Academic Centers
Name of Center
Social Economy Centre
University of Toronto, Canada
http://socialeconomy.utoronto.ca
About the Center
The Social Economy Centre (SEC) of the University of Toronto promotes and disseminates multidisciplinary research and policy analysis on issues affecting the social economy. The Centre was established in 2005 as a unit of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. The directors are Jack Quarter and Laurie Mook.
Major Education Initiatives:
- Monthly workshop series for staff and board members of community organizations, through which participants can earn a certificate.
- Monthly speaker series on community issues.
- Development of backgrounds and fact sheets related to our research for educators and community organizations.
Major Research Projects:
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grant on the Social Economy: (info at: http://sec.oise.utoronto.ca/english/proj_intro.php)
- VolunteersCount project-
VolunteersCount is a web-based program (www.volunteerscount.net) that helps an organization track its volunteer contributions and estimate their value. It then generates reports that can be used internally by the organization to understand aspects of volunteer management, or externally to report to funders, donors and members, as the organization sees fit.
VolunteersCount is a product of two groups: the Social Economy Centre of the University of Toronto and the Academic Computing Group at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
The research that underlies the concepts in VolunteersCount was funded by a series of grants from Human Resources Development Canada, through Imagine Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Many of the underlying principles are in the book by Mook, Quarter and Richmond, What Counts: Social Accounting for Nonprofits and Co-operatives, Second Edition (Sigel Press, 2007)