SEE Change editor-in-chief Elisa Birnbaum traveled to Calgary for the much-anticipated Social Enterprise World Forum. Running from October 2nd till the 4th, the event saw over 1000 practitioners in the field of social entrepreneurship converge for a few days of inspiration, education and discourse. In this outspoken post, Elisa shares her thoughts on the global event and its uniquely impactful resonance on the way-too-many social entrepreneurs working in the trenches, often alone.

Find out who is ready to lead and who is engaged on the periphery. 

Welcome to our new blog series exploring Scale Deep, a powerful initiative led by The Carold Institute, in partnership with Asoka Canada and Timeraiser, with the goal of strengthening efforts for change, building wisdom in social change leadership and accelerating the impact of innovative models for democratic engagement. Christine Laliberté kicks off the series with a bilingual roundup of the seminal event that recently launched Scale Deep.

Learn more about the initiative and how you can get involved. 

There's a fundamental tension in the way we do philanthropy. It lurks in the background, hoping not to be noticed. It's that dreaded word: overhead. There's a tension between donors, who want as much of their money as possible to go to the cause, and the overhead that's necessary to grow the organization and raise more money. 

But low overhead isn't a matter of getting rid of the coffee machine in the office and firing half your staff. That's a surface solution to a much deeper problem. We need to get to the source.

Find out about two approaches to overhead costs