So many people derive their self-worth with the success of their business. What if you flip it, and align your business around your personal values? Tim Frick, founder of Mightybytes did just that, driving his company to become an LGBT Business Enterprise and a Certified B Corporation.
(See the replay, embedded at the bottom of this page.)
Tim started Mightybytes in early 1998 to help nonprofits, social enterprises, and purpose-driven companies solve problems, amplify their impact, and drive measurable business and marketing results.
B-Corp/Sustainable resources
See how green your site is with this nifty tool developed by Tim Frick and Mightybytes: ecograder.com
Find meaningful work: Bwork.com
Become a Certified B Corporation. Learn more from B Lab.
Check out B the Change, the storytelling platform for the B Corp community.
Key Takeaways: Aligning Personal and Professional with Tim Frick Mightybytes
- You are the one creating your business: create a business where you can bring your whole self to work. “Having values at the heart of my business is all I can imagine.” Read this post about Mightybytes becoming an LGBTE.
- Being a certified B Corporation extends to your company’s policies and practices. This also includes how you treat employees and corporate citizenship. There are 3500+ B Corporations in the world. Over half are outside of US. Being a B Corporation is about coming together around purpose. It’s having everything aligned to bring sustainability back and create an inclusive, regenerative world. Here is Mightybytes B Corp page.
- Business often had a role in creating problems in the world. Why not be a beacon to other businesses to show that business can drive change—incorporate that into your business. Customers and employees will seek you out for this.
- Tim also was one of only 14 companies that went to IL Secretary of State to become an Illinois Benefit Corporation (e.g. there’s LLC, there’s S-Corp, and also Benefit Corporation) which acknowledges companies that align purpose and profit—where those weight equally in a company. It requires Mightybytes annually to put out a benefit report along with our financial report. 1% of Mightybyte’s sales go to environmental causes. Read more about Mightybytes becoming an Illinois Benefit Corporation.
- Research has shown that the internet has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry—because of the vast amount of (currently fossil fuel-based) electricity needed to host and run websites. Tim’s company has focused on designing sustainable websites powered by renewable energy for nearly a decade now. To more broadly understand sustainable design, Tim also enrolled in Gaia Education’s Design for Sustainability program. Gaia is a UN education partner. The program consists of four full design courses—economic, worldview, social, ecological—plus a design studio, over a year of study, 400+ hours. It focuses on ecovillages, but the concepts can be applied to organizations, communities, and so on.
- Tim took the course to advance his knowledge of biomimicry, permaculture, and other more traditional components of sustainable design. He had already written Designing for Sustainability: A Guide to Building Greener Digital Products and Services when he enrolled. Mightybytes pioneered the process of applying sustainability principles to the creation of digital products and services, something that is now getting mainstream press in publications like Wired, Fast Company, and so on.
- Optimization techniques that create something lean and uses least amount of waste—you can use this on your clothes, products, and your website. For example, with green hosting, look for a web hosting company that uses renewable energy to power your website. “We were first to do this as a business—others were writing scholarly articles about this, but we were first to do it in our website development—it’s now possible to have a sustainable website with reduced emissions and meet your business goals.”
What Drives Tim’s Spark?
Knowing that he can live a sustainable, values driven life personally and professionally. And that he can help others be accountable to the world.
