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Shorefast has already spread its vision for economic
resilience beyond Fogo Island’s shores, through its
Institute for Place-Based Economies. During COVID
lockdowns, it implemented place-based economy pilot
projects in four differently sized communities around the
country (Victoria, B.C., Hamilton, Prince Edward County
and London, Ont).
Cobb found that despite differences in size, the
work needed to support and connect the pillars in each
community was largely the same. And she sees some
of this work already being done in Edmonton through
Edmonton Community Foundation’s Social Enterprise
Fund, which provides debt financing to people looking
to improve their communities, but struggle to access
traditional financing sources.
For Cobb’s liking, too many businesspeople think they’ll
turn their minds to doing good only after the market makes
them rich, and not enough philanthropic foundations extend
their work to addressing the upstream interventions that
Squish Studio, Fogo Island, Newfoundland
can strengthen local economies. “But for a community
foundation to say, ‘hang on a second, how can we
participate in the whole system in a way that goes more
upstream?’ That thinking is very ahead
of many other foundations.”
The Social Enterprise Fund may never help start
some giant company, Cobb says, but that’s beside
the point. “These are market failures — a market is
not going to support the small, the unusual, the much
needed, in this way. But this can be solved. It just takes
a little miracle, and miracles happen every minute — a
miracle is nothing more than a slight shift in how you
see something, and when you start to see the power
of place and that it holds all the answers, then we’ll all
change our systems.”
On June 24, ECF and the Edmonton Public Library
will present Zita Cobb in conversation with
Mary W. Rowe. Visit epl.ca for details.
ecf.ca
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