Business Advice for the Un-businessy

My friend Mike and I once had a very enlightening conversation. Mike is 25 and runs his own very successful Non-Profit called "Sustainable Waterloo", an environmental consulting group that helps tech companies in the Waterloo region voluntarily reduce emissions. Mike comes from a business background, and I from a liberal arts background. We have a lot of mutual respect for each other and what we bring to the table when it comes to being social and environmental innovators. There's just one catch: a person with business skills and an innovative, creative idea has a wayyy better chance of "making it" then does a liberal arts grad with innovative, creative ideas. Sad but true.

However, in that enlightening chat Mike and I had a while back, we talked about how necessary it is for the arts world to meet the business world, because the arts world often contains all of the liberal, new exciting ideas, and the business world has the tools and skills to make those ideas reality. Wouldn't it be great if Universities would pair liberal arts kids and business kids together a little more often to collaborate on projects in and out of the classroom?

In this same realm of merging the arts and business world together, York's YSEC (York's Sustainable Enterprise Consultants) are hosting a workshop for people with non-business backgrounds to talk about their ideas and explore business models that might work for them. (click here for the event brite website)

Facilitated by John Baker (Partner and Chief Executive of Aperio and member of the Faculty of the Schulich School of Business, York University), this introductory workshop will:

* explore different social enterprise models and how the 'numbers' change depending on the model

* examine ways to evaluate which model makes the most financial sense for your organization

* offer hands-on practice working with raw financial data

* demonstrate how to format finances in a way that is easier for other members of your organization or business to understand

* help you to understand finances as a process that creates sustainable social enterprises

* provide you with the foundation for future workshops in the "Finance is Sexy Workshop Series", including those on creating budgets, dealing with taxes, and accounting.


The About Face Collective will be there, and we'd recommend this workshop to any other artistically-backgrounded entrepreneurs with a creative vision who need the practical skills to get them to the next level!

See you there!

--Natalie and The About Face Collective