Relationships in Place: The Genesis of Our Project
Some of the best ideas and partnerships surface when you get to know one another, commit to deep alignment, work side by side, and listen for the patterns in what communities are asking for.
That’s what happened in Yellowknife.
The Tamarack Institute and Small Economy Works found ourselves walking alongside the same young people and community partners, holding similar values, and navigating similar challenges.
At the centre of this work was a community collaborative, a group of local partners who come together across sectors to work toward a shared goal. In this case, Tamarack was in partnership with the Communities Building Youth Futures (CBYF) collaborative in Yellowknife, supporting them to better understand the systemic barriers young people face in education and employment. Small Economy Works was supporting Inspire NWT, its local subsidiary, helping youth to build businesses rooted in cultural and community impact through its Initiate program. Inspire NWT was also a member of CBYF Yellowknife, and we connected first at a jointly organized entrepreneurship pitch showcase, which brought together diverse collaborative partners, from the local youth shelter to the TD Bank branch.
In that room, and in many conversations that followed, we began to wonder.
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What would happen if local community collaboratives supported entrepreneurs more intentionally?
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Could entrepreneurs, in turn, strengthen the community’s financial stability goals?
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Local work is essential (but insufficient on its own) to transform systems. How can local, regional, and provincial/territorial strategies better work together to promote access to capital, markets, and mentorship for entrepreneurs, and access to financial stability for whole communities?
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What does it take to build a strategy that’s both rooted in local relationships and scalable across many rural, remote, and Northern communities?
These questions - and our shared values and goals - spurred our deeper partnership.
Aligning Assets
Thanks to generous support from the TD Ready Challenge, Tamarack and Small Economy Works are launching a national collaboration that brings together multiple assets: Tamarack’s deep network of place-based community collaboratives, and Small Economy Works’ proven localized entrepreneurship training program, Initiate.
Together, we’re exploring what it takes to support entrepreneurs in ways that are community-rooted, culturally relevant, and replicable, especially in places where access to capital, mentorship, and infrastructure remains limited.
This isn’t about starting from scratch. It’s about building on what already works in communities and testing what becomes possible when entrepreneurship support and local collaboration are part of the same approach and ecosystem.
Centring Rural & Remote Entrepreneurs
Across the country, rural and remote entrepreneurs are driving change. They’re creating businesses that are resilient, place-based, and often deeply tied to community well-being. But too often, they face barriers that limit their potential. This includes economic and social isolation, limited training that is often generic and expensive, lack of digital infrastructure, and restricted access to capital.
Our partnership is designed to respond directly to these realities, with an approach that’s flexible, contextualized, scalable, and grounded in local collective leadership.
Scaling Impact: From Local Examples to Systemic Change
In this new collaboration, Small Economy Works will expand its Initiate program to reach underserved entrepreneurs of all ages across Canada, with a focus on those in rural, remote, and Northern communities. The program will be delivered through two tailored pathways, each offering high-quality, localized training — whether in a structured cohort or a flexible, self-directed format.
Pathway 1: In-Person & Virtual Cohorts.
Six cohorts of 20 leaders will take part in a 12-week program that combines gamified, goal-oriented learning with personalized mentorship. The program is designed to build confidence through action, so participants will earn points and unlock rewards as they achieve business tasks in marketing, operations, and finance. Local mentors will guide them step by step, so they leave with a tangible business plan and the confidence to launch or grow their ventures.
Pathway 2: Adaptive learning through a Virtual AI platform.
Entrepreneurs who want or need flexibility will instead build their business acumen on the virtual AI platform, which will offer high-quality training on demand. The platform is interactive, guiding participants through modules and adapting to their progress and difficulty level. It will use an AI mentor that will build tailored learning pathways for each participant based on their unique needs and business goals. Micro-credentials are awarded as participants hit key milestones, so their skills are also acknowledged by institutional partners.
Grounded in Community Collaboratives
This initiative does more than just train entrepreneurs - it connects them to a local ecosystem around them.
We will invite entrepreneurs from communities where Tamarack already supports local collaboratives. These collaboratives will host programming aligned with the collaborative’s work to become a sustainable support system.
What will this alignment look like? It will be contextualized to each community, but will focus on two things:
- Nurturing entrepreneurs – This could look like the collaborative providing entrepreneurs with data on market trends, coaching them on their business plans, or connecting them with suppliers, customers, or policy makers.
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Accelerating partnership goals – Many enterprises create jobs, services and products that benefit the wealth of a local community or provide a social or environmental benefit. In some communities, we anticipate that entrepreneurs will join local collaboratives, align their ventures to the community’s broader financial stability plan, and accelerate progress toward the collaborative’s goal.
A good portion of the TD Ready Challenge grant will go directly toward compensating collaboratives and entrepreneurs for their time, expertise and contributions.
What We Aim to Achieve
By the spring of 2028, we aim to:
- Support 300 entrepreneurs with relevant, high-quality training
- Launch or scale 150 businesses in rural, remote, and Northern communities
- Connect participants to seed funding or financing opportunities
- Explore our key learning questions in at least three communities
- Share our findings to inform local, regional, and national strategies
The Bigger Vision
When paired with strong community infrastructure, innovative technology, and community collaboration, entrepreneurship becomes a tool not just for individual success but for systems change.
This project is about more than launching businesses. It’s about creating conditions for wealth, hope and connection in communities. It’s about designing strategies that reflect the realities and aspirations of rural and remote entrepreneurs. And it’s about doing it well - one conversation, one cohort, and one community at a time.
Are you a funder, investor, researcher, entrepreneur, or member of a community collaborative interested in this work? Reach out to tamarack@tamarackcommunity.ca.
