Cbc dragons den hope blooms

9B16A052 HOPE BLOOMS: MARKETING A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AFTER DRAGONS’ DEN Margaret McKee, Ethan Pancer, and Chantal Hervieux wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. This publication may not be transmitted, photocopied, digitized, or otherwise reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission of the copyright holder. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Business School, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 0N1; (t) 519.661.3208; (e) cases@ivey.ca; www.iveycases.com. Copyright © 2016, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: 2016-10-07 A day before her last board of directors’ meeting for 2015, Jessie Jollymore, executive director and founder of Hope Blooms (HB), reflected on the past year. An appearance on the CBC show Dragons’ Den two years earlier had significantly increased the profile of HB and helped attract new customers and social investors. The organization had recently moved into a permanent home in a newly renovated retail and manufacturing space in the heart of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It had signed a new distribution deal with a major grocery store chain that would sell HB’s dressings in a few selected pilot stores and return 100 per cent of the sales to the organization. HB had also become a registered charity, which had its own unique opportunities and challenges. By making the business a registered charity, Jollymore aimed to protect and grow it for the youth involved in HB’s programs. Yet, being a registered charity brought constraints and did not solve two of the organization’s fundamental problems: how could the retail operations provide stable employment for its youth members, and how could HB increase its profits to continue to expand its activities? The retail business really had just one product category: fresh herb dressings. The dressings were popular and consistently sold out at local markets and grocery stores, which constrained certain growth opportunities based on production and capacity issues. As Jollymore prepared for her upcoming board of directors’ meeting, she had an eye on the future beyond securing charitable donations and grants. She was thinking of ways to successfully grow the business while creating sustainable funding for youth-driven projects in a community that had been marginalized for generations. THE GERMINATION OF AN IDEA Jollymore launched HB in 2007 while she was working as a registered dietitian at the North End Community Health Centre. She had been with the health centre for eight years, helping to educate people about healthy eating, food security issues, and dealing with food-related chronic illness such as diabetes. Jollymore had come to realize that simply telling people about the importance of a healthy diet was not enough. She realized that if people could not afford to buy healthy food, they felt disempowered. In getting to know the youth and families through her time in the North End community, Jollymore had developed a Page 2 9B16A052 love for their rich culture and heritage. She was fond of saying that “beauty and brilliance are not defined by a postal code,” and she meant it. She had spent much of 2006 looking for a way to help the youth in the North End become change makers who would actively build brighter futures for themselves while contributing to the health and well-being of their home community. Six months later, with these ideas still in the back of her mind, Jollymore was walking past an abandoned garden next to Uniacke Square and Murray Warrington Park,