All About B Corporations with Sarah Payne – Part 2 of 2 | GP 111

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Image of Sarah Payne. On this therapist podcast, Sarah Payne talks all About B Corporations

What are the benefits of being certified as a B corporation? How does the B Corp assessment, without the certification, already lead to huge improvements in your company? How long does it take to become B Corp certified?

In this podcast episode, Alison Pidgeon speaks about B corporations with Sarah Payne.

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Meet Sarah Payne

A photo of Sarah Payne is captured. She is the impact consulting manager at Assets. Sarah is featured on Grow A Group Practice, a therapist podcast.

Sarah Payne is the Impact Consulting Manager at ASSETS. Through her experience working with nonprofits and for-profit businesses to create change in both local and global contexts, she furthers her passion for deploying collaborative strategies to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable world.

Sarah focuses on developing and operationalizing strategies that equip companies to improve their social and environmental impact in order to enhance their competitive advantage and build a better world. Sarah holds a Bachelor’s degree in World History from Messiah College and an MBA in Economic Development from Eastern University.

Visit the ASSETS website and connect with them on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn.

In This Podcast

  • Why would a business consider becoming a B corporation?
  • Assessment leads to being a stronger business
  • The B Corp process
  • How long will it take to become B Corp certified?

Why would a business consider becoming a B corporation?

1 – A B Corp certification lets clients know that your business is committed to being socially and environmentally friendly which benefits its success rates.

Companies that are committing to [having a positive] social and environmental impact do well financially when it comes to their peers. There’s a lot of data … that speaks to the idea that a purposeful business is a stronger business. (Sarah Payne)

2 – B Corp certified businesses are more likely to “weather the storms” of financial crises.

3 – B Corp businesses have more exposure and public relationships that are high quality because they associate with other high-ranking organizations that make positive impacts.

4 – Products created by B Corp businesses can also have better shelf spaces in stores and supermarkets.

As other industries and organizations are seeing the value of [B Corp certifications] they want more people to promote on their shelves and in their stores. (Sarah Payne)

5 – B Corp certified businesses generally have better employee retention and often attract high-quality employees who want to apply to work with them due to their commitment to social, environmental, employee professionalism.

Assessment leads to being a stronger business

Taking the impact assessment, even if you do not desire to become B Corp certified, can boost and improve your business’s public appearance, customer interest, and decrease negative environmental impact.

Consider taking the impact assessment to improve:

  • Energy efficiency
  • Financial success
  • Purchase local products
  • Stimulating the local economy

You find these areas of mutual benefit within the B Impact Assessment that can make your business stronger and more competitive, and again, the competitive differentiation from your peers is huge. (Sarah Payne)

The B Corp process

1 – Take the B Impact assessment all the way through. It is a free tool that is confidential to start.

2 – Submit your assessment to be reviewed at the B Lab.

3 – Have a review call with a B Corp analyst to discuss the assessment in a debrief.

4 – Once you have been verified to have scored over 80 points, you sign the Declaration of Interdependence and pay the fee.

5 – The legal component: for LLCs, you go to your corporate body documents and include language around your values, purpose, and mission to be held accountable for these changes.

How long will it take to become B Corp certified?

If you have all your documentation correct and ready, and you score over 80 points, it can take a couple of months. That is the shorter, quicker period.

However, if your documentation is incomplete, or you fall below the necessary 80-point mark, the B Corp analysts will still work with you and help you to achieve those 80 points and have the correct documentation.

Overall, the process can take anywhere from a couple of months to a year.

I would say for a small company to get certified from start to finish [it would take] probably around 6 months. (Sarah Payne)

Useful links mentioned in this episode:

Check out these additional resources:

Meet Alison Pidgeon, Group Practice Owner

An image of Alison Pidgeon is displayed. She is a successful group practice owner and offers private practice consultation for private practice owners to assist in how to grow a group practice. She is the host of Grow A Group Practice Podcast and one of the founders of Group Practice Boss.Alison Pidgeon, LPC is the owner of Move Forward Counseling, a group practice in Lancaster, PA and she runs a virtual assistant company, Move Forward Virtual Assistants.

Alison has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016.  She has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, through mastermind groups and individual consulting.

Transformation From A Private Practice To Group Practice

In addition, she is a private practice consultant for Practice of the Practice. Allison’s private practice ‘grew up.’ What started out as a solo private practice in early 2015 quickly grew into a group practice and has been expanding ever since.

Visit Alison’s website, listen to her podcast, or consult with Alison. Email Alison at [email protected]

Thanks For Listening!

Podcast Transcription

[ALISON PIDGEON]
You are listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you were thinking about starting a group practice or in the beginning stages, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, you are in the right place. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host, a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a large group practice that I started in 2015. Each week, I feature a guest or topic that is relevant to group practice owners. Let’s get started.

Hi, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m Alison Pidgeon. Today, we’re doing part two of an interview that I did with Sarah Payne and she is explaining it to us all about B Corp certifications. So in case you missed the first part of the interview, it aired last week, so the episode directly previous to this one. Definitely start there, because I think that will make more sense before you listen to part two. We had such a great conversation and she had so much great information we just decided to make this a two-part interview.

To give you a little recap, Sarah Payne is the impact consulting manager at an organization called ASSETS. They’re actually local to me here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and she helps organizations start the B Corporation process. She actually helped my own practice get started with the process and she has a passion for helping make businesses just more equitable and hopefully contributing to a more sustainable world. She has a very cool resume. She worked through AmeriCorps Vista, she’s worked internationally on various economic development initiatives and she has an MBA in economic development. Sarah definitely knows her stuff. She is really an expert on B Corporations and the certification process, and she explains that all to us in the interview. I hope you enjoy part two of this interview with Sarah Payne.
[ALISON]
Yes. It’s funny because a lot of my staff had not heard of B Corporations and we weren’t exactly sure when we were going to get our certification and we got it and we let the staff know and they were like, “That sounds great. What does this mean?” So we need to do a little bit of education with them but I think they get the gist of it. I think that they see exactly what you said. Like it’s just a positive thing for everybody.
[SARAH PAYNE]
Yes, absolutely.
[ALISON]
So we talked about the consumer side, but what about the business side? What are the advantages to the business to go through this process? Like you said, it’s not easy. You have to make a lot of changes potentially. Why would a business want to become a B Corp or maybe why wouldn’t they want to become a B Corp?
[SARAH]
Yes, that’s a great question. Because it is an investment to become a B Corp, there is a certification fee and certainly there’s the time investment that we spoke of. But there are a wide variety of reasons that a company would want to become a B Corp. I think, first of all, in general companies that are committing to social and environmental impact do well financially when it comes to their peers. There’s a lot of data from places like McKinsey and Deloitte that speak to this idea that a purposeful business is a stronger business. When you have those values to guide you, when you have that competitive differentiation that comes from being able to talk about your impact in this way is better for business.

Specifically with B Corps there has been research on this. In fact, after the 2008 financial crisis a certain group of researchers found that B Corps were more likely to weather the storm than others, which is just really interesting to think about the resiliency of this model. But as I mentioned PR would be one great reason to become a B Corp, just being able to promote that message, to get attention from local outlets, local nonprofits, maybe like ASSETS in other places that are able to really blast that out to the community and do some of that education around what it means and to create that demand for it. So public relations and exposure, that’s definitely a big reason.

Another one for specifically product manufacturers that we had mentioned is sometimes you can even get better shelf space at stores for having that B Corp logo, which is great. Again, as other industries and other organizations are seeing the value of it, they want more people to be able to promote on their shelves and in their stores. We’ve heard that example as well.

It also helps, as we mentioned with employee engagement and as we know, retaining talent is a top priority for any business. But especially now and with particularly millennials and Gen-Z, research has shown that they really take these values seriously in terms of social and environmental impact and responsibility. So I think it does help to attract new talent, new, fresh talent, that’s craving these things to retain them. That’s obviously a hot topic in the workforce these days.
[ALISON]
Yes, I was going to say that that was actually one of our main drivers for wanting to get the B Corp certification, was to show potential employees that we were treating our staff well, and that thing. Unfortunately in mental health, nonprofit agency worlds that doesn’t always happen. So we wanted to have that designation like yes, you are going to get treated well here. I think the B Corp helps with that, yes.
[SARAH]
That’s so great.
[ALISON]
Sorry I interrupted you.
[SARAH]
No, no problem. It’s a great thing to do. I think another reason is, thinking about your impact, specifically taking the B Impact Assessment, even if you don’t desire to be a certified B Corporation, because it is again, that certification fee and there’s a lot of effort involved there, but even assessing your impact through a tool like the B Impact Assessment can lead to a stronger business. So there’s the obvious low-hanging fruit, things like doing better for the environment in terms of energy efficiency and conserving energy can be financially beneficial, all the way to buying locally; could actually help you reduce your costs in terms of purchasing and it helps stimulate the local economy. So you find these areas of mutual benefit within the B Impact Assessment that can actually make your business stronger and more competitive.

Again, I’ll mention the competitive differentiation from your peers is huge. If one company has a certified B Corporation status and one doesn’t, for a lot of consumers, that speaks a lot. So just being able to differentiate yourself from the crowd and say, “Hey, we’re a business that’s really committed to this,” is a huge benefit. I think the other thing that’s really beneficial about becoming a certified B Corporation is being part of this global community of 4,000 businesses that are all committed to the same thing. We’ve heard stories about smaller companies getting to the table with larger companies simply by virtue of sharing that B Corp logo and those values.

And that can lead to so many business opportunities when you’re able to network with these other companies and do business with them and be inspired by them or even mentored by them. There are annual gatherings of B Corps. There are a wide variety of resources for B Corps once you’re part of a community, even discounts to other B Corps if you become a B Corp. So I don’t want to under-emphasize the importance of that and the importance of being part of that community because it’s something truly unique.

I’ve been fortunate enough to go to one of their annual gatherings called the B Corp champions retreat. It’s just amazing to see hundreds of people gathered in one place, talking all about how they can make their businesses even better and being inspired by each other, being accountable with one another, talking through issues together of how did you get past this area and the assessment. We’re really wanting to grow in this area. Because a lot of B Corp it’s a journey of continuing to improve. It’s not just a one and done. You can become a B Corp and you’re doing this, you’re re-certifying every three years and you’re trying to do better.

So being part of that group of people is so inspiring. It was inspiring to me and I think certainly once you’re part of the community. So I think that’s another really great reason to become a certified B Corporation. There are so many. Different companies, different entrepreneurs will find things more attractive than others. I will say if you’re a smaller service company you should have a plan for how you really want to use that B Corp logo because often it’s really beneficial for companies that can be very forthcoming about that logo. So on a product, for example, or if they have a strategy in mind to promote it on their website, their social media where it can really make a difference.

So I would just really think through specifically how you want to use that certification, how you want to promote that logo and have a strategy around it before you go to all the time and expense to do it and go in eyes wide open. Certainly at ASSETS we love helping companies become B Corps and we think B Corps are awesome, but they might not be the end all be all for every business owner. That’s totally fine. You can just take the assessment and improve your business, and that’s still doing so much more than the typical company and does a lot for the world too, to assess your impact in that way. So the certification’s great, but to your point, it may not be for everybody and that’s totally okay.
[ALISON]
Yes, yes, for sure. Can you give us an overview of what the process looks like if somebody would want to start the journey of getting their B Corp certification? I know that, you’ve already alluded to some of the things like taking the B Corp assessment. It sounds like it’s the first step, but maybe if you could just sort of connect the dots for us.
[SARAH]
Yes, absolutely. So the first step is to take the B Impact Assessment. This is a free tool, totally confidential. It’s basically the world’s best impact measurement tool. So that’s definitely the first step, is to create a free account there. If you go to bimpactassessment.net you can take the assessment. Often for smaller companies that already have an eye towards social environmental impact and are pretty organized to complete the full thin the first time through generally takes 60 to 90 minutes to get across those five stakeholder areas that we discussed earlier which are governance workers, community, customers, and environment. There are a variety of questions there. Obviously, if you’re a bigger company or more complex, that’s going to take a lot more time.

Often I’ll work with folks and you have to have QuickBooks up, you have to have your employee handbook out. There are a lot of things that you need to check in order to answer these questions. So yes, that’s the first step taking, taking the B Impact Assessment all the way through. The way they’ve designed the assessment is really cool. It updates live so you can go in and work on it for 20 minutes and then exit and go about your day. You can do it in those small chunks, knowing that your progress is being saved as you go. There’s also some helpful functionality in there where you can flag things to bookmark them to come back to later. You can actually set goals within the platform and it will automatically email you like, “Hey, you wanted to come back to this question three weeks. Here’s your friendly reminder.”

So there are some great functionality that makes the B Impact Assessment pretty usable. Generally that will take, even if it takes you only 90 minutes to do the full thing, there is a process around making sure you can document these things. Like you want to spend some time on that assessment. You do need to get to that 80 points. That’ll be the first thing. If you’re struggling to get to that 80 points there are resources within the B Impact Assessment platform where they can point you out to some samples of how this question might look in real life. You can do a DIY approach to improve your score on that assessment to over 80 points, or you can enlist help.

ASSETS offers improvement, plan resources, companies that basically are saying, well, we can’t meet this mark. How should we do it? Having a partner to talk through, okay, these are all your options of things that you could do to improve your score. Now, some of them might work better for your business than others. So let’s talk through a strategy of how we’re going to increase your score in a way that is really good for your business and aligns with what you’re already doing in your business. There are a variety of B Corp consultants across the country now that can help with that. That can be something that’s really beneficial, even just navigating the assessment, knowing which questions are really going to be important to answer and their point values, things like that. So enlisting help can help there with completing the full assessment.

Once you do the full B Impact Assessment and you reach 80 points, you submit your assessment to be reviewed by someone at B-Lab. You’ll be assigned to a standards analyst that will basically be your guide through the whole B Corp certification process. What that looks like is you’ll provide some basic information about the company, just so that they can affirm that you’re on the right tracks and your assessment in terms of your size, your sector and your geography as well as your revenue figures, your employee roster, things like that. They just want to get the basics and make sure everything checks out there.

They will also ask you to provide documentation around some of the areas in the assessment that are heavily weighted. That will actually be a random selection of those questions. It depends how many they select based on the size of your business, but basically you need to be able to show B-Lab that here’s the policy that says that we do this, here’s the dollar amount and the list of suppliers that are women-owned, whatever the question is, being able to prove that you actually do that.

That happens on the review call then. So they schedule this review call with the business to basically walk through the assessment to talk through the different areas. If there are questions that were flagged for discussion, or to go over that documentation, you’ll talk through that with them on the phone. So basically that’s the main round of the review process, is doing that phone call. Now, after that, there might be some more follows, they might ask for some more documentation. Again, it’s not a one and done process. You’re probably in conversations with that analyst for sometimes a number of weeks in order for them to really understand your business and to make sure that you’re using the assessment to its best ability to get certified. That’s the main step of certification.

Once they verified that you did score over 80 points and we can prove that then it comes time to sign the agreement, pay your certification fees and sign what they call the declaration of interdependence, which I think is really cool. Kind of a fun play on words there, acknowledging that we’re all interdependent in this world. So companies are doing their part right to have that positive impact. So that’s basically the broad outline of the process.

I should mention that there is a legal component as well. Ideally before or during taking the B Impact Assessment, you’ll have to do some legal change depending on what your current corporate structure is. For LLCs, this is much simpler. Basically you go to your corporate governing documents and you amend them to include language that’s already been drafted by B-Lab around your values, your purpose, your mission, and basically being accountable to your stakeholders. That’s a fairly simple process. Usually you don’t even need to involve legal counsel to make those changes in your organizing agreement.

If you are a corporation, we talked earlier about the benefit corporation structure, corporations have to adopt that benefit corporation entity. That’s something that is definitely more involved, will need to involve your lawyer, your attorney to make that change. But that’s a requirement as well for becoming a B Corp. So they ask that that is done within a certain timeframe of becoming certified. So often what that means is at the same time, or even before you start on the B Impact Assessment journey you’re thinking about, and working on this legal process.

I think they do that to really give teeth to this. There are a lot of companies that want to say that they’re doing good. We call it greenwash or good washing where you look more eco-friendly or you look more socially responsible than you really are. What the B Corp movement does, it really challenges that first by the certification that you went through this arduous process, you had your impact vetted, but also this legal aspect really gives that teeth because theoretically, if a company is not creating that value for their stakeholders, and if they’re not doing good, you can legally have a problem with that company.

So it’s really giving it teeth. It’s a very strong mechanism. Again, really well thought out by the founders. But again, just want to emphasize the import and the lengths they go to to make sure that certified B Corps are really committed to these things and can be held up as these great examples because it’s not an easy process and sometimes they’re not easy decisions. But every person that makes those decisions, it’s a real step of courage and I think for smaller businesses, that’s one ballgame, but there are also, as I mentioned earlier, there’s pretty big companies out there including publicly traded companies that have become B Corps and have become benefit corporations. And that’s a real lift. So it just really shows the commitment to it and to advancing the movement. So yes, that was a long explanation of the process, but those are the broad strokes and some finer details as well.
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[ALISON PIDGEON]
Yes, that was very helpful. That was actually very similar to our experience going through it. Just a couple follow up questions, how long should people estimate the process takes and what is the ballpark in terms of the fee to actually be, to pay the fee to become officially B Corp certified?
[SARAH]
Great questions. So for both of those, it depends on the size of your company and they measure that in terms of your revenue. So the certification fee is based on a scale; if you are under $500,000 in revenue per year, it’s a $1,000 certification fee. Then it goes up from there in a ladder in terms of what you pay for certification. That really reflects, in some part, the amount of time that it takes to actually certify the company. So to your other question for a small company to get through the whole process, usually four to six months now, if you’re bigger than that, or if you’re more complex for example, if you have subsidiaries that will be a longer time horizon for sure. So it can take a year sometimes for complex entities to get certified. So it really depends.

The other thing is that if you’re coming into it with a very clear mission, if you have all of your documentation in line, if you were maybe already a social enterprise and you take the assessment and you say, boom, aced it, and you have everything together, it can take just a matter of months. So that’s the shorter end. That’s not as common. Often, it really is a process but the B-Lab analysts are really helpful in working with you through that. So even if, for example, you fall below that 80 points in the review process, they’ll work with you to try to get back up and over it. So it can come and fits and starts for some companies and that really dictates the time horizon that you’re looking at. But I would say for a small company to get certified, start to finish probably around six months.
[ALISON]
Okay. I know you said that because of all of the interest there has been more recently, B-Lab has gotten backed up. So maybe expect for it to take a little bit longer then.
[SARAH]
Yes. The thing that takes longer, —
[ALISON]
Which is a good problem to have.
[SARAH]
You probably have, but it can still, it can be frustrating. The longest part there is really just waiting in the queue to get evaluated. So by the time you submit, it can be a matter of months. And they try to be pretty good about communicating that once you submit your assessments so you can know what to expect. I think right now it’s between two and four months, again, depending on the size of your company. So I know they’re actively trying to work out those problems, bringing in more people to help with reviews. They really don’t want to compromise the integrity of the movement but balancing that with that more people want to join it. So yes, a good problem to have, but definitely it’s one that they’re trying to navigate with a lot of care. So yes, it might change by time from your, when you’re listening to this and when we recorded to when you would actually, as a company, maybe submit your assessment, it could fluctuate a little bit, but certainly a number of months to get through the full process.
[ALISON]
I know you had alluded to before there’s some really big companies who are B Corp certified I’m sure, probably names that a lot of people would recognize. Can you give us some examples?
[SARAH]
So one great example, that was an early adopter and now is a pretty large company is Patagonia. So they make a lot of really cool outdoor apparel. They have a really cool origin story as well, this guy who just really loved climbing and wanted to make great tools for climbing and it’s grown as a business a lot in the past years. And Patagonia is, they’re known for premium products and also that premium price tag. But as we mentioned earlier, that really reflects their number of commitments to social and environmental impacts. So Patagonia is a great company. They score very highly on the B Impact Assessment, but they do a lot in terms of experimenting with their textiles and how they’re grown to mitigate environmental impact putting in the extra time and effort and cost to having, for example, the cotton fair trade certified, which not only has environmental, but also social ramifications.

Making sure that the people that are making the products are working in ethical conditions and are being respected even at their corporate headquarters. Patagonia in its early days was a little bit famous for if, they they’re based in California and there’s a story that the founder, Ivan Sard tells in one of his books that if the waves are really a choice, they would let their employees go out and just surf during the work day, which is really cool. Because I think as a company —
[ALISON]
That sounds awesome.
[SARAH]
They’re very aware of the natural world and all the draws that that has and their love of the natural world and exploring and doing those activities in it really drives, I think that commitment to being good for the earth. So not only just trying to be sustainable, but to be regenerative. Patagonia has expanded into, they actually have crops now. So you can buy Patagonia provisions, which is food that’s grown sustainably. They do a number of things as well even to speak to rampant consumerism, which is really interesting for a company that sells products to do that.

But they even in past years, taken out ads in big newspapers that say, “Don’t buy this jacket,” and they showed a picture of a Patagonia jacket. Now what that did was obviously to boost attention in sales, but the whole idea was that they have a whole program now around if you have like a Patagonia jacket that maybe has a rip in it, we will take it back and repair it for you rather than you have to buy a whole new jacket. Because we’re so used to, oh, something’s out of style or something, oh, the zipper broke. So I’m just going to get rid of it and buy another.

But it’s that kind of assimilation of goods that clogs up the earth. So Patagonia was bold enough to say like, we want you to wear our products for decades and if they don’t work, send them back and we’ll fix them. They actually, now, if you grow out of a product or if the zipper stops working, you can send it back and they can actually resell it on a different platform that they have called Worn Wear where you can buy Patagonia that’s been used, but is still usable, is still a good product for deeply discounted prices. So they’re very thoughtful in terms of how they talk about consumerism, how they promote buying their products.

They’re just in general, very vocal and very active, take a big advocacy role even among certified B Corporations. So they’re a great example of a company that’s really committed, not only in name, but in very concrete actions to being a B Corp. Again, they were one of the early adopters to become that certified B Corp and benefit corporation. So they’re, I would put the really high at the top on the list of great B Corps to aspire to. Now for most of us, our companies, it would take a long time to get to that point, but it’s always great to have those role models out there.
[ALISON]
Yes, that’s amazing. That’s a great example. Do you have any other examples that you can talk about?
[SARAH]
Yes, I’ll give a local example. In Lancaster there’s a group of restaurants under the banner of commons company and one of the most popular is Prince Street Café and also Passenger Coffee. These businesses are owned by a duo that is again, really committed to social and environmental impact and to giving back to their community. We worked with Prince Street on their certification and they did things like investing in whole different product lines of cup and straws. As a food business, really wanting to make sure that they’re thinking about their waste and where their waste is going. So if you go into the restaurant, they are very intentional about put these things here when it comes time to leaving and disposing of your meal, to make sure that they’re reducing the amount that goes to landfill.

They’re a company that has really taken an eye to that environment piece which is often the more difficult area, especially in Lancaster. A lot of companies are really great at the social piece, engaging their employees and giving back and Prince Street does those things as well. So they’re a really cool local example, very tangible. You can actually go into the store and support them, which is awesome. So that would be a very micro example of a company that’s they’ve been certified for a number of years now, and every time they go back, they increase their score. They find something else that they can do to improve their impact, which is part of the ethos of being a B Corp.
[ALISON]
We love Prince Café and I know Crystal, who’s part owner of the restaurants and, yes, she’s amazing. I know, I think Ben and Jerry is a B Corporation also, is that correct?
[SARAH]
Yes, and there’s actually a great story there with Ben and Jerry’s. So Ben and Jerry’s, I mean, we all know and love Ben and Jerry’s, they started a number of years ago, but had this reputation of yes, just being really cognizant of their impact and being big advocates. They actually got linked up to another B Corp. So this is an example of B Corps working with B Corps that I mentioned earlier. There is a company that’s located in New York that manufactures brownies, cookies, things like that. It’s called Greyson Bakery. Greyson Bakery is really cool. They are another example of a B Corp that their whole mission is to provide good jobs, especially to people that may be coming out of prison that are returning citizens. They really want to make it accessible to get a good job.

So if you’re someone that’s looking for a job, you can literally walk up to the front door of their facility. There is a list of where you can apply for a job. If you write your name down on that list, they will give you a call and offer you a job, no questions asked. Then in addition to that, they provide a variety of support services. They have a number of ancillary or organizations that offer help with housing, that offer help with so many different areas, really trying to holistically support their employees once they become part of that family. So there are a number of cool stories you can find on YouTube, some cool.

Upworthy did a video about them just really inspiring showing the journey of someone being able to get a job there and work their way up through management and how it changed their life. But basically, so Ben and Jerry, the name, those are actually the names of the founders of Ben and Jerry’s, Ben and Jerry found out about Greyson Bakery and they were like, we want to work with these people. So actually when you buy Ben and Jerry’s in any of those brownies or cookie bits that are in your ice cream, those are coming from Greyson Bakery. So Greyson Bakery was a small little facility, but they got in contact with Ben and Jerry’s and then boom. So it’s just the power of, again, those shared values and making those connections, which is really cool. So, I mean, talk about so much social impact to like packed into a pine.
[ALISON]
That’s amazing. That’s great. I listened to an interview with Ben and Jerry on the, How I Built This podcast and it was so fascinating, but it sounds like they were doing very B Corp, like stuff back in the eighties. Then I saw that they were listed on the website as being a B Corp certification. I was like, of course they are.
[SARAH]
Of course, yes.
[ALISON]
Because they were doing it way before they were B Corp.
[SARAH]
Exactly. They use like fair trade chocolate. They use organic, they use local, they do all the things as well. So they’re another great example of a really solid B Corp.
[ALISON]
Awesome. Well, it’s been so great to talk with you, Sarah. I’m so glad that you were able to take the time to explain all things B Corp to us, because I think it’s definitely something that in our industry, mental health practice owners it’s definitely attainable for them. I think like you said, it’s just a benefit. It’s a win-win for everybody. So I really appreciate you taking the time to explain everything to us. So if people want to learn more about B Corp or if they want to connect with you or ASSETS, where is a good place for them to look online?
[SARAH]
So to learn more about B Corps and to start on that journey, you can go to B Corp or B Corporation, bcorporation.net. Want to make sure I didn’t mess up that URL, bcorporation.net. That’s where you can learn about the movement. Specifically, if you want to just go straight to the assessment, that’s bimpactassessment.net. To learn more about ASSETS and how we’re involved, you can go to assetspa.org, and you can find us on there under impact consulting. You can also learn about our other products and services like training and lending and schedule meeting with us right off that website. So that would be the place to go there. assetspa.org.
[ALISON]
Nice. So if somebody wants to have that sort of mentor to help them through the process, is that something ASSETS provides to anybody in the United States or is that just for more local folks?
[SARAH]
So we do work more locally, but we have at times expanded our geographic scope. If you are in Lancaster County, definitely look us up. On our website you can you can contact us. But yes, we we’d love to hear from folks who are looking for that extra hand of help for B Corp certification.
[ALISON]
Okay, awesome. It sounds like if for whatever reason that isn’t a fit, there’s other sort of B Corp programs, or, I don’t know what you call them, mentors across the country?
[SARAH]
Yes.
[ALISON]
That you could point them to or how would people find those folks?
[SARAH]
That’s a great question. If you do some exploring on the B Corporation website, you’ll see some of those resources there. If not, feel free to reach out to us and maybe we can give you a recommendation if you’re in a different geography, as we know some of the other groups that do this. If you’re interested in just seeing the B Corporations in your community and want to explore that there is a whole B Corp directory again on bcorporation.net. So that’s a really fun thing to explore too. You can see who else in your town or in your state is certified and that’s really fun.
[ALISON]
Cool. Well, thank you so much again, Sarah, for all the information. It’s been really helpful.
[SARAH]
Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure to be here.
[ALISON]
Well, I wanted to say thank you to Therapy Notes for being a sponsor of this podcast. We know your EHR is awesome and we are happy to tell other people about it. So if you want to get Therapy Notes for free for three months, use promo code [JOE], J-O-E, no strings attached, and you can check it out and see if you’re ready to make the switch.

Thanks again for listening. I hope this was really informative for you. Like I said, in the beginning my practice went through this B Corp certification process, and now we have the certification and we’re very proud that we can now call ourselves B Corp certified. So if it’s something you’re interested in, definitely do a little bit of research. Google B Corps, and all kinds of information will come up and I hope you learnt some valuable information today and I’ll talk to you all later.

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[ALISON]
This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.

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