For the Region is Done with Your Reports
SAINT JOHN – A new collective of Atlantic Canadian businesses and business leaders are sick of talking. They’re ready for some action.
For the Region is an organization aiming to bring Atlantic Canada’s business and community leaders together to take action that will improve the future of Atlantic Canada.
“The big idea behind For the Region is to build up an alliance of businesses and citizen leaders from every corner of Atlantic Canada that believe the original status quo is quite literally an economic death sentence, but (who are) together ready to make some big bold bets on how to grow the region,” says Aaron Emery, managing director of For the Region.
“It’s really coming at regional problems with a regional mentality, specifically with a business sensibility about it.”
Emery says the concept was inspired by the growing B-Corp movement.
“The origin of For the Region is taking the concept of better business and the global aspirations that use business as a force for good, and putting it in a real time, real place saying ‘It’s great to believe all this stuff at a theoretic and academic level, but what does it mean in our own back yard?” Emery says.
For the Region currently has a board of advisors, one of them being Matt Symes of Moncton’s Symplicity Designs, who’s also one of the founding members.
“When my brother and I were getting started with Symplicity Designs, we knew we wanted a philanthropic aspect. We became B-Corp certified and joined 1% for the Planet but we wanted to make sure we started a more local movement,” says Symes. “We talked in the early days of a regional organization focused on tackling major social issues. With that we began to recruit board members for this new organization. As a founding member of For the Region, it was our way to cement our commitment to the most pressing social problems we face in the region.”
One of For the Region’s missions is to be a regional voice for business, an unfettered voice of optimism and potential for Atlantic Canada.
“What we want to do is be loud and proud. To not be afraid to declare on the one hand if we do nothing, we’re fucked,” Emery says. “But also, we’re here for a reason. We see huge potential.”
But they’re not just going to be cheerleaders; they actually have plans to do stuff.
“We want to build a tool box of skills, services and resources from the business community that can be deployed in service of organizations that are actively growing the region,” says Emery.
“Whether that is a business that has a major growth initiative that would help bring 200 new employees, we want to help them figure out how to do that better. Or if it’s a non-profit . . . there are very real problems that we can help them solve in a different way other than just writing an annual cheque.”
This means businesses can offer their skills to a worthy cause, whether it be consulting, couching, resource deployment, anything really.
“Because this is the brain child of the business community, we want to ask businesses to do what they do well,” Emery says. “Not to harp on anyone else’s model, but we just think another model is possible.”
Symes says this model is also a way for businesses to know how their resources, money and time are being spent.
“Many businesses want to help but they also want to know that their dollars, time, and overall hours/skills are being used in a way that they can see and support,” he says. “For the Region is that organization. It takes corporate social responsibility to a new level.”
For the Region officially launched on June 1 with over 28 businesses and 38 business leaders on board. They unveiled their Fight not Flight Pledge along with “The Report, Report, Report” which takes aim at the fact that there have been many reports on Atlantic Canada’s problems, but little action to address them.
“We’re saying thank you for all the work that’s been done in the past, but let’s stop talking,” Emery says. “We’ve talked for 80 years and the problem has been the same for 80 years, now let’s act.”
Ultimately For the Region is an opportunity for businesses and citizens to ignore provincial boundaries and take real action on critical issues.
“It’s about building a culture of forgiveness and action,” says Emery. “Because we don’t know what the exact right thing is going to be, but I would rather try three things over the next 18 months and one of them work, than sit around and talk for another 24 waiting for us to be certain about something.”