watch magazine 2013 - issue 2

WATCH Issue 2 - 2013 | 1

2 | WATCH Issue 2 - 2013

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GIVING STARTS AT HOME – R+T PARK TENANT’S FUND PROUDLY SUPPORTS THOSE IN NEED

In this issue of WATCH, we’re exploring the amazing social ventures located in the R+T Park, and the people who are dedicated to helping our non-profit community.

We’ll start by sharing the story of our own social venture, the R+T Park Tenant’s Fund. This charitable organization, founded seven years ago, has to date raised more than $126,000 on behalf of local children’s charities and community based projects here in Waterloo Region.

It all began with the idea of hosting a golf tournament for charity. Quickly, we were over-whelmed by our Park resident’s will to give – and by charities seeking to benefit. So we decided to create an umbrella organization to administer charitable giving on behalf of the Park.

We examined many different giving opportunities, and in the end, decided to partner with the KW Community Foundation to administer our fund. Today, proceeds raised from our annual golf tournament, barbeques, and other events go to the Tenant’s Fund.

This year’s R+T Park Annual Charity Golf Tournament, held June 27, 2013 attracted more than 200 golfers, and raised $21,000 for the Tenant’s Fund. We also announced our 2013 non-profit beneficiary, Hospice Waterloo Region, Families First, an organization assisting individuals requiring palliative care, their families and friends, and individuals who are bereaved.

Carol Stewart, David Johnston Research + Technology Park and President, Association of University Research Park Canada, www.aurpcanada.ca

Where Business Meets Philanthropy Social Venture Partners Takes a Hands-On Approach

Dream Big. Then Make it Happen. Capacity Waterloo Encourages Bold Thinking Among Non-Profits

Giving Back, Looking Forward UWaterloo’s Vice-President of University Relations Tim Jackson Reflects on the Importance of Community Involvement

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. Marmot Labs Helps Stream-line the Collaborative Decision Making Process

Business Directory Research + Technology Park University of Waterloo Tenant Directory

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

456

1011

© 2013 Watch Magazine is a publication of the David Johnston Research + Technology Park. All rights reserved.

Reproduction without written permission from the David Johnston Research + Technology Park is strictly forbidden.

DESIGN: BLUEGIRL, WRITER: IGNITION, PHOTOGRAPHY: ONE FOR THE WALL

www.rtparkwatch.com/august2013

www.rtpark.uwaterloo.ca

L-R Golf Committee Members: Greg Hanmer – Miller Thomson LLP, Beani Watson – SAP, Marcie Fry – AGFA, Christine Jonker – Miller Thomson LLP, Christie Eby – Client Outlook, Rose Sieber – Education Credit Union, Wesley Thordarson – R+T Park (Absent Jeff Ohlhausen – Open Text)


Social Venture Partners (SVP) offers up a highly unique business model within the non-profit sector. In SVP Waterloo Region’s world, there are partners rather than donors, and cheques (investments) are married with expertise from advisors who take a hands- on role helping non-profits build organizational capacity to make a difference in the communities they serve.

“The whole notion of SVP is built around the model of venture capitalism,” explains Jennifer King, Executive Director of SVP Waterloo Region. “Just as a VC takes an investment position in a start-up and helps steer that company’s future, SVP takes an investment position in our non-profits. We conduct careful due diligence looking at a candidate organization’s leadership, ideas, and governance to understand how they work and to determine if they are a good fit with our model. We also work with a non-profit for anywhere from three to five years. And our partners take an active role -- working with our beneficiaries on projects that make a tangible difference to the organization and to the community it serves.”

SVP members select their own mandate for investment. SVP Waterloo Region has elected to focus on children and youth, selecting three beneficiaries: Strong Start, a community initiative focused on child literacy; Woolwich Counseling Centre’s child and youth

therapy program, and Kinbridge Community Association.

“Our members felt very strongly that an investment in children and youth will yield long-term payback in our community,” says Jennifer King. “In establishing our mandate

we asked ourselves, ‘what do we really care about?,’ ‘where are the gaps?, and ’where can we make a difference?’ Every answer led us back to the community’s younger citizens.”

“SVP came into our world at the perfect time,” says Machele Denison, Executive Director, Strong Start. “The SVP organization

and its partners in just two years have made an immense contribution to our organization. And they aren’t just doing the analysis and telling us what we need to do. The partners are stepping in and helping do the work. That’s huge for a small organization with limited resources.”

“The nature of philanthropy is changing,” says Jennifer King. “People want to go beyond writing a cheque. They want to be involved. And SVP is not only reflective of this change, we’re at the forefront.”

S O C I A L V E N T U R E P A R T N E R S , A C C E L E R A T O R C E N T R E

Where Business Meets Philanthropy.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE SVP WATERLOO REGION’S PARTNER TEAM www.svpwr.org

VIST: www.rtparkwatch.com/august2013 for an extended version of this article.

Social Venture Partners Takes a Hands-On Approach to Giving.

“”

The nature of philanthropy is changing. People want to go beyond writing a cheque. They want to be involved. And we’re not only reflective of this change, we’re at the forefront.



WATCH Magazine sat down over a cup of tea with Josh Wright (Josh had a coffee), Co-Founder and Director, Business Development for Marmot Labs, creators of Decision.io. We chatted about life working on a start-up, the importance of being adaptive and flexible, and how the company is gaining early market traction.

WATCH: What’s a Marmot? JW: “It’s a small rodent, similar to a groundhog. Marmots have a lot of different sub-species that adapt quite quickly to their environment. As a company, we want to be a highly adaptive start-up that evolves based on the environment we’re in, and we’ve created our product, Decision.io, to be very flexible in order to address the needs of many different customer types. So the name fits.”

WATCH: How did the idea for Decision.io come about? JW: “Our entire team has worked in the start-up world for some time. I worked at the Accelerator Centre, and my co-founders, Jesse Guild and Duncan McDowell both work at Communitech. Between the three of us we saw a lot of different decision-making workflows that required team input. We also saw how painful that process could be for the people involved. Decision.io grew out of our desire to solve that problem. We want to streamline the collective decision-making process for businesses small and large.”

WATCH: So what is Decision.io? JW: “It’s an online platform that enables businesses capture and streamline their collective decision-making. We help filter ideas, opportunities, or applications through a systematic and efficient workflow. Users of the system can invite teams or committees of reviewers to rate, rank and comment on different items in the funnel to help them drive the final decisions forward. One of the clear benefits of Decision.io is that it eliminates groupthink and common decision biases that can creep into team-based decisions. It also offers a lot of transparency back to the applicant – which saves our customers an incredible amount of time and energy.

Our initial target customers are grant-making organizations, start-up support programs and educational institutions. Today, many of these organizations use paper-based methods to guide their application review and selection process. It’s a market where we can quickly show the impact of streamlining this workflow online for our customers, and so a good place for us to gain early traction and great reference customers.”

“We are always interested in speaking

with potential customers and other people who

see Decision.io as useful within their organization. Networking is one of my

favourite things to do so I encourage people

to reach out and set up a conversation. They

can email me directly at [email protected]. “

S O C I A L V E N T U R E P A R T N E R S , A C C E L E R A T O R C E N T R E M A R M O T L A B S , C R E A T O R O F D E C I S I O N . I O

JOSH WRIGHTCO-FOUNDER/DIRECTOR

www.decision.io

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. Marmot Labs Helps Streamline the Collaborative Decision Making Process.



CATHY BROTHERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR IN RESIDENCE

MATT MILLER, EXECUTIVE IN RESIDENCE

ANDREW WILDING, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Dream big C A P A C I T Y W A T E R L O O , A C C E L E R A T O R C E N T R E

Then make it happen



MATT MILLER, EXECUTIVE IN RESIDENCE

On the back wall of the tiny office Capacity Waterloo shares with its non-profit counterpart, Social Venture Partners at the Accelerator Centre is a soaring wall mural that serves as daily inspiration for the organization’s small team. It keeps them dreaming big.

The mural is the product of a branding workshop held back in 2011 with key stakeholders, just as Capacity Waterloo was finding its sea legs.

Cathy Brothers, Capacity Waterloo’s Executive Director in Residence’s eyes sparkle as she recalls the memory. “We had some really heavy hitters of the community in that room, and here we

were throwing questions at them such as, if we were a color, what would we be. It certainly forced these Type A personalities to look at the world in a new way.”

Looking at the non-profit world with new eyes is exactly the mandate of Capacity Waterloo. Originally formed as a five year project to better understand what tools, strategies, education and support non-profits needed to become stronger, Capacity Waterloo has evolved today into a federally incorporated non-profit itself, with a mission to encourage risk-taking, boldness and innovation within the non-profit sector, and to champion and support non-profits in making bold social change.

Says Cathy Brothers, “We wanted to inspire our non-profits to be bold, to take risks, to have the courage to do what has not been done before. I like to say we want to look out there on the lunatic fringe, because that’s where we’ll find the inspiration to make a real difference in people’s lives.”

One of the most impactful programs initiated by Capacity Waterloo to date has been the

launch of its Storytelling Initiative – aimed at helping non-profits use words, pictures and emotions as a communications strategy. Working in partnership with the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation and the Lyle S. Hallman Foundation, through bootcamps and workshops featuring such celebrated storytellers as American writer, producer and orator Andy Goodman, and a team of photo journalists from National Geographic, Capacity Waterloo has inspired hundreds of non-profits to radically alter their communication tactics and infuse story-telling methods into their day to day work.

Another remarkable achievement for an organization just three years old is Capacity Waterloo’s Board Match Program, launched in partnership with Manulife Financial. By the end of 2012, 42 Manulife Financial employees were involved in the board match program, and 31 had found compatible matches on non-profit boards. The program is so successful in Waterloo Region, Manulife Financial is now looking at extending it through a pilot project in Toronto in the Fall of 2013.

Always looking ahead for the next big thing to tackle, Brothers and the team plan to make a move into the new International Business Centre in the David Johnston Research + Technology Park and establish a new Social Innovation Lab, built on design thinking principles – a place where non-profits can gather and explore bold new ideas.

“We are passionate about wanting to give non-profits their rightful place in society. They are not some bargain basement poor cousins to other businesses. Non-profit organizations are major employers. They address issues that matter to all of us. And we need to help raise the profile and respect for non-profits here in Waterloo Region and across Canada. We want to give them the tools to be stronger organizations, to better tell their stories. It’s part of trying to change attitudes toward non-profits and celebrate their accomplishments. We want them dreaming big, then making it happen.”

Capacity Waterloo Encourages Bold Thinking Among Non-Profits.

We wanted to inspire our non-profits to be bold, to take risks, to have the courage to do what has not been done before.

C A P A C I T Y W A T E R L O O , A C C E L E R A T O R C E N T R E

”

“



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Serving the Accelerator Centre and the Communitech Hub, the award-winning Waterloo Accelerator Program supports technology start-up companies, allowing them to move to market faster, create jobs and stimulate economic activity. Accelerator Program Clients benefit from coaching and mentoring, education, connections to capital, networking, R&D support and outreach, talent recruitment, technology transfer assistance, seamless support services including access to office facilities, and commercialization expertise.

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Writing a cheque to a non-profit is a relatively easy task for a busy executive. Getting involved and giving back is another story entirely. Yet it is a commitment Tim Jackson is more than willing to make. Tim, a former venture capitalist and CEO of the Accelerator Centre, and now Vice-President of University Relations at the University of Waterloo, is a man one would assume has few spare cycles in his jam-packed schedule. And yet, Jackson still finds time to give a substantial portion of his time back to the community. His resume lists a long list of community-based roles, including: chair, board of Centre in the Square; chair, steering committee, Capacity Waterloo; chair, Waterloo Region Barnraiser Council, co-founder, Social Venture Partners; member of the advisory board, Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation, and member of the audit and finance committee, Food Banks Canada.

Within at least three of these organizations, Capacity Waterloo, Social Venture Partners and the Food Bank, Jackson’s has played a formative role, spearheading transformative initiatives designed to make a real impact on the lives of people in the community.

Jackson’s involvement in the non-profit sector is focused around providing support to executive directors in this field who have chosen to make charitable work their career. “Many of the people running non-profits today are highly accomplished, and just as qualified as the CEOs running businesses in the private sector,” says Jackson. “I feel very strongly they deserve more support than they are currently receiving.”

He sees parallels between the kind of support non-profit leaders need, and the start-ups he funded as a venture capitalist. – but with one fundamental difference “When my partners and I were running Tech Capital (a venture capital firm) , a start-up would come to us looking for a million dollars. And odds are, if we decided to fund them, we’d give them two. Because we understood that innovation requires risk taking. We need to give people room to fail, and the budget to experiment. Non-profits don’t get that latitude. Typically

when they approach a granting agency, asking for $500,000, the agency will say ‘great, we want to fund you but we’ll give you $350,000 instead.’ What I try to do in an executive or board capacity is to give executive directors of non-profits the same opportunities I gave my start-ups. I want them to be fearless. To take risks, and from that will flow tremendous innovation that will make a real difference in the lives of people.”

In his role as Vice-President of University Relations, Tim Jackson is excited about the opportunity to blend his personal beliefs about giving back with UWaterloo culture of research, entrepreneurship and innovation.

He points to Dr. Hamdullahpur’s focus on the student experience, student access and student space, his commitment to achieving work-life balance for staff and faculty, and his vision for making UWaterloo a collaborative community partner.

Jackson is also quick to point out that many solutions to global problems – poverty, disease, hunger – can also flow from the UWaterloo’s research agenda.

“At the heart of who we are, UWaterloo is a world-leading scientific and research institution, and our people lead the world in innovation. There’s no requirement that our innovation benefit only the for-profit sector. Look at George Roter, a UWaterloo graduate and CEO of Engineers Without Borders, or Commander Chris Hadfield, who did post doc work at the university and who took a UWaterloo banner up with him to the International Space Station. These are just two examples among the thousands of faculty, staff and students who are leveraging their education and knowledge gained here at UWaterloo to make a real, positive difference. These are our people – and they are out there giving back; making the world a better place.”

D E A N O F M A T H E M A T I C S , T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F W A T E R L O O

VIST: www.rtparkwatch.com/april2013 for an extended version of this article.

“We are actively encouraging staff, faculty and students

to get involved with the community and we’re working

hard to celebrate their community involvement

when it happens. They and UWaterloo benefit massively

from their involvement.”

V I C E - P R E S I D E N T O F U N I V E R S I T Y R E L A T I O N S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F W A T E R L O O

GIVING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD. UWaterloo’s Vice-President of University Relations Tim Jackson Reflects on the Importance of Community Involvement

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