Letter from the Founder of coFLOWco on IWD 2021

From an article I wrote earlier this year on grief, work, and the pandemic.

To: My Collective, with thanks. 

Like most of you, I found myself in a unique situation in 2020. After years at large patriarchal agencies and corporations, I finally established my own business in the summer of 2019. My goal was, and remains, to create gender parity and racial justice by building better businesses and seeding the business world in the U.S. with social entrepreneurs. 

Off to a great start, I was happily serving several creative and tech solopreneurs and small business leaders. I guided them with negotiating, estimating, planning projects, and selling non-creative founders, STEM nonprofits, education consultants, and researchers the value of creative strategy and strong design to explain complex data and ideas. 

Concurrently, I started researching everything I could about the state of equality in the workplace and best practices in social enterprise. How did this sector work? Why hadn’t I heard about it until the late 2000s, after over 20 years in the workforce? Was there an alternative to grind-you-into-the-ground capitalism? By day, I was helping femme founders grow their businesses and creatives define their “why”. By night, I was documenting the deep systemic barriers we face and why it was so hard for womxn and non-binary entrepreneurs and startups to “make it”. 

In January of 2020, I published coFLOWco’s Womanifesto: Leading with Purpose. It was a manifesto, a stake in the ground exploring the state of womxn at work, at first. Over 3 months my 1-pager grew into a research paper with about 250 linked sources, and a hypothesis: I could build a value-based, mission-driven business and make an actual impact from open-source tools and the latest research to create a better workplace. 

When COVID-19 hit it was like shining a magnifying glass on every single thing I had written about. And then, schools closed. I kept telling my partner,”I am having an existential crisis.” How can I be writing about and fighting for gender equality when at home, my partner works 9-5 and I am in charge of homeschooling because he had the job with insurance? Without school, childcare, and all of the practices and rituals I had created to keep myself going as a WFH- founder collapsed. Starting a business as a parent and partner was already challenging. Now everyone I loved was in my space, every waking and sleeping moment. My support system, home office, and revenue vanished. 

Faced with so many barriers, and so many clients who were unable to make any money, we did what womxn do...we banded together. We decided businesses surviving was the key; thriving would be a privilege. We listened and cried, and created resources and connections to keep each other going. It’s kind of amazing what connected us all in 2020 was our all-consuming grief and sense of loss (big and small).

It was an entire year of Fellowship applications––of interviews, networking, and grant submissions (for myself, clients, contractors, and colleagues). A year of unpaid speaking gigs, lots of writing, podcasts, and panels paid for in “exposure”. Brand-building while refining your Theory of Change, Systems Change, and creating processes, policies, applying for certifications, networking, memberships, volunteering as the facilitator, and crafting 15-page RFP responses, and deep social media engagement. Let’s add a pandemic, homeschooling, a Portland uprising, an economic collapse, capitalism, White Supremacy, racism, and hate finally laid bare and it’s a miracle anyone of us is still standing. 

For our Collective, connection and rejection came in tandem. For most womxn and non-binary people I know, there was a lot of rejection. Partnerships and friendships broke up. But, it was also a year of breakthroughs–of learning who we truly are and what we will and will not accept. I know I am not alone on this because all my new, amazing connections echoed this sentiment.

I made new friends and acquaintances that surely would not have happened at this magnitude had it not been for quarantine. I had twitter convos with business icons and met other women who were building amazing grassroots organizations. For all the time and truths these humans gave me, I am beyond grateful. 

In 2020, another bright side was that everyone started coming around to what social enterprise already knew. With work, the WHO and the WHY matter most. The planet and people matter more to a business than profit. Social entrepreneurs know how important it is that we measure success not in revenue, but in social-emotional well-being. 

Personally, I felt most successful when using my privilege as currency, whether with time or actual investments made into womxn-led startups. I partnered with several underestimated founders to get their brands up and running and saw firsthand how much was working against them, even during the “racial awakening”. This is what led me to invest time and energy into projects like Rage 2 Rainbows (rather than focus on revenue, volume, or client acquisitions). Keeping womxn safe online is essential and non-negotiable for better workplaces and I was thrilled to partner with Madison Butler on this important initiative.

If you are leading with your purpose, you actually can’t fail. And, if you can galvanize others to join you on your mission, well, then, you’re unstoppable. We hit all our goals (but not all our financial targets). In the end, we broke even after donating funds back into our community and philanthropic orgs, providing pro bono services, and hiring contractors. We made sure we supported those struggling to find work in any way possible.  The metrics we set around employee engagement, diversity and inclusion, and goals for completing certifications, and joining organizations: we achieved almost all goals! 

In 2020, we proved our hypothesis that we can create better companies by building with intention and humanity. We proved radical authenticity, radical acceptance, and deep, intersectional feminism does create a safer space for those who don’t fit in with tech bros or agency life. Through collective action, we make a bigger impact than if we stayed solo or siloed. Even the solopreneur needs strong connections to succeed. If using “Collective Flow” as the barometer, this first full year was a smashing success. Together, we found our flow, and it was magical. 

Our mission stands: we need to make work not suck for future generations. We need to seed social impact companies all across the country. We must show Big Tech what it looks like when you have a conscience. We must create a new economy that shifts power, looks out for the common good, and stops ignoring our voices. We must center people and communities who experience the most negative impacts of this economy, one that has failed the majority of Americans.  

If 2020 was for Leading with Purpose, 2021 is about moving From Purpose to Practice. (My working book title perhaps?) Luckily, coFLOWco has a lot planned for 2021; including new workshops, products, and services to put things into practice. Like any good social entrepreneur, we want to expand our reach and scale. We will secure funding via impact investors or grants to formalize the governance of our consultancy and ensure everyone we work with benefits from being a part of this Collective. 

Our ideas to build better now continue to grow, along with our team. We have ideas for apps and products to break down barriers to certifications and funding. While we work towards a better future and wait to hear back on our B Corp certification, we want to thank you. Every one of you helped this thing keep moving forward. The cross-pollination of our consultants and content creators from various industries, classes, education, and disciplines is how we will solve the “Future of Work.” 

We have to get back to work, but first...a nap.