From Policy to Action: Building Infrastructure for Social and Economic Impact

The Issue

Present economic systems do not serve everyone equally, with current generations facing the prospects of lower economic prosperity compared to their parents and previous generations. This disparity underscores the need for community wealth building, a strategy designed to address and rectify these systemic imbalances. Community wealth building emphasizes inclusivity, striving for fairer outcomes and broader participation in the labour market, particularly for historically underserved groups. 

Social procurement, which prioritizes purchasing goods and services from businesses that contribute to positive social, environmental and economic outcomes, is one of many important components of community wealth building. By supporting diversely owned businesses and social enterprises, social procurement not only stimulates local economies but also fosters a more equitable distribution of wealth. 

Additionally, community wealth building involves fostering local ownership and control of assets, promoting cooperative business models, and investing in local infrastructure. This holistic approach ensures that economic benefits are retained within communities, contributing to long-term, sustainable development and empowering residents to actively shape their economic futures.

What We Investigated

AnchorTO is a network of 18 public sector organizations, such as universities and colleges, government agencies and community builders, based in the city of Toronto. The goal of AnchorTO was to leverage their procurement spending in ways that improved the long-term health and social well-being of their communities. The AnchorTO network has created frameworks, tools and policies; conducted research; and engaged its members in knowledge exchange.

Funding from FSC facilitated a shift in focus to more of an intermediary role, supporting suppliers and the other anchor institutions. AnchorTO aimed to accelerate local, economic impact anchor institutions can have in communities and sectors in Central Ontario and the greater Toronto area. 

Between 2021 and 2023, AnchorTO conducted research and mapped existing social procurement opportunities against communities hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, engaged with diversely owned businesses to develop user resources for social procurement pathways and create a prototype for a business hub.

What We’re Learning

Aligning efforts among the 18 institutions within AnchorTO proved challenging. The top challenges to successful implementation of activities included:

• Each institute had its own intricate procurement processes that were hard to modify, let alone coordinate with others. The lack of consensus on the definition of a “diverse supplier” also posed a significant hurdle, as a shared definition was the foundation for many of the proposed project activities.
• The project lead found it challenging to provide valuable content that catered to members at various procurement maturity levels and capacities. 
• Breakdowns in communication hindered coordinated efforts, and members identified that a lack of constructive dialogue and mutual respect was a barrier to establishing a productive, collaborative environment.

Overall, evaluators for the project concluded that the activities outlined in the proposal were too ambitious—the change envisioned by project partners would have likely taken many years to achieve, rather than the two years allotted. The evaluation also pointed to an underlying assumption that progress toward social goals would be best achieved by harmonizing policies and practices across member institutions and that an intermediary would be effective at leading harmonization. However, there was little evidence validating this assumption, and those interviewed expressed that they felt the proposed project activities did not reflect the priorities of network members.