Decision-Making and the Role of the Parent Organization

The Business of Inclusion (Section 4) - Decision-Making and the Role of the Parent Organization

A Report by the Toronto Enterprise Fund (March 2004)

Click here to download the full Decision-Making and the Role of the Parent Organization report.

This report looks at the organizational challenges of developing social purpose enterprise: combining core competencies with business-oriented thinking; building a business culture, assessing viability, organizational approaches, and building board leadership. 

"The Business of Inclusion is a series of reports documenting the findings from research on the developmental stage of the Toronto Enterprise Fund and the enterprises it supports. The twenty reports are organized into four sections: Background, Participant Learning, Learning about Enterprise Development, and Decision-Making and the Role of the Parent Organization.

This section (Decision-Making and the Role of the Parent Organization) explores the organizational challenges of developing social purpose enterprise within social development culture. As the social development organizations funded by the Toronto Enterprise Fund have engaged in social purpose enterprise, they have worked intentionally to merge two divergent perspectives: they are seeking to combine their core competencies in social development practice with business-oriented thinking in an appropriate and functional way. In the process they invest much time adopting and adapting business concepts and tools to their poverty reduction approaches. ..."

The purpose of this section is:

• To learn about the process of building a business culture into a social development organization
• To identify the components of viability for a social purpose enterprise
• To explore issues related to managerial staffing of the organization
• To begin to identify some effective practices in building board awareness and leadership

Included in this report are the following papers:

• Report 17: Building a Business Culture
• Report 18: Assessing Viability
• Report 19: Organizational Approaches to Building Social Purpose Enterprises
• Report 20: Building Board Leadership

Click here to download the full Decision-Making and the Role of the Parent Organization report.

(This report was researched and written by Eko Nomos Program Development Consultants, http://www.ekonomos.com/).