Thanks to those who’ve read and commented on Empty Abundance, and here’s a link to a sample chapter to entice those who have not.

So I promised to use today’s blog to update you on our foundation’s plans for 2015. And Friday was our best annual meeting ever, Our Chairman, Brad Roller, challenged me.

Our Managing Director, Bill Leamon, had earlier outlined our 2014 progress: a. lending almost $3 million to un-bankable entrepreneurs, b. matching 1,000 first-generation college students with mentors and c. (finally) fielding a real alternative to payday loans in Northeast Ohio.

When I got up to present my vision for 2015 and beyond, Brad stopped me and turned to my wife Alice (also a board member – I am not) and said, “Is he ever happy?” Without describing the great discussion that ensued, I will share the outcome of it.

I feel, and the board of The Business of Good agrees that the hardest part of giving is living the truths we espouse. Call it the old “walk the walk” versus “talking the talk.”

That is, our foundation partners and Bill are doing an amazing job making progress on our current primary goals, set in 2010 when the foundation really started to gel. But our mission must be more than doing great non-profit work; we must become better people in the for-profit businesses that drive the foundation’s budget. Here’s what that means.

Ultimately I dream that we will conduct our for-profit businesses in the same manner as our non-profit partners; hence, the “business” of “good.” That is tricky and getting trickier.

One of the standards we set for ourselves is all businesses we associate with will follow the golden rule: “treat others as you wish to be treated.”

Imagine how hard that is when your mother ship is a fast casual restaurant chain where the majority of our workers are young and transient. How do you honestly show dignity to each person in such a high-turnover business?

My almost-90 mother in law likes to say “getting old is not for sissies.”

I’m learning to say, “giving isn’t for sissies either.” Because if you talk the talk without figuring out how to progressively walk the walk, what good is your business?

Peace.

Tim McCarthy