Founded in Vancouver in 2001, EMBERS grew tired of chasing grants and started a temporary staffing business instead. It now places workers with employers across the Lower Mainland and puts its profits back into the community.
A Charity With a Revenue Problem
EMBERS, the Eastside Movement for Business and Economic Renewal Society, is a registered Canadian charity founded in Vancouver in 2001 by Marcia Nozick. Its mission is to create economic and employment opportunities by providing jobs, training and support, with the aim of moving people toward economic self-sufficiency.
It began as a micro-enterprise development organisation funded by grants and philanthropy. The difficulty with that model is familiar to anyone who has run a non-profit: a substantial share of leadership time goes into securing the next round of funding rather than delivering the work, and the programs live or die on decisions made elsewhere.
In 2008 the organisation did something about it. It launched EMBERS Staffing Solutions, a temporary staffing agency operating as a business, generating revenue that funds the charity’s other programs.
The Idea Came From a Community Member
The origin of that decision is worth repeating. The founder has described a Downtown Eastside resident telling her that a non-profit temporary agency would provide better pay and more support than the for-profit agencies operating in the neighbourhood.
That is a complete market analysis delivered in a sentence, and it came from the person the service was meant to serve rather than from a strategy exercise. The founder has also been candid about the risk involved, saying she knew it was a good idea but did not know the industry or how to start a business, and that moving from a grant-funded model to a self-funded one was a significant risk.
The agency now places workers in construction, warehousing, security and events across locations in BC and Alberta, reinvesting its profits into wages, equipment and training to support workers and the organization’s mission, rather than distributing them to private shareholders.
Removing the Barriers That Stop People Working
What distinguishes the operation is the practical support wrapped around the placement. The organisation provides bag lunches,equipment rentals and transportation as needed to job sites, at no charge to the worker.
Those three items are not charity in the conventional sense. They are the specific obstacles that prevent someone from taking a job they are otherwise capable of doing: no steel-toed boots, no bus fare, no food before a physical shift. Removing them costs relatively little and changes whether the placement happens at all.
Alongside the agency, EMBERS Training provides vocational and non-vocational training and certification for eligible workers,They also provide a Health Spending Account and a Match Savings Program, where EMBERS matches a workers’ savings up to $600 towards the purchase of an item that will increase the participant’s employability and career advancement.
The scale is substantial. In recent reporting the organisation described paying over $10 millions dollars in wages annually and employing well over a thousand people in a single year, and has published a social return on investment estimate of several dollars for every dollar paid in wages.
Why This Belongs in a Business Magazine
Two things make this directly relevant to readers.
The first is that EMBERS Staffing is a supplier. A business in construction, warehousing, security or events in BC and Alberta can hire through it on the same commercial terms as any agency, and the social outcome comes attached at no premium. That is social procurement in its simplest form, and it requires no policy, no budget line and no committee.
The second is the business model itself. A non-profit that builds a trading arm to fund its mission is solving the problem every Canadian charity faces, and doing it by selling something its community can genuinely deliver rather than by adding a gift shop. The founder’s recognitions, including a Governor General’s Innovation Award, reflect that the model rather than the sentiment is what earned attention.
For owners generally, the transferable question is the one that resident asked: what service does your organisation already know how to deliver better than the incumbents, and is anyone charging for it?
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Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available information intended only for informational purposes. CanadianSME Small Business Magazine does not endorse or guarantee any products or services mentioned. Readers are advised to conduct their research and due diligence before making business decisions.
