Community Vitality in Action

Balle-NS

Community Foundation of Nova Scotia

In the fall of 2007, the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia was chosen to participate in the Community Foundations of Canada/McConnell Family Foundation Community Foundations and the Environment program.

As part of that program, the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia hoped to reach out to members of the business community and engage them in discussions about their role in protecting the environment and contributing to the broader sustainability of communities throughout Nova Scotia.

What followed from these discussions was the establishment of a core group of committed business leaders from across the province who then began the task of creating BALLE-NS, the 42nd network of its kind worldwide and the 3rd in Canada.

BALLE-NS (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) is a network of local businesses, organizations, and people in Nova Scotia working together to build green, locally-driven, culturally diverse, and sustainable communities. The founding members of BALLE-NS have been fortunate to secure support from the Province's Department of Economic Development.

The Community Foundation of Nova Scotia is proud to incubate this new initiative and acts as a Secretariat for BALLE-NS, while its first coordinator prepares the organization for its launch in the fall of 2009.

The Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia, Allison Kouzovnikov, says "assisting BALLE-NS to get off the ground and become a viable organization is very important to us. Especially given the current economic conditions and predictions for the next few years, the 'Buy Local, Give Local' message is critical and one that must be broadly adopted if we want to maintain and grow our province's prosperity. Our organizations are very complementary and we hope to use our strong relationship to engage in interesting, high impact projects in the coming years".