Buy Social Canada is thrilled to launch nominations for the 2025 Social Procurement and Social Enterprise Champion Awards.

Recognize and celebrate organizations that drive impact in the supply chain and nominate your organization or another who is advancing social procurement or social enterprise in Canada.

Nomination deadline: March 28, 2025.

Don't miss this chance to shine a spotlight on the incredible organizations you are working with. Let them know you are thinking of them, recognize their contributions, and strengthen partnerships while promoting the social enterprise and social procurment sectors.

The Buy Social Canada team will review the nominations, decide on a short-list of nominees and announce the winners at an award ceremony later this spring.

We look forward to the opportunity to connect with, recognize, and celebrate champions in the sector.

While the looming trade war between Canada and the United States can create a sense of fear and uncertainty, it also presents an opportunity to leverage spend to achieve community resiliency and strategic priorities.

“Social procurement is a growing practice in Canada, where government and private sector purchasers are using supply chains to strategically align with their goals. This threat to our local economies is an opportunity to stand together and recentre our priorities to align with our local economic values. We welcome anyone to reach out and access our open-source resources, training, and consulting services. We can help you to pivot your purchasing, quickly and effectively.” - Elizabeth Chick-Blount, Buy Social Canada CEO

Learn more about how Buy Social Canada can support your organization to to make better choices with tools, resources and programs that can help de-risk supply chains and build resilience in local communities across Canada in our recent blog post.

Work with Buy Social Canada to take your journey to buy with impact to the next level.

Working in collaboration with your organization and our industry-leading strategic partners, we will design a package that meets your social procurement goals. Our consulting services include:

• Strategic planning
• Implementation
• Continual support
• Engagement
• Tools and measurement

Current and past consulting clients include City of Winnipeg, City of Edmonton, City of Calgary, Government of British Columbia, PCL Construction, and Simon Fraser University.

Buy Social Canada keeps environmental sustainability as a core component of our social procurement work – both in consulting with clients and in our own social procurement decision making. To further advance sustainability in our own activities and in the wider community, Buy Social Canada has joined the Government of Canada Net-Zero Challenge and committed to Net-Zero by 2030.

Join Buy Social Canada and make a commitment. Through our consulting services and Social Purchasing Partnerships we can support your organization to develop and implement social and sustainable procurement that can support emissions reductions in your supply chain.

We applaud Buy Social Canada Social Purchasing Partner City of Toronto for updating their Social Procurement Policy, including an exciting change to their definition of diverse suppliers and acknowledge social enterprises as a unique type of supplier.

The City will amend the policy to align with international best practice, defining social enterprise as: "a business that generates a significant portion of its revenue through the sale of goods or services, embeds a social, cultural or environmental purpose into the business, and reinvests 51% or more of profits into the social, cultural or environmental mission."

City Council has also directed the Chief Procurement Officer to create a "performance measurement framework (including targets) for the Scial Procurement Policy and Program."

In 2019, the City of Vancouver debuted their groundbreaking Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) policy. Buy Social Canada currently serves as the Independent Third-Party Monitor on the New St. Paul’s Hospital development project, which has the potential to contribute significant benefits to the Vancouver community given the project vision, scope, and budget.

This update outlines the commendable efforts of the project team to deliver positive community outcomes through their hiring and procurement activities. There is much to celebrate and much to strive for as the development progresses and evolves.

Buy Social Canada Community of Practice

February 13, 2025

10am – 11am PT / 1 – 2pm ET

Online via Zoom

Additional COP meetings will be held quarterly throughout 2025

This is an opportunity for those interested or engaged with social procurement to connect and learn together. Participants in this procurement networking group include social enterprises, government and corporate purchasers, intermediaries and community members.

City of Brampton Lunch and Learn: Procurement & Community Benefits Policy

February 28, 2025

12pm - 1pm ET

Online webinar

Vendors are invited to join Buy Social Canada Social Purchasing Partner City of Brampton to learn about the City’s new Community Benefits Policy, gain insight into what community benefits are, why large infrastructure projects are ideal candidates, and the vital role of vendors working on designated projects.

Social Enterprise Information Session

March 27, 2025

10:00 – 10:30am PT / 1:00 – 1:30pm ET

Online via Zoom

Are you interested in becoming a Buy Social Canada Certified Social Enterprise?

Join this information session to learn how you can join the growing network of Certified Social Enterprises.

Vancouver Social Procurement Roundtables in 2025

Quarterly in 2025 beginning March 12

This roundtable brings together local social enterprises, social purchasers, intermediaries and community members to build relationships, learn about opportunities and collaborate to shape the social value marketplace.

Toronto Social Procurement Roundtables in 2025

Quarterly in 2025 beginning March 11

This roundtable brings together local social enterprises, social purchasers, intermediaries and community members to build relationships, learn about opportunities and collaborate to shape the social value marketplace in the Greater Toronto Area and beyond.

Welcome to our newest Social Purchasing Partner - Engage Member, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC)!

We look forward to working with AFMC, a registered charity, to educate and share social procurement opportunities with their members and to explore opportunities in their own procurement processes.

The Buy Social Canada Engage Member Package is a low-cost, high-value option to advance social procurement in your organization with education, networking, supplier matching, and coaching. The package renews annually, now is a great time of year to make a commitment and join.

DANI (Developing and Nurturing Independence)

DANI, based in Toronto, empowers adults with developmental disabilities by fostering independence, community integration, and vocational training. Participants develop essential job and life skills, access meaningful employment opportunities, and contribute as valued members of their communities. Working with DANI promotes social inclusion and strengthens the social enterprise sector.

Commissionaires BC

Commissionaires BC provides a range of security services to government and commercial clients while employing over 1,300 veterans and former first responders on the Mainland of BC.

Kaleo Labs

Kaleo Labs is a non-profit consulting and education company that exists to support social enterprises and social purpose organizations through start-up labs and impact consulting. They work both nationally and internationally.