when you run a values-based business, you’re probably already doing business in a different way than the straight-up capitalist business schools are telling you to do it - you’re putting people and planet before profit, paying staff and contractors a living wage, opting for more environmentally-friendly packaging even if it’s more expensive, producing/carrying products that have been manufactured in ethical ways with companies that take equally strong stances on their values. it’s not exactly the method that’s going to make you a billionaire - in fact, it’s literally the thing that will stop you from becoming that. but it is the method that will let your soul not wither up and die (too dramatic? blame the sagittarius in me), and it is absolutely possible to run a 6, 7, or even 8-figure business while keeping your values front and centre. it’ll just take a little more ingenuity and time to get there.

connecting with fibre farmers like laura from twin oaks farm has always been a priority for my biz.

as part of your values-based business, you probably also want to be giving back more directly too - supporting local necessities drives, donating to grassroots initiatives, offering sliding scale pricing models to increase financial accessibility. there are many options that you can try out within your own business model (not everything will work for every biz), and i’m going to lay out several below for you. before i do, i also want to point out the not-always-so-obvious: you can’t give away what you don’t already have. which does not mean that if you don’t make X amount of net profit, you can’t do anything good in the world. that’s bullshit and elitist and untrue. what it does mean is that if you don’t have your own costs covered, you can’t go donating 10% of your gross revenue because then you’re risking the short and long-term stability of your biz, which in the long run means that you’ll be doing a lot less good for a much shorter timeframe than if you found a sustainable method for your business’s charitable goals.

i have seen so many well-meaning micro-businesses crash and burn because they put their charitable goals ahead of their own basic needs, and i’ve also done it myself and been in extended burnout mode before realizing the issue and that i needed to find a better pivot. of course, if you’ve got income coming into your life from a source other than your business and so you want to devote your business’s earnings all to charitable causes, have at it! if, on the other hand, you are the breadwinner within your family and/or you have employees and suppliers to pay regularly, then you can’t be so cavalier about giving all your money away. first determine what is enough for you/your business’s operating costs, and then look at the remainder and decide how you want to divvy it up.

how do you feel (and/or want to feel) when you look at your numbers?

another disclaimer: i am obviously not your accountant. i do not know your life circumstances, your needs, your debt, your bank account balances, your short and long-term financial goals, or your tax obligations in your particular location. so, filter everything through your own lens based on those things and anything else that feels relevant. if you’re not just running an expensive hobby, you do have certain obligations and operating costs to consider prior to making any donation commitments*:

you have to pay your taxes
you have to pay your staff
you have to pay your suppliers
you have to pay yourself (if you are not paying yourself, you are not running a business, you are running an expensive hobby. which is fine if you have income from other sources and so do not need a salary. think of it this way: would you ever commit to a multi-year contract with an employer who never gave you a paycheque? you are both employer and employee in this scenario, so be a good boss to yourself and make sure you’re paying yourself, or at least go into the situation with the knowledge that you are volunteering your time and probably will also need to invest your personal money in more than once until the business is up and running and making consistent revenue.)

*this does not stop you from building your business model with those commitments in mind. a good tool is a profit-first calculator and tweaking the numbers to include things like monthly donations and deciding whether that comes from your operator’s fee or emergency net.

okie doke, after you’ve sorted out those numbers and know roughly how your business model operates, now you get to decide what methods you want to prioritize for your charitable work. the following list is just a starting point, and you can mix and match as many or as few work for you at any given time. what i have personally learned over the years of running my bootstrapped business is that the best methods for me are the ones that have flexibility and sustainability baked into them. i’ve bolded the ones i’m currently practicing within my own biz:

1% ongoing monthly donations to causes
- you can opt for 1% of net profit, 1% of gross revenue, or anything in between. the nice thing about this method is that it grows and shrinks with your biz. if you have a shitty month sales-wise, that 1% donation will probably cost the equivalent of a cup of coffee or one meal delivery, and so it’s unlikely to truly break the bank for you. if you have a great month sales-wise, you get to donate a nice chunk to a worthy cause! you can decide whether you want to do rotating causes, work from a defined list of organizations, or just donate to one cause that’s particularly close to your heart. also, depending on your country, those donations can be tax write-offs if the organizations are registered charities, so that’s a bonus because you get to directly determine where some of your tax dollars end up going. it’s also easy to do on a monthly basis and the commitment is a good excuse to stay on top of your finances.
donate a percentage of sales from a certain product
- this can be nice for larger donations, whether it’s 10% or 100% of the profits. typically this will be a shorter-term method - the bookkeeping gets messy and if you’re not consistently selling that product, it’s easy to either forget to make a donation on schedule or inconsistent for your bookkeeper as a rule to keep top of mind. it’s a great method for emergency donations and/or specific dates i.e. during an awareness month or a designated day of remembrance.
scholarships
- the ways you can fund a scholarship are about as myriad as the number of potential scholarships out there, but this is a great way for truly increasing accessibility for online courses, in-person classes, or even for a product bundle. personally, i keep scholarships limited to classes (both in-person and online) and structure them based on what i know i can offer (i.e. i don’t do 1:1 classes as part of a scholarship and i also currently don’t offer a 1-to-1 exchange for my most invested programs because my business is not at a stage where that’s feasible). at this point in time, i have my crush scholarship for students everywhere and then work on making enough sales from my pre-recorded online programs to free up time in my personal life to volunteer my time locally with under resourced youth and on volunteer boards.
create free educational resources and/or creative content among your paid offers
- under capitalism, we’re literally sold the idea that everything has to be for sale/paid with money. and yes, we do need money to live our basic lives (you generally can’t barter for your rent/mortgage or utilities), but we don’t need to put absolutely everything behind a paywall. currently, i maintain multiple projects that are funded by a combination of my own volunteer time/resources/dollars, private sponsors, and grants. from field to skin is all about educating and connecting producers and consumers about slow fashion and fibreshed values, and snort & cackle is a weekly podcast amplifying stories of ritual and practice from witches of all different backgrounds.
sliding scale payment options
- this can be a great way to increase financial accessibility for your offers. in my personal experience, the price points usually balance out and i don’t “lose” out on money by offering lower price points. the basic model includes a midpoint which is your offer’s actual price, a lower price point that may or may not cover the costs associated with that offer, and a higher price point that does cover the income removed from the lowest price point. depending on your payment processor/website, you may or may not be able to offer this easily. also, do be conscious of your numbers when you set this up. i have seen businesses literally go under because they offered sliding scale for everything and hadn’t designed their price points to cover all their operating costs (i.e. if you’re selling a physical item, setting the lowest price point so low that you’re not even covering the materials is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot). again, my experience is not that this method results in everyone buying at the lowest point - that’s scarcity mentality taking the wheels. however, if you haven’t tested this out with your audience yet, try it on one offer before you apply it to your whole catalog.
payment plans
- i love a good payment plan both as a business owner and as a customer. there is, in theory, some risk associated with offering them (what if the person doesn’t complete payment? what if you spend all your time chasing down owed payments?), but i’ve personally only had good experiences with them. i like them because they make higher-priced offers more accessible to a broader range of budgets and also they result in guaranteed money for a series of months after first purchase, which is great for business stability. you’ll find a mix of payment plans that either are priced slightly higher than the one-off purchase (to cover admin costs and additional processing fees for the multiple payments), occasionally payment plans that are much more expensive than the one-off purchase (personally, these piss me off because it’s not actually increasing financial accessibility and i also know from personal experience that the admin time and processing fees do not warrant the price difference), and some payment plans that add up to the same as the one-time fee. to avoid chasing down owed payments, opt for payment processors that either automatically take payments on their due dates and/or have multiple automatic reminders set up so that the nagging portion of asking for owed money is done consistently by a computer and not you. it’s literally not personal, it’s just business, and you’ll save yourself a lot of emotional labour and stress. people forget/miss things in their inbox, but if they miss 3 reminders in a row without sending a vacation auto-reply, you’re well within your right to remove their access to content. that’s the other thing - i only offer payment plans for online courses that have a lot of material to consume. if you’ve got a small-scale offer that can be easily consumed between payment schedules, it probably doesn’t need to be on a payment plan.

finding sustainable methods for giving back with your biz means you can help your community AND still find time for your creative work and big projects - the best part is that your creativity literally fuels your capacity for doing more good in the world!

you can check out the ongoing initiatives that my business invests in (through money, time, and resources) here. if you’re ready to step into your own #bosswitch boots and create your dream life with confidence, join me in the creative coven online design course! this self-paced program will take you from casting on and writing your first pattern to running a long-term sustainable and supportive creative biz with knitwear design. with pre-recorded videos that you can return to whenever you need, to 24/7 access to my favourite tools and resources for running your online biz, you’ll be able to take the pattern ideas in your head and put them out into the world AND make money while you do it. check it out here. if you’re not sure if you’ve got the creative confidence yet, try out the creative coven challenge in the creative coven community to see just how many ideas are waiting to pour out of you. not sure if this whole fibre witch thing is even your cup of whiskey? take the free fibre witch quiz to double check.

money matters - using your biz to support causes