagues around the world CSI will work toward a global platform

that empowers local action through an international lens.

CSI is also beginning to release a series of publications that share

its own models and methods with an international audience. After

six years of working at a local level, it’s now time to reveal its learn-

ings to the broader social innovation community; a coming out

party for all of the Centre’s great work.

All in all, it’s a full slate for a growing organization that’s fostering

social change…and having some fun along the way.

Quadrant 3: Local social innovation

EpiloGuE 108

110 111

The common area on the fourth floor is crowded, and the crowd is feeling rambunctious. cheering, shouting, whoops from every corner. and in the very centre of the room: a battle of wills. Two contestants are waging battle, each with a steely gleam of determination in their eyes.

the StakeS? honour, glory, and bragging rightS for the next year.

112 113

welcome to csi’s annual cookies and cocktails smackdown. every december, just before the winter holidays, csi throws a fabulous bash. along with providing the usual holiday party entertainment (grateful speeches, snacks, and the entertaining antics of mildly tipsy colleagues), this party offers a special treat: finely honed, carefully mixed cocktails, and an array of artfully crafted, home-baked cookies. it’s a friendly rivalry writ large, an annual tradition that csi members wouldn’t dare miss.

114 115

Tonya explains:

For four years running now we have been holding the cookies and cocktails smackdown. now, the cookies and cocktails smackdown is a holiday celebration which is an excuse to get everyone to bring out their best drinks and baked goods and compete with one another. we collaborate all year round and it’s time to just hammer each other and compete.

“we collaborate all year round and it’S time to juSt hammer each other and compete.”

116 117

more whoopS. a winner haS been declared!

juSt another day in the life of cSi.

it’s all in good fun, of course, and it gives csi members and staff an opportunity to revel in each other’s successes.

This book was designed by The Movement, as part of

our effort to work with people and groups who are doing

better. Working with social entrepreneurs and innova-

tors, we use the power of design thinking & doing to

give form to complex ideas. We’re a network of com-

mitted people ready to tackle complex problems, and a

studio dedicated to delivering results. We work openly

with groups, on challenges that matter.

inFo@ThemovemenT.inFo

Communications Interactive PlatformsStrategy & Research

THE MO-VEME-NT

RIGOURRIGOURHow to Create

world-CHanging SpaCeS

RIGOURHow to Create World-Changing Spaces

5436307809869

ISBN 978-0-9865436-3-090000

For additional copies of this publication, please visit:

http://stores.lulu.com/socialinnovation

For more information contact:

sssi@socialinnovation.ca

http://socialinnovation.ca

you are free

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

to remix — to adapt the work

under tHe following CondiitonS

attribution

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor

(but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Share alike

If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work

only under the same or similar licence to this one.

for more informaiton see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/

the Centre for Social innovation catalyzes and supports social innovation in toronto and around the world. we create community workspaces, incubate emerging enterprises, and develop new models and methods with world-changing potential.

We believe that society is facing unprecedented economic, environmental, social and cultural challenges.

We also believe that new innovations are the key to turning these challenges into opportunities to improve our communities and our planet. We are working together to fi x our future.

{

WANT TO HELP?

t he Centre for Social Innovation opened its doors in June 2004. At that time, we had incredible pas-

sion, extraordinary vision, and only an inkling of how we would make it all work. It was, needless to say, an adventurous start. At the time, we weren’t aware of any other similar models. It felt like everything we were do-ing was new. We were making it up as we went along, and through hard work, clear vision, and a fair amount of good fortune, we made it work. Our model and our team proved their mettle and within a few short years we were running a 23,000 square foot facility that was home to over 180 members representing missions from arts to environment to education to social justice.

Slowly, as our model grew, we began to attract the at-tention of others who were interested in what we were accomplishing. Some were at the idea stage and inter-ested to know ‘how we did what we did’. Others were already building shared spaces and wondered what they could borrow and adapt to their community. Still others were asking if we would come to their city to establish a Centre for Social Innovation.

What began as an occasional trickle began to gain steam. By our fourth year we were overwhelmed with requests and inquiries about our model. We were, and continue to be, absolutely delighted and honoured by this attention. But we struggled with our own capacity. We are a small social enterprise that has been stretched to the limits evolving our own community and programs.

We tried to share as much information as we could, as frequently as we could, but we began to realize that we needed another strategy to meet the growing interest in creating shared spaces for social innovation...

...So we created this series.Shared Spaces for Social Innovation is about sharing our story and empowering others to learn from our expe-rience. The Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) has al-ways been open with its model. We’ve long preached the benefi ts of shared spaces and we’ve been doing our best to encourage as many new spaces as possible. We fi gured that the best way to open our model – to reveal everything we’ve learned in hopes of supporting the emergence of new and better spaces – was to docu-ment what we’ve done and make it available to anyone who was interested.

It has taken a fair amount of courage for us to let it all hang out and give it all away! Many people advised us that we should be franchising, licensing, and hold-ing our knowledge close to our chests. But this went against our values. Instead, we are putting this whole series into the creative commons for others to benefi t from and contribute to.

We believe that good ideas scale when they are open. We also believe that ideas get better when we share. We look forward to working with you on this journey to create and grow new strategies for social innovation.

fORewORd

6 7

a worK in progreSS

Of course, the story of the Centre for Social Innovation is still unfolding. And yet the challenge with writing a book is the fi nality of it all. We therefore invite you to participate in our online space. At fi rst, we’ll have pdf versions of the series publications and a set of tem-plates and tools available for download. In time, we’ll make amendments to these books, release additions to the series and create a platform for a community of practice.

open SourCing our model

Shared Spaces for Social Innovation reveals just about everything we’ve learned about creating and growing shared workspaces. We’re telling our story, sharing our research, and offering the tools and templates we’ve created along the way.

But sharing is a two-way street. Actually, it’s more like a highway interchange!

While it is truly our pleasure to provide this material, our hope is that you will embrace the Creative Com-mons spirit. This means recognizing our contribu-tion and letting us know what you’ve used, adapted, and developed. More importantly, it means sharing your experiences and tools with other shared spaces.

By contributing to a shared body of knowledge, we’re empowering others to be even more successful, build-ing this fi eld and advancing our own spaces in the pro-cess.

We’re not yet sure what it will look like, and we’re very sure that it won’t be up to us alone to determine. But we’re hoping this effort starts us along a path to an open community of practice that is creating the spaces where people change the world.

The Shared Spaces for Social Innovation Series is made up of three books:

emergence: the Story of the Centre for Social innovation.

In this book we weave a narrative around our genesis and de-velopment. Starting back when the Centre was just a glimmer in the eyes of a few social entrepreneurs, Emergence follows our growth from concept to operation to scale.

rigour: How to Create world-Changing Shared Spaces.

This book is a manual for those planning or operating a shared space. It reveals the accumulated knowledge of six years of experience and offers a ton of tips, lessons and tools for devel-oping a strong organization and vibrant community.

proof: How Shared Spaces are Changing the world.

This report shares our most recent research on the impact of the Centre for Social Innovation in order to demonstrate just what shared spaces for social innovation can accomplish.

Each book can be read on its own. Together they provide a comprehensive picture of the Centre for Social Innovation.

Looking to build or grow your own shared space for social innovation?

CSI offers tailored consulting, training, and speaking services to help you with challenges from start-up to scale. Get in touch by sending a note to sssi@socialinnovation.ca.

@access new releases and supporting materials.socialinnovation.ca/sssi

identify yourself as part of this growing community. socialinnovation.ca/sssi

download all of our templates and tools.socialinnovation.ca/sssi

8 9

looKing forward

This series starts with the Centre for Social Innovation. But we know there are dozens of like-minded spaces around the world, and we hope to add other stories, experiences, tem-plates and tools over time.

Our vision is a vibrant, shared platform that includes the expe-riences of shared spaces dedicated to social innovation around the world – your experiences. We’re hoping to work with a community of likeminded people that is sharing ideas, strate-gies and… who knows?

Just imagine a network where we can share promising prac-tices, collaborate on joint projects and infrastructure, replicate good ideas and leverage investments from community to com-munity.

Let’s work together to support each other, our members and to build this exciting fi eld!

thank youWe would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to the many people who have made the Centre for So-cial Innovation and this series possible. First, a thanks to the CSI Staff and Board team, whose vision and in-dustry have made the Centre what it is today. Second, a special thanks to our incredible network of partners and supporters, including Urbanspace Property Group, Canadian Heritage, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canadian Alternative Investment Co-Operative, Asho-ka, Harbinger Foundation and the Province of Ontario, Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

A publication like this only comes together with incred-ible dedication. Eli Malinsky has played author, editor, project manager and overall superhero on this project; Shared Spaces for Social Innovation provides only a glimpse of the value that Eli brings to CSI and to this emerging fi eld.

Hamutal Dotan deserves special recognition for her writing on Emergence and Proof – her effortless style perfectly captures the tone of the Centre for Social In-novation. For turning beautiful words into compelling publications, The Movement continues to mesmerize and engage. We’d also like to recognize Margot Smart, who meticulously designed and analyzed the 2008 member survey, which forms the basis of our statistics.

Finally, we would like to recognize our members. They are the reason we do what we do. They inspire us, they motivate us, they ground us and they challenge us. Their passion, commitment and creativity are what make it all worthwhile, and it is truly our honour to sup-port their work.

Now let’s change the world together!

Tonya SurmaneXeCutiVe direCtor

10 11

cOnclUsIOn 126

Table Of cOnTenTs

5

ROles and RespOnsIbIlITIes 68

cOmmUnITy anImaTIOn 106

8

21

defInInG The mOdel 28

shaRed seRvIces 76

6

bRandInG ______114

9

3

cReaTInG The space 40

7

membeR RelaTIOns 92

10

beyOnd shaRed space 120

4

bUsIness basIcs 56

cOnTexT cOnTexT14

fORew0Rd 6

Creating the spaCes where Change happens

1C H a p t e r

cOnTexT

co-location refers to spaces that are shared among a number of separate organizations. Multi-Tenant Nonprofi t Centers are types of co-location spaces that focus on the nonprofi t sector.

coworking refers to the sharing of workspace among freelancers and other independent workers. Co-working spaces provide workspace and community to people who are often working on their own.

community hubs are shared spaces that provide direct services to the geographic community in which they are situated. Community Hubs co-locate service providers that offer a range of supports such as language instruction, job training, after school programs and drop-in groups.

a shared spaCes glossary

hot desks are temporary, shared workspaces that are typically found in coworking spaces.

incubators provide programmatic, strategic, administrative and/or fi -nancial support to small projects and organizations.

social innovation refers to new ideas that resolve social, cultural, economic and environmental chal-lenges for the benefi t of people and planet.

Even more simply, a social innova-tion is an idea that works for the public good.

SI

16 17

contextc c

The incentives for cost sharing have been growing. Nonprofi ts and chari-ties are enduring ongoing cutbacks in administrative budgets while facing increasing demands from communities and individuals.

For-profi t and nonprofi t strategies are blending together. Shared spaces – and frequently their members – are exam-ples of how mission-based and market-based approaches can coincide.

There is increasing recognition that the problems we face are too com-plex to be addressed by any single player. Shared spaces connect diverse organizations and individuals, giving them the chance to collaborate, share knowledge and develop systemic solu-tions to the issues they are trying to address.

why are shared spaCes emerging?

Shared workspaces are themselves a social innovation – an entirely new way of working. The dominant work-place model has been separate organizations working separately. That may have made perfect sense at one time and it may still make perfect sense in many instanc-es. But it is by no means a universal or desirable ap-proach. The nature of work is changing – and with it the workplace. These changes offer incredible potential for economic, social, cultural, and environmental progress in the coming years.

Real estate prices are soaring world-wide, making it increasingly diffi cult for small groups and individuals to fi nd affordable workspace.

why are shared spaCes emerging?The pendulum is swinging from global back to local. While the 90’s promised ‘virtual work’, the new millennium is reinforcing the importance of space.

Alongside new technologies has been the rise of ‘independents’ who work with several clients but who are not bound by the restrictions of any one physical space.

18 19

contextc c

c

S

our theory of Change

a s we’ve built and expanded CSI over the past few years, we’ve developed our theory of change—

it’s our way of capturing how the Centre for Social In-novation creates the conditions for social innovation to emerge.

S  Serving as the foundation is the physical space, the environment which our members see and

feel and touch and inhabit every day. It’s at the very base of the pyramid because it’s what sets the tone for every-thing else: our members want to come to work simply to enjoy the space. The physical space is the container for everything that occurs at the Centre.

ic  The physical space sets the conditions for com-

munity. community develops as people start to feel comfortable in a space, are happy to spend time in it, and develop relationships with other members doing the same. A kitchen, for instance, isn’t just a place to eat; it can also allow for shared meals and impromptu gatherings, and those, in turn, are the basis of the re-lationships which lead to a real sense of kinship among the members. With some delicate animation, the bonds of community are forged and strengthened, building social capital and a network of relationships.

i  Community relationships allow members to ex-change ideas, to collaborate easily, to fi nd ser-

vices and access knowledge that might otherwise be hard to come by. In short, community is what leads to innovation, because a community of other creative, en-gaged people is what blows away the cobwebs, allows you to see an old problem in a new light, and helps you fi nd creative ways of implementing solutions you might not otherwise have considered. And that—all the myriad ways in which space and community foster social innovation—well, that’s the whole purpose of the Cen-tre for Social Innovation.

20 21

contextc c

We have witnessed the birth and growth of three dis-tinct but related movements. The fi rst is a movement toward co-location. Co-location generally refers to the more-or-less permanent sharing of space among orga-nizations. Within this fi eld, there is a particular trend toward co-location of nonprofi t organization within a single facility, often known as a Multi-Tenant Nonprofi t Centre. The members in these centres are individual organizations who have decided to share space, often an entire building, as a strategy to save costs and ad-vance their missions. The Nonprofi t Centers Network in San Francisco (nonprofi tcenters.org), a project of Tides Shared Spaces, is the primary organizing body for a network of over 200 such shared spaces, mostly in the United States, and is leading the charge in developing and connecting the fi eld. CSI is a proud member of the Nonprofi t Centers Network.

Sierra Health Nonprofit Innovation Center in the Sacramento area (sierrahealth.org)

a three-pronged movement

t he shared spaces movement is exploding. While various forms of shared workspace have been

around for decades, the idea of shared space as a unique fi eld of practice is more recent, and the past few years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of shared spaces and in the interconnections among them.

The second movement is often referred to as cowork-

ing. Born of ‘independents’ (freelancers, sole practitio-ners, consultants, etc.) primarily in the tech and design sectors, coworking spaces are generally more informal and of smaller scale than co-locations. Many members are motivated by opportunities for social connect-edness; as independents, they are too often working alone.

Coworking spaces provide shared space for part-time members and are popping up all over the globe. This movement, more ad-hoc than the co-location move-ment, is being loosely connected and organized through the Coworking Wiki (blog.coworking.info). While most coworking spaces do not apply a ‘social change’ lens to their work, one notable exception is The Hub (the-hub.net), a global network of coworking spaces now reach-ing into over 20 countries around the world. CSI is an affi liate of The Hub Network.

The third movement is a movement toward incubation of social change projects. Although it’s a fuzzy term, incubation generally refers to support given to early-stage projects and organizations. This support can in-clude programming, trusteeship, shared services, in-vestment and fi nancial back-end services. The past few years have seen an increase in the application of tra-ditional incubation strategies for commercialization to social enterprises.

The Hub, a coworking space, also applies a social change lens to their work (the-hub.net)

National Community Development Institute builds capacity for social change in communities (ncdinet.org)

22 23

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the Csi twist

t he Centre for Social Innovation is a hybrid of these movements. Like co-locations we provide

permanent, stable offi ce rental to organizations. Like coworking spaces, we provide part-time desk spaces to ‘independents’. Like an incubator, CSI provides pro-gramming and shared services to its members, and of-fers a handful of projects support ranging from strate-gic advice to back-end fi nancial services.

This makes us unique. In fact, there are a few other unique characteristics of the CSI model.

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a SoCial CHange lenS

The Centre for Social Innovation is designed to support and foster social innovation. All of our members are selected based on their commitment to that goal, and all of our programming is designed to increase the capacity of social enterprises, non-profi ts, charities, green businesses, artists, designers, creators, and activists to improve the well-being of people and our planet.

a foCuS on Small

We focus on groups with fi ve or fewer staff. The vast major-ity of our members are one- and two-person operations. It is these small groups that are in the greatest need of shared fa-cilities and administration; it is also these groups that are best positioned to collaborate and connect with others.

pHySiCal deSign

We understand the critical role of physical design in setting the tone of a space and the behaviour of its users. We have developed a very specifi c approach to physical design that has been a key ingredient in our success and in the ‘experience’ of the Centre for Social Innovation.

animation aS praCtiCe

Community animation is what turns “a place to work” to a space of social innovation. We’ve been building the practice of animation and developing its role as a central feature of suc-cessful shared spaces.

24 25

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52% of members describe themselves as working on the environment, 39% in culture, 31% in social justice, and 25% in technology (respondents were allowed to select multiple sectors).

Incorporated for-profi t and incorporated nonprofi ts are equally represented among our members, at 23% each. 25% of members are registered charities, and 24% are unincorporated.

We are a community of the small but mighty: 94% of CSI members have three or fewer full-time equivalent staff.

Two-thirds of members are under the age of 40, doing their best to keep the other third feeling young! Thirty-seven percent of members bicycle to work every day (fewer in Toronto winters!).

So, just who are the members of CSI? It’s an eclectic mix that cuts across sectors and organizational types, ages and skill sets, and it’s an altogether glorious jumble.

Recreation

Professional Association

Public Space

Health & Disability

Law / Advocacy / Politics

Other

Social Services

Community Economic Development

Technology

Capacity Builder

Social Justice

Culture

Arts

Environment

8

10

15

15

17

18

18

21

25

30

31

39

39

52

Sector %

Bike

Drive

Tran

sit

Walk

Other

10%

37%

8%

41%

4%

GettingHere

6

23

23

24

25Don't Know

Incorporated For-Profit

Incorporated Non-Profit

Unicorporated

Registered Charity

Legal Form %

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member snapshot

i n November 2008 we conducted a comprehensive member survey. The survey comprised more than

one hundred questions, investigating everything from customer service to the effect of membership on organizational revenues. The results include, in addition to quantitative measures, more than 2,000 submitted comments, anecdotes, and suggestions. We are honoured and grateful that so many of our members were willing to share their thoughts and insights with us, and thrilled to now be sharing them with you1.

[1] Throughout this report, unless otherwise noted, any statistics or feedback attributed to CSI members refers to the informa-tion gathered from the 80 respondents to our November 2008 survey, who represent about 30% of our membership.

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download the survey and a report of the results:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

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theories and missions are great, but it’s the business model that determines viability.

2C H a p t e r defInInG

The mOdel

30 31

our basic business model

At its most basic, we are a landlord. We rent space from a building owner and sublet it to other organizations and in-dividuals. We add a layer of shared services to alleviate the administrative burden that many of these small groups expe-rience. We charge a premium on the space that is sufficient to cover our operating (primarily staff) costs.

The Third ParTy oPeraTor

Most opportunities to share space are among a small num-ber of organizations who band together to create a shared space, or when a single organization suddenly finds itself with more space than required and must consider inviting a new organization in as a way to collaborate or save money. These models can and do work. But our finding is that the most successful models have an independent, third-party opera-tor whose sole mission is to manage and develop the shared space. Successful operation of a shared space requires dedi-cated attention and expertise.

In some cases, this simply isn’t an option. We therefore sug-gest that in cases where several organizations are coming together to create a shared space, you create a separate committee of representatives whose responsibility is to man-age the space. Resources must be allocated, and roles and responsibilities defined, if you want a successful relationship. In cases where you are an organization with excess space – or when you have been invited to join an existing space that was not originally created as a shared space – make sure you spend time on courtship… and a strong pre-nuptial! You should have a shared clear sense of responsibilities, expecta-tions, and financial obligations.

TiP: Scale MatterSThe Centre for Social Innovation operated for three years in 5,000 square feet. But the truth is that we would never have been self-sustaining at that rate – the margins sim-ply weren’t sufficient and we had to bring in additional revenue through consulting, grants, and other activities. It was only when we scaled to 19,000 sq ft that we could ap-proach and achieve self-sustainability; finally, our space was big enough that our margin could cover our operating costs. That’s not to say that you can’t make it work on 5,000 ft, but you need to carefully estimate potential revenue and expenses. Our experience tells us that small spaces only succeed with Hot Desks, which have the highest possible mar-gins (and risk); office space provision requires an overall larger footprint.

subleT To individuals & organizaTions

renT sPace from landlord

add a layer of shared services

defining the model

32 33

governance & incorPoraTion

The Centre for Social Innovation is a nonprofit organization governed by a voluntary board of directors. Our board in-cludes a mix of nonprofit sector leaders, private sector repre-sentatives, a lawyer, an academic, a CSI member and former member, and the landlord of the building.

Shared spaces can be successfully run as charities, nonprofits or for-profits. The choice is really up to you. Consider careful-ly the relative advantages and disadvantages. A nonprofit is perceived as part of the sector; simply being a nonprofit can carry you a far way in reputation and trust. On the other hand, a for-profit generally has a bit more freedom in its activities, greater opportunities to generate financing, and strong abil-ity to respond quickly without navigating a board of directors. Ultimately, the question may come down to resources. If you intend to rely in part on grants, donations and volunteers, then you must incorporate as a nonprofit. If however, you seek loans through debt or equity, then you may elect to become a for-profit. It is important to consider the relative advantages and disadvantages when wrestling with this decision.

If you do decide to become a nonprofit, your own board should reflect the realities of operating a share space. Con-sider finding board members or advisors who occupy some of the following occupations: architect, developer, lawyer, city councillor, member, voluntary sector leader, and business leader.

However, what is more important than who is on your board is how you decide to operate. In our case, we prioritized board members and a board culture that was entrepreneurial, nim-ble, and strategic, rather than mired in day-to-day administra-tion. Spend time developing a shared vision and acclimatizing new members to that vision.

no matter how you are inCorporated, you need to operate like a business with a fundamental Commitment to your Customers.

defining the model

34 35

PatientCapital

Loan

No

Inte

rest

Loan

Sponsorship

Gra

nt

ExpansionCapital

32%

31%

32%

5%

sTrucTuring The deal: buying, leasing, & financing

These are questions that you must carefully consider. The Centre for Social Innovation, without any pre-existing assets and no major investor backing, became a tenant in an exist-ing building rather than purchase its own space. But that certainly doesn’t mean that there are no expenses to incur! Consider:

• leasehold improvements

• capital infrastructure investments

• the costs of rent during the build-out

• estimated vacancy rate before full occupancy

• a million little things from forks to flipcharts!

Ownership has the advantages of greater control and eq-uity. Tenancy has a lower bar of entry and does not require the property management expertise of building ownership.

Raising funds for your shared space is a challenging task. You must cultivate relationships with funders, corporate sponsors and other private investors who see value in your project. In our case, we had an angel investor who offered a significant loan and a donation to get the space up and running. When it came to our expansion, we secured a com-bination of a no-interest loan, an interest bearing loan, a capital grant and a sponsorship deal. (See Emergence: The Story of the Centre for Social Innovation for more.)

Now that CSI has built its reputation and relationships over six years, we have positioned ourselves to purchase our own space. On May 18, 2010 we assumed posession of a 36,000 square foot building in downtown Toronto–a major milestone in our growth. We purchased the new building through a combination of a traditional mortgage, private debt financing, and community bonds.

sources of funding for The 2007 exPansion

We had a budget of approximately $300,000 for our expansion into an additional 14,000 square feet that would ultimately sup-port 150 members. $100,00 to leasehold improvements, $100,000 to technical systems and equipment (internet, VoIP, A/V), $100,000 to furniture and furnishings (including desks, reception area, meeting rooms, and kitchen)

download samples of our fundraising & investor materials:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

defining the model

Will you buy? Or will you rent? Who are your investors? What will you offer them?

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raising money

You may have more than you think! What are the assets of your shared space? Does it provide any sponsorship opportu-nities? We decided to sell naming rights to one of our board-rooms to a co-operative bank (Alterna Savings). This created a true win-win scenario. We secured important core revenue and entered into a relationship with an organization we trust-ed and with whom we were proud to associate. Alterna Sav-ings gained incredible exposure to thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations in their target market.

Create the investment documents and sponsorship packages that will convince funders and financers to support your proj-ect and collaborate on your vision.

download the investor/donation packages that we shopped around during our expansion:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

defining the model

38 39

We have seen several variations on the Hot Desk model. In some cases, the desks will be split by two individuals. In oth-ers, the desks are sold by the number days they will be used in a month. In others, you are simply granted access to the workspace and there is no specific amount of time you are entitled to. In other words: you need to create the packages and protocols that work best for your mission, space and bot-tom line.

One interesting consideration that has recently come to a head at CSI is the question of whether the base unit of mem-bership is the organization or the project.  Can three staff share one desk or one Hot Desk package? Can they all be there at the same time? We’ve resolved this by explaining that our desks and Hot Desks are rented to individual users. We’ve added a $50 charge for those who want to share and offered a $50 discount on second desks rented on behalf of the same organization or project.

The lease

The lease – or sub-lease – is a critical document that de-fines the legal and financial relationship between you and the member. Make sure it is carefully reviewed by a lawyer and then be prepared to stick to it; we find that some office members will request changes based on their lawyers’ opin-ion, but unless you want to manage a dozen variations of the lease, keep it simple and standardized (but certainly consider any legitimate changes). We prefer one year leases for any permanent members and 6-month leases for any Hot Desk members; however, we allow any member to break the lease with 60 days notice. We attach to the sub-lease a copy of our own Head Lease as an appendix, as well as a set of Member Co-operation Policies that outline the expectations regarding shared behaviour in the Centre for Social Innovation.

Finally, we charge a $125 set-up fee to cover the initial costs of administering the lease process and to cover the costs of signage and pass-keys.

worksPace oPTions

All private office and permanent desk members are on a 12-month lease. Hot Desk members are on a 6-month lease. We do have a clause that allows them to break their lease with 60 days notice, which isn’t always necessary, but which gives uncertain members some assurance and creates a strong sense of comfort and appreciation. The entire space is ac-cessible 24 hours a day but requires an access key outside of regular business hours.

Our mix of workspace options is unique to the Centre for So-cial Innovation. It is based on our belief that different people and projects have different workspace needs. This model ac-commodates a variety of different groups. It also helps ensure a diversity of organizational types. Our private office space members often bring elements of stability and experience that our permanent desk and temporary desk members do not. Our permanent desk members bring energy to the space and a strong willingness to collaborate. Our Hot Desk mem-bers allow us to accommodate an incredible variety of groups and to add a sense of dynamism to the space.

TiP: the landlordA landlord can make all the difference. In ideal conditions, you will find a landlord who is excited about having a shared space inside his or her building, recognizing the attention and social and economic value that such a space can generate. In more likely scenarios, your landlord will be indifferent. But beware the landlord who is skeptical or concerned about your activities – or from whom you get a set a sense of unreliability. Do your research! As a tenant who is subletting your hands are occasionally tied when it comes to serving your own members, because some of the activities may be part of the landlord’s responsibilities. The last thing you want is a landlord who is slow to fix elevators, wash-rooms or temperature issues – your members will not hesitate to voice their concerns!

office sPace

PermanenT desks

hoT desks

defining the model

a great Community workspaCe requires thoughtful Consideration at every turn.

3C H a p t e r cReaTInG

The space

42 43

locaTion

Location was the single most important consideration for site selection. Within location, several variables were identified, offered here in order of priority:

• Accessibility by transit

• Proximity to the downtown core

• Proximity to surrounding personal and professional amenities (printers, restaurants, professional services)

• Proximity to clients and colleagues

• Proximity to/availability of green space

• Availability of parking

• Safety and security

building

The building itself is the second most important criteria in site selection. Here’s what our respondents told us they valued most:

• Plenty of natural light

• Interesting aesthetic features; exposed brick/beam, high ceilings, etc.

• A sense of history and spirit to the building; perhaps a former incarnation that can be woven into the present plan

#1 #2The dimensions of sPace

In the past six years we have done a lot of research and con-ducted a fair number of experiments – some successful…oth-ers not so much! This section shares our best suggestions, tips and lessons for creating a dynamic, healthy and attractive workspace for members and visitors alike.

The most important thing to remember is that you are not just creating a physical space – you are creating a social, environ-mental, and psychological space too. Each of these elements deserves careful and deliberate “curating“ to achieve the vi-sion and goals you have set.

download our site selection report:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

creating the space

siTe selecTion

In 2005 the Centre for Social Innovation undertook a small research project to explore the factors that were most impor-tant in our members’ site selection.

44 45

Good community design is essential. Put a chair in a reception space. Now replace it with a couch. What changes? Try the same thing with a harvest table instead of a small table. Your design informs behaviour and action!

Create unstructured social space; seren-dipity is more likely to happen around the kitchen table than the boardroom table.

It is easier to build community horizon-tally than vertically! Look for spaces that keep people on the same floor rather than splitting them between floors.

Use comfortable and communal furniture: couches, cosy chairs, welcoming rugs and harvest tables.

Tear down those walls! Glass reflects values of transparency and openness and fosters a sense of collaboration and dynamism; create large open spaces for open sightlines and mass connection.

Beauty, eh? We all love beautiful things! Make your space attractive – it makes people feel healthy and happy.

Kitchens don’t make money – but they do build community. Don’t cheap out or box it in – this is where the magic happens.

Build in an environmentally considerate way.

Foster mobility – put services and ameni-ties in different parts of the space so that people move around – it’s mobility that gets people to explore new spaces and people.

Go industrial – there will be hundreds of people using the space and it will show – get the most durable that you can afford.

Put things on wheels and keep them light – you want to be able to move them easily.

Fabrics need to handle dirt – invest in ones that are heavy-duty.

Lockable space is essential for members – they need some closed storage for their essentials

Cohesion matters – all these elements need to hang together in a design that works and feels harmonious.

creating the space

46 47

TiPs for a funcTional - and ProfiTable - sPace:

• Consider designing meeting spaces for the external community as well as members; your visitors will need various room sizes, including a good workshop space.

• Use modular furniture: let people configure and recon-figure the room to serve their various purposes, from yoga classes to boardroom meetings to workshops.

• Design for flexibility: All organizations change size over time. Can you use a mixture of office spaces and desk spaces to accommodate growth and shrinkage among your members?

• Private office spaces generally give you stability and require little administration; permanent desks and Hot Desks require a bit more work but have a higher profit margin. Find the baance that suits your vision.

design for The boTTom line

Couches, harvest tables and rugs – it all sounds so roman-tic. But don’t forget that you’ll need some office spaces and work stations too! First and foremost, think carefully about the proportion of private space to common space that will help you cover your operating costs. But remember that a shared space without sufficient common spaces won’t be at-tractive enough to retain members – and won’t serve your community-building goals. At the Centre for Social Innova-tion we have a 40:60 ratio in favour of private space. We’d suggest that you’d need a minimum of 30% common space if building community is part of your goal.

TiP:

Utility vS WhiMSicalYour space must first and foremost be func-tional for members. This means keeping the space clean and keeping the amenities (photocopiers, printers, internet, etc.) work-ing. But all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl! So remember to spice it up with the little features and interventions that breathe life and levity into the space, like message walls, member photos, member profiles…or even board games and building blocks! (yes, we are serious!)

• Design sensible areas for printing, faxing and copying – make sure people can work easily in those spaces.

• Re-use materials wherever possible – it’s more afford-able, and it models the environmental principles your members will likely care about.

• Beware of high-end design – keep replacement costs in mind when making purchases.

• Don’t try to do everything at once – the needs of your space and your members will become clearer over time.

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meeTing rooms

Every organization has meetings at least occasionally; your space should offer a variety of meeting rooms to accommo-date different purposes, from workshops to interviews. Our rental model includes a set number of free hours for each member every month; we charge for overages. Rooms are available on a first come first serve basis and we encourage users to take the smallest room that will serve their purposes, saving larger spaces for others.

For years, we have used a manual system for booking – liter-ally a calendar on which users themselves block out the time they require. It’s only now that we are exploring an online system, but you may find that an online system is the best way to go, and several options are available. Online systems allow members to book spaces remotely and make it far easier for you to track usage (helpful for keeping an eye on overages and for understanding usage patterns).

You must also decide if your meeting room space is going to be rentable by the public and set prices accordingly. Renting meeting room spaces to the public serves a few key goals:

• generating revenue for the organization

• helping turn the space into a community resource and shared learning space

• raising the profile of your centre and your members by ensuring a steady flow of people through the space.

However, your decision to serve the public must not come at the expense of members, who are your first priority. Make sure that the traffic doesn’t interfere with your members’ abil-ity to perform their work and that they are still able to access meeting space when they need it.

We generally advise that members and guests are respon-sible for their own room set-up and clean up. It’s important to do a quick sweep after meetings to make sure the space is clean and ready for the next booking. Consider levying a charge for rooms that are left in disarray as an incentive to maintain cleanliness.

TiPs for meeTing sPaces

• A good shared space will have sufficient meeting rooms relative to the number of members.

• Consider meeting rooms of variable sizes: several small or medium-sized rooms plus a larger workshop room.

• Add flipcharts, whiteboards and chalkboards for idea development.

• Use modular furniture to maximize flexibility.

• Locate meeting spaces in publicly accessible areas and away from member offices whenever possible.

• Proximity to a kitchen is important if there are going to be catered events or need for other kitchen facilities.

• Have a clear request form and an insurance waiver for external clients.

• Consider a minimum 72 hour-in-advance request policy to give your team time to prepare for the event.

download the room booking agreement:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

creating the space

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securiTy

The security of your shared space is absolutely essential. Members must feel comfortable and secure in the space and you must put into place the systems necessary for security.

• Provide some separation between your most highly traf-ficked common areas and the workspaces.

• Situate the Hot Desk area close to an exit as a strategy to minimize the flow of these more transient members.

• All offices should be lockable and all desk spaces should have a lockable drawer; consider having lockers for any Hot Desk members.

• Install a security system for arming and disarming every day (last one to leave, first one to enter) that uses unique, trackable codes for each person. Consider swipe keys for access to certain spaces or work with the landlord on a coordinated solution for monitoring sensi-tive areas.

• Most importantly, encourage members to be security conscious and to act as an informal ‘community watch’ that disarms any uncertain situations with a few friendly inquiries.

TiP:

Get inSpired!When designing your shared space consider visiting other similar spaces, either in person or online. Take or cut-out pictures of spaces or furniture you like, or pictures that reflect the mood and culture you want to create. And know your limits! Hire architects and in-terior designers if you don’t have the skills you need, as well as contractors who un-derstand your vision. Find the supports you need to bring your vision to life.

“i love the open concept and the lounge area. you really don’t feel like you are in a office, more like a home away from home.”

“i like that i am a very proud tenant and proud of being part of the place. anybody that i bring to the place gets a great impression of the space”

“i love the space. it’s cozy and inspiring.”

TiP:

deSiGn and BUdGet are MUtUally inforMativeYou cannot design without giving consider-ation to the budgetary implications. And you can’t set pricing without thinking about the design. This needs to be an iterative process. Try a specific design and layout and run the numbers; those results should then inform the design. Do you need more desk spaces to meet your budgetary goals? Have you cre-ated too many meeting spaces? Budgeting and design go hand in hand!

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managing noise

This is a big one! The problem with an incredible, dynamic, and collaborative community is that they can make a lot of noise. Certainly, your shared space is unlikely to be a very quiet office – and that’s a good thing! But noise abatement can become a pressing issue if decibel levels challenge your members’ productivity.

• Be upfront about the probability of noise – shared work-spaces are not libraries.

• Create a set of noise policies and include reference to them in the Member Cooperation Policies.

• Limit the use of speaker-phones.

• Divide the space in such a way that the noisier ele-ments are clustered together: Hot Desks should be self contained instead of scattered amongst the permanent members.

• Create phone booths for members who are working in open space so they have a comfortable option for personal or lengthy calls.

keePing iT clean

Noise may be the second most important issue in your space, but cleanliness is likely to be the first. Shared spaces with col-lective responsibility can turn into spaces with no responsibil-ity as members duck their role in keeping the space as clean as possible. This is especially true of the kitchen, where it all seems to come to a head!

• Outline an expectation of shared responsibilities for cleanliness and orderliness of the space.

• Get enough dishwashers to process the kitchenware you are regularly using so they don’t pile up in the sink.

• Get a big sink with space for washing.

• Have cleaning products on hand – make it easy for members to pitch in.

• Hire weekly, bi-weekly or monthly cleaners for a deep clean.

• Do a comprehensive clean up every morning before the space opens and again late in the afternoon; the cleaner your space, the more likely that members and guests will keep it that way.

• Create clear signage and policies with visitors that ex-plain it is there responsibility to maintain the space and clean up after themselves.

download our noise policy:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

creating the space

we may be a nonprofit, but unless we operate as a business we will fail.

bUsIness basIcs4

C H a p t e r

58 59

business orienTaTion

Succeeding as a business means fostering an entrepreneur-ial and professional organizational culture and staff team. It also means keeping a careful eye on expenses and revenue – and receivables. As a business-oriented nonprofit we need to market our services and build our profile, treat our com-munity as customers, and work to deliver above and beyond expectations.

It also means that sometimes we need to make tough deci-sions – like increasing rates or evicting members who can’t pay their rent – without apologies. But this “business orienta-tion” must be softened with the realities of our sector. Some-times a little flexibility can go a long way and will ultimately better serve your needs and your mission. better serve your needs and your mission.cusTomer service orienTaTion

In order to be a successful business you must serve the needs of your customers. Our staff team and our organizational cul-ture is dedicated to excellence and to extraordinary customer service. We are pulled in a million directions by our members and clients, asking for support on professional and personal issues, demanding attention and service, and offering feed-back or criticism of our actions. At all times it is absolutely essential to serve the needs of these customers – with diplo-macy, expediency, and a sense of humour.

Our staff team must be willing to drop whatever they are doing to immediately address any substantial problem that arises. In the end, your dreams of radical social change are worthless if the photocopier isn’t working; your first priority is a clean and functional workspace for members and guests.

self-service orienTaTion

Customer service, however, does not mean that you cater to every whim or that you wait on members hand and foot. Your role is equally to empower members. Give them the informa-tion, tools, and means to solve their own problems as much as possible. It is an extraordinary task to meet the needs of 180 customers on a day to day basis – this can be mitigated by finding ways to help members help themselves.

TiP:

laBelS!When you are asked twenty times a day where the spoons are, you learn that labels can be your best accomplices in creating a “self-serve” space. Affix labels on all storage that let members and visitors know where things are, and have instructions written be-side your equipment. These will prevent a lot of repeat questions. (But not all of them!)

business basics

60 61

budgetsCareful budgeting is the cornerstone of a successful shared space. You must work to anticipate all of your costs – both start-up and ongoing – and your revenue. Be realistic and grounded in your estimates; err on the side of caution and plan out at least three years in advance. And make sure to have dedicated attention on this activity – budgets require ongoing revisions, especially in the early days as revenue and expenses are in fluctuation.

ongoing budgeT managemenT

Our budget and cash flow forms are based on a five year prediction. We created this five-year template when we were seeking support for our expansion. Annually, at the close of our fiscal year, we break-up the next year into 12 separate months of activity, and add a “new” fifth year projection to the budget.

This budget is a living document. As we add members, se-cure contracts, or lose support, we make adjustments to the budget. This makes sure we have an accurate and ongoing account of our financial well-being. A third-party auditor cre-ates Financial Statements each year.

accounTs receivable

We have learned a lot about accounts receivable in five years of operation – through some very painful lessons! And un-fortunately, we are still learning and our systems aren’t yet quite perfect. We have encountered about four or five cases where members have disappeared with a balance owing to the Centre.

The best way to ensure that this doesn’t happen, of course, is to insist on rent payments in advance. You can require post-dated cheques, or consider invoicing one month in advance. We’ve tried to show some flexibility – perhaps to a fault – to accommodate the fluctuations in our member’s budgets as an effort to show good faith and understanding of the chal-lenges of their work. But you must find a balance between “good faith” and “hard business”, as a small loss is perhaps inevitable, but you should be protected from any substantial or ongoing losses.

The following are some tips based on our experience.

business basics

require a one monTh dePosiT

This means that you have recourse for any member who defaults on a given month or who seems like they will be unable to pay.

check your a/r regularly

If possible, provide options for pay-ment and use an online billing system so clients can see their own invoice and pay-ment histories. We’ve recently moved to Freshbooks and moved from an exclusive reliance on cheques to bank payments, and may eventually permit credit card payments (we’re uncertain now owing to the associated fees which would compro-mise our revenue).

enforce regular PaymenTs

Have a clear policy for rental payments. At CSI, we issue an email within five days of the start of the month, advising any members who owe for rent that they have 15 days to catch-up or their membership will be terminated (this gives you ten days to find a new mem-bers and sign the paperwork). If they don’t pay, you can apply the deposit against the outstanding balance.

You should also have a policy to protect against NSF cheques – we charge $50 for cheques that bounce.

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priCingAt the Centre for Social Innovation we distinguish between base rent, shared amenities, and fee-for-use revenue.

base renT

Base rent is the set amount that members pay on a monthly basis for workspace, and this amount is static for the term of the lease. One of the first and easiest calculations you should do to begin thinking about pricing is to determine the ratio of common space to private space. Let’s say that you have a 1:1 ratio: 50% of your space is rentable and 50% is common space (kitchen, hallways, reception area, etc.). You immedi-ately know that you must double the square foot pricing you are charging members in order to meet your own rent obliga-tions; your goal is to have members cover the full rental costs of the space. However, you still have a staff team to consider. Therefore, this calculation should be the baseline for further adjustments; you may need to layer an additional percent-age – anywhere from 10–50% – to cover all of your operating costs in addition to rent, not to mention access to a large footprint of common spaces.

SHared amenitieS

Shared Amenities – or shared services – are aggregated into a monthly fee that members pay over and beyond their rent for the facilities and services that are shared in common (think of them like a condo fee, but a fair one!). You should decide on which amenities to offer based on those that are common across the majority of organizations, those which provide a value-add or cost savings to members, and those which you can administer with relative ease. Our shared amenities fee includes:

• Cleaning supplies

• Internet access (wired and wireless)

• Photocopier leases

• Fax machines

• Shared equipment costs (e.g., audio-visual)

• Repairs and maintenance

• Security systems and monitoring

• Coffee/Tea

Your shared amenities fee should be determined by the total cost divided by number of members, plus a margin that cov-ers your costs of coordination and provides some flexibility in case of price fluctuation. Keeping this fee separate from the base rent allows you to make changes to the shared ameni-ties fee as you add or decrease services, or as the price of existing services fluctuates.  It also shows members that there is a real cost behind these services that is tied to their actual usage. Currently, CSI charges a monthly $130 shared ameni-ties fee to office members and a $65 shared amenities fee to permanent desk members. For Hot Desk members, we built the shared amenities fee directly into the pricing.

Crucially, we don’t tolerate exceptions for members that want to opt out of some of the services in the package (e.g. The “but I don’t drink coffee” refrain). This is part of being in a shared community!

business basics

fee-for-use

Finally, some expenses are charged based on actual usage.

• Photocopying

• Printing

• Long-distance charges

• Telephones

These are all based on individual usage and a coding system allows us to charge back these expenses on a quarterly basis.

As a result, we don’t sell our spaces based on square foot price, which can often appear high given the added costs that the rental fees cover, but on an overall price for the office or desk. Remember, there is always cheaper office space out there: your compelling offer is the added value you provide – community, connectedness, shared services, well managed facilities, profile, and a happy workplace.

When it comes to pricing, we do have some accommodation for office features, such as windows, exposed brick, privacy, etc. You should also recognize that there are different margins for different spaces; you’ll have the slimmest margin for office space and the largest margin for Hot Desk space (where you can get multiple people into a very small footprint), with per-manent desk space sitting somewhere in the middle. Keep in mind that any decision about the relative number of such spaces not only has design and budgetary implications, it also has deep implications for your community – these decisions must be grounded in your vision for the space.

64 65

business basics

Hot Desks

Offices

Desks

Workspaceby Income

23%

18%

59%

This chart illustrates a key characteristic of the model: Hot Desks generate six times more income relative to their footprint. Remember that you’ll have multiple members cycling through the same spaces; in our case, we have 100 members in 20 work-stations. As a result, the most profitable workspaces are those that focus on Hot Desks. But Hot Desks require heavier admin-istration and ongoing recruitment. Think carefully about your approach - the layout of the space should flow from your vision.

Hot Desks

Desks

Workspaceby Footprint 77

%

19%

3%

Offices

The majority of our space is dedicated to offices. Offices are easy to administer and provide stability in workplace culture. Hot Desks can be densely packed into a small footprint. You want to make sure permanent desk members have enough room to comfortably work; our permanent desk workspaces are approximately 8’ x 5’.

66 67

$300 + $65 for shared ameniTies

1 desk, shelving & lockable filing

10 hours of monthly meeting space

$800-$2400+ $130 for shared ameniTies

80 - 400 square feet

10 hours of monthly meeting space

Self-furnished

$200 60 hours of monthly workspace

6 hours of monthly meeting space

$75 5 hours of monthly workspace

2 hours of monthly meeting space

$250 100 hours of monthly workspace

8 hours of monthly meeting space

$125 20 hours of monthly workspace

3 hours of monthly meeting space

hot desks are desks that are shared by members. Members work in a shared space called the Workspace Commons which has approximately 24 work stations available on a first-come first-serve basis. CSI furnishes the Workspace Commons.

Permanent desks are private desk spaces in a shared open environment but which belong to one individual and cannot be used by another. CSI provides furnishing for the desk spaces.

Private offices are lockable spaces that belong to a single organization or individual and cannot be accessed by another. CSI does not provide office furniture.

business basics

sTraTegies and consideraTions

When it comes to pricing your spaces, you need to consider your own operational requirements, your member’s budgets, and the market in which you are competing. Your space must be somewhat in tune with other workspace options in your city. But hopefully you are creating something unique - some-thing of value. For this reason, a relatively higher cost is going to be an inevitable and natural outcome. This is something you shouldn’t have to apologize for. The key is to ensure that your “value add” amenities (community, profile, facilities, ser-vices) really are of value to the community.

With respect to our own pricing, the base rent for our offices ranges from $700 (for a small 80 sq ft office) to $2,600 (for a beautiful 400 sq ft office with a gorgeous view of the city).

Generally, the sq ft price increase may be highest on your smallest offices. This is because:

1. There needs to be a significant price differential be-tween an office and a desk space

2. Small, one or two-person offices are often very difficult to find, and hence the market can bear a higher price.

our suCCess is a testament to our team.5

C H a p t e r ROles and RespOnsIbIlITIes

70 71

This includes budget development and management, space construction and infrastructure improvements, member rela-tionships, vendor negotiations and overall facilities manage-ment. Look for someone hyper-organized who gets off on spreadsheets and checkboxes.

oPeraTions

someone needs to foCus on the overall operations of the spaCe.

leadershiP

there needs to be a true leader at the helm of the organization.

This doesn’t mean someone who will control everything and boss everyone around. It means having a leader with vision – someone who inspires staff and the member community, who paints a compelling vision and sells the vision to the world. Of course, selling a vision isn’t enough. Your leader needs a proven track record and the capacity to balance visionary leadership with basic and effective management.

roles and responsibilities

72 73

It needs to build its profile and attract new members. An ef-fective and coordinated marketing and communication pro-gram allows you to define and build your brand while engag-ing an internal and external audience.

Administering leases, paying invoices, issuing invoices, track-ing accounts receivable and administering all require a very thorough mindset. Make sure you have systems in place to manage these details and the right control freak at the helm.

adminisTraTion and bookkeePing

payroll belongs in the hands of someone with an eye for detail and an obsession with perfeCtion.

markeTing and communicaTions

even a suCCessful shared spaCe needs to tell its story.

74 75

A shared space that seeks to go beyond simply a “colloca-tion” must invest in the programming, energy and ‘atmo-sphere design’ that only a Community Animator can provide. Community animation is serious business – it takes work to have fun!

You may not have a staff person in each of these roles – they may be blended or shared among a few peo-ple. CSI, for example, did not have anyone in charge of marketing and communication until its fifth year, when it grew from four to seven staff. And at one time, the executive director was occupying all roles in a half-time position!

versatility is a virtue

communiTy animaTion

a Culture of Collaboration

does not manifest without a

ConsCious effort.

shared serviCes are the basiC ingredients of a Collaborative workspaCe.

6C H a p t e r shaRed

seRvIces

78 79

1

2

3

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10

Shared services are an essential part of the support we provide to our members. These are the core services of our model.

1/photoCopying and printing 2/high-speed internet 3/fax maChines 4/mailboxes 5/kitChen faCilities 6/meeting rooms 7/Coffee/tea 8/seCurity 9/Cleaning 10/audio-visual equipment

shared services

80 81

tips and lessonsThe provision of shared services and shared amenities is one of the key reasons why members join a shared space. This is especially true of small organizations. When you are a one-person organization and the internet goes down or the copier breaks, it’s you that has to address it; it isn’t much better in a two or three person organization. A shared space should save members from the administrative burden of managing shared services, allowing them to focus on their missions rather than administration. It should also save money and increase access to facilities through economies of scale.

There’s a basic formula that underlies your decision of whether to offer a spe-cific service to your members: Can you achieve economies of scale that are low enough for you to take a margin that covers your time investment and still of-fer the service at a discounted price to members? For example, if your mem-bers can walk down the street and get a black and white photocopy for $0.07/page, offering photocopying services is only worthwhile if you can beat that price for them while still generating some revenue for yourself.

But there is a twist! Sometimes a shared service doesn’t make economic sense but it makes community sense – it makes your members happy. If we couldn’t make any profit offering b/w printing at $0.05/ page, we’d still want to make this service available to our community.

economies of scale

comPeTiTive Pricing

desirable by members

A member community can often achieve economies of scale and drive down the costs for the individual members. But who are your vendors? What does it mean to strive to be an environmen-tally and socially conscious organization if your vendors aren’t doing the same? Consider prioritizing green businesses, socially responsible companies, and so-cial enterprises when it comes to your procurement. Always remember, at the same time, that the baseline is excel-lence – if you strive toward excellence but your coffee, copier or telephone provider keep letting you down, your brand and reputation are taken down too.

One of the most attractive features of a shared space can be a shared techni-cal infrastructure. But unless you have technical expertise on-site, be careful with the technology you decide to of-fer. Technology is often more expensive and complicated than originally antici-pated and you must not underestimate the potential drain on human resources, which is all too easy to overlook. Human resources are a cost to your organiza-tion that doesn’t always appear on the balance sheet but needs to be carefully considered. We learned this lesson in spades when it came to our investment in a VoIP telephone system!

It’s probably not a good idea to start right off with a shared insurance plan! Trust and camaraderie take time to build; there is no insta-community. Start with the simple things like copiers and refrigerators. Over time, layer on more and more services as your community develops, relationships solidify, and you have a more nuanced sense of your members’ needs.

1. Tea/coffee, fridge, coPier

2. umbrellas, noTePads

3. insurance Plan, accounTanT

t i m e - s av i n g technoloGy*

fairTrade organic- coffee -

fairTrade organic- coffee -

brought to you by CSI

The Formula STarT SimPleTreaD

careFully wiTh Technology

your branD & your venDorS

shared services

82 83

the system for both photoCopiers and printers should be Capable of aCCounting for per page use by user – you need to easily traCk and Charge for usage.

a/v equiPmenT

It’s generally a good idea to offer A/V equipment to support meeting space users.

• Consider all variety of a/v equipment, including projec-tors, laptops, TVs, DVD players, a PA system, flipcharts and markers, whiteboards, and chalk boards.

• Keep the equipment in good working order, manage the inventory, and keep a close eye on all associated cables and peripherals.

• Write clear instructions for all technology – even the most obvious! – to make it easier for users and to limit questions.

PhoTocoPying & PrinTing

Photocopying and printing are required by most organiza-tions and are a relatively straightforward service to offer. Here’s what you should look for when shopping for a copier:

• Get a robust machine - you will need something that can handle the traffic of your members.

• Users should be able to download the drivers them-selves – this process should be straightforward.

• Make sure that the printer can handle multiple plat-forms and operating systems; you may have Macs, PCs, and users of Windows and open source plat-forms.

• The system for both photocopiers and printers should be capable of accounting for per page use by user – you need to easily track and charge for usage.

• Get at least two suppliers to bid on the machine; com-pare initial costs and ongoing/maintenance costs, plus reputation for service.

• Scanning is a great and useful addition to the copier.

shared services

84 85

voiP TelePhone

We provide a VoIP system to our members. VoIP can require a steep upfront investment, and is associated with expen-sive ongoing costs. In our case the math made sense, but we didn’t adequately account for the expense of changes, additions and deletions, over and above that of routine main-tenance. Anytime someone wants to add a line or change a staff person you may have to get involved. Think carefully about whether it’s worth it. If it is:

• Compare a few proposals and make sure you learn enough to understand the differences.

• Look into hosted or open source solutions.

• Clearly understand ongoing maintenance costs.

• Determine the scalability of the system; what if you expand? Does the system have the capacity to grow without being replaced? And what about costs for ad-ditional lines or licensing?

• Cabling is expensive! How can you tie your internet and telephony infrastructure together?

• Will a staff person be trained to make changes to the system or are you reliant on external providers? Do you have the in-house skills and capacity?

inTerneT and wireless

Reliable high-speed internet is a must-have for a shared space. It’s also a very appealing service to offer because it can be a massive headache to manage. Here’s a checklist of things to consider:

• Look for high bandwidth.

• Find a reliable provider with great support.

• Wireless is a huge bonus, and more or less essential if you are offering Hot Desk services.

• Make sure to get access to technical support for your internal infrastructure.

• Get a clear sense of all the costs involved, including cabling, routers, servers, maintenance, etc.

Cabling is expensive! how Can you tie

your internet and telephony infrastruCture

together?

shared services

86 87

1

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4

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8

9

10

5

6

coffee/Tea

Such a seemingly simple topic deserves its own section! If your space is anything like our space – i.e., on earth – then coffee will be a serious issue:

1. We accommodate a high number of coffee drinking members and guests so we got very robust machines that tie directly into the plumbing.

2. Freshly roasted organic fair-trade coffee is delivered weekly, alongside organic milk and cream.

3. Get multiple urns so you can serve multiple events simultaneously.

4. Consider providing coffee service – or at least coffee access – to visitors and meeting room renters as a way to generate revenue.

5. Put a piggy bank near the machine so guests can drink guilt-free.

6. Remember the tea drinkers!

kiTchen managemenT

A fully stocked kitchen is a massive environment saver and a great resource to offer your community and visitors. We adopt a strict “no waste” policy for all external events and use our facilities whenever possible.

7. Provide the basics: plates, cutlery, glasses, mugs, etc.

8. While we don’t have cooking facilities, we do provide a toaster, microwave, cutting boards, etc.

9. The kitchen is often the focal point of the space – this is where the magic happens! Keep the space open, bright and big…if you want to build community, don’t scrimp on the kitchen .

10. The kitchen is also the most contentious space, prey to abandoned moldy items, battles for space, and never-ending dirty dishes battles. Use clear signage, outline expectations, and model the behaviour you want to see (and occasionally call out the folks who aren’t do-ing their part).

11. Get a large robust refrigerator and dishwasher, and consider getting a second of each if your space war-rants it.

shared services

88 89

insurance

There are three kinds of insurance worth considering: con-tents, liability, and health and dental. We found that it was too expensive to insure all of the contents of the members under our own policy, so our sub-lease has a stipulation that they require their own contents insurance. We do have liability in-surance to cover all possible injuries in the space; this is part of the shared amenities fee.

After four years, as levels of trust had grown in our commu-nity, we began a shared health and dental program. This is a great benefit but can be an administrative drain, especially dealing with members coming in and out of the program. Again, consider the human costs in your decision-making.

We do not get involved in any shared general operating or Directors and Officers insurance.

Can you Create a Carpooling system?Can you seCure disCounts for rail travel? what about a reduCed ‘bulk advertising’ priCe with loCal newspapers?

shared services

90 91

Wireless Internet

Wired Internet

Photocopier

Printers

Flipcharts

Fax Machine

Whiteboards

Phone booths

Projector

Speaker phones

Storage lockers

Nap room

VoIP system

Hot Desks Phone

DVD Player

PA system

Television

Neutral Agree Strongly AgreeDisagreeStrongly disagree

The imPorTance of various ameniTies To our members

For each of the above amenities, to what extent do you agree with this statement: “This amenity at CSI is essential to my work.”

shared language Classes /yoga Classes/organiC vegetable/bread/free range ChiCken delivery/shared biCyCle program/massage therapist/disCounts on the loCal Car-share program/disCounts on rail travel

shared services

members are the reason for your existenCe and the Centre of your business model.

7C H a p t e r membeR

RelaTIOns

94 95

member reCruitmentWith hard work and a little luck your space will be thriving, and filled to capacity with a waiting list of eager members. But things don’t often start that way! Attracting the member-ship you want takes deliberate planning and work. As with most aspects of shared space management, this starts with your vision. Who is the space intended to serve? What is your vision for the culture and dynamic among members? These questions form the baseline of your member recruitment strategy.

sTarT early and build momenTum

Planning a shared space? Then get started building your community! There’s no reason to wait until you open your doors before inviting people into your vision. Once you have a sense of direction and a reasonable plan for development and launch, start spreading the word. Here’s where your brand and tone really come in handy. (More on that short-ly.) Let people know about your vision. Invite them to join a mailing list, a meet-up, a Facebook group or some other device that allows you to start collecting names and sharing

informaTion sessions

When your space is secured and you are beginning the lease-hold improvements, hold a few information sessions to wel-come potential members into the space, share your vision, and generate excitement and member leads.

Choose a few dates at different times and days of the week to accommodate people’s varying schedules.

• Use all possible colleagues and networks to promote the message. Make the invitation compelling and get people excited about the vision and possibilities from the get-go.

• Prepare a set of information packages that include the vision, floor map with pricing (even if it’s tentative) and the application forms.

• Start the session with a brief presentation about the vision – use the right salesperson to get people ener-gized.

• Encourage everyone to introduce themselves; this simple act can show the variety of potential colleagues.

• Take the members on a tour and encourage them to identify those offices or spaces that they would like to apply for – even if the space is being developed, illus-trate the details of your plan.

• Let people know that not everyone will get in; create some cache by describing your selection process and your vision.

member relations

the word. This momentum will come in handy when it’s time to start later stages of promotion and member recruitment.

define your offer

What is it that you are offering members? Why should they join your space? You must define your offer. We don’t think you should ever attempt to distinguish yourself by price; there will always be another organization or building that can provide space at a lower cost. And don’t just sell office space – a million places sell office space. A shared space can sell many things: community, social capital, profile, flexibility, health, happiness etc.  Build these ideas into your messages.

ongoing PromoTion

Just because you are full doesn’t mean you should stop pro-moting yourself: what if you decide to expand, or what if some members lose their funding or outgrow the space?

Have on-site materials that promote your centre.

• Create and grow an external mailing list to promote your member community and programs so that, when the time comes, you have a great promotional channel.

• Encourage members to promote their association with your space through their website, printed materials, etc.

• Maintain a waiting list so you can go back to the list whenever a space opens up.

• Consider monthly tours to promote the space to poten-tial members.

• Use social media to build networks and to connect non-members to your work

• Host events and activities that welcome a broader audience - connect to the community in which you are situated and build a name for your work

• Be excellent. The best promotion is word-of-mouth from happy members

96 97

Hired in

Read Publication

Web Search

Mee

ting

Word of Mouth

Oth

er

13%

6%

25%

15%

39%

How did you hearabout CSI?

HomeShared Space

Office

Other

60%

20%

6%

14%

Where MembersWorked Before

download the CSI promotional brochure and Hot Desk postcards:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

member relations

The majority of our members worked from home before they came to CSI. This poses two interesting challenges: First, How do you motivate people to begin incurring rent expenses? Second, how do you reach people who work primarily from their own homes? To answer the first question, your message needs to focus on what’s needed by these would-be members. This includes office amenities like photocopiers and meeting rooms, but it also includes the soft stuff like exposure to new people and a sense of community. For the second question, see the next page.

Never underestimate the power of networks. The statistic for ‘word of mouth’ demonstrates the importance of your mem-bers’ experiences and relationships. We try to incentivize members to ‘spread the gospel’ by offering a $50 referral fee. But a referral fee is just the icing on the cake; it won’t incentivize members nearly as much as a genuine affection for the shared space. This graph also shows the importance of opening your site to public events – this is how most people first experience the space.

98 99

member seleCtionJust as you must curate your physical space, you must also curate your membership. This means taking seriously your re-sponsibility to select members on the basis of your vision. If things go well this will be quite easy because most applicants self-select: those who aren’t really a fit aren’t likely to apply if they get a chance to experience the space. But you must prepare for more formal processes and protection.

All members should have to apply for space using a detailed application form that gives you the information you need to make an informed decision about their viability. Remember to ask why they are applying to be part of the shared space – this can be a good way to assess enthusiasm and fit. If possible, move the form online so you can easily store and analyze this data. Finally, you should meet every member before they are approved (invite them to a tour or to check out the space) – never under-estimate the importance of gut feel!

The selection process has two elements: the criteria for selec-tion and the decision-making process. It is absolutely critical for your team to define your member vision in advance. Do you want members of a certain size? A certain sector? Of cer-tain values? Consider carefully your vision for the space and curate your community just as seriously as you curate your space.

The wildcard: PersonaliTy and enThusiasm

The member selection process can occur at a staff level, board level, or can even include existing members. It could include a grading scheme or a simple yes/no majority or consensus ap-proach. Make sure you have defined the criteria and process so that you can streamline decision making.

It can all look good on paper, but what if someone arrives and they insist on complaining all the time? Or gossiping? These can be poison in your shared environment and a very difficult thing to anticipate in advance. Our best suggestion is to have at least two staff meet with members in advance for a tour and a chat so you can get a quick sense of “vibe” or “feel”. Your members should be enthusiastic and excited about be-ing part of your great community. And of course, make sure your member co-operation policies account for any such dis-ruptive behaviour so you have a document to fall back on if a specific individual is really compromising the well being of the community.

Social mission: Members must be able to articulate how their work is making the world a better place.

Shared Values: Members must align with CSI’s values, such as open-mindedness, respect, tolerance, passion, solutions-focus, etc.

physical fit: CSI can accommodate groups of five or fewer staff, and no one organization can have more than two office spaces.

innovativeness: Priority will be given to those individuals, projects and organizations whose work is new, creative and promising. We are looking for members who are pushing boundaries.

reach: As a network of networks, CSI is interested in sup-porting umbrella groups and other connectors into the social mission sector.

profile: Groups whose profile will add value to the Centre for Social Innovation and to its members will be prioritized.

Community-mindedness: Members must understand – and embrace – the fact that they are joining a community.

multi-Cultural participation: CSI seeks to reflect the diversity of our city and will prioritize initiatives and individuals who represent and work with Toronto’s diverse ethno-racial com-munities.

diversity: The overall mix of the Centre for Social Innovation must reflect a diversity of missions, legal forms (nonprofits, for-profits, unincorporated, etc.) and developmental stages, including both stable and emerging organizations.

Commitment to Collaboration: We seek members who have demonstrated that they work well with others.

energy: CSI embraces entrepreneurs, animators, connectors and others who bring their energy with them. Good energy in the world attracts good energy within CSI.

nonprofit priority: A minimum of two-thirds of all perma-nent desk and office spaces will be reserved for nonprofit organizations.

the centre for Social innovation Board and staff team are responsible for member selection. here are the criteria that factor into our decision-making process.

download our member selection criteria:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

member relations

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member relationshipsUnfortunately, getting members in the door isn’t quite enough. Once they are in you need to navigate and manage the diversity of personalities and relationships that are an in-evitable part of your shared space.

Fortunately, this is often the most rewarding aspect of the work. Members bring incredible experience and ideas, and it is the web of relationships with and among members that make your days so enjoyable

member co-oPeraTion Policies

Create a set of member co-operation policies that can be ap-pended to the lease as a requirement of membership. This al-lows you to outline the expectations of members upfront and in a transparent manner, while providing some legal recourse if someone is really contravening the rules and expectations of the space. These policies should include physical and prac-tical considerations (such as lighting, noise, and cleanliness) as well as interpersonal and cultural aspects of membership (such as respect for colleagues, willingness to participate in certain activities, etc.). You can also add a value statement or Community Charter to these policies, outlining the shared vision for the space (this can be a community driven exercise).

orienTaTion sessions

If you expect a lot of turnover, or if you are offering a Hot Desk service, consider a monthly orientation session for new members. This gives them a chance to meet each other, ask questions about the space, better understand your organiza-tion, and familiarize themselves with the services and ame-nities offered. If you can, make this social – doing it over a shared meal like Salad Club (more on that shortly) will cement the sense of camaraderie. We also provide a two-page quick Orientation document for new members.

download our Member Co-operation Policies:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

download our orientation document:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

member relations

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wiTh oTher members iTs imPorTanT for me To...

Exchange ideas

Exchange contacts

Understand mission & activities

Become friends

Undertake initiatives

Do business

Purchase products & services

Make shared purchases

Sell products & services

Neutral Agree Strongly AgreeDisagreeStrongly disagree

member engagemenT and commiTTees

Many shared spaces create committees for members, which may address topics such as programming, service offerings, member selection, etc. These committees give members a known channel and opportunity for feedback. We have shied away from such committees: these require a fair bit of admin-istration and can lead to questions of representation, which can add an element of politics and politicking to your space. We don’t operate by consensus – with 180 members this would simply be impossible – or at least a whole other job on its own.

Instead, we make every effort to make it apparent that all staff are available to receive feedback and to follow up on all com-ments that are received. If we get a sense that a concern is bubbling we host an ad hoc meeting, providing a week or two of notice and inviting all concerned members to attend. We listen carefully and we share our own thoughts. At all times we make sure to follow up with a response indicating how we will address the concern or unmet opportunity, or explaining why we may choose a course of action different than what was requested.

Whatever you do, you must leave room for member input: they experience the space in a different way than you do and it’s critical to have their feedback and perspectives. The best management policy is to walk around the space and engage in it: listen, reflect, adapt, and act.

member relations

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benevolenT dicTaTorshiP

Co-operative and consensual decision-making have their place, but this place may well be limited in a shared space. We have found that too much dialogue and surveying can prevent action and paralyze the community. In general, we don’t cede decision-making to the members but instead re-tain final say on matters of significance. We absolutely listen to and respect the contributions of our members but in the end, it is our responsibility to manage the overall well-being of the space and community, and sometimes that means mak-ing decisions that are not unanimously agreed upon. Howev-er, we have earned our ability to make unfavourable decisions because we have demonstrated over time that the commu-nity’s best interests are our priority.

difficulT conversaTions

A shared space can be a source of fascinating conversation and engagement. Unfortunately, a shared space is also a busi-ness, and as with any business, it means having difficult con-versations at times. In general, these are conversations about financial capacity (i.e., paying the bills); occasionally they are also about negotiating personality conflicts. Take these con-versations seriously and address concerns early, before they have a chance to fester – and do so with the same spirit of community that all conversations are held.  Respect the priva-cy of members and do not divulge their financial information or any personal concerns with other members. Remember that you should never say anything in private that you aren’t prepared to defend publicly; treat all members the same way and keep your principles and priorities as the guide for your conversations.

mbwa

The reference to “benevolent dictatorship” is somewhat in jest – but just somewhat! In our case, and owing to our legal structure, we have the capacity to ‘call the shots’. This may not be possible in all cases.

The basis of our ability to oversee the space is not based on some kind of power trip – it is based on our heartfelt commit-ment to our community. This is best exercised through our practice of MBWA – or Manage By Walking Around. MBWA means that our ears are to the ground as much as possible and we have the chance to resolve issues before they become issues. We listen for feedback and we focus on customer ser-vice. This gives us the opportunity to address issues that may arise head on and with a solutions-oriented approach. You cannot manage member relationships from the comfort of your office – from there you won’t even get to know your members and their personalities and concerns. Get out and mix and mingle – this is an essential part of the job and should be more than a management strategy – it should be one of the best aspects of the job.

keePing The Peace: conflicT resoluTion

It is well worth it to establish a conflict resolution policy and to append this to your Member Co-operation policies. Hopefully it will never be used, but it structures expectations and provides clarity around the process should it ever be required. This is essential in assuring members that conflict can be effectively and transparently managed. We encourage members to resolve issues themselves; if this is unsuccessful or impractical then our staff team offers a solution. If this so-lution is deemed unsatisfactory both parties are required to document their concerns in a letter, which is then reviewed by our Board. The Board then issues a final decision which must be adhered to, or which can otherwise trigger a member’s eviction.

member relations

we turn a shared workspaCe into a Community spaCe by inspiring and ConneCting members.

8C H a p t e r cOmmUnITy

anImaTIOn

108 109

communiTy animaTion

Community animation and programming are the ingredients that turn a shared workspace into a community space, inspir-ing and connecting members while sparking new ideas and demonstrating the unique value of working together. These activities require dedicated attention and ongoing creativity to serve the emerging needs of your community while con-stantly pushing the envelope of what’s possible.

Community Animation may sound like a frill but it is at the root of absolutely everything we do.

community animation

Community animation is the glue that holds it all together and the air that breathes vitality into the space. The goal of community animation is to create a physical and social envi-ronment that:

1. is warm, welcoming and hospitable

2. facilitates the work of individual members and helps them discover their potential

3. contributes to a sense of community

4. maximizes opportunities for idea development, ex-change and collaboration

5. solves problems and drives customer service

Community animation is the glue that holds it all together and the air that breathes vitality into the space.

your role is occasionally to create, but generally to enable and facilitate; to find ways to help bring tenant needs and ideas to actualization.

adopt a light touch – heavy-handed or prescriptive animation will be deservedly resisted.

don’t expect uniform participation: tenants will naturally dip in and dip out of programming and have different degrees of connectedness to the centre at different times.

model the culture you hope to see.

every staff person is a community animator.

experiment. this terrain is wide open.

Community animation manifests in every action and interaction, and begins with your first contact with a new member or visitor.

Balance the natural and organic qualities of community animation with intentional opportunities for connection and service.

achieve a balance between relaxation and professionalism; between casualness and excellence.

our animaTion PhilosoPhy

In six years of operation we have learned a few critical things about animation that inform our work. Your role is occasion-ally to create, but generally to enable and facilitate; to find ways to help bring member needs and ideas to actualization.

110 111

the dimensions of Community animationOur model identifies three dimensions of community anima-tion: physical, social, and technical. None is more important than the others: they work in concert and to varying degrees for different purposes and for different members.

Tone

The tone of your communication is a key component of com-munity animation. Every e-mail, tour, greeting, and conversa-tion is an extension of your brand – who you are and what you stand for. The tone of your shared space is everything, and it manifests in every written and spoken word.

Our tone is open, human, approachable, professional, enthusiastic and empowering, even when we are delivering messages about rent increases. We strive to make sure that all communication reflects our values – that everyone is im-portant, that everyone can achieve incredible social impact, and that everyone is a valuable member and contributor to our shared space.

social animaTion

Social Animation refers to those activi-ties that allow people to get to know each other on a personal level. We try to do a formal event every quarter and a number of informal events throughout the year.

Some of the things we’ve tried include:

• annual summer picnics

• sailing trips

• holiday parties (featuring the “Cookies & Cocktails” smack-down!)

• CSI anniversary parties

• birthday celebrations

• Salad Club

• Speed Geeks

• drinks night

• salons

Physical animaTion

Physical animation refers to the artifacts or interventions that appear in the physical space as a means to foster con-nectivity and spark collaboration. You must look at your physical environment and consider the myriad opportunities for physical animation.

Some of the things we’ve tried include:

• turning walls into chalkboards

• hanging photos of members with captions describing their missions

• installing comfy couches and har-vest tables

• creating maps showing where members sit

• creating notice boards, job post-ings and events listings

• keeping a coffee and tea station

Technical animaTion

Technical animation refers to activities that happen in the online or virtual space. Members aren’t always on-site and they aren’t always available. Creat-ing and growing a technical infrastruc-ture allows you to accommodate mem-bers so they can engage on their own schedules and at their own locations.

We’ve been exploring:

• e-mail lists to share information

• a members-only website

• online member profiles

• online events listing

• online FAQ

inTroducTions

Your staff should make a habit of meeting all members – and introducing them to each other! This is the social capital that forms the basis for all the good things that come out of shared spaces.

community animation

112 113

Programming

In addition to ongoing animation activities it’s a good idea to create and implement programs to serve the community.  These programs may be “one-offs” or part of an ongoing series of activities designed to meet the needs and build the skills of members. There is no shortage of possible programs you could run: it just depends on your imagination, or better yet, the imaginations of your members. Possible programs include:

• yoga classes

• language classes

• marketplace

• lunch-and-learns

• salad club

• skills training workshops

• political/current event discussions

• guest speakers

• speed geeks

• book or article discussions

• communities of practice

law of Two feeT: follow The energy

Evolving out of ‘open space technology’, the law of two feet tells us that whoever shows up is who needs to show up: i.e. their own feet will guide them to or from the conversations and events they want to be part of. Members have their own lives and their own organizations to run – they aren’t obligated to attend our events. So give a program a try and see what happens… The law of two feet will let you know if it’s working or not. It’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks!

sPeed geeksSpeed Geeks are sessions that help members learn about each other. We select six to eight members to present: each occupies a station and the rest of us break into six to eight groups and start at one of them. There’s five minutes for presentations and questions – once the bell rings, it’s time to move to the next station!

salad clubSalad Club is open to anyone who wants to share a meal. There is one simple rule: bring two items that could conceivably go into a salad and you instantly become a member. Every Tuesday and Thursday our members gather for a collaborative, real-time salad bar and then we share: food, ideas, and cleanup.

markeTPlaceThe marketplace is a series of one-minute pitches (keep it short!) where members share a few words about a project they are working on. We do this at parties and other member events and usually invite 10-12 people to sign up in advance. This is a great way to reveal some of the great work that’s happening at the Centre.

unleash The energy!

At the Centre for Social Innovation we have an amazing team of creative and dedicated staff. They truly are exceptional. But even we know that eight incredible staff can’t possibly compete with a community of over 250 individual members. Our goal, therefore, is not to anticipate and serve every possi-ble activity but to create the conditions for members to offer their own ideas to the community – that is, to provide them the conditions for self-organization. This is a cornerstone of community animation.

Your members are the best indicator of the activities and pro-grams that should be happening in your space. Give them the tools and supports they need to let their ideas come to life. Invite them to share their ideas, their knowledge and their ex-periences with others. Let them organize themselves in your facility: you don’t always need to intervene, you need to make it easy for them to do things on their own. This not only allevi-ates some of your responsibilities, it creates a sense of owner-ship among members and helps them to model possibilities for one and other.

community animation

a brand is what Captures the spirit of your Community and your vision.

9C H a p t e r

bRandInG

116 117

a brand exPeirence

Branding is often misinterpreted as a dirty word. But branding is about identity: creating an image that conveys the meaning you want to share with the world through words, tone, colour and imagery. Once created, the brand becomes a touchstone for your work, guiding your decisions and influencing your sense of yourself as much as others’ perceptions of you.

Your shared space deserves its own identity; the creation and maintenance of an identity is an important ingredient in its success. Your brand identity should flow from your vision for the space. In our case, the Centre for Social Innovation is a di-rect reflection of our goal to create a hotbed of social innova-tion. Work to define and differentiate your organization. Cre-ate a logo that reflects your centre, your members and your vision. Don’t reject the notion of “brand” as a private sector strategy or sleazy marketing jargon; think about the experi-ence that you want members, visitors, funders, and partners to have when they interact with your shared space.

Design elements should carry through all of your materials and through your physical space – a look and feel built on your vision and resonant with your community and your sur-roundings. Establish a tone in your writing and in person that connects to your audiences and communicate your identity through every medium and opportunity possible.

branding

118 119

a rising Tide lifTs all boaTs

Recognize that you and your members have a mutual inter-est in drawing attention to the relationship you have with each other, and in raising each other’s profile. The more at-tention you can bring to them, the greater their success and the stronger the perceptions of your shared space. The more attention they can bring to you, the more resources that can be directed to and invested in the shared space. Raising the profile of members is a key reason for their participation in the shared space. This becomes a virtuous cycle of reinforce-ment; a rising tide lifts all boats!

• Encourage members to signal their association with your shared space in their contact information, website, and in printed materials.

• Create a logo they can use on their materials, or some standardized language that serves both your interests.

• Do your best to draw attention to members through your own materials and communication channels, through speaking engagements and other activities.

• Position member profiles on your web site.

• Promote member events and news via an external mail-ing list.

• Put signage in the space that identifies who members are and what they are doing.

Public Website

Signage in Space

External Newsletter

Workshops & Speeches

Neutral Agree Strongly AgreeDisagreeStrongly disagree

how should csi PromoTe member offerings?

branding

many shared spaCes serve only their members. Csi operates a bit differently.

10C H a p t e r beyOnd

shaRed space

122 123

a hub oflearning

Open your space to the community by hosting workshops and presentations. This approach can turn your centre into a hub of learning and skills de-velopment, as members and external visitors increasingly look to the space as a place of capacity-building and organizational enhancement.

off siTeon mission

You may also decide to host, co-host, or engage in events that are off-site but which are consistent with your mission. Since opening our doors we have held a handful of events in other spaces: from a Ralph Nader speaking engagement at the local university to annual Social Innovation Summits and a Sharing for Social Change confer-ence, the Centre for Social Innovation has organized and delivered large-scale community events that build our brand and support our mission.

fill gaPs asa TrusTed Player

Sometimes there are pressing issues and topics that no one seems to be address-ing. Over time we found that our orga-nization gained increasing prominence as a ‘neutral’ and respected player in the social mission sector, and so we began to rise to the challenge of considering these subjects. We began to strategically convene think tanks, conversations, and “idea camps” around pressing issues so we could begin moving forward on solutions.

your focus your decision

We believe that a shared space can not only serve members but also the commu-nities in which it is situated. Shared spaces can be economic engines, idea generators, learning spaces, and incubators. Each cen-tre must decide for itself whether and how it will relate to the world outside its walls – these activities may prove to be those with the greatest impact.

Permeable walls

Early on in our evolution we decided to open our space to ex-ternal event renters. This brought an incredible array of peo-ple and organizations through our doors. Our walls and our scope become permeable as members and external commu-nity members each began taking advantage of our resources. And because of our own interests and curiosity, we began playing with this permeability and finding new avenues for community engagement and impact.

beyond shared space

124 125

incubaTing change

The Centre for Social Innovation has also explored ‘incubation’ as a new activity area. This is a rather vague term but, for us, generally means providing some kind of support to an emerging initiative that is not yet incorporated. The supports we provide range from simple brand as-sociation and networking to back-end financial secretarial services (whereby we assume fiduciary responsibility for a project, using our own bank account and administrative systems). These projects rarely cover the costs of hosting them, so only those projects who serve some strategic interest – or whose value is near and dear to your organization or its mission – should be incubated.

The big ciTy

CSI is both a service provider and a so-cial innovator itself. Our goal with re-spect to our social innovation agenda is to develop, discover and share methods and models that others can use to cre-ate change in their local communities. In the past few years, we’ve created and shared our work developing new forms of governance, strategies for network evaluation, and insights into the practice of city innovation.

beyond shared space

127

cOnclUsIOn

Building a shared workspace is an amazing experience. It is also a heck of a lot of work! The variety of tasks – from design to management to engagement to marketing – requires a broad range of skills and interests…and bucket loads of pas-sion and commitment.

This book was written to support the development of shared spaces dedicated to social innovation. It is based on our ex-periences here at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. We know that your experiences – like ours – are and will be unique. Our hope is not that you will mimic what we’ve done, but will instead adapt our model and innovate your own solu-tions to fit your community.

And we want to hear what you’ve done! The whole purpose behind this series is to shed some light on how different or-ganizations are creating shared spaces for social innovation. Did our work inspire you? Do you have improvements to what we’ve assembled or your own experiences and materials to offer? We want to work with you – to form a community of practice that will grow this field and allow us to exchange experiences, tools and ideas. So please do let us know what you’re up to by visiting our online space and adding your name to our growing community.

Ultimately, this isn’t even about shared space. It’s about changing the world. Shared spaces are just a vehicle to sup-port the people who are making the world a better place. By connecting shared spaces in a community of practice, we’re improving our ability to support their work. We imagine a world where change agents are connected, empowered, and thriving - a world where we’re working together to fix our future.

Join this growing community of shared space practitioners:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

This book was designed by The Movement, as part of our effort to work with people and groups who are doing bet-ter. Working with social entrepreneurs and innovators, we use the power of design thinking & doing to give form to complex ideas. We’re a network of committed people ready to tackle complex problems, and a studio dedicated to delivering results. We work openly with groups, on chal-lenges that matter.

infO@themOvement.infO

Communications Interactive PlatformsStrategy & Research

THE MO-VEME-NT

proof

1

proofHow SHared SpaceS

are cHanging tHe world

5436477809869

ISBN 978-0-9865436-4-790000

For additional copies of this publication, please visit:http://stores.lulu.com/socialinnovation

For more information contact:sssi@socialinnovation.cahttp://socialinnovation.ca

you are free

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

to remix — to adapt the work

under tHe following condiitonS

attribution

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Share alike

If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar licence to this one.

for more informaiton see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/

How Shared Spaces are Changing the World

proof

the centre for Social innovation catalyzes and supports social innovation in toronto and around the world. we create community workspaces, incubate emerging enterprises, and develop new models and methods with world-changing potential.

We believe that society is facing unprecedented economic, environmental, social and cultural challenges.

We also believe that new innovations are the key to turning these challenges into opportunities to improve our communities and our planet. We are working together to fi x our future.

{

WANT TO HELP?

t he Centre for Social Innovation opened its doors in June 2004. At that time, we had incredible pas-

sion, extraordinary vision, and only an inkling of how we would make it all work. It was, needless to say, an adventurous start. At the time, we weren’t aware of any other similar models. It felt like everything we were do-ing was new. We were making it up as we went along, and through hard work, clear vision, and a fair amount of good fortune, we made it work. Our model and our team proved their mettle and within a few short years we were running a 23,000 square foot facility that was home to over 180 members representing missions from arts to environment to education to social justice.

Slowly, as our model grew, we began to attract the at-tention of others who were interested in what we were accomplishing. Some were at the idea stage and inter-ested to know ‘how we did what we did’. Others were already building shared spaces and wondered what they could borrow and adapt to their community. Still others were asking if we would come to their city to establish a Centre for Social Innovation.

What began as an occasional trickle began to gain steam. By our fourth year we were overwhelmed with requests and inquiries about our model. We were, and continue to be, absolutely delighted and honoured by this attention. But we struggled with our own capacity. We are a small social enterprise that has been stretched to the limits evolving our own community and programs.

We tried to share as much information as we could, as frequently as we could, but we began to realize that we needed another strategy to meet the growing interest in creating shared spaces for social innovation...

...So we created this series.Shared Spaces for Social Innovation is about sharing our story and empowering others to learn from our expe-rience. The Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) has al-ways been open with its model. We’ve long preached the benefi ts of shared spaces and we’ve been doing our best to encourage as many new spaces as possible. We fi gured that the best way to open our model – to reveal everything we’ve learned in hopes of supporting the emergence of new and better spaces – was to docu-ment what we’ve done and make it available to anyone who was interested.

It has taken a fair amount of courage for us to let it all hang out and give it all away! Many people advised us that we should be franchising, licensing, and hold-ing our knowledge close to our chests. But this went against our values. Instead, we are putting this whole series into the creative commons for others to benefi t from and contribute to.

We believe that good ideas scale when they are open. We also believe that ideas get better when we share. We look forward to working with you on this journey to create and grow new strategies for social innovation.

foreword

8 9

a work in progreSS

Of course, the story of the Centre for Social Innovation is still unfolding. And yet the challenge with writing a book is the fi nality of it all. We therefore invite you to participate in our online space. At fi rst, we’ll have pdf versions of the series publications and a set of tem-plates and tools available for download. In time, we’ll make amendments to these books, release additions to the series and create a platform for a community of practice.

open Sourcing our Model

Shared Spaces for Social Innovation reveals just about everything we’ve learned about creating and growing shared workspaces. We’re telling our story, sharing our research, and offering the tools and templates we’ve created along the way.

But sharing is a two-way street. Actually, it’s more like a highway interchange!

While it is truly our pleasure to provide this material, our hope is that you will embrace the Creative Com-mons spirit. This means recognizing our contribu-tion and letting us know what you’ve used, adapted, and developed. More importantly, it means sharing your experiences and tools with other shared spaces.

By contributing to a shared body of knowledge, we’re empowering others to be even more successful, build-ing this fi eld and advancing our own spaces in the pro-cess.

We’re not yet sure what it will look like, and we’re very sure that it won’t be up to us alone to determine. But we’re hoping this effort starts us along a path to an open community of practice that is creating the spaces where people change the world.

The Shared Spaces for Social Innovation Series is made up of three books:

emergence: the Story of the centre for Social innovation.

In this book we weave a narrative around our genesis and de-velopment. Starting back when the Centre was just a glimmer in the eyes of a few social entrepreneurs, Emergence follows our growth from concept to operation to scale.

rigour: How to create world-changing Shared Spaces.

This book is a manual for those planning or operating a shared space. It reveals the accumulated knowledge of six years of experience and offers a ton of tips, lessons and tools for devel-oping a strong organization and vibrant community.

proof: How Shared Spaces are changing the world.

This report shares our most recent research on the impact of the Centre for Social Innovation in order to demonstrate just what shared spaces for social innovation can accomplish.

Each book can be read on its own. Together they provide a comprehensive picture of the Centre for Social Innovation.

Looking to build or grow your own shared space for social innovation?

CSI offers tailored consulting, training, and speaking services to help you with challenges from start-up to scale. Get in touch by sending a note to sssi@socialinnovation.ca.

@access new releases and supporting materials.socialinnovation.ca/sssi

identify yourself as part of this growing community. socialinnovation.ca/sssi

download all of our templates and tools.socialinnovation.ca/sssi

10 11

looking forward

This series starts with the Centre for Social Innovation. But we know there are dozens of like-minded spaces around the world, and we hope to add other stories, experiences, tem-plates and tools over time.

Our vision is a vibrant, shared platform that includes the expe-riences of shared spaces dedicated to social innovation around the world – your experiences. We’re hoping to work with a community of likeminded people that is sharing ideas, strate-gies and… who knows?

Just imagine a network where we can share promising prac-tices, collaborate on joint projects and infrastructure, replicate good ideas and leverage investments from community to com-munity.

Let’s work together to support each other, our members and to build this exciting fi eld!

thank youWe would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to the many people who have made the Centre for So-cial Innovation and this series possible. First, a thanks to the CSI Staff and Board team, whose vision and in-dustry have made the Centre what it is today. Second, a special thanks to our incredible network of partners and supporters, including Urbanspace Property Group, Canadian Heritage, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canadian Alternative Investment Co-Operative, Asho-ka, Harbinger Foundation and the Province of Ontario, Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

A publication like this only comes together with incred-ible dedication. Eli Malinsky has played author, editor, project manager and overall superhero on this project; Shared Spaces for Social Innovation provides only a glimpse of the value that Eli brings to CSI and to this emerging fi eld.

Hamutal Dotan deserves special recognition for her writing on Emergence and Proof – her effortless style perfectly captures the tone of the Centre for Social In-novation. For turning beautiful words into compelling publications, The Movement continues to mesmerize and engage. We’d also like to recognize Margot Smart, who meticulously designed and analyzed the 2008 member survey, which forms the basis of our statistics.

Finally, we would like to recognize our members. They are the reason we do what we do. They inspire us, they motivate us, they ground us and they challenge us. Their passion, commitment and creativity are what make it all worthwhile, and it is truly our honour to sup-port their work.

Now let’s change the world together!

Tonya SurmanexecutiVe director

12 13

conclusion 64

Table of conTenTs

21 3

impacT 38

collaboraTion 52

mission 40

neTworks 44

money 56

happiness 60

ideas 48

forew0rd 6

conTexT T14

inTroducTion 28

14 15

Creating the spaCes where Change happens

1c H a p t e r

conTexT

16 17

Co-location refers to spaces that are shared among a number of separate organizations. Multi-Tenant Nonprofi t Centers are types of co-location spaces that focus on the nonprofi t sector.

Coworking refers to the sharing of workspace among freelancers and other independent workers. Co-working spaces provide workspace and community to people who are often working on their own.

Community Hubs are shared spaces that provide direct services to the geographic community in which they are situated. Community Hubs co-locate service providers that offer a range of supports such as language instruction, job training, after school programs and drop-in groups.

a shared spaCes glossary

Hot Desks are temporary, shared workspaces that are typically found in coworking spaces.

Incubators provide programmatic, strategic, administrative and/or fi -nancial support to small projects and organizations.

Social Innovation refers to new ideas that resolve social, cultural, economic and environmental chal-lenges for the benefi t of people and planet.

Even more simply, a social innova-tion is an idea that works for the public good.

SI

ccontextc

18 19

The incentives for cost sharing have been growing. Nonprofi ts and chari-ties are enduring ongoing cutbacks in administrative budgets while facing increasing demands from communities and individuals.

For-profi t and nonprofi t strategies are blending together. Shared spaces – and frequently their members – are exam-ples of how mission-based and market-based approaches can coincide.

There is increasing recognition that the problems we face are too com-plex to be addressed by any single player. Shared spaces connect diverse organizations and individuals, giving them the chance to collaborate, share knowledge and develop systemic solu-tions to the issues they are trying to address.

why are shared spaCes emerging?

Shared workspaces are themselves a social innovation – an entirely new way of working. The dominant work-place model has been separate organizations working separately. That may have made perfect sense at one time and it may still make perfect sense in many instanc-es. But it is by no means a universal or desirable ap-proach. The nature of work is changing – and with it the workplace. These changes offer incredible potential for economic, social, cultural, and environmental progress in the coming years.

Real estate prices are soaring world-wide, making it increasingly diffi cult for small groups and individuals to fi nd affordable workspace.

why are shared spaCes emerging?The pendulum is swinging from global back to local. While the 90’s promised ‘virtual work’, the new millennium is reinforcing the importance of space.

Alongside new technologies has been the rise of ‘independents’ who work with several clients but who are not bound by the restrictions of any one physical space.

contextc c

20 21

C

S

our theory of Change

a s we’ve built and expanded CSI over the past few years, we’ve developed our theory of change—

it’s our way of capturing how the Centre for Social In-novation creates the conditions for social innovation to emerge.

S  Serving as the foundation is the physical space, the environment which our members see and

feel and touch and inhabit every day. It’s at the very base of the pyramid because it’s what sets the tone for every-thing else: our members want to come to work simply to enjoy the space. The physical space is the container for everything that occurs at the Centre.

IC  The physical space sets the conditions for com-

munity. Community develops as people start to feel comfortable in a space, are happy to spend time in it, and develop relationships with other members doing the same. A kitchen, for instance, isn’t just a place to eat; it can also allow for shared meals and impromptu gatherings, and those, in turn, are the basis of the re-lationships which lead to a real sense of kinship among the members. With some delicate animation, the bonds of community are forged and strengthened, building social capital and a network of relationships.

I  Community relationships allow members to ex-change ideas, to collaborate easily, to fi nd ser-

vices and access knowledge that might otherwise be hard to come by. In short, community is what leads to innovation, because a community of other creative, en-gaged people is what blows away the cobwebs, allows you to see an old problem in a new light, and helps you fi nd creative ways of implementing solutions you might not otherwise have considered. And that—all the myriad ways in which space and community foster social innovation—well, that’s the whole purpose of the Cen-tre for Social Innovation.

contextc c

22 23

We have witnessed the birth and growth of three dis-tinct but related movements. The fi rst is a movement toward co-location. Co-location generally refers to the more-or-less permanent sharing of space among orga-nizations. Within this fi eld, there is a particular trend toward co-location of nonprofi t organization within a single facility, often known as a Multi-Tenant Nonprofi t Centre. The members in these centres are individual organizations who have decided to share space, often an entire building, as a strategy to save costs and ad-vance their missions. The Nonprofi t Centers Network in San Francisco (nonprofi tcenters.org), a project of Tides Shared Spaces, is the primary organizing body for a network of over 200 such shared spaces, mostly in the United States, and is leading the charge in developing and connecting the fi eld. CSI is a proud member of the Nonprofi t Centers Network.

Sierra Health Nonprofit Innovation Center in the Sacramento area (sierrahealth.org)

a three-pronged movement

t he shared spaces movement is exploding. While various forms of shared workspace have been

around for decades, the idea of shared space as a unique fi eld of practice is more recent, and the past few years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of shared spaces and in the interconnections among them.

The second movement is often referred to as cowork-

ing. Born of ‘independents’ (freelancers, sole practitio-ners, consultants, etc.) primarily in the tech and design sectors, coworking spaces are generally more informal and of smaller scale than co-locations. Many members are motivated by opportunities for social connect-edness; as independents, they are too often working alone.

Coworking spaces provide shared space for part-time members and are popping up all over the globe. This movement, more ad-hoc than the co-location move-ment, is being loosely connected and organized through the Coworking Wiki (blog.coworking.info). While most coworking spaces do not apply a ‘social change’ lens to their work, one notable exception is The Hub (the-hub.net), a global network of coworking spaces now reach-ing into over 20 countries around the world. CSI is an affi liate of The Hub Network.

The third movement is a movement toward incubation of social change projects. Although it’s a fuzzy term, incubation generally refers to support given to early-stage projects and organizations. This support can in-clude programming, trusteeship, shared services, in-vestment and fi nancial back-end services. The past few years have seen an increase in the application of tra-ditional incubation strategies for commercialization to social enterprises.

The Hub, a coworking space, also applies a social change lens to their work (the-hub.net)

National Community Development Institute builds capacity for social change in communities (ncdinet.org)

contextc c

24 25

the Csi twist

t he Centre for Social Innovation is a hybrid of these movements. Like co-locations we provide

permanent, stable offi ce rental to organizations. Like coworking spaces, we provide part-time desk spaces to ‘independents’. Like an incubator, CSI provides pro-gramming and shared services to its members, and of-fers a handful of projects support ranging from strate-gic advice to back-end fi nancial services.

This makes us unique. In fact, there are a few other unique characteristics of the CSI model.

< 5

S

[D]

A*

a Social cHange lenS

The Centre for Social Innovation is designed to support and foster social innovation. All of our members are selected based on their commitment to that goal, and all of our programming is designed to increase the capacity of social enterprises, non-profi ts, charities, green businesses, artists, designers, creators, and activists to improve the well-being of people and our planet.

a focuS on SMall

We focus on groups with fi ve or fewer staff. The vast major-ity of our members are one- and two-person operations. It is these small groups that are in the greatest need of shared fa-cilities and administration; it is also these groups that are best positioned to collaborate and connect with others.

pHySical deSign

We understand the critical role of physical design in setting the tone of a space and the behaviour of its users. We have developed a very specifi c approach to physical design that has been a key ingredient in our success and in the ‘experience’ of the Centre for Social Innovation.

aniMation aS practice

Community animation is what turns “a place to work” to a space of social innovation. We’ve been building the practice of animation and developing its role as a central feature of suc-cessful shared spaces.

contextc c

26 27

52% of members describe themselves as working on the environment, 39% in culture, 31% in social justice, and 25% in technology (respondents were allowed to select multiple sectors).

Incorporated for-profi t and incorporated nonprofi ts are equally represented among our members, at 23% each. 25% of members are registered charities, and 24% are unincorporated.

We are a community of the small but mighty: 94% of CSI members have three or fewer full-time equivalent staff.

Two-thirds of members are under the age of 40, doing their best to keep the other third feeling young! Thirty-seven percent of members bicycle to work every day (fewer in Toronto winters!).

So, just who are the members of CSI? It’s an eclectic mix that cuts across sectors and organizational types, ages and skill sets, and it’s an altogether glorious jumble.

Recreation

Professional Association

Public Space

Health & Disability

Law / Advocacy / Politics

Other

Social Services

Community Economic Development

Technology

Capacity Builder

Social Justice

Culture

Arts

Environment

8

10

15

15

17

18

18

21

25

30

31

39

39

52

Sector %

Bike

Drive

Tran

sit

Walk

Other

10%

37%

8%

41%

4%

GettingHere

6

23

23

24

25Don't Know

Incorporated For-Profit

Incorporated Non-Profit

Unicorporated

Registered Charity

Legal Form %

<4

member snapshot

i n November 2008 we conducted a comprehensive member survey. The survey comprised more than

one hundred questions, investigating everything from customer service to the effect of membership on organizational revenues. The results include, in addition to quantitative measures, more than 2,000 submitted comments, anecdotes, and suggestions. We are honoured and grateful that so many of our members were willing to share their thoughts and insights with us, and thrilled to now be sharing them with you1.

[1] Throughout this report, unless otherwise noted, any statistics or feedback attributed to CSI members refers to the informa-tion gathered from the 80 respondents to our November 2008 survey, who represent about 30% of our membership.

download the survey and a report of the results:

socialinnovation.ca/sssi

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28 29

the summary version is: it’s working2

c H a p t e r

inTroducTion

30 31

i n 2004 a small group of social entre-preneurs launched the Centre for So-

cial Innovation in the heart of downtown Toronto. We did so in the belief that sus-tainable design, thoughtful community-building, and responsive programming could foster social innovation, and that working collaboratively was more pow-erful than working alone. We created an open-concept space in a beautiful heritage building and selected a diverse group of social mission organizations with which to fill it. We didn’t entirely know what would happen next, but we had no doubt that it was worth finding out.

CSI housed thirty-five people working in fourteen organizations when we opened. We’ve had several growth spurts since then, and we now provide shared space and services to over 180 social mission organizations and projects. Our mem-bers are nonprofits, activists, artists, tech wizards, and all manner of socially-minded entrepreneurs, and they work in sectors ranging from the environment to social services to arts and culture.

CSI members generate an estimated $25 million per year in revenues. It’s a lot of activity to pack into 23,000 square feet, and a testament to the value CSI and its members create. After just a few years of existence CSI is a vibrant mini-economy, dynamic and constantly evolv-ing. We have been recognized (we can’t help but be a little proud to say) at the local, national, and international levels for our work, and have been honoured with, among others, the Toronto Com-munity Foundation Vital Idea Award, the Canadian Urban Institute City Innovation Award, and the Ashoka Global Fellow-ship for executive director Tonya Surman.

introduction

Our aim, in building CSI, was to catalyze social innovation. A social innovation is a new idea, or a new application of an old idea, that resolves social, cultural, eco-nomic, and environmental challenges for the benefit of people and planet. More simply, a social innovation is an idea that works for the public good. Social inno-vation is about doing things differently, and social innovation happens when people re-examine assumptions about how things ought to be done.

More simply, a social innovation is an idea that works for the public good.

space + communiTy = innovaTion

32 33

H ow does social innovation emerge? Well, it can’t be neatly pinned

down or reduced to a formula, but we can say for certain that it requires the freedom to explore and the opportunity to collaborate across silos. Social inno-vation can emerge in the for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors and, increas-ingly, it is happening in the intersections between the three. It requires energy, practical smarts, the ability to do a lot with few resources—and perhaps most of all, it requires a community of sup-port. That is why, around the world, we are witnessing the emergence of shared spaces designed to foster social innova-tion.

Now, more than six years after we first opened our doors, we finally have the time, the experience, and the body of evidence to help us answer these ques-tions. In the pages that follow you will find a summary and analysis of our find-ings—our internal report card, in a man-ner of speaking—based on the member survey we conducted in November 2008. We have, under one roof, the collected wisdom of nearly two hundred member organizations: it’s an unprecedented op-portunity for reflection, evaluation, and learning, and we didn’t want to let too much longer pass before making the most of it.

The detailed discussion of CSI’s impact unfolds over the following chapters, but the summary version is: it’s working.

Turnover is low, the waiting list is per-manent, and CSI is only going to keep growing over the next few years to keep up with demand. Members have made new connections, shared knowledge, improved their bottom lines, and in-creased satisfaction in their work. They are fulfilling their missions, fulfilling them better, and developing a much deeper understanding of and engagement with the social mission sector of which they are a part. Quite simply, CSI both fosters social innovation and is a social innova-tion—a new model for how individuals and organizations committed to social and environmental progress can com-bine their energies to both create a more humane working environment and do more effective work.

introduction

Social innovation is happening in the intersections between sectors.

Organizations, governments, and businesses must explore beyond traditional divides.

Community support is required to foster this innovation.

When we created CSI we had more questions than answers:

would members benefiT from exposure To oThers who were like-minded?

would They be able To work more efficienTly?

would organizaTions ThaT came To work in The same place end up working TogeTher?

would social innovaTion acTually emerge?

public Sector

nonprofit

for-profit

We believed in our theory of change from the very day we decided to open CSI: we were convinced that if we cre-ated the right kind of space that com-munity would emerge, and if we sup-ported the right kind of community that innovation would emerge. What we didn’t know back then was just how that innovation would manifest itself—we didn’t know what shape it would take. We started to get a sense of this as CSI and its members flourished and grew, but it didn’t fully come into view until we conducted our member survey. By then we had a substantial population with a significant amount of experience in the space, all of whom were very generous in sharing their experiences and insights with us, and we were able to draw out a more nuanced sense of the ways in which space and community were con-tributing to social innovation.

introduction

space + communiTy = innovaTion

What we’d been after, what the survey crystallized and what we detail in the chapters that follow, are the ways in which membership in CSI catalyzes social innovation.

MISSIONNETWORKSIDEASCOLLABORATIONMONEYHAPPINESS

COMMUNITY

SOCIALINNOVATION

SPACE

36 37

introduction

These six impacts are key to catalyzing social innovation in a shared space.

We wanted to understand just how space and community creates the conditions for social innovation to emerge.

We found that membership at CSI produces six key impacts.

38 39

eaCh of these six impaCts plays a role in Catalyzing soCial innovation

3c H a p t e r

impacT

40 41

76%

At first glance, you might think that or-ganizations opt for a shared workspace in order to save on expenses. That is cer-tainly the case sometimes, but not actu-ally the general rule at CSI. Most of our members came out of home offices and they spend more on rent here than they did previously. These are organizations running, for the most part, on shoestring budgets, and as congenial as they may find the atmosphere at CSI they also need to see real practical benefits. The first and most basic of these is that mov-ing to CSI frees up an organization to focus on its mission, rather than having to regularly tend to administrative, main-tenance, and other routine office tasks.

Simply: the space we provide, the very foundation of our theory of change pyramid, aids innovation because we take all kinds of mundane operations off our members’ plates. Organizations are better able to attract and retain top-notch staff because of the amenities and working environment we provide com-pared to other, lower-cost options, and organizations are better able to benefit from their staff’s expertise because they are focused on program delivery rather than clearing photocopy jams. We pro-vide space, but also take care of all the work that goes along with it: we deal with everything from office cleaning to phone line maintenance, which means our members don’t have to.

76% of organizational leaders say that membership has enabled their organization to access better facilities than they had previously. “It is wonderful to work…

where so much is done for you in terms of amenities so that you can get down to business.”

“CSI has provided efficiencies and services that took a huge administrative burden from our small overworked staff.”

“It has allowed our organization to focus its limited human and financial resources on mission.”

“CSI has enabled our organization to concentrate its juices.”

73%

76%

73% of organizational leaders at CSI say that membership in the shared space has enabled their organization to improve its professional reputation.

76% believe that member-ship has improved their organization’s image in the community.

97%

Essentially all of CSI’s members (97%) say they are proud to bring funders, partners and clients to their workplace.

An additional benefit of having access to better facilities is increased profes-sionalism. CSI provides facilities that are more conducive to professional activity than many organizations’ previous loca-tions. This boosts staff energy, and al-lows members to put a polished face on their operations. According to the sur-vey, 71% of organizational leaders feel that membership at CSI has improved the professionalism of their organization and 70% of individual members feel that working in the shared space has enabled them to do their job more effectively. Moreover, 73% of organizational leaders at CSI say that membership in the shared space has enabled their organization to improve its professional reputation, and 76% believe that membership has im-proved their organization’s image in the community. Essentially all of CSI’s mem-bers (97%) say they are proud to bring funders, partners and clients to their workplace.

impacTMission

71%

70%

71% of organizational leaders at CSI say the shared space has enabled their organization to work more efficiently.

70% of individual tenants say that working in the shared space has enabled them to do their job more effectively.

42 43

supporting youth workers aCross toronto

How a Focus on Mission Catalyzes Social Innovation

They come together regularly to support each other in dealing with the effects of gun violence, oppression, and hatred. Through workshops and training, discus-sion groups, and information sharing, FPYN connects and empowers individu-als that are working in an otherwise iso-lating and often traumatic field.

Now in its third year at CSI, FPYN attri-butes much of its success to the services and infrastructure available to its staff. The core CSI staff team eliminates ba-sic office management duties, such as coping with photocopiers, phone lines, and printers. Without those burden-some tasks, FPYN staff can concentrate on developing the organization’s pro-grams and advocating for policy change. Equally, FPYN staff benefit from ongoing support and mentoring from a diverse group of business experts and innova-tors within CSI environment.

The facilities offered to members at CSI also lend a sense of permanence and professionalism to FPYN that is crucial for attracting and retaining their network of workers. Having regular access to meeting rooms for get-togethers helps to bind the network together, and cre-ates a space of trust and openness. As one worker notes, “The [CSI] space does physically what youth workers do person-ally,” alluding to the sense of connectiv-ity and intimacy that CSI embodies. Hav-ing the necessary facilities, equipment, and technology provided by CSI means FPYN staff can dedicate their time to meet the needs of these workers. This stability and sense of community encour-age the workers to take chances, discuss challenges, and collaboratively come up with solutions to any challenges they are facing in their work.

The Frontline Partners with Youth Network (FPYN) brings together more than 1,000 youth workers from all sectors across the Greater Toronto Area.

impactMission

And as for its successes? FPYN’s net-works have flourished from 200 to 1,100 members who represent hundreds of or-ganizations. The network facilitates the exchange of over 2,000 youth-related information items every year and has held over 40 trainings and facilitations to youth workers.  Last year, FPYN complet-ed a research study on Grief and Trauma impacts on Frontline Workers - the first and only study of its kind. 

Jenny Katz sums up the story neatly: “It’s like these reverberating circles of impact. The infrastructure support we receive at CSI allows us to focus on our mission and to be creative about our work. We’re do-ing things we imagined years ago but never had the means to achieve – and it’s making a real different in the lives of youth workers in Toronto.”

The core CSI staff team eliminates basic office management duties.

“The [CSI] space does physically what youth workers do personally...”

44 45

79%

Moving to CSI doesn’t just give an orga-nization access to new facilities—it pro-vides access to a whole new community of fellow members. As we all become increasingly aware of the power of social networks, the advantages this confers are ever clearer.

The most reliable way to find a new ser-vice provider, collaborator, or colleague is often to ask for recommendations from people you already know, and the best way to expand and deepen your work is by engaging with others who have similar interests and have experi-ences and insights to share. This is one way that community creates innovation: it brings people together to learn from

each other, mutually aid and reinforce one another, and introduces members to other organizations who may have skills or experiences that can enhance their own work.

Small organizations such as the ones that take up residency in CSI often start out in someone’s basement: they generally ex-ist in isolation until they come here. This can not only be dispiriting, it poses prac-tical limits on the ease of learning about, pursuing, or implementing anything out of an organization’s base skill-set: that is, isolation creates barriers to innova-tion. Because CSI members have been intentionally chosen from a mix of sec-tors—arts, environment, social services,

“The most important thing that tenancy at CSI has done for me is to expand my networks and horizons.”

“It seems like every time I need a contact for a job, somebody [in the shared space] knows exactly who to contact.”

“Being a part of CSI has expanded my knowledge of the social sector and vastly built up my network as well.”

“...the knowledge sharing, contacts, and general profession interaction have been invaluable.”

technology, and others—members have, immediately on joining, ready access to a vastly expanded network, with a wide variety of skills, experience, and knowl-edge bases, on which they can easily draw.

This network expansion happens both organically, as a natural outcome of shar-ing common space, and as a result of community animation.

impacTNetworks

79% of members indicate that services, programs, events, and other CSI initiatives have helped them exchange contacts with other members.

92%92% of members indicate that membership at CSI has expanded their professional networks.

82% of members indicate that membership at CSI has expanded their personal networks.

82%

“Tenancy in this shared space has plugged me into a whole new network of friendly, interesting people.”

46 47

a movement begins with a brisk walk

Shortly after Jane Jacob’s death, a CSI member named Chris Winter, of the Conservation Council of Ontario, at-tended a meeting at CSI hosted by the Ontario Smart Growth Network. The pur-pose of the meeting was to explore how to promote more walking in neighbour-hoods. Chris proposed the idea of hav-ing neighbourhood walks to celebrate Jane Jacobs. Each walk would be locally led and would encourage an explora-tion of the urban environment and the relationship citizens have with the spaces they inhabit.

Chris shared his idea with CSI co-found-ers Mary Rowe and Margie Zeidler. Using their collective social networks and the support of the Jane Jacobs’ Award at the Maytree Foundation, the idea went viral. On Jane Jacob’s birthday, six weeks af-ter the idea was first hatched, 27 neigh-bourhood walks were held in Toronto to explore and celebrate peoples’ relation-ship with urban spaces and with each other.

Jane’s Walk is a social innovation for its unique approach of getting citizens en-gaged with their local urban environ-ments. In a brilliant yet simple way, Jane’s Walk starts a conversation and rekindles the powerful relationship between city design and citizens. Jane’s Walk is predi-cated on an open, decentralized and self-organizing model whereby anyone can offer to lead a walk by proposing a tour idea. Using a light-touch, a single staff person supports the leaders and creates buzz that raises awareness of all the walks across the city.

“It’s a story born and bred on networks,” confirms Jane Farrow, the Executive Di-rector of Jane’s Walk world-wide. “Our genesis was based on a web of connec-tions formed and fostered through the Centre for Social Innovation’s extended family. And our success is based on our ability to leverage these and additional networks, reaching into all corners of the city.”

In the spring of 2006, Jane Jacobs – an urban planning icon – passed away. Her death affected many members of the CSI community; she had been an incredibly influential voice and thinker, especially in Toronto.

Three years later, Jane’s Walk is operating neighbourhood walks in 68 cities around the world, boasting more than 400 walks with over 12,000 walkers. It’s the story of the city by the city, led through civic ac-tion…and fuelled by networks.

3yearS

68citieS

400walkS

12,000walkerS

impactNetworks

How Expanded Networks Catalyze Social Innovation

48 49

Ideas are at the heart of social innova-tion: the ability to reimagine a situation, problem, or challenge, and to bring fresh approaches is what innovation is all about. Ideas require initial inspiration, and then they require refinement based on knowledge and experience if they are to be implemented effectively. The sin-gle biggest catalyst for a new idea is be-ing exposed to other people, their work, their knowledge, and their experiences. An innovation is never created new out of whole cloth: it always owes debts, and always has catalyzing influences. And this is another crucial way in which com-munity aids innovation: it provides cata-lyzing inspiration.

Becoming a member of a community, because it expands the network of peo-ple with whom you engage, also multi-plies the number of ideas to which you are exposed, and thereby expands your capacity to generate, expand on, or find new applications for ideas yourself. New ideas don’t emerge in a vacuum—they need oxygen, and that is what CSI pro-vides. By constantly meeting and engag-ing with other members and learning about their work, an organization can always find fresh sources of inspiration, learn about the latest developments in other sectors, accelerate learning curves, and become more intellectually, strategi-cally, and practically robust.

CSI is an environment rich in communi-cation and sharing: this is both due to its space and to its community. In this atmosphere, information and ideas flow among members, and between mem-bers and their expanded networks of contacts outside the space, and when increasing numbers of creative, pas-sionate people connect and communi-cate, what emerges are new ideas for social change. Members view this open exchange of ideas as one of the most valuable aspects of participation in CSI’s shared space community.

of CSI members say the shared space has enabled them to exchange ideas with other social innovators.

86%

67%

of members say that membership has enabled them to learn about new ideas, trends, information, techniques and/or audiences that have helped them become better positioned in their work.

impacTIdeas

“By being surrounded by so many wonderful and socially responsible people, I have certainly raised my own awareness... I attribute this success to CSI and the social net we have, as interaction is a constantly inspiring and illuminating experience.”

“I have learned a lot more about trends in the sustainability world that I would not otherwise know about.”

“Connection to the ‘meme stream’ of ideas around social innovation, social entrepreneurial initiatives, and the whole ‘getting to maybe’ concept, have all impacted my work over the last few years.”

50 51

bringing green ideas to life

Chris Winter – inspirer of Jane’s Walk – isn’t just churning out bright ideas for others; he’s been able to advance his own organization as a result of membership in CSI.

Established in 1951, the Conservation Council of Ontario is a leader in environ-mental awareness across the province. After its nearly sixty years, the CCO still continues to improve its practices in vir-tue of the intellectual stimulation it finds at CSI.

Chris admits that when he first came to CSI he felt a hint of scepticism about how the member mix, including many organizations working outside of the CCO’s environmental sector, might ben-efit the organization. However, it didn’t take long for him to discover the wealth of knowledge that was available to him, and the creative ways he could apply this knowledge to his work. “You may or may not know what you want from someone,” he says “but as you encounter bumps along the way, someone is always there with a solution.”

Creative Trust and Community Cultural Impresarios are two other CSI mem-bers—both arts rather than environ-mental organizations—that have offered tremendous informal fundraising guid-

ance to CCO over the years. With their experience in managing large sums of money, Chris says they have been instru-mental in helping with grant proposals and organizing budgets. CCO has also bounced around ideas with the Chinese Canadian National Council of Toronto (CCNCTO) to enhance its understanding of social marketing. Since having some conversations with CCNCTO, CCO has more consciously tapped into its net-works for outreach and community-based engagement projects. One result of this has been a contract with the mu-nicipal government to create a city-wide network of LEED certified organizations.

Within the environmental sector, CCO

has swapped stories with the Sustain-ability Network about building and connecting various groups. These con-versations have strengthened its com-munity capacity-building practices. Simi-larly, conversations between CCO and Green Enterprise Toronto have resulted in a job-sharing arrangement.

What he has seen, says Chris, is that ev-eryday exchanges spark new ideas for programs and projects that help CCO to fulfil its mission. The organization’s membership at CSI is helping it make our world a greener place, one conver-sation at a time.

impactIdeas

How New Ideas Catalyze Social Innovation

52 53

In this sense, collaboration acts as a ca-pacity-building mechanism, allowing a pair or group of organizations to accom-plish more than they each could on their own. This is one of the greatest boosts to innovation CSI provides: by virtue of the extended networks that come along with membership, more ambitious pur-suits become possible.

56%

41%

41% have engaged in collaborative activities with at least five other members.

56% of tenants say that CSI’s services, programs, events, or other initiatives have helped them to engage in joint activities with other tenants.

50% of members have collaborated or done business with outside individuals or organizations referred to them by their fellow members.

50%

“I certainly believe that interaction and collaboration with other tenants is important—in fact, that is one of the most important reasons for choosing CSI versus just an office space. Other people hold perspectives and information that is exceptionally stimulating for my business, and I greatly enjoy both volunteering for others’ projects and being employed by them…”

impacTCollaboration

Most social mission organizations al-ready know that the problems we face can rarely be addressed by any one or-ganization, sector, or point of view. Join-ing forces allows several social innova-tors to leverage each of their strengths in the service of larger goals, and to become stronger as individual organiza-tions because of the learning and growth these collaborations facilitate.

In addition to the collaboration occurring within CSI, 50% of members have collaborat-ed or done business with outside individuals or organizations referred to them by their fel-low members. Members value opportunities for collaboration, both within and outside of CSI, as among the most important benefits of participation membership in the Centre.

MeMber capacity

expanded capacity

85%

85% of CSI members have collaborated with at least one other member.

70%

70% of members have engaged in at least one joint initiative.

Because our members tend to be fairly small, one of the greatest barriers they encounter is running up against their own organizational limits: sometimes they have goals or envision projects which they don’t have the capacity or the resources to pursue, or pursue as ef-fectively as possible, on their own. Mem-bership at CSI is tremendously useful in these cases, because the community at the Centre provides a ready-made pool of potential collaborators. Moreover, be-ing embedded in a community can in-spire organizations to collaborate on en-tirely new projects none of them would have envisioned were they not in close contact already.

+ =

54 55

How many people does it take to save a caribou? According to Shiloh Bouvette of Canopy, “Tackling an issue using all players in the field is instrumental in ef-fecting change.” Canopy is one of four organizations collaborating on the “Save the ‘Bou” campaign. The project was born out of CSI in 2009, as an innova-tive solution to conserving the Ontario Woodland Caribou and its habitat. To-gether, Canopy Planet, Forest Ethics, the David Suzuki Foundation, and Green-peace have pooled their resources to raise awareness about the at-risk species.

Conversations at CSI initially sparked the campaign, and it has been sustained by the close working relationship the or-ganizations have been able to develop because of their location at CSI. Shiloh shares an office with Catharine Grant of Forest Ethics, and the David Suzuki Foundation is just two floors down. (Greenpeace isn’t based at CSI, but its offices are only blocks away). The orga-nizations agree that being in such close proximity enhances their ability to achieve project goals.

“The advantage,” says Shiloh “is that all our candid chats often lead to those ‘aha!’ moments.” She can quickly run ideas by Catharine over a coffee at noon. Similarly, Catharine observes that while collaborative projects are often stunted by logistical frustrations or miscommu-nication, having partners nearby allows them to address any issues immediately. Moreover, this sense of ease keeps the groups energized and fresh ideas flowing.

The partners mainly attribute the success of “Save the ‘Bous” to the distinct but

equally valued roles each plays. Each group contributes something different, drawing on their individual networks, areas of expertise, and tried-and-true approaches for reaching different sec-tors. As a result, the campaign came to-gether in short order. In the fall of 2009, the partners launched a social media strategy to help raise awareness about the issue. Within six months of launch, the Save the ‘Bou campaign drew about 1000 fans to the Facebook site, and have generated over 10,000 emails to Ontario Premier McGuinty about the importance of protecting Woodland Caribou.

While the campaign hasn’t yet reached its goals, the partners have garnered attention and mobilized action with greater ease than any one partner could achieve on its own. As the groups have realized, the problem is a complex one, and it needs to be approached in a cre-ative, multi-dimensional way. This takes innovative thinking: collaboration is of-ten this first step on this path.

“The advantage, is that all our candid chats often lead to those ‘aha!’ moments.”

proteCting our furry friends

impactCollaboration

How Collaboration Catalyzes Social Innovation

“Save the ‘Bou” was born out of CSI in 2009, as an innovative solution to conserving the Ontario Woodland Caribou and its habitat.

56 57

60%

All of the community-driven impacts we’ve just looked at—administrative ef-ficiency, expanding networks, sparking new ideas, and fostering collaboration—combine to create another crucial ben-efit: improving members’ financial positions.

Even for nonprofits, the bottom line al-ways matters: financial sustainability is essential for any organization, no mat-ter its funding or income-generation model. If ideas are to be implemented—if projects are to be not just conceived but actually realized in the world—then they must be backed by viable financial plans that offer stability and adequate resources for the full duration the project requires. This is doubly true for innova-tive organizations, whose projects break new ground and may take some time to find their footing, and which may not fit traditional funding schemes or business models to begin with.

For many social mission organizations, a lack of stable funding is the biggest lim-iting factor on their ability to innovate. When we founded CSI one of our main

hopes was that it would help organiza-tions’ finances, and our survey found that it has, in fact, done just that.

How?

In part, CSI provides members with greater access to markets and to funders. Many new business relationships have sprung up among members at CSI—an extension of the collaboration we’ve al-ready seen. Additionally, because work-ing out of CSI rather than home or other makeshift offices increases an organiza-tion’s professionalism, profile, and public exposure. Joining CSI ensures members are better placed when they approach outside funders and potential clients.

36% of respondents who generate revenue through the sales of goods or services reported that they had generated revenue through business relationships with other CSI members.

Additionally, 30% reported that they had done so by conducting business with “outside” contacts to which they were referred by other CSI members.

60% of members indicated that being at CSI had improved their organization’s ability to generate revenue through the sale of goods and / or services.

30% of members agree that membership has helped them to generate more interest from funders.

And in part, as organizations grow and change over time, CSI helps keep costs down by providing lower-cost workspace than an independent office would, once those organizations have made the leap from the home office to a rented space. In a recent expansion, almost all the new-ly created offices were taken by existing CSI members who were “graduating” to larger workspaces than the ones they’d previously occupied, and on other oc-casions organizations have downgraded their member packages if they found they needed a smaller space or fewer hours. Because CSI offers a variety of workspaces at a variety of price points, it gives members the flexibility (as waiting lists clear) of shifting up or down as best suits their resources and work.

We conducted a short follow-up survey in November 2009, to further explore the impact of CSI members’ ability to gen-erate revenue. In this survey, of the 53 respondents whose organizations gener-ate revenue through the sale of goods and/or services, 36% reported that they

“The thing that has most pleasantly surprised me about CSI is business from people I like and met here.”

“[A main benefit of CSI is] by just being here, clients have walked up and asked if I would be interested in working with them…the networking alone is worth the rent.”

impacTMoney

had generated revenue through sales to other CSI members, and 30% reported that they had done so by conducting business with outside contacts to whom they were referred by fellow CSI members.

CSI drives revenue among its members by fostering referrals and collaborative opportunities: by facilitating a vastly expanded range and number of inter-actions, CSI ensures that its members are meeting potential clients every day. Moreover, CSI members increase their professional credibility by being lo-cated in the shared space, resulting in increased access to and a heightened reputation among funders and clients.

30%

“The most important thing that tenancy at CSI has done for my organization’s ability to achieve its mission is to provide a network of organizations interested in our work – all of our business is word of mouth.”

“Our board is very satisfied with the ROI for CSI.”

30%

36%

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Of the many infrastructure challenges facing Canada’s nonprofit organizations, a lack of up-to-date software can be among the most painful. Too many or-ganizations suffer through substandard technology; a situation that CSI member Partnership Platform decided could no longer be tolerated. So they partnered with TechSoup Global to create Tech-Soup Canada - a dedicated software provider to support Canadian charities and nonprofits.

“Canada’s nonprofit and charitable sec-tor wasn’t being served as effectively as it could,” says Jane Zhang, TechSoup Canada’s Program Director. “A made-in-Canada program would focus its efforts on the 160,000 organizations that sup-port our local communities.”

TechSoup Canada works with major software producers like Microsoft and Adobe to help manage their charitable giving programs. Acting as intermedi-ary, TechSoup Canada connects non-profit organizations to these programs as a way to foster savings and improve access to new technology. The program got its start in Canada in 2008 with a grant from the Ontario Trillium Founda-tion. The hitch: When the money ran out, TechSoup Canada would be left on its own to sink or swim.

making soCial Change sustainable

Two years into the project and Tech-Soup Canada had made thousands of sales that have saved Canada’s nonprofit sector over $23 million. With the grant money now expired, TechSoup Canada generates enough revenue through its administration fee to cover its opera-tional costs – and to support its growth. Jane concludes, “Being at CSI has been essential to our success. The networks and support we’ve gained through membership have allowed us to scale our operations at an extraordinary pace. We’ve built a self-sustaining enterprise that empowers the work of thousands of organizations in Canada.”

impactMoney

How Increased Revenue Catalyzes Social Innovation

Two years into the project and TechSoup Canada has provided donated software to over five thousand NPOs and saved Canada’s nonprofit sector over $23 million.

“Being at CSI has been essential to our success. The networks and support we’ve gained through membership have allowed us to scale our operations at an extraordinary pace. We’ve built a self-sustaining enterprise that empowers the work of thousands of organizations in Canada.”

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Increased happiness and well-being: it is the most ephemeral, but also perhaps the most important benefit of working in a shared space like CSI. It can’t eas-ily be measured, and its worth doesn’t translate into dollars and cents, but it was the most gratifying of all the impacts our survey uncovered. Process matters, health matters, functionality matters—happiness matters. For us at CSI, there is no greater reward than knowing that the space we’ve created and the commu-nity of people we’ve brought together have made our members happier—most especially because our members are people who are dedicating their lives to creatively tackling the problems our so-ciety faces.

Increasingly, employers are also rec-ognizing the more pragmatic benefits of happiness and well-being. They are learning that this kind of satisfaction translates into staff retention and pro-ductivity, and we know that our members are doing better at their work because they are enjoying it more. In fact, those working in the social mission sector often do poorly in terms of the quality of their own work conditions and stress levels, and often report feeling precarious and anxious. Health and happiness are criti-cal for staff retention and for ensuring that social innovators can maintain their commitment to their work—we cannot innovate unless we are coming from a position of security and personal sustain-ability. By providing a beautiful, healthy workspace, and a community of support-ive, like-minded compatriots in the social mission sector, CSI contributes vitally to that sense of well-being. In doing so, it provides essential support for social mis-sion workers with big dreams, and often bigger challenges.

62%

92%

96%At CSI, 96% of tenants feel that the space has a “great vibe”

72% of members feel that CSI has helped them to live their values.

92% of members feel that CSI is a healthy physical environment in which to work.

62% indicate that work-ing at CSI has made it easier for them to live a healthy lifestyle.

72%

“I feel lucky to be here. It is a vibrant, beautiful and inspiring place that makes me happy to live and work in this city.”

“[Moving into CSI] helped me settle in [Toronto] and provided a healthy and inspiring and fun environment.”

“CSI has provided me with an energizing, intellectually stimulating, warm and welcoming work environment.”

“Life is too short to work in sterile places. CSI is alive and has built a community of good people. I love being a part of that.”

impacTHappiness

“The most important thing that tenancy at CSI has done for me, personally, is to provide me with a healthy place to work – physically and emotionally in so many ways.”

63% of CSI members say that working in the shared space has influenced their decision to stay employed in their current organization.

87% of members feel that working at CSI has improved the quality of their professional life.

87% 63%

76%

76% of members agree that membership at CSI has made them a happier person.

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“You’ll always have a home at CSI,” re-flects Allanah Scott, project manager at independent film company Coptor Pro-ductions. “The spirit here is fantastic,” she says enthusiastically, “and there is such a sense of belonging.” Allanah, now in her early 60s, has a background as an artist, educator, and activist. She and her husband moved to Toronto just a short while ago, in 2007—however, far from being intimidated by the transition, Allanah celebrated the relocation of her work to a space so well-aligned with her personal values.

“CSI is out to serve you,” she comments, “It is such a democratic environment that offers members freedom for optional ways of working.” Flexibility and trust are two ingredients that are crucial to Allanah’s ongoing participation in CSI life and commitment to her professional work. CSI can accommodate just about anyone with its variety of work packages and all the available shared resources. Moreover, Allanah feels a tremendous sense of value and honour in being part of such a talented community of people. Contrary to many organizational struc-tures that differentiate individuals by age, experience, or professional back-ground, Allanah finds the diversity of CSI community truly stimulating. Being well-established in her own career, it is energizing for Allanah to work alongside

those just starting out—their enthusiasm is buoyant, and their spirit transfers into her work.

you’ll always have a home at Csi

Allanah feels a tremendous sense of value and honour in being part of such a talented community of people.

Allanah also benefits from the learning process that goes on between members and across sectors. By hearing what so-lutions and innovations others around her are implementing, she reflects on her own ideas and practices with Coptor Productions. Working for a company that brings awareness to political, social, en-vironmental, and cultural issues through film, Allanah finds that CSI and its mem-bers offer her continual sources of in-spiration. Since moving into the Cen-tre, Coptor has produced and released a number of films on the Canadian arts scene and an eye-opening documentary on the weaponization of space, which has shown in fourteen European and African Documentary Film Festivals and which is slated to be the opening film at the Oxford UK Film Festival.

It may be hard to measure, but personal happiness – our own confidence, com-fort and sense of purpose – is what pow-ers our efforts to pursue our passions and make a difference.

How Happiness Catalyzes Social Innovation

impactHappiness

“The spirit here is fantastic, and there is such a sense of belonging.”

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o ne of the great joys of operating the Centre for Social Innovation

has been watching our members blos-som and grow. On one level, CSI’s goal is to ease the practical load small social mission organizations have to carry: to take some of the mundane but time-consuming burdens off their plate and free them up to do their work better, do more of it, and do it more efficiently. But on another, deeper level, our goal is to serve as something like a science lab: a safe, stable environment in which orga-nizations can experiment, work across silos, learn from each other, and create entirely new goals and projects—ones that are more exciting and ambitious than anything one of them individually would be able to cook up with a home chemistry set.

And now, in presenting this report, we are striving to achieve something else as well: helping others build more shared spaces for social innovation. While we

had a pretty good sense all along that we were helping our members achieve and grow, this is the first time we’ve been able to thoroughly measure the impact of the shared space CSI provides, and by extension, that other similar centres might be able to provide. We’ve been able to use the findings of our compre-hensive survey to analyse the specific ways in which shared spaces support organizations, and support the social innovations that those social organiza-tions pursue—and we very much hope that this will help city-builders elsewhere reproduce these benefits in their own communities and in their local social mis-sion sectors. This Impact Report isn’t just our internal report card: it’s our way of trying to buoy the field of shared spaces for social innovation more generally, to support the emergence of other shared spaces by pointing out just how valuable they can be.

At CSI organizations focus on their mis-sions, expand their networks, gener-ate and adopt new ideas, collaborate, strengthen their bottom lines, and have happier staff. Taken together, these im-pacts make the case—practical and philosophical—for the importance of and opportunity contained in the shared spaces movement.

In addition to all the facts and figures, the percentages and the quantitative feedback, we wanted to make sure to include expanded, detailed anecdotes and experiences that some of our mem-bers shared. They help put a human, personal face on CSI’s impact, and illus-trate how the benefits yielded by shared spaces can drive social innovation far more compelling than the numbers alone could do. And these members provide but a handful of examples: we see the impact of shared spaces on our members’ ability to push themselves, to grow, to innovate, every single day at the Centre for Social Innovation.

Shared spaces are more than just a place to work. They can be – with the right mo-tivation and attention – hotbeds of social innovation. Through this report we have attempted to uncover the ways in which CSI supports social innovation in hopes of inspiring other shared spaces, and in a heartfelt desire to foster social innova-tion in communities around the world.

conclusion

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This book was designed by The Movement, as part of our effort to work with people and groups who are doing bet-ter. Working with social entrepreneurs and innovators, we use the power of design thinking & doing to give form to complex ideas. We’re a network of committed people ready to tackle complex problems, and a studio dedicated to delivering results. We work openly with groups, on chal-lenges that matter.

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