I was reminded in two separate meetings this week that the actual work of making our visions and values real & concrete in the world (ie, running an anti-capitalist business under capitalism) is always imperfect. In the first, I was speaking about my discomfort with where I feel like I’m falling short in my own […]
Business Thinking
On Giving & Redistribution, Part 2: Defining a Strategy for Giving
To read Part 1, how to think about redistribution and giving within your business, click here. In the Part 1 I wrote about the opportunity in stewarding business resources to create more resilient ecosystems. Since businesses are set up to generate more resources than individuals, we can also use them to channel those resources into […]
The counter intuitive reason to distribute profit to employees in your small business.
There’s a whole mess of reasons why all businesses should distribute profits to their employees: -Redistributing money = redistributing power -You didn’t build your business to only benefit yourself -Your employees should benefit from the value they create Those are just three of many, but you get the idea! I’m not talking about the folks […]
Maybe don’t offer a sliding scale.
As more leaders are considering issues of justice and equity in their businesses the go-to, especially in the online and services business community, has been to offer lower priced spots and sliding scales. While it’s great to create access and ensure that you’re not boxing out people who, for structural reasons, don’t have access to […]
The {gnarly, beautiful} questions I’m asking right now.
The poet David Whyte talks about seeking the beautiful question: a question that resonates, begs to be unspooled, and, ultimately, leads the questioner towards a more engaged, heart-centered, aligned way of being. My questions are not always beautiful, but they are at the heart of guiding my work and ways of showing up in the […]
On not rushing it
One of the routines I’ve taken up in the past months has been taking Josie, my dog, to the river for early morning walks. This was born of her declaring herself over the sidewalk circles in our neighborhood… and as she’s somewhere in the vicinity of 80 lbs, if she wants to stand on the […]
How To Do More Good With Your (business’s) Money.
This article is an expansion of a talk and workshop Kate Strathmann presented as part of the What Work’s Networks conference on Money & The New Economy in June 2020. Let’s start with money itself. Money is an inert substance, part of the collective imaginary invented by humans. It moves by the […]
The problem with “Charge What You’re Worth”
Steps Towards Building an Equitable Business. Lately I’ve been thinking more than ever about pricing, access, and the assumptions we are, often unconsciously, baking into our business models. Particularly for those of us who have high-priced consulting or coaching services as all or part of our business, I’m thinking about how these models intersect with […]
Shared Interest: An experimental business loan
Shared Interest: A business loan, amongst friends, that funds a community grant. Shared Interest was a grant available to the local creative community, made possible through a collaborative with our friends at Little Baby’s Ice Cream. The Story In 2016, we extended a short-term, low-interest loan to our friends at Little Baby’s Ice Cream, in order […]
Controlled Burn, or the Importance of Composting Your Business
You’ve been there, on your worst days: muttering (yelling?) the phrase “Burn it all down” about your business. We’re here to tell you we think you should. The college I attended, in a small town in Minnesota, is home to one of the largest Prairie restoration projects in the country. There was a […]