Prosperity That Belongs to Everyone
Discover how shared ownership builds real community wealth.
This is a defining moment to shape the future of resilient communities
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Wealth concentration
The top 5% of Canadian families own over 43% of the nation’s total wealth, while the bottom 40% of families own only 1.2%. This wealth concentration is growing, adding increased pressure on already strained systems.
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SME Business Transition
Over the next decade, 75% of Canadian Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) will transition ownership, representing $2T in assets. Private Equity buys many of these SME’s, extracting value from community and further concentrating wealth.
Vital community systems – including housing, food security, and health – are under increasing pressure, mirroring a national crisis of affordability and access. As wealth is further concentrated, communities are strained to solve these complex problems.
Traditional social models often struggle to compete at scale against private equity and corporations, limiting their impact on community benefit initiatives. They remain fragmented and unable to match the power of corporations.
The Missing Link
A unifying framework for Community Ownership
Circle Foundation
OPERATING SYSTEM FOR WHAT COMES NEXT
To build a resilient community economy, we first need a new way of working together. We found that the “missing link” isn’t just a legal structure – it is the human capacity for collaborative governance, navigating complexity, and moving from maximizing individual interest to harmonizing community value.
Circle is an ancient social technology that catalyzes human potential.
Circle is the foundation from which we are building a new table for leadership and collaboration.
Our Model: CEF
Community Enterprise Framework
The Community Enterprise Framework (CEF) is a scalable system for building community-owned ventures. It combines the stewardship of a not-for-profit with the resilience of for-profit business models, to keep prosperity circulating within community.
We begin with community dialogue to build relationships and surface shared challenges. This creates the essential foundation for genuine co-creation and activation.
This framework powers every initiative we launch – a repeatable system for shared prosperity, connecting people, business, and place so value continues to circulate.
Introducing Community Enterprise Framework (CEF)
Framework for Community Ownership
A unifying and scalable operating system bridging the gap between social mission and financial sustainability.
CEF in Action
Community Solar Pilot
Our first venture is a Community Solar project underway in Penticton, enhancing grid resiliency and community benefits.
Phased Development Plan
The Power of Collaborative Okanagan Community
Together, we have the resources and expertise to build systems for resilient community wealth. This begins by building the infrastructure to transition assets into community stewardship, while actively tending relationships among key organizations, investors, entrepreneurs, and community members to catalyze on-the-ground transformations.
The design lab is a collaborative process to build infrastructure and transition local businesses into community ownership, and foundation for systemic transformation.
Design Lab Process:
- Convene key community partners into multi-week design lab.
- Co-design hybrid financial/legal structures.
- Develop investment, philanthropic, and blended capital pathways.
Outcomes:
- Develop pipeline of acquisition targets.
- Comprehensive community acquisition roadmap.
- Pathway for training community entrepreneurs.
In collaboration with key stakeholders we finalize the framework and operationalize.
Actions:
- Execute 1-3 first acquisitions using the roadmap.
- Secure blended investment and guide transitions.
Outcomes:
- Stabilize and grow ventures as community-owned ventures focused on job retention and shared returns.
- Build shared infrastructure and expand the portfolio
Community capacity really starts to build momentum. Collectively we have capacity to address larger systemic challenges.
- Deploy centralized Shared Services & AI tools for efficiency and smart governance.
- Grow & scale ventures to address housing, food, health, and energy challenges.
- Reinvest locally for intergenerational prosperity and land stewardship.
- Convene next community design lab focus on local challenge.
Who we are
Circularity.One emerged in Kelowna, BC, from a deep inquiry into root causes of our shared challenges. The foundation of our work – the Community Enterprise Framework – was co-created during a community design lab in 2020.
Our experienced team is committed to going beyond symptoms to design resilient systems for community wealth. We believe circular practices and structures hold the key to unlocking individual and collective potential.
