3) Strategy Summary:
The Social Purchasing Portal (SPP) (www.sppvancouver.org) targets businesses'everyday purchasing of goods and services (office supplies, catering, couriers, etc)to specific suppliers who provide both a business value and a social value. Suppliers are inner city businesses or offer to hire from inner city employment programs gain market share. The inovative strategy is to use existing business to business supply chain activity to create economic and employment opportunities without added financial costs to business purchasers. The SPP creates a demand based community development strategy rather than a charity model. The SPP creates both economic capital and social capital through new models of business and community working relationships.

4) How the Strategy Works:
The Social Purchasing Portal is a on-line searchable database that allows purchasing businesses to easily find suppliers of goods and services who will meet their business needs and provide a social value as well. In Vancouver, BC, there are over 100 participating purchasers and more than 40 suppliers. As an example, the law firm of Edwards, Kenny and Bray joins other businesses in buying their office supplies from Mills Basics, located in the inner city area. Because of the increase in business created by SPP purchasers in the last year Mills has hired five inner city, formerly unemployed persons into their ware house as full time employees. Pivotal Software purchases all of their catering from Cook Studio Cafe, an inner city caterer that trains and hires youth at risk and persons on welfare. New business growth through the SPP has created ten employment opportunities in the last year. The Social Purchasing Portal is a database that can easily be adapted to be used in other cities. Already it has been adapted in Toronto and in Winnipeg, see www.sppcanada.org. Each city identifies a 'social' return that can be generated from targeting business purchasing to participating suppliers. The suppliers must first be able to meet the quality and price needs of the purchasers. The suppliers can be either a specific geographic target for purposes of generated new economic activity into an inner city; the suppliers may be a certain ownership group, such as Native or Aboriginal owned businesses; or the suppliers may be creating new employment opportunities as their business grows.

The SPP replication first requires local leadership in building a new set of partnerships among the private sector as purchasers and suppliers, and the community economic and human capital devleopment organizations. The application of the technology, the on-line database, is merely a technical adaptation of the existing website and infrastructure.

The introduction of a new model for business and community relationships is both exciting and challenging since it shifts the basis for interaction from a charity model to leveraging existing business purchases. It involves targeted marketing to private sector groups that will lead the local model. It requires working iwth suppliers interested in growing their market share while committing to a social value, such as hiring from the inner city or other marginalized groups. And it requires the community based economic development groups to establish a demand based relationship with business.

The Social Purchasing Portal is a win, win, win...
Purchasers practice socially responsibility using existing purchasing decisions without added cost or loss of business value...
Suppliers experience access to new markets for their goods and services...
and through the SPP based transactions community economic and employment opportunities are created...

5) Key Strategy Elements:

i. Mobilizing Citizen Support:
The Social Purchasing Portal mobilizes businesses into active community partnerships and relationships using their existing business activity. The business purchasers targeting of purchasing decisions engages them in community development. The suppliers are mobilized into building new relationships with employment training groups. The community based training and economic development groups create demand based relationships with suppliers. The SPP facilitates mobilizing business sector into community development efforts that previously were not at all a part of their activity.

iii. Establishing Relationships with Strategic Partnerships:
The Social Purchasing Portal is based upon relationships and strategic partnerships. The SPP model facilitates a whole new set of multi-stakeholder and multi-sector relationships that lead to creating community economic development results. The relationships are based upon business-to-business activity, mobilizing business activity into a social value based upon establsihing new purchasing and demand based relationships.

v. Developing Information and Spreading the Message:
The Social Purchasing Portal is a web based application - www.sppvancouvr.org. We use the web site to provide the searchable database, and it also becomes a basis for further information distribution. We publish a monthly e- newsletter to all of our partners and interested parties. With replication sites in Toronto and Winnipeg we further our on-line presence. We also have a site, www.sppcanada.org, that is about the process and helps inform others of how business-to-business supply chain relatinships can be used to create social and economic value.

6) Increasing Self-sufficiency and Social Impact:
The web-site generates income through advertising and corporate sponsorships. The site is designed to eventually be self-supporting, so as business engagement grows the income potential grows as well. The SPP is both the service and the means to support the service by keeping the operational costs low, and maximizing the opportunties that the SPP creates.

8) Organization Mission and Vision:
Fast Track to Employment (FTE) is a consorium of 30 employment development services providing support and opportunities for hard-to-employ and long-term unemployed persons. FTE uses a demand based model that integrates economic, employment and social development outcomes.

Organization Size:
FTE has three full time staff; two part-time contract positions; a volunteer, multi-sector Board of Directors of twelve; and participation in the Social Purchasing Portal of over 150 businesses and organizations from many sectors and interests; and a membership of 30 employment service providers.

Looking Forward to the Next Three Years:
Locally the Social Purchasing Portal will continue to evolve and be scaled up through strategic parternships with business sector partners, government funders and collaborative relationships with non-profit partners that share the SPP vision and goals. Nationally and internationally the SPP model will evolve through continuing to create partnerships that allow effective and cost-efficient local replication and adaptation of the model.

David LePage, CEO
390 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 2T1
Canada
Telephone: 604-687-7712
Fax: 604-687-7713
Email: dlepage@sppvancouver.org
Web site: www.sppvancouver.org

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