Mission
Reducing Poverty Through Community-Owned Business
Community Ownership Solutions helps communities build businesses that create good jobs, support local talent, and keep wealth close to home.
We believe that business can be used as a powerful tool to reduce poverty — not through short-term fixes, but through long-term, community-led solutions.
Our mission is to support the creation of social enterprises — businesses owned by the people they serve. These businesses create real opportunity, build stability, and help communities grow stronger from the inside out.
By focusing on ownership, not just employment, we help people build wealth over time, giving them a real stake in the future.
COS was founded by a small group of people working in the venture capital industry in Manitoba. Following extensive consultations and planning with a set of North American business and community development professionals, COS was formally established in 1999. At this time COS became Canada’s first registered charity using a focus on market-based business models to achieve social outcomes in poverty reduction and high quality employment.