How To Create A Money Breakthrough In Your Business

Now that I can comfortably meet my families financial needs I’ve noticed my business income has plateaued. I need a little nudge to create the next big breakthrough in my revenue, and like my money mentor, Denise Duffield-Thomas says my dreams need to be bigger than my fears.

As an alchemist money personality type I’ve never really been motivated by money alone, but I do dream of the impact I could have in the world by having more money. Being clear about the good work my money can do gets me out of bed in the morning, so I’m doubling down on that dream, dreaming bigger than ever and focussing on and clarifying my giving goals.

I sat down with my husband, who just happens to be a philanthropic advisor, and we mapped out our giving goals and how to reach them, I’ll share that with you in this blog post. For now, I want to share with you the financial and legal structures and systems that embed giving into my business and life.

How I Structure My Giving

When I first started my business, my husband - understanding that giving would be central to my business model - suggested I start a Social Enterprise, but for an introvert and maverick like me, I’d rather avoid all the extra paperwork and committee meetings and auditing involved! Whilst my business is a social enterprise in intent, legally it’s just a business. I decided to keep things as simple as possible on a financial and legal level, and just give as much money as I could.

To structure my giving, whilst avoiding paperwork, I hold my philanthropic funds with my local Community Foundation. Community Foundations are organisations that grow a collection of endowed funds from many donors, so we as donors can share in the costs and benefits of their financial and legal expertise, community leadership and philanthropic advice.

As a terrible budgeter, I use my own variation of the Profit First model to manage my money in my business. I have separate bank accounts for owner drawings, operational expenses, advertising, taxes and giving. If you’ve read the book Profit First you’ll notice that my giving account replaces the recommended profit account, making giving central to my business model. Instead of profit first, it’s giving first!

Every week I allocate a percentage of my total business revenue to each of my business bank accounts, with 4% going into my giving account. This percentage goes up and down from time-to-time and as my business grows I hope this percentage will become much larger. Every quarter I give all the money from that bank account to my Newborn Mothers fund held at my local Community Foundation, where they hold the money in endowment and grow it through investing. About once a year I get advice from them on how to grant the interest (and maybe a little extra).

In the long run, this means my giving is much more sustainable and strategic, and I will be able to keep granting money in the future regardless of how my business is going. I could actually stop working altogether and still have money to grant every year, and if I grant less out now then my funds will grow through compound interest so in the long run, I’ll be able to grant more. The focus of my Newborn Mothers fund is women and girls.

Our family also has a fund, and we use a similar bank account method to give 10% of our family income (after rent and childcare) to our Smith & Jones Fund, also held at our local community foundation. The focus of this fund is reconciliation and decolonisation.

And then finally we make sure our personal investments are doing the best work they can in the world too. We make sure our super and banks are doing good work, and we dream of investing in regenerative agriculture which will have both financial and lifestyle benefits for our family as well as a great impact on our planet.

How do you incorporate giving into your business and life? Does it motivate you to take your business to the next level?