On a misty fall morning this October, I arrived at Hollyhock Retreat Centre for the second time in as many months. The sun shone magnificently through the autumn fog, welcoming us to what would be four days of breakthrough thinking and engagement.

I had traveled to the Cortes Island retreat centre this time with four incredible women: Avril Orloff, independent artist and Graphic Recroder; Lynda Gerty, Program Director at Vantage Point; Lorien Henson, Principal of Limelight Event Marketing; and Reena Lazar, Founder & Executive Director of Peace It Together—social sector leaders whose focus, and passion are driving exceptional work. So inspiration had filled our journey, and we all were excited to feel it build as we arrived at Hollyhock, and connected with dozens more like-minded people.

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“Get the right people on the bus,” said Jim Collins in his masterwork, Good to Great. It’s a powerful metaphor about company building: If you can’t get the right people around you, you’ll never grow the company of your dreams. After all, it takes a team to change the world!

I just returned from the 2010 Social Venture Institute, an annual gathering of socially- and environmentally-minded entrepreneurs, and the coaches, consultants, advisors and financiers who support them. The diversity of their missions and organizations is as remarkable as the place where they come together: Hollyhock, Canada’s leading educational retreat centre, located on the south edge of Cortes Island—a venue where I’ve said, “hearts settle, souls run free, and minds are loosed to consider the great possibilities of what might be.”

There are moments in life where time, space, circumstance, and perhaps a little bit of magic conspire to create events that last forever as life’s bookmarks. SVI 2009 was one of those events for me: Profoundly inspiring, utterly uplifting, astoundingly gratifying. I had been cautious not to let my expectations aspire to those lofty heights for 2010. My caution was unwarranted.

At SVI 2010, I was knocked out cold by the open hearts, brilliant minds, and focused visionaries that showed up in a place that can only be described as a modern day Eden.

It’s taken two weeks to synthesize the learning, gratitude, impact and inspiration of SVI 2010. (In truth, synthesis will take longer, yet!) I certainly won’t attempt to recount all those myriad experiences in this post. Instead, I’ll recount some moments and lessons that felt Earth-movingly important….

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I learned today that a long-time acquaintance is hiking, kayaking, biking and otherwise traversing the proposed route of Enbridge’s 1,150km oil pipeline from Fort McMurray to the Pacific Ocean. Along with Ian and Karen McAllister of Pacific Wild and film maker Frank Wolf, Todd McGowan aims to provide insights into local points of view, and raise awareness of the very real dangers of this project:

The Enbridge project has the potential to radically alter the social and ecological landscape of Western Canada. The construction of this massive pipeline and the roads used to access it will result in extensive loss of wildlife habitat. Waterways and communities will be contaminated as statistically inevitable oil spills occur along the pipeline route. It will lead to expansion of the tar sands- adding to already critical global atmospheric carbon levels.

The 1,150km journey is a very long walk. But here’s a very short lesson: The length of this pipeline makes oil spills a statistical inevitability.

Of course, if we just ban the tankers, the pipeline idea will just go away….

Annalea Krebs, Founder & President of Octopus’s client TheChange.com presented last week at EPIC. Check out their story:

She hasn’t eaten in a week. Don’t get me wrong: She can eat. In fact, she works in a fabulous Lebanese restaurant across the street from our office. She’s just choosing not to eat.

You see, Maddy’s on a hunger strike.

She’s the most recent in a week-by-week relay of awareness-raising citizens who are concerned about the fact that roughly half of all Canadians live in fear of poverty. More to the point, there are somewhere between 10,500 and 15,000 people in BC alone who have no homes. Every 12 days, one homeless Canadian dies.

Scary statistics. But scarier still is the fact that until 1993, Canada had one of the most widely recognized social housing programs in the world. Federally funded and progressive, it was canceled after 20 years of effective support for people marginalized by hard luck or hard times. Since then, support for the most troubled of our fellow citizens has become fragmented. And progressively less effective.

So Maddy’s hunger striking for a new Federal Housing Program. There’ll be a new volunteer every week throughout 2010. Maddy’s the face of week 73. She follows UBC Professor Michael Byers, Vancouver activist David Eby and many others. I wonder who’s going to be number 74… 75… 76… 77….

Learn more about the Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay.  They might be on to something here….

On Thursday evening, Vancity Community Foundation, Enterprising Non-Profits, JDQ Systems and BC Social Venture Partners hosted the 2010 edition of their ‘Social Enterprise Dragons‘ event. Three social enterprises pitched their organizations to a crowd of 200, and in particular to four ‘Dragons,’ who judged their business plans and awarded prizes based on their businesses’ needs: Tamara Vrooman, CEO, Vancity; Alanna Hendren, Executive Director, Developmental Disabilities Association; Jon Morris, President, JDQ Systems; and Jim Fletcher, Managing Director, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital.

Octopus Strategies’ involvement was through my invitation to sit on the application review and selection committee, which shortlisted the numerous applicants to the three presenting companies. Along with Adam Wilkins of REV and BC Social Venture Partners, I also coached Katrina Pacey of Pivot Legal LLP on her presentation.

Pivot was first to present. Katrina, their Managing Partner, outlined a unique social enterprise law firm, whose purpose is to turn the profits from their general law practice to the advantage of social change initiatives such as their recent Red Tent campaign.

Mission Possible‘s MP Enterprises went second. Their Executive Director, Brian Postlewait, presented an ambitious but promising plan to develop their graffiti cleanup company into a diverse general maintenance company.

And third was Public Dreams‘ Samantha Jo Simmonds, who explained their organization’s 25-year legacy, their recent success with 2010 Winter Olympic Games contracts, and their goals to develop their social enterprise—a full service event management firm.

All three presentations were inspiring. Each organization is uniting the value of business with the values of mission-driven mandates. And in the end, the Dragons couldn’t decide between them, and awarded one prize to each organization. Public Dreams was awarded a $2,500 grant from ENP, MP Enterprises was awarded a pro bono engagement from JDQ Systems, and Pivot Legal was awarded $15,000 from Vancity Community Foundation to develop their marketing and outreach.

The event itself also featured a good deal of networking among the sold-out crowd, catering by Vancouver’s Pot Luck Cafe & Catering, a social enterprise itself, and a showcase of the wares of various local social enterprises. It was a great opportunity for the social enterprising community to come together, and share ideas, contacts and plans. I look forward to being even more involved in the 2011 edition!