Securing funding after a 1 1/2-year pursuit has opened the door for Innovate Cochrane and the Town of Cochrane to further pursue their shared vision of attracting, launching and growing new businesses of all forms in the community.
This week, the pair jointly announced it was successful in securing up to $953,180 in funding over three years through the federal government's PrairiesCan Regional Innovation Ecosystems Program. The funding will assist in funding the Cochrane Business Incubator, Community Innovation Ecosystem Program and events organized by Innovate Cochrane.
Nathan Klassen, co-founder of Innovate Cochrane, says securing funding for nonprofits is a highly competitive affair and requires a discipline approached to proving the value of the investment.
"A year and a half ago, we started by bringing them out to Cochrane to share our visible story of what we were doing in the community innovation space. That story really resonated with them, especially around some of the programming that we wanted to do to help train and build innovation capacity, measure innovation capacity and the economic impact of innovation."
How do we do community in new ways includes everybody, he explains.
"There are so many puzzle pieces," he says. "We exist as an organization to test what happens when you intentionally connect more of those puzzle pieces, and what emerges from that."
He says they are seeing success from their two years of fostering stronger connections between the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. Those collaborations are resulting in better outcomes for all.
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It's Community Innovation Ecosystem Program, offered in partnership with Unbounded Thinking, started as an experiment to explore the opportunity for community connectiveness, innovation. capacity building.
"We've brought a little more discipline to the topic of innovation, and we tested it by putting it into organizations of all shapes and sizes. We had every type of organization in our nine-member cohort and that was part of the magic. They weren't all the same, they were intentionally different, and we just saw such amazing outcomes by bringing them together in the same room."
The funding will also assist Innovate Cochrane in hosting monthly its monthly Community Innovators Speaker Series with local leaders to foster connections and knowledge sharing.
The town's business incubator program, located in The Station, 360 Railway St. W., provides early-stage companies access to downtown office space and amenities, mentorship and programming to help them establish roots and grow their business in Cochrane.
Since its launch in late 2023, eight businesses have begun the program.
In August, the federal government announced over $15.6 million was being allocated through the Regional Innovation Ecosystems (RIE) program through PrairiesCan.
Through this program, PrairiesCan is making targeted investments in not-for-profit organizations that support businesses in priority sectors to innovate, grow and compete globally. These investments are expected to support more than 1,100 jobs and create new opportunities by developing innovative products, services, and technologies.
Cochrane's funding was announced on Aug. 30. Cochrane was one of 16 projects announced on Aug. 30.
“Our government is making strategic investments to build on Alberta's solid track record of commercializing products, services, and technologies that the world needs,” states Dan Vandal, for PrairiesCan minister, in a news release. “This investment in the Town of Cochrane and Innovate Cochrane will enable local entrepreneurs to create and bring to market new innovations that compete within Canada and around the world.”
To learn more about business programs available through the town visit here.
To learn more about Innovate Cochrane click here.
