The Pond-Deshpande Centre at the University of New Brunswick has received $500,000 in funding from the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, which will help to finance UNB’s new diploma in social entrepreneurship.
The Pond-Deshpande Centre is one of six Canadian institutions to receive “transformation” funding from the Montreal-based foundation to develop a social venture ecosystem as part of its national RECODE initiative. Eight other institutions will receive the smaller $250,000 funding packages to begin to develop social entrepreneurship courses. The only other RECODE recipient in Atlantic Canada is Memorial University of Newfoundland.
“For us it’s huge,” said PDC Executive Director Karina LeBlanc this morning. “It’s great to get the recognition and it will help us to get our deal flow up.”
The funding will help the university to launch the first social entrepreneurship diploma program in Atlantic Canada. LeBlanc said she hopes the program will be available in September, and failing that will launch in January 2016.
The Pond-Deshpande Centre was launched two years ago by entrepreneurs and UNB grads Gerry Pond and Gururaj Deshpande with a dual mission – to develop entrepreneurship and encourage social entrepreneurship.
The centre said in a statement the grant will also expand the PDC’s existing social innovation programming, allowing UNB’s social innovators to address issues ranging from poverty and homelessness to accessing effective community health care.
The PDC plans to expand its Student Ambassador Program and Youth Entrepreneurship Summit to engage more students across the region.
The money should also help to develop UNB’s social venture accelerator, B 4 Change, and expand the funding of UNB’s Social Innovation Fund.
“The Pond-Deshpande Centre has created several strong partnerships in the past 24 months at UNB and across the Atlantic Provinces,” said Karina Leblanc, executive director of the Pond-Deshpande Centre. “This funding through RECODE will allow us to catalyze and launch the critical components of a thriving social entrepreneurial ecosystem, to the benefit of our students and the community.”
The Pond-Deshpande Centre’s Student Ambassador Program has brought together 50 students to provide mentorship, while the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit has engaged more than 200 students across Atlantic Canada.
Its Social Innovation Fund has distributed almost $200,000 in seed capital to 18 social ventures.
UNB is one of 18 colleges and universities across Canada receiving RECODE grants.
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