Collaboration Opportunities
Partnership Opportunities for Organizations Working on SME Growth
The Better Way Alliance develops practical solutions to help small and medium businesses create Good Jobs while strengthening their own enterprises and local economies. Our approach combines on-the-ground testing with our business member network to scale proven strategies.
We’re seeking implementation partners for three priority projects that address critical gaps in Canada’s SME support ecosystem. Each represents an opportunity to pilot innovative business concepts with measurable and scalable outcomes.
Collaboration Opportunity: Good Jobs Accelerator
Impact: Stronger hiring, lower turnover, and higher productivity for Ontario SMEs through structured workforce improvements.
The Gap: No existing program in Canada helps business owners actually implement better employment practices in their workplace. After the honeymoon startup phase, most ongoing government and financial supports dry up – then what?
Description: The Good Jobs Accelerator tools up business owners and management to guide them through the critical 2-5 year period where hiring and reducing turnover are critical to enterprise success.
The Accelerator is an 8-month, cohort-based training program that helps small and medium-sized businesses improve job quality in ways that support growth and retention.
The cohort takes part in structured workshops and coaching helping businesses develop customized plans for predictable scheduling, paid sick days, and competitive wages. Businesses graduate with clear implementation goals and join a network of Good Jobs employers.
Participating employers receive hands-on coaching, cost modeling, and a peer learning environment where they develop practical solutions tailored to their workplace — including predictable scheduling, paid sick days, and more-than-minimum wages.
Through structured workshops and coaching sessions, each business creates a customized implementation plan, communications tools, and progress metrics. Businesses graduate from the program with clear goals for the next 6 months and join a growing network of employers building stronger, more stable teams. The experience ends with a celebratory capstone event, public recognition, and a digital badge to help businesses tell their good jobs story to customers, investors, and future employees.
Why it’s unique
The Good Jobs Accelerator fills a critical gap — there is no other program in Ontario, or at the college or university level, that helps business owners actually implement better job practices in their workplace. This program offers practical tools and real-time coaching over 8 months, guiding businesses through the full process of creating and sustaining Good Jobs. It’s hands-on, business-first, and entirely focused on action.
Ideal Partners
Organizations focused on business development, workforce strategies, or economic development with capacity to co-deliver programming.
- You believe good jobs are a smart way to build stronger local businesses and economies
- You want to support SMEs with real tools, not just policy talk or handouts
- You’re looking to scale proven, community-based models that reduce employee churn and increase productivity in traditionally low-wage industries
- You’re interested in improving job quality without adding red tape or regulation
- You want to partner on practical, affordable solutions with measurable results
Collaboration Opportunity: A National Voice for Canada’s Good Jobs Businesses
Impact: A pan-Canadian network of small and medium-sized employers shaping better jobs and smarter economic policy in every province and territory.
The Gap: There’s no national business network focused on small and medium-sized employers who are actively improving wages, stability, and job quality while advocating for practical, structural policy change that helps businesses create good jobs while strengthening their own balance sheets.
Most business associations either focus on large corporations or stay away from employment policy altogether. Meanwhile, SME voices get lost in policy and financial support conversations that often miss the mark for the majority of Canada’s truly small businesses.
Description: We’re building a pan-Canadian network of small and medium-sized employers who are proving that better jobs are good business. From major cities to rural main streets and industrial parks, we’re growing a national membership that reflects the true diversity of Canada’s SME economy.
This project expands BWA’s reach beyond Ontario while building real advocacy capacity. We deliver 1-on-1 coaching, advocacy training, and storytelling tools to help business owners speak out and shape policy at both provincial/territorial and federal levels.
The network creates a credible, coordinated voice for Good Jobs businesses across Canada. Members gain access to peer learning, policy development opportunities, and direct channels to influence legislation that affects their businesses.
The project culminates in regular advocacy days at provincial legislatures and Parliament, where members meet directly with elected officials to share real-world business experience and offer advice on policy that’s good for workers, businesses and Canada’s economic resilience.
Why it’s unique
This fills a critical gap in Canada’s policy ecosystem.
No other business organization combines grassroots business member training with city, provincial, and national-level policy influence focused specifically on combining employment practices and SME competitiveness.
Our credibility comes from lived examples – businesses in every province showing what works, and why it matters. This creates a rare bridge between ground-level economic reality and national-level policy influence, backed by business owners who are actually implementing these practices successfully – often in low-wage industries experiencing labour shortages.
Ideal Partners
- Support systems-level change that improves economic outcomes for workers and communities
- See the value in including diverse, real-world business voices in provincial and federal policy conversations
- Understand that workforce strategies must also build employer-side capacity, especially in the SME sector where over 60% of Canadians are employed
- Want to back policy development that is informed by lived business experience and real-time data
- Are committed to growing a more equitable, regionally representative business policy ecosystem across Canada
Collaboration Opportunity: Fair Path Delivery: Piloting an alternative to precarious delivery driver jobs
Impact: A proof-of-concept model showing small businesses can access fairly-priced delivery services through an enterprise that treats drivers well – providing an alternative to exploitative gig platforms.
The Gap: Anti-competitive pricing by big app companies has trained customers to expect deliveries at unsustainably low fees. Small businesses can’t offer dependable delivery jobs because they’re pressured to match these artificially low rates. The result: formerly stable delivery driver positions have been transformed into precarious, piece-meal gig work that predominantly affects newcomers and low-wage workers trying to establish themselves in the Canadian market.
Description: Through a formal cooperative structure, a group of businesses will hire full-time delivery drivers to serve multiple businesses simultaneously. The shared model creates enough volume for stable employment while keeping delivery costs reasonable for customers and businesses.
The cooperative starts with 4-6 delivery-dependent businesses in a concentrated geographic area. Together, they provide enough delivery volume to support one full-time driver position with predictable hours, fair wages, and benefits. As more businesses join and volume increases, additional drivers are added to the cooperative.
Participating businesses benefit from reliable, professional delivery service while customers receive consistent service from drivers who know the route and represent multiple local businesses. Drivers gain stable employment with Canadian work experience, fair compensation, and opportunities for advancement within the cooperative structure.
Why it’s unique
No delivery model in Canada currently helps small businesses offer ethical delivery jobs at sustainable costs. Unlike gig apps that flood markets and drive down wages, this project creates a replicable, worker-centered alternative that directly addresses one of the most invisible workforce issues affecting newcomers today – the conversion of formerly dependable jobs into precarious app-based work with opaque pay structures.
Current Status: Concept development and cooperative structure research complete. Ready for pilot implementation with committed business cluster.
Ideal Partners
- Run delivery-dependent businesses that want alternatives to exploitative app-based delivery services
- Can recruit other businesses in your community seeking delivery alternatives
- Care about improving job quality for newcomers and workers in traditionally low-wage sectors
- Are willing to share knowledge on cooperative setup and delivery systems so others can replicate the model
- Want to create market-level alternatives that demonstrate Good Jobs approaches in the gig economy
- Have experience with cooperative development, business improvement districts, or delivery logistics