Charitable entrepreneurs integrate into their business model the process of supporting charities and nonprofit organizations. It’s more than setting aside a portion of their revenue for donations or making contributions once they see how much they have earned. Charitable entrepreneurship involves structuring the business so a portion of the revenue streams from the sale of products and services supports worthy causes.

The Find Fulfill Flourish Project has created such a model. We are a small start-up organization but we are committed to partnering with charitable organizations that wish to use the platform we have developed to generate additional funds. We also design our workshops and speaking engagements so they can double as fundraisers. These are integrated in our business processes.

Here are some of the ways our charitable entrepreneurial business model helps organization’s flourish:

• Our “Partnership Program”. Nonprofits can generate donations from people referred to FindFulfillFlourish.com. When these individuals purchase anything, we will donate a percentage of amount paid, which increases with the volume of business. Details are on our Partnership Program page.
• Offering Find Fulfill Flourish as a fundraising project. Organizations can purchase our books at wholesale and sell them at the retail price. It’s an inspirational item for gift stores and to sell to supporters. It’s a great way for youth groups to generate fund by selling a meaningful product. More information is at FindfulFillFlourish.com on the “Your Fundraising Partner” page.
• Sponsoring Find Fulfill Flourish workshops and presentations. We work with organizations in planning and delivering an inspirational and thought-provoking program that can double as a fundraiser. We develop a mutually beneficial revenue sharing arrangement. More information is the “Your Fundraising Partner” page.
• Our “Organizational Application Guide”. This guide helps organizational leaders and boards bring the Eight Dynamics embedded in the Find Fulfill Flourish process to life in their organizations.

More information on all of these Find Fulfill Flourish Project features can be found on our website. Join our community and take advantage of all we have to offer. If you have additional ideas on how we can extend our model or improve it, we’d love to hear them.

Steve Weitzenkorn

The devastation, heartbreak and ongoing tragedy in Japan are overwhelming. Our thoughts, prayers, and generosity go out to them, especially to the people so traumatized and lost though this incredibly powerful earthquake and the subsequent mammoth tsunami. If there was ever a country prepared for such a catastrophe, it was Japan. Yet even their determined effort and planning were overtaken by the size and force of these natural events. Even so, such foresight, protections, and contingency planning saved countless lives even while thousands perished.

Japan’s preparation and planning for national disasters are in stark contrast to Haiti’s. Similar natural catastrophes struck both countries, however the way each nation prepared for such events, helped its citizens, and responded in the moment were very different. And they highlight the differences in their values and the impact of those values.

Japan was proactive. They have long had very strict building codes to prevent or minimize property damage, human injuries and causalities. The losses would be far, far greater without them. Haiti did not make such investments. Construction was shoddy and buildings collapsed with little or no resistance to the earthquake and tsunami. Far more lives were lost or crippled as a result. For Japan, citizen protection and loss prevention was and is a high priority. Haiti seemed to not consider this at all. It was not a practiced value.

Japan had contingency plans in place. Rapid response teams rushed to help citizens and manage the disaster as quickly and as much as possible. The magnitude of the catastrophe still overwhelmed them, yet without it the human and property losses would be much greater. Haiti seemed to have no such plans in place. There were few first responders and they seemed ill prepared. The heavy lifting came from the international community. The values of each government drove the decisions and outcomes in both places. Japan’s values put human safety first. In Haiti, it seems other values took precedence. They each made value-based choices.

Japan’s policies and practices show a commitment to providing benefits and support for the many. Haiti’s history is one in which government policies have largely benefited the few – those with power and on the inside. These practices also reflect clear differences in values.

After the disaster struck, Japan’s leaders tirelessly communicated with the people and did all they could to adapt to the magnitude of the crisis. Haiti’s leaders almost disappeared from sight. Japan’s leaders were accountable and focused. Haiti’s leaders seemed far less so.

The values practiced by the leaders of both counties vividly illustrate the impact values can have in the moment of crisis and the aftermath. Emergency readiness, planning, competence, and resource deployment (or lack thereof) can have a huge impact – whether on saving lives, treating the injured, alleviating trauma, or minimizing damage. Japan’s emergency and medical teams are working around the clock, responding to innumerable ripple effects and the needs of its people, making a horrific situation as tolerable as possible. Imagine if Japan was as poorly prepared as Haiti.

You might say that this is the difference between a relatively wealthy country like Japan and an impoverished one like Haiti. I would submit that those differences also reflect the differences in values between the leaders and culture of both island nations.

As daunting as the massive challenge is facing Japan, including the risk of nuclear meltdowns, I am willing to bet that huge numbers of people will not be living tents, make-shift shelters, or unsanitary conditions one year after the earthquake and tsunami as they still are in Haiti. Think about how each country demonstrates its compassion and care for the citizens who have suffered and the impact that has. Japan has swung into action and will sustain that effort. It will rebound far faster and much more effectively than Haiti from a similar, if not greater, natural disaster – reflecting the values of its culture.

You may want to reflect on your own values. Bringing all this down to a more personal level, are you more like Japan or Haiti? 

How do your values show up in your life? How do they affect its course and the choices you make? How do they affect how you respond to and rebound from personal earthquakes and tsunamis?

Last night my daughter’s flight home for spring break was delayed. Then, within the next hour, it was cancelled due to weather. We scrambled to set up another flight for her, and she offered to spend the night in the airport to grab a flight that left at 6:00 am. Thinking that was beyond the call of duty, we talked about finding her a hotel room near the airport where she could spend the night and get on a flight a bit later.

I spoke with a lovely man named Tony, who, within five minutes, had a reservation set for my daughter at an airport hotel, with shuttle service and complimentary breakfast. All for a reasonable price. I exhaled when I learned she had arrived safely in her room.

When my phone rang at 7:30 this morning, I was sure my daughter was calling to let me know she was boarding her flight. When I heard, “Mom, I have a problem,” my stomach turned. “The hotel didn’t give me my wake up call. I asked for one every fifteen minutes starting at 6:30. None of them came. I just woke up.”

Her flight was in 30 minutes. No way she was going to make it.

“I’m going to call the airlines,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”

Fifteen minutes, twenty… no call back. Nervously, I tried her. “I’m on hold. Gotta go,” was her reply. Another ten minutes passed before her call came. I heard the smile on her face and the relief in her voice. “The guy was really nice. I was crying the whole time. He got me on a later flight, and I told him about the cancellation last night and the wake up calls and he didn’t even charge me extra.”

Okay, so I won’t be able to pick her up because I have to be at work when she gets in, but at least she’ll be on her way.

I phoned the hotel, asking to speak to the manager, letting her know that none of the wake up calls came. While she is looking into providing us compensation for this, she went out of her way to let me know that she would offer my daughter full generosity and use of the room and hotel well beyond the normal check out time. She is extending every courtesy that she can think of.

What impresses me about all the people we encountered in this unexpected situation is their kindness. Flights get cancelled all the time; for weather, for lack of passengers, for concerns with flightworthiness. This happens. Emergency contingency plans also occur. And people make mistakes. We all know and have experienced that not everyone extends kindness, not even in an emergency, not even when circumstances beyond one’s control have prohibited someone from fulfilling his or her obligation. The expediency and warmth that Tony exhibited to me last night, the generosity that my daughter received from the airline’s reservation attendant this morning, the special extensions being offered by the hotel manager while she researches additional compensation, all of these have brought more ease and warmth into a difficult and frightening situation.

We can do our jobs effectively without being kind. We can do our jobs and live our lives without being generous. But the world is a harsher place when people are terse, cold, strict or stingy. All it takes is a softening of the heart to help turn someone else’s rough day into a laughable adventure or a smoother ride. If we can imagine ourselves in their place, and think of the kindness we would like extended to us, it becomes natural to begin to extend that same kindness to them. This is not only a good business tactic, but one for our personal lives as well.

I am grateful for the generosity of these three individuals.