CSED Sales Acceleration Pilot

A novel initiative that embeds dedicated sales and outreach capacity directly into a portfolio of Ottawa-area social enterprises.

Buying Social, Made Easy

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. In 2026, CSED is tackling that gap head-on with the launch of 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 City of Ottawa funding support, CSED will act as a centralized business development engine for a curated group of mission-driven businesses. In this role, Akil Mesiwala will be doing proactive outreach – identifying the right opportunities, building relationships, and making warm introductions that can turn into contracts.

Participating Social Enterprises

We are proud to introduce the social enterprises participating in the pilot:

  • BottleWorks offers commercial bottle and can recycling pickup, providing meaningful employment to at-risk youth
  • DAALO provides janitorial, maintenance, flyer delivery and staffing services to create employment for immigrants and refugees
  • FoodWorks delivers chef-prepared catering and onsite cafeteria programs, training at-risk youth in culinary programs
  • Harvest House Printshop does apparel printing, with funds helping men recover from addiction
  • Hot Shoe Productions creates social impact films, short-form video content, and podcasts, employing youth, and
  • Nutrition Blocs designs and delivers fresh, budget-friendly meal programs for children and youth, community health, and social service organizations.

Driving Impact and Learning

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.

Get Involved

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. Alternatively, you can book a 15 minute meeting with Akil.