Feb 15 - 17, 2022
April 28 - 30
We are building back better, together.
Women are bearing the brunt of the economic and social fallout from the global pandemic, but fear not. We are also the innovators and creative problem solvers who can, and are, building back better – together!
Come create community in the potent, highly curated, and brave space of SVI Women. Share your real time business struggles, problem solve with other women leaders, and generate innovative ideas and solutions while we navigate the new normal. As women entrepreneurs, we will gather for ourselves, for our businesses, for each other, and for the change we wish to see in the world.
Each participant brings a commitment of social change to their enterprise, whether a for-profit business or a non-profit organization. For over 25 years, the SVI model has provided more than 3,000 entrepreneurs the opportunity to strengthen business skills, network with other social enterprise leaders, and rejuvenate passion and vision. Join us virtually February 15 – 17, 2022 to fine tune your business strategies, learn best practices, and build lasting relationships with peers and mentors – all from the comfort of your own home.
Tuition: $395.00 CAD
Learn from and with the best.
SVI Women Virtual is highly interactive and experiential. Check out content from our 2021 event below:
Truth Telling
Personal and intimate “True Confession” speakers tell the truth about the instrumental learning moments on the challenges and successes of building a socially conscious business. Fill your tank and your heart with inspiration from accomplished innovators who took the leap, failed, succeeded, and gained invaluable insights along the journey.
BE Alink
Founder, Alinker
Rue Mapp
Founder and CEO, Outdoor Afro
Lynn-Marie Angus
Co-Founder, Sisters Sage
Carley Sheehy
Founder & CEO, Global Grub
Interactive Case Studies
SVIW Case studies are a core element of the agenda and provide a unique opportunity to learn about a strategic business challenge while a panel of experts and peers offer constructive and crucial feedback and insights. These intimate, confidential sessions dive deep on relevant and current business challenges, and offer universal learning for all participants.
Skill Building Workshops
Interactive skill-building workshops feature experienced entrepreneurs who have mastered best practices. These workshops offer a deep dive into a range of topics including from business strategy and marketing, to personal leadership, to justice, equity, and inclusion training.
Peer Networking, Mentoring & Community
Throughout the gathering you will have numerous opportunities to connect with like-minded leaders during breakout groups and peer coaching circles. We also offer one-on-one coaching sessions so you can gain individualized expertise and wisdom. After the convening you are also introduced to a highly engaged SVI alumni online community, where you can expand your network, share your game-changing ideas, make “asks and offers,” and meet up throughout the year.
As we move through this pivotal time in history, gathering together is an important and effective way to (re)connect with other extraordinary women who are leading the social enterprise movement. You don’t want to miss this!
Sample Agenda
Check out the 2021 agenda below for a taste of what’s to come in 2022
SVI Women Virtual takes the SVI model and presents it into 2 days of highly interactive learning.
Expect group learning together, as well as many breakouts in pairs and small groups to elevate your learning and deepen connection.
We know that dedicating 2 full days to an online conference can seem daunting, and we are designing an agenda to give you flexibility. We encourage you to attend as much as you can and will be recording True Confessions and Workshops to support balancing your schedule. *Please note that in order to protect confidentiality, Case Studies will not be recorded.
Times are presented in Pacific Time.
BE Alink is the founder and inventor of the Alinker walking bike, which she refers to as a vehicle of change. BE's reverse design practices / philosophy lead to the Alinker, which is not built for a "body-with-a-problem" but for who we are, active and engaged.
BE is a gender weirdo, and has often been called crazy, all over the place, scattered. People told her to focus, and to comply, but BE does not fit in, just held true to her vision that the world needs something else, for and by us all, no one excluded. BE focuses on who we are, not what we have.
With insane tenacity, commitment and dedication, BE has built her company into a movement of people showing up for each other. Years ago she said: "I dream of a world where the dismissed people of today, are our leaders of tomorrow", that is happening now.
Movement Session: Morning Qi
Hosted by Caroline MacGillivray (Beauty Night Society)
A gentle morning practice that uses breath work & movement and self massage to get your energy flowing and make you feel good!
Coffee Conversation: Scaling Small- From Efficiency to Resilience
Hosted by Usha Devi Venkatachalam (Krisha Janani) & Sarah Fitzgerald (45North)
Industrialization heralded an era of centralization, aggregation, and concentration in the name of efficiency. Technocratic, single-point solutions have disconnected us from our relationship with soil, water, and food. Covid-19 and the year 2020 have exposed the deep environmental, economic, and social flaws in that business model, especially in the agriculture and food sector. Small & growing business (SGBs) advocating for a disaggregated, decentralized, and distributed business models provide an alternative to the exploitative focus on efficiency. The most critical question in reimagining and rebuilding a post-Covid world is this: how can these SGBs scale their business models to nurture resilience?
What are the challenges facing SGBs that are trying to reshape the scale conversation to focus on resilience? How can short-term profit maximization give way to long-term 'seventh generation' SGBs? How can we make an artisanal, small-batch, local, and seasonal agri & food chain that is accessible to all? What are the operational, infrastructure, and financial challenges in scaling small? How can shared values, infrastructure, and responsibilities help SGBs in turning an entrepreneur's ""hero's journey"" into a community evolution story?
Who can build an ecosystem, blueprint, or framework for SGBs to scale? Who can become the connector and facilitator of a new business operating system that draws inspiration from nature to build an interconnected and interdependent whole?"
The Case Study model at SVI provides an opportunity for the entire conference to gain powerful and tangible skills to support running a successful social venture. Thriving businesses identify a specific challenge which our panel of experts and conference attendees will help provide insight on.
These fast-paced 60 second presentations allow you to introduce yourself and your enterprise to the gathering. This is your chance to pitch an idea or make that ask. Creativity and passion are encouraged.
Participants can sign up to host a casual, unstructured conversation. Whoever shows up for the conversation are the right people there, and people are welcome to pop in and out.
Rue Mapp is the Founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a national not-for-profit organization with offices in Oakland, CA, and Washington, D.C.
Rue oversees a carefully selected and trained national volunteer leadership team of nearly 90 men and women who represent 42 cities around the US, and shares opportunities to build a broader community and leadership in nature. Her important work has generated widespread national recognition and support. Since Outdoor Afro’s inception in 2009 as a blog, Rue has captured the attention and support of millions through a multimedia approach that is grounded in personal connections and community organizing. From its grassroots beginning, Outdoor Afro now enjoys national sponsorship and is recognized by major organizations for its role in addressing the ongoing need for greater diversity in the outdoors.
In 2010, Mapp was invited to the Obama White House to participate in the America’s Great Outdoors Conference, and subsequently to take part in a think-tank to inform the launch of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative. She was appointed program officer for the Stewardship Council’s Foundation for Youth Investment to oversee its grant-making program from 2010-2012. Since that time, Mapp’s work and op-eds have been featured in publications including The Wall Street Journal, Backpacker Magazine, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, Ebony Magazine, Outside Magazine, Sunset Magazine, NPR, and many others. Rue’s work has also been recognized with numerous awards and distinctions, including: The Root 100 as one of the most influential African Americans in the country (2012 and 2016), Outdoor Industry Inspiration Award, National Wildlife Federation Communication award (received alongside President Bill Clinton) and Family Circle Magazine selected Rue as one of America’s 20 Most Influential Moms.
Movement Session: Bellyfit®
Hosted by Loretta Laurin (Hollyhock / Empowered Bodies)
Bellyfit® is a fusion fitness system designed to empower women and non-binary people who are comfortable in femme-centric spaces. Connect with your body and spirit in this strong, sexy, and soulful combination of cardio-dance, core, stretch, and meditation. Bring a water bottle, supportive indoor running shoes (optional, can also do barefoot), a yoga mat, and be prepared to sweat! Loretta has been teaching movement for over a decade.
The Case Study model at SVI provides an opportunity for the entire conference to gain powerful and tangible skills to support running a successful social venture. Thriving businesses identify a specific challenge which our panel of experts and conference attendees will help provide insight on.
Get advice on your own challenge and support fellow entrepreneurs in Peer Coaching Circles.
Don't miss this chance to integrate what we've learned and close together in a good way.
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Movement Session8:00 am - 8:45 am
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Coffee Conversation (Scaling Small) OR Morning Movement (Qi)Choose to join an optional morning movement session or conversation over coffee.8:00 am - 8:45 am
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Interactive Case Study: Global Grub9:00 am - 11:00 am
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Marketplace of Ideas11:15 am - 12:15 pm
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Lunchtime Conversations12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
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Workshops1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
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True Confessions: Rue Mapp (Outdoor Afro)Fill your tank and your heart with inspiration from accomplished innovators who took the leap, failed, succeeded, and gained invaluable insights along the journey.3:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Meet your people.
Join extraordinary women from all around the world.
SVI Women is geared towards founders, CEOs, and leaders of established mission-led businesses and non-profit social enterprises. Emerging enterprise leaders, social change leaders, artists, and specialists in fields and areas that connect and crossover into venture space are welcomed to consider participating.
We welcome all women (cis and trans) as well as non-binary people who are comfortable in a space that centers the experience of women.
Your Producer Team
Pamela Chaloult
CEO, Practical Feet Advisors
Laurel Dault
Social Innovation Manager, Hollyhock
Vanessa Richards
Director, Creative Together
SVI Women Advisory Circle
Martha Belcher
CEO, Retooling for Growth
Jennifer Chapman
Former Head of People, Fairtrade USA
Laura Didyk
Vice President & National Lead, Women Entrepreneurs at BDC
Jill Earthy
Executive Director, Women’s Enterprise Centre
Sherri Pittman Howard
CEO, Being Human
Allison Kaiser Kelly
CEO, ICA
Esther Park
CEO, Cienega Capital
Our Partners
We are grateful to our Partners and Sponsors who provide critical support to ensure SVI Women’s success and to increase accessibility by supporting the conference scholarship fund. If you are interested in partnering with SVI Women Virtual, please connect with us.
Community Amplifiers
BE Alink is the founder and inventor of the Alinker walking bike, which she refers to as a vehicle of change. BE’s reverse design practices / philosophy lead to the Alinker, which is not built for a “body-with-a-problem” but for who we are, active and engaged.
Rue Mapp is the Founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a national not-for-profit organization with offices in Oakland, CA, and Washington, D.C.
Lynn-Marie Angus is a co-founder of Sisters Sage, an Indigenous brand that hand-crafts wellness and self-care products inspired by our culture and traditions. Born and raised in East Vancouver, Canada. Her heritage is Gitxaala, Nisga’a, and Metis Nations. She is from the West Coast and the prairies and celebrates and shares her culture enthusiastically!
Carley is the founder and CEO of Global Grub, a line of globally-inspired DIY food kits for cooking adventures at home. As a mostly one-woman show, Carley wears many hats from operations and sales to innovation and strategy, and everything in between.