By Talie Smith
July 20, 2023
As we celebrate our tenth year in business, we’re pleased to notice that the field has become much more abundant with purpose-driven businesses. I remember how alone we felt starting up in a nascent category. Not many businesses called themselves “purpose-driven.” It felt like a big bet we were taking to focus on clients across sectors who were working toward a mission greater than profit.
Early exploration and inspiration
We began with the notion that we would avoid exploitative clients and focus on working with companies and organizations with a clear mission to improve people's lives, repair or change systems that oppress, and build community. It was also important to us that our experience at work was joyful, honest, mutualistic, and respectful. It mattered that our clients acted as partners.
We started working closely with Meyer Memorial Trust — one of Oregon’s biggest philanthropies — in 2015 as they shifted toward an explicit equity focus. Those were turbulent times at the foundation, and we had front-row seats to the changes while helping them tell this story externally and internally. It was risky and rocky, but they were doing the work and we were learning and growing alongside them.
In 2017, when S&C turned four, we donated our services to brand and launch Zebras Unite — an organization that grew from a movement to build a new economy of companies founded on the pursuit of both profit and purpose. We became founding members of the Zebras Unite Co-Op and galvanized our ethos in large part due to the vision and mission of this great organization.
But in many ways, our real power came in who we said no to.
What did it look and feel like to have these strong boundaries and values as we built our business?
I called a business coach in the early years to inquire about her services. As partners, we were skilled in our disciplines (design, technology, strategy), but had never been business owners. The very first question she asked me on the intake call was “What clients do you say no to?” I was shocked by the question. We hadn’t really thought about saying no to anyone. We were just trying to get started and any project was real money in the door. Still, she was right. Our founding ethos required that we turn clients away that didn’t match our values.
Over the years, we have found that there is power in making the decision not to work with someone. When you set that boundary it creates clarity. Your current clients feel it, your colleagues and peers feel it, and your staff feels it.
Turning away clients that were not a good fit established a strong foundation (and brand reputation) for our business. A few times along the way, we even fired some of our biggest paying clients to stay aligned with our values. These were hard moments of truth. But as the saying goes, when you close a door, another one opens. After a decade of closing the “wrong” door, it’s no longer hard to do, and it has paid off every time. The self-integrity we’ve earned has proven priceless. Our reputation is solid and brand awareness continues to grow and bring us the right clients, partners, and team.
Purpose-Driven — what does it mean (to us)?
But what does it mean to be purpose-driven? We’re seeing changes in the culture across multiple sectors. What’s the common denominator?
Baseline: embracing profit and purpose
First off, we’re a business. We’re here to make money, support our families, and build security and comfort. But we were never going to employ untrammeled capitalism that exploits people and planet for profit. And in fact, we were compelled to take our values even further by actively working toward a mission of betterment. That’s why we were so excited when the Zebras movement started as a reaction to dude-bro VC culture.
The core reason for a Zebra company's existence is to build a new way forward. “Entrepreneurship that serves everyone” is the Zebras Unite vision. A company’s core existence is “to catalyze the community, capital, and culture for people building businesses that are better for the world.” In my view, it's a bold act to commit to a mission of betterment.
We also discovered the B Corp movement, and became a B Corp in 2023, joining more than 200,000 businesses worldwide. The certification is for businesses and measures a company’s social and environmental impact. “B Lab mobilizes the B Corp community towards collective action to address society's critical challenges.” While your core purpose for existing doesn’t need to be mission-oriented (like Zebra companies), it ensures — and models — businesses that are built for purpose.
Everything starts with our own commitment to a broader mission — to the idea that businesses must be critical players in changing our systems, starting with unregulated, conscience-less capitalism. If we’re not working to change oppressive systems, we’re not really purpose-driven.
Changing systems
When we started this business, we were excited to work for philanthropies and nonprofits. These were obviously clients that were creating a net-positive effect on society, right? Yes — however, philanthropy has a complex history. In a way, very wealthy people giving money to people in need is a good thing. But done poorly, it perpetuates systems designed to maintain stable and comfortable power dynamics for the wealthy. Consider it: a foundation sits on millions (or billions) of dollars every year, invests it in the market (which can include exploitative investments), and then is only obligated to give away 5% of its assets to stay in business and continue to benefit from its tax status. Traditionally, philanthropies give money to nonprofits, and then put onerous and difficult reporting requirements (controls) on the nonprofits to try to track their impact. People are helped to some degree, but nothing big really changes.
If we’re not working to change oppressive systems, we’re not really purpose-driven.
So another way that we’ve pushed on our purpose-driven work is to pursue work with philanthropies that desire and work toward larger systems change. We're seeing more foundations becoming strategic and bold in their pursuit of change. They are recognizing that their billions are dwarfed by what can be accomplished by progressive policies, and are working to remove the paternalism inherent in their work.
Aiming Higher: The Power of Collective Action
The “systems” upon which our society is built have been designed for oppression and extraction. Those with wealth and power are gripping tighter to the current systems, holding on for dear life. Dichotomy and opposition are in full bloom, splitting apart families, communities, friends. Injustices are clear as day in the stories that come across our paths daily.
We need entirely new ideas, concepts, and systems that rely on our relationships with each other as a basis for success. We need to accelerate change, and make harder choices, bigger sacrifices, to really make a difference.
Unity
What we’re seeing, however, is that the forces of division are being met with a rising of unity. Visionary leaders across sectors, industries, communities, and regions are charting paths toward unity. We are seeing it with our clients who are leading the charge at the epicenter, building the movement toward what feels like the antithesis of American culture (i.e., individualism).
We need entirely new ideas, concepts, and systems that rely on our relationships with each other as a basis for success.
Just to name a few, leaders like the following are centering love, unity, and erasure of boundaries to bring ideas and people together toward collective action.
Rukaiyah Adams is the CEO of 1803 Fund, a new organization that is reimagining the relationship between capital and community to strengthen Portland’s Black community. Her vision is to center radical self love in creating collective prosperity.
Toya Fick, Meyer Memorial Trust
Meyer has long been at the forefront of the change that philanthropy must make. Now, Toya Fick is at the helm with a new mission orientation that centers "racial, social and economic justice for the collective well-being of Oregon's lands and peoples."
Janet Campbell, Oregon Health Leadership Council
Janet Campbell leads OHLC, a neutral table where leaders in the healthcare system come together to improve the system for all Oregonians. She leads with love, compassion, and a fierce commitment to transformation through collaboration.
Jason Ingle, Managing Partner of Third Nature Investments, is a pioneer in the impact investing space, having been one of the original investors in Beyond Meat more than a decade ago. Now, he knows that we cannot afford to focus so narrowly on change. His earth systems approach to investing is a direct challenge to the Silicon Valley approach of a solution looking for a challenge.
The forces of division are being met with a rising of unity.
My personal journey toward unity
I have been on a unity consciousness journey since my youth, having been first led by my Nana, who taught meditation and yoga in America, India, and Japan. She planted the seed of wisdom in me at a young age, teaching my sisters and I to do the lion’s breath, sun pose, downward dog, and stand on our heads. During a troubled time in college, she taught me equanimity and spoke of the Buddha and his principles.
Later, through a therapist, I was introduced to the book No Boundary, by Ken Wilber, which has had a profound impact on me. I’ve read it probably five times, the first right after 9-11 when I had PTSD from the experience of living in NYC. Over time, it has reshaped what I know to be true about ourselves and the universe.
The book, Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness, Walking The Buddha’s Path, by Henepola Gunaratana, has been a fixture on my bedside table for the last 5 years. I’ve read it three times over, 2 pages per night, to transform my mind and life.
“No boundary thinking” is a concept quite foreign to American culture. It is the idea that we are all one, without boundaries, and our happiness and success is derived through unity.
Trabian Shorters of BMe community, continues to inspire me. He recently shared wisdom with me around diunital versus dichotomous thinking. He says, “International industrial psychologist Dr. Edwin Nichols taught him that European culture evolved to place the highest value on acquiring and controlling objects and practices objective and dichotomous logic to do so; whereby Black, Asian, and Indigenous cultures evolved to place the highest value on maintaining member-to-member relationships or member-to-whole (environment) relationships and practice relational and diunital logics to do so..." This has resonated deeply with me, as it is another way of speaking to the Buddhist principles that have become my core belief system.
Our work must go deeper than business strategies and values. We must transcend certifications and labels, and search deep within ourselves, beyond the constructs of thought and narratives, to create real change.