We offer four categories of expertise
With over 25 years of experience in Community Economic Development (CED), Eko Nomos works with all forms of social purpose enterprises for marginalized populations, including community businesses, self-employment programs and co-operatives. We have developed economic literacy curricula and worked closely with programs such as Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) to further sustainable livelihoods for individuals. Our technical assistance and capacity-building supports allow organizations to both improve programming and document effective practices.
Canadian Women’s Foundation Economic Development Collaborative Fund; Social Purpose Enterprise Practice Development and Outcomes Research, 1997 and ongoing
This long-term initiative brings together seven foundations and corporations to support women's social purpose enterprise development across Canada. The Collaborative Fund includes the CIBC, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, George Cedric Metcalf Foundation, and the Bank of Montreal. During the Fund’s first five years, Eko Nomos facilitated a collaborative process with grantees to capture effective practices in the implementation of social purpose enterprises with women. Link to paper 1 ; Link to paper 2
Since 2003 we have completed a five-year action research and learning process with the Fund’s 10 social enterprise development grantees during which we identified effective practice and outcomes.
This project also produced an evaluation guide providing tools, methods and systems that can be used to support organizations in documenting and analyzing the outcomes of their work.
Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rural Programs Branch; Internet-Based Evaluation Toolkit, 2003 – 2005
Eko Nomos designed an Internet-based toolkit for evaluating local economic development projects in rural Ontario. It provides step-by-step guidance on: building action research and evaluation into project management; collecting and analysing evaluation information and; communicating evaluation results. We also provided training to Ministry staff in using the toolkit.
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA); Business Retention and Expansion Evaluation Planning and Capacity-Building, 2000
The Business Retention and Expansion Program supports rural community efforts to promote economic development and growth. Eko Nomos developed a series of workshops to assist community groups in developing planning and evaluation strategies for business retention and expansion programs. The manual we wrote for these workshops introduces and explains the project planning cycle and outcome-based evaluation concepts.
Women and Rural Economic Development (WRED); Training Design, Grey County, 1993 to 1998
Eko Nomos was actively involved in the design of a community-based self-employment training program that supported a micro-lending pool and individualized consultations for low-income rural residents. The WRED Self-Employment and Enterprise Development (SEED) Curriculum was designed, piloted and written by Eko Nomos, which also trained the self-employment program trainers.