“An MBA in business with heart and passion”: Celebrating B Corp with Humanity Financial

In our work to showcase the stories and impact of our clients, we are so thrilled to share the story of Humanity Financial, a CPA firm that works exclusively with Canadian charities and not-for-profit organizations to build the financial capacity of the social sector. It’s been an absolute joy to work with Humanity Financial over the past 9 months, and we are thrilled to announce that they became B Corp certified this past month! We sat down with Gord Holley, co-founder and CEO, to speak about Humanity Financial’s work, their B Corp certification process, and what they’ve noticed working in the social sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why are you in business? What problem are you trying to solve?

Meg (my wife, co-founder, and COO of Humanity Financial) and I were originally going to start up a bookkeeping franchise, like the H&R Block of bookkeeping services across Canada. But when we started thinking about what kind of firm we wanted to build, it really became about why we get up in the morning. We both read Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” as we were going through these conversations – not only our organizational why but our personal why – and what we wanted our experience to be with the company.

So we came to two conclusions. First, was that our favourite clients were the charity sector, by far. I’ve worked in the accounting field for years, and working for organizations where all you’re talking about is profit, to me, just doesn’t get me that excited. But when we’re talking to charity clients, we talk about the impact they’re having on the world and the positive impact they’re having on the world. I really love being surrounded by people who are trying to make a difference in this world. My favourite part of my day is when I get to connect with people who are passionate about what they’re doing, and they’re trying to figure out how to help others. How much more fun can it get than that?

And our second conclusion was that at the end of the day we wanted to help build the financial capacity of the charity sector. It felt like that was the biggest contribution we could make in terms of our knowledge and experience. There are a lot of executive directors and senior management who have a lot of stress and anxiety around their finances. Many of them don’t have strong financial knowledge and spend not only a lot of time, but a lot of energy on financial systems and processes. To have someone be able to come in and just look after it, gives them back their energy to focus on their mission and the communities they serve. The opportunity to help these organizations become more financially sustainable, and to try to take away the stress and anxiety that many organizations have around finances… it just felt like this is what we were put on this earth to do.

What attracted you to the B Corp movement?

Initially, when I learned about B Corp, I was attracted for two reasons. It felt like a good business move to be able to demonstrate that we were in values alignment with our clients. And of course we liked the idea of being good corporate citizens.

But as we went through the process, it was literally transformational. It shifted the focus of our business from being primarily about us, to being about how we can help and support all of the stakeholders for our business –  how we can make a positive impact on everybody that comes into contact with our organization. It’s the difference between building a business just for the money and building a business to serve others.

What did the process look like to become B Corp certified?

I had started going through the application process and I didn’t understand some of the terminology, didn’t know how to interpret some of the questions, so I just stopped. But when I saw the ad for Impact 6 Pack (now called Getting to 80) with Decade Impact, I signed up right away.

We kind of assumed that as part of the process we’d be able to get the application filled out. What we didn’t realize is that we would also have the opportunity to view our company through a different lens in terms of how we can have a positive impact on all of the stakeholders of our organization. As we went through the program over the course of the six sessions, each day we went just kind of shifted our mindset. It really was like doing an MBA in business with heart and passion. It really was an eye-opening experience in learning how to view running a business in an entirely different way than we had previously thought.

Then by the end of the program we were just about ready to submit the application. What was really wonderful about working with Decade was being able to call on you when it came time to go through the certification process. Clearly you’ve done this before, you’ve done this many times before, and the knowledge that you brought to the table in terms of responding to the questions they were asking made the certification process, for us, quite simple. It was actually a wonderful experience, an enjoyable experience, and that’s not what I was expecting.

What’s next? What does it mean to be an impact leader in an era of such uncertainty?

Here’s a couple of things we’ve noticed. I’ve been seeing an amazing response – I think our society reacts generally in a very positive way to crises and emergencies. What I’ve personally noticed is that people are becoming much more caring about other people today than they were three months ago. They’re worrying about seniors isolated in their homes, they’re worrying about youth not getting the normal youth experience, they’re worrying about people who are struggling in our communities. There’s more talk about Universal Basic Income, and how we can be better supporting our communities.

But then, when I think of all the challenges we face around climate change, and inequalities… as a result of the pandemic there are millions of people who have flipped back into poverty. We’ve been making some good progress, and now this pandemic is really impacting it all. It’s the same with all of these, unfortunately: crisis impacts those at the margins significantly more than those who are wealthy. We’ve seen a significant increase in need, but I’m hopeful and optimistic that the only way we’ll be able to meet that need is if we all come together and start working together.

The thing that we’ve learned is that no one group can do it on their own. We need to harness the energy of individuals, businesses, charities, government, all of us. I think with capitalism, the pendulum swung way too far in the direction of personal interest, and I think people are ready now to start thinking about the impacts of our buying decisions, the impacts of the way we consume, the impact on the environment, the impact on our communities. And it’s got to be all of us – individuals, businesses, charities, governments – to figure out how to meet the expanded needs and reduce suffering in the world.

We’re thrilled to have been certified as a B Corp, but more to the point, we’re really looking forward to continuing to get better over time.