PENCIL: Ellevated Outcomes’ 5% Profit to a Non-Profit
Good morning, and I hope you had a great April Fools Day – or my preference: a great first day of Q2. As you know: we love the fresh start of a new quarter. And personally and professionally speaking, it feels like there are lots of fresh starts and new beginnings in the air right now. It’s natural during this spring season, and I too want to ride that wave of positivity and goodness…
If you’re a client in our Advisory Practice, your monthly investment statement says:
We donate 5% of profits to non-profits who are aligned with our values of integrity, honesty, inclusion, and abundance.
So today, I’d love to role model how we do this and hold ourselves publicly accountable, by reporting that our 2024 profit to a non-profit donation will go to PENCIL.
Cara Jackson made this selection, and in her own words, here’s why…
PENCIL has 3 programs
- PENCIL Partners – Businesses, universities, community organizations and others partner directly with Metro Nashville Public Schools in unique ways that are tailored to serve the individual needs of the school and the partner.
- DG PENCIL Box – Metro Nashville Public School teachers can visit the DG PENCIL Box to shop for the materials they need for their classrooms, completely free of charge.
- Connected Literacy Tutors – Tutors provide high impact literacy tutoring to K – 3rd grade students in MNPS schools.
How PENCIL aligns with Ellevated Outcomes’ values
Integrity & Abundance. We have a thought-out answer to “why?” & We give first.
The “why” here is simple: to support and provide much-needed resources to students and teachers in our own community. We are privileged to work closely with many amazing creative business owners, so to me, it feels completely aligned to foster growth and opportunities for a future generation of entrepreneurs.
Honesty. We have difficult conversations, in order to move forward.
Many students and teachers in our community (and state) are struggling. Real funds, along with partners and volunteers who care, are needed to close resource gaps. Our schools are often a topic of conversation, but PENCIL is making real impact.
Inclusion. We seek and incorporate viewpoints that are contrary to our own.
PENCIL’s vision is to “create a world where MNPS students and teachers have equitable access to resources and opportunities.”
A peek behind the Ellevated Outcomes curtain
Our 5% of Profits to a Non-profit initiative has been intriguing to some. Over the past year, I’ve even been so delighted that new clients have gone out of their way to comment about it to us, when they’re signing off on the payment section of our annual agreement(!!).
So if it’s something you’re considering, I hope this example and mini-process helps you see what it could look like, for your own business. The beauty is: when you processize the practice, it becomes something that over time, happens on autopilot. So the first 1-2 cycles of it will indeed take effort. But by year 3, the only thought required is someone choosing the non-profit – which is its own form of employeee recognition and delight. Win-win-win!
If you’d like to integrate our simple process into your small business, please: copy-cat away.
Our process for 5% Profit to a Non-Profit
- Each year at the beginning of March, a Strategist identifies the non-profit they’d like Ellevated Outcomes to donate to. (We specifically reserve this employee delight for our Strategist role, as they drive and service the revenue in our business).
- The Strategist “up” is the person who’s been with us the longest. Then, once one person chooses, we rotate to the next up, the following year.
- The Strategist emails their manager with the non-profit they’ve chosen, plus a description of how the charity aligns with EO values (following the template above), as well as the donation process for that charity.
- The Money Manager fulfills that donation request during the first week of Q2. (The timing of this is intentional, linking with the prior year’s books being completely tucked and tied, including taxes).
A Closing Note
I can’t encourage everyone enough to do some riff on this in their own business or life. It doesn’t have to be anything tremendous; I started this practice immediately when I launched Ellevated Outcomes as a solopreneur. And the first year’s donation was who knows… $100 maybe?
You can get the snowball rolling and build the habit with any amount of resource. Even if you’re not profitable on year, you could donate time or skills instead of money. As they say: raindrops add up to oceans. And the more water in the ocean, the more the tide rises for all…
