Each year, Community Futures Ontario circulates two surveys on professional development needs; one for board members and one for staff.

Watch your inbox for these links. The more information you can give us, the better the quality of professional development we can provide for you.

The results will be reviewed with the regional networks and the Professional Development Committee so we can secure dates for courses of interest in 2021.

We are also looking to fill professional development needs in French and are looking for suppliers. If you have a contact and can recommend a delivery agent to us, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Ontario Supporting Small Businesses with Financial Advice and Training

“The project will also build one central portal where businesses can access digital tools and training, connect with mentors and industry experts, and get information on government programs to help them navigate COVID-19 and beyond. Through this network, up to 75,000 small businesses in Ontario can be reached.

The government is also providing $131,000 for Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada to develop and deliver a four-part COVID-19-specific financial literacy tool kit for small businesses.

Ontario is also providing $51,000 for Financial Advisors Association of Canada, a non-profit association of financial advisors, to provide pro-bono professional financial advice for small companies through its online platform, Advocis Connect.”

Read full article

Ontario Supports Small Main Street Businesses with PPE Grant

To help with the unexpected costs of PPE

Eligibility

To be eligible, your business must have two to nine employees and be in one of the following sectors:

• Retail
• Accommodation and food services
• Repair and maintenance
• Personal and laundry services

Eligible small businesses will get one-time grants of up to $1,000.

Apply here

The Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund (IPRF) is an Indigenous-led effort to respond to urgent community needs while taking a long-term view on building community resilience.

Any Indigenous-led organization or Indigenous-serving organization working to foster resilience in Inuit, Metis and First Nations communities anywhere in Canada can apply for resiliency funds ranging from $5,000 to $30,000.

More info and application

There are two plans available for Extended Health Care and two plans available for Dental Care. If you are interested in upgrading your plan to the Enhanced version, Mariam Gobran of Lawrie Insurance Group Inc. must receive your request by December 15th, 2020.  The new Enhanced Plan Coverage commences February 1st.  This upgrade is only allowed at this time, otherwise your next opportunity to upgrade is December 2021.

For inquiries or to join our group health plan, please contact Mariam Gobran at 1-800-661-1518 x1417 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or our Senior Group Benefit Consultant, Sharon Wilson, at 1-800-661-1518 x1434 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

(Please sign in as a member first in order to access the links below)

RRRF Round 2 promotional material

FedDev has now provided promotional guidelines and directions for southern CFDCS. Both the East and the West region had already prepared promotional material for their CFDCS. They are all accessible here.

Steeper Discount with UPS

Great news!  The discount for the CF Ontario UPS Canada shipping program has increased to 50%. 

Click here to enroll:  www.membersbenefitprogram.com/CFOntario  or call 1-800-MEMBERS (1-800-636-2377), M-F, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST.

You can find this and other member discounts here.

Delisted Health Care Providers

With supplier fraud on the rise, please click here for Desjardins’ delisted providers.  This is a new service Desjardins is providing to help protect participants from fraudulent claims.  We recommend you check for updated lists periodically on the Desjardins website.

Group Savings and Retirement Plan

Manulife has a VIP room that lets you log in sign in and check your account balance and download a statement? Find the brochure to register here.

There’s a full list of webinar dates for 2020 on their website.

A calendar of topics for 2021 can be found here.

With international travel restricted due to COVID-19, the CanExport SMEs program is pivoting to now help small businesses:

• Develop and expand their e-commerce presence by covering partial costs associated with online sales platforms and digital strategy consulting, as well as advertising and search engine optimization
• Attend virtual trade shows and other business-to-business events
• Navigate new COVID-19-related trade barriers by helping pay for new international market certifications and requirements

Apply for CanExport SMEs funding

Registration Open for EDCO’s 64^th Annual Conference

Grab a coffee and join your fellow economic developers every Wednesday morning from January 20 to February 29, 2021.

Register today and take advantage of EDCO’s flexible conference series registration options. Earn valuable professional certification points by registering for the full conference series.

Program details and registration

EDCO Members: Have you checked out your special access to Economic Development Online yet?

Economic Development Online is your 24/7 resource for best practices and self-directed learning. It is designed for people who currently work in community and economic development as well as those who plan to work or volunteer in this field.

Four Information Gateways are available with access to best practices, templates, and self-study modules.

For more information about your log-in access, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Despite the challenges faced by many tourism operators across the province, Jayden Symonds and Northwest Outfitters are doing just fine. Symonds runs year-round guided fishing trips on Lake of the Woods and rents out a fish house sleeper in the winter.

“I got into fishing at a really young age alongside my dad and grandfather and learning all there was to know from generations of experienced anglers. By the age of eight I was entered into my first competitive bass tournament and that is where I really got hooked.

I started to guide at the age of 15. Over the last five years I have learned an immense amount of knowledge about the Lake of the Woods area and have had much success.

Having action packed days and meeting people from all over the continent and having a blast out on the water is what I really enjoy about guiding.”

He is supported by the Lake of the Woods Business Incentive Centre.

Contact Northwest Outfitters

Becky McCray & Deb Brown are the creators of SaveYourTown.

"Deb has a wealth of experience that includes leading a small town chamber of commerce, foreign casualty insurance underwriting, bartending, managing internet stores and luggage stores, selling knives, and working with small towns. Deb has lived in tiny towns, small towns, small cities and a major metro city.

Becky’s career in small towns includes work as owner of retail stores, as city administrator for a municipality of 990 people, as an executive with rural nonprofits and as a teacher of computer and business classes. In 2004, she ran for state legislature, losing by just one vote per precinct. She believes we learn from both our successes and our failures, even when those failures are printed in the local newspaper. She makes her home in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a town of 30 people. She doesn’t just talk about rural issues; she lives them."

They have created a stockpile of resources and videos.

Here’s their list of ways to help small businesses.

Are your clients struggling to think through their succession, exit, or recovery?

The University of Waterloo - Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR)’s Legacy Leadership Lab is accepting applications from Community Futures offices to participate in their upcoming 5+1 hour Design workshop – BUILD, happening December 8-10.

BUILD will assemble leaders in social innovation, social finance, business succession and recovery, and social and cooperative enterprise development and support them in developing tailor-made products, services, programs, resources, and tools that they can deliver to their membership and clients. The solution designed must advance social acquisitions in some way (e.g. it should be able to be mapped onto this process somehow).

L3’s workshops are co-creative, co-learning opportunities for leaders and stakeholders looking to take charge of their communities’ business succession and recovery challenges and build back more sustainable and socially driven small business sectors.

Register here or learn more by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

From the creative folks at Your Town Rising:

“If your video is going to be an Instagram Story, then hold your phone vertically. If it's going to be posted at Facebook, you can hold your phone vertically or horizontally. Alternatively, you may want to use an app like InShot to crop your video to be square.”

Read article

“Canada’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for more than 90 percent of private-sector jobs in Canada. To be competitive in today’s market, they need the right people with the right skills, yet they are disproportionately threatened by labour shortages and skills gaps - a situation made worse by COVID-19.

Key Takeaways

• 40 percent of SMEs studied in 2019 identified skills shortages as a major competitive challenge, up four percent from the year before.
• SMEs facing labour shortages are 43 percent more likely to experience low growth, requiring their employees to work longer hours and incurring delays in services rendered.
• The need to further analyze the situation of skills shortages for SMEs in Canada is clear. It is paramount to clarify what skills are needed by organizations to be more agile and competitive. And it’s key to develop proper HR practices that will allow for better recruitment, training (formal and informal) and retention of talent.”

Read more details and full report

Tuesday Dec 8 - 10:00am ET

Winter Travel Preferences Research

With the ever-changing landscape, SWOTC & Destination Managers are working with Abacus Data to check in with travelers to understand travel preferences and intentions for the winter season.  David and Oksana will share what we’ve learned and what you need to know! 

Register here

Tuesday Jan 12 - 1:00pm ET

Destination Repositioning, Best Practices From Around the Globe

Join Rachel Dodds, author, professor, and Director of Sustaining Tourism, as she shares examples of how destinations around the globe are repositioning their destinations. 

Register here

“How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health of Canadian entrepreneurs? To find out, BDC surveyed 500 entrepreneurs to better understand their ability to cope with the crisis as well as their largest sources of stress and worries.

We find that while 64% of entrepreneurs reported having their business situation under control, close to two-thirds also reported feeling tired and unenergetic at least once a week.”

Read full report

Counselling Socially Motivated and Community-Minded Clients
December 10, 2020 - 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

COST IS $250

Social entrepreneurship is hardly a new concept; depending on how you define it, it dates back decades. However, as an ever-larger number of entrepreneurs look to connect their business goals with social ones, it has never been more important for business development agencies and professionals to understand their needs, wants, and motivations.

In ‘Counselling Socially Motivated and Community-Minded Clients’, we’ll examine the social entrepreneurship landscape and profile the modern social entrepreneur.

This is a half day, online course.

Register here