Almost 30 business people and community members from the communities of Temiscaming and Kipawa came together on January 26 to start a dialogue about how these communities can create sustainable initiatives to bolster their local economy.
The Business Vitality Initiative helps communities to identify strengths, gaps and unexplored opportunities in order to harness their business potential.
Communities can use BVI to assess their capacity to work with and support entrepreneurs and to foster business growth.
BVI has been employed in communities in Canada and Australia over the last five years, including CEDEC’s pilot in Campbell’s Bay during the Spring of 2010.
The Témiscaming/Kipawa Chambre of Commerce and Town of Témiscaming have partnered with CEDEC to sponsor the BVI in the area. An invitation-only Assessment Session took place on January 26, 2011. The assessment session measures the perceptions of a sampling of community leaders, business people and citizens about the current business environment in the community.
This 3-hour community meeting involved a questionnaire and focus group session. Within four to six weeks, a follow-up “Focus & Action” Session, open to all community members, will be held to share the 
results from the first meeting and to discuss and decide upon possible actions for improving business vitality.
The Business Vitality Initiative in Témiscaming is made possible through a collaboration between CEDEC, the Témiscaming/Kipawa Chambre of Commerce and Town of Témiscaming, and financial support from Industry Canada and Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions.
Benefits of the BVI
- Diagnoses a community’s entrepreneurial capacity with an easy-to-read graphical design
- Allows community to build common understanding and move a community from indecisiveness to action
- Brings business people, leaders and citizens together to build capacity
- Process uses the best features of quantitative, qualitative and focus group research to get an accurate reading of community
- Recruits new volunteers
- Gets community talking
- Improves a community’s business vitality allowing it to maximize business startup, expansion and attraction
Rhonda Morrison
Great to see the BVI being used in another community in Quebec. It really does work to get the community talking and get new people involved in their area's of interest! Congratulations Temiscaming and the CEDEC team!