Learn to create a break-through, authentic, values-driven brand strategy for your mission-based organization.

A new generation of entrepreneurs and social change leaders rejects short-term, unsustainable practices, and aims instead to build organizations around enduring values. Yet many cause-driven organizations—whether not-for-profit, social venture or social enterprise—struggle to find their voice.
How should they engage donors, customers, staff and others in their mission? How do they focus their story, pitch and appeals to generate the greatest returns? And how do they stand apart in cluttered, competitive markets? We’ll be including the insights of new research and access to some of the tools and techniques that are typically reserved for our international roster of high impact social change clients.

Mike Rowlands, Founder & President of Octopus Strategies, will co-present this workshop with Stephen Abbott. Together, they’ve helped mission-driven organizations around the world to develop authentic, value-driven and inspiring brands. They’ll share examples, insights and experiences, while helping you to identify ways to distinguish your organization in a marketplace that’s increasingly conscious and ever more crowded.

The workshop will be offered only twice in 2011—both times in partnership with Hollyhock in Vancouver. The workshop does require advanced registration. Tuition per session is $185 CDN. Non-profit, Student, Senior: $165 CDN. Program dates are Wednesday, April 13 and Thursday, April 14 or Wednesday, October 5 and Thursday October 6, from 1:00pm – 5:00pm in Vancouver.

A Celebration of Renewed Vitality

Octopus Strategies is pleased to be sponsoring Vertality, “a celebration of the New Year for and by Vancouver’s change-maker community: people who believe that business can lead the way to a prosperous future by fostering an economic model that values the pursuit of profit equally with the pursuit of sustainability.”

After the shock of 2008, the uncertainty of 2009, and the turbulence of 2010, 2011 ushers in new optimism, and brings new opportunities to build on our successes, and to drive important missions forward.

Begin 2011 with a flourish! Celebrate the new year. Make new connections in an incredibly engaged community. And revel in the Vertality!

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Octopus Strategies is proud to release the first ever Social Enterprise Marketing Toolkit to support the enterprising work of leading social sector organizations in Canada.

To make this meaningful contribution to the emerging social enterprise sector, Octopus Strategies partnered with Enterprising Non-Profits to produce the Social Enterprise Marketing Toolkit, which we unveiled on November 5 at the first ever Social Enterprise Meetup in Vancouver.

Throughout Canada’s western-most Province of British Columbia, there are some 240 established social enterprises, each dedicated to addressing or supporting vital social and community projects and priorities. ‘Social Enterprise’ is defined as a traditional business, operated by a not-for-profit either to directly fulfill its mission, or to channel funds back into the purse of the not-for-profit itself.

In other countries, social enterprise is well established—especially in the UK, where it’s now seen as a vital priority for the national government. By contrast, it is a slowly emerging sub-sector in Canada. Yet in a context of economic constraint, and amid budget cuts to government funding for arts, cultural and social organizations, social enterprise presents significant opportunities.

Made up of five videos and a series of accompanying worksheets, the Toolkit introduces foundational marketing theory, and presents specific examples from BC’s social enterprises and some of Octopus Strategies’ proprietary tools. Some of these tools, such as the Value Spectrum™ and the Message Matrix™ involve approaches that have previously been available only to paying clients.

The Toolkit has been designed to make marketing and communications expertise accessible and applicable for social sector leaders who often have no training or background in marketing. They get pragmatic and actionable techniques they can apply immediately in their social enterprises.

The Toolkit has been launched as a ‘beta’ product and is available online at Octopus Strategies or at Enterprising Non-Profits. Feedback and suggestions for improvement or clarification can be sent to info@enterprisingnonprofits.ca or setoolkit@octopusstrategies.com.

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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Octopus Strategies’ Mike Rowlands and Stephen Abbott presented a short primer on ‘Uniting Passion and Pragmatism to Brand Your Mission’ recently for Vancouver’s Enterprising Non-Profits. Twenty-four social sector leaders joined us to learn how to engage customers, staff, stakeholders and others in their missions. Mike and Stephen shared examples, insights and experiences, while helping participants identify ways to distinguish their organizations in a marketplace that’s increasingly conscious and crowded. Learn more at ENP’s summary of the event here.