Harbourfront Centre’s objective is to share what we have learned with as many organizations as possible and to ensure they benefit from the work we have done. As an arts and culture focused charity, we do not have the liberty to jeopardize our core mandate to achieve that objective. To attract a large base of participants, typically an organization in our position would have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on branding and promotions; that was not within our means. Any upfront costs would have contributed to higher and more prohibitive participation fees.
Over the years, we have developed a wide array of relationships with government and non-government organizations dedicated to delivering education and training focused on sustainability. By demonstrating our model fills a gap in available knowledge we have enticed many of these organizations to partner with us by hosting REFOCUS Certification Workshops and inviting their already engaged membership or audience to participate. In doing so, Harbourfront Centre creates the capacity to reach a significant audience of participants without expending resources on promoting our program.
As part of sharing our program broadly, we are committed to making it as accessible as possible. In most cases, a program like this would be proprietary and quite expensive for participants. Our intention is to charge participants the minimum fee that will allow us deliver an exceptional training experience and continue to enhance the platform. Cost-recovery pricing will serve to make our program available at a small fraction of its market price and accessible to many more organizations, especially those like non-profits that are traditionally less able to invest in educational activities.1,2
Footnotes
1. Learn more about what a Social Enterprise is here: http://www.socialenterprisecanada.ca/en/learn/nav/whatisasocialenterprise.html
2. To read more about the theory and practice of this model the print source Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice by Rory Duff and Mike Bull offers great information. Available in Print.
