Brian Smith would rather improve his community than his bank account – and it shows.
As the business and social-enterprise developer for Vancouver non-profit organization Building Opportunities with Business (BOB), in two years Smith has helped inject more than $45 million worth of investment into some of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods.
“Since a very young age, I’ve been interested in the notion of economic justice,” said Smith. “The fact that there are poor people really bothers me.”
BOB promotes community and business development in Vancouver’s inner-city neighbourhoods, and it’s Smith’s job to turn that mandate into a reality on the streets of the Downtown Eastside (DTES).
Over the last year, Smith has helped divvy out $120,000 in grant money to a variety of businesses and organizations in the DTES.
But even though Smith said he always had a desire to help his fellow man, he wasn’t always sure how to do it.
In 1998, he graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BA in economics and political science, but he found he had no passion for what he termed “neoclassical” economics.
He went on to earn a post-baccalaureate diploma in community economic development from SFU in 2001 and, in 2004, an MA in planning from the University of British Columbia.
“My formal education has been a progression from identifying what I wasn’t interested in doing to identifying what was possible,” Smith said.
He hopes to establish an endowment fund for business development in the DTES, but for now he said he’s focused on turning the 2010 Winter Olympics into an opportunity for the area.
“It’s a time to highlight both the challenges that are faced in that neighbourhood as well as the opportunities for some innovative changes.” •
