This post is adapted from [Im]Possible Business, a zine exploring radical business alternatives. Learn more and download the publication here. Read the first post in this series: On the Limits of What a Business Can do. Failure, of course, goes hand in hand with capitalism. A market economy must have winners and losers, gamblers and […]
Business Thinking
On the Limits of What a Business Can Do
This post is adapted from [Im]Possible Business, a zine exploring radical business alternatives. Learn more and download the publication here. Read the second post in this series: Business as Queer Failure Utopias have always entailed disappointments and failures. — Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother Étaín was an “underthings” store in Portland, Maine, that offered an […]
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 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 […]
Our work is all three parts.
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 […]
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 […]