Ottawa’s social enterprise community is doing exceptional work, creating meaningful employment, and deeply investing in the communities they serve. The challenge has never been the quality of what they offer, it’s getting in front of the right buyers and closing deals. This fall, CSED is tackling that gap head-on with our Sales Acceleration Pilot: a novel initiative that embeds dedicated sales and outreach capacity directly into a portfolio of Ottawa-area social enterprises.
Thanks to funding from the City of Ottawa, CSED has brought on Akil Mesiwala to act as a centralized business development engine for a curated group of mission-driven businesses. In this role, Akil will be doing proactive outreach – identifying the right opportunities, building relationships, and making warm introductions that can turn into contracts.
We are proud to introduce the SEs that are participating in the pilot:
These diverse SEs prove that buying social is possible across a wide range of procurement categories. Akil has started working 1-1 with them to identify opportunities, make connections, and build sales pipelines.
This pilot is as much about learning as it is about closing deals. We’re tracking what works – which sectors respond, which conversations convert, and what it actually takes to move the needle for social enterprises at different stages of growth. The data that is gathered will help shape a long-term model for social enterprise supports, and we’ll be sharing what we learn along the way.
Could your organization add social impact to your procurement? We’d love to connect you with the right enterprise from our portfolio – no extra cost, no complexity. Reach out to Akil at akil@csedottawa.ca to start the conversation. And if you’re a social enterprise interested in joining the pilot, we want to hear from you too.