April 2020 - A Final Benifactor Update

Dear Reader, 

On April 17, 2017 I typed out my first company memo, and today I typed up my last. 

Anna King, now board leader, then senior leader, made it clear that this wasn’t the old days where I could act like the town crier and declare my vision to the team, all of whom would’ve been within arms reach in our tiny office. The team I was on three years ago had outgrown our processes and new systems needed to emerge. So I began writing. 

 I talked about how on May 30th, 2016 I presented to a small group of Frontier folk, a vision for “The Next Frontier”. I also expanded on the history of Frontier with the following passage:

“On September 18, 2014 I registered Frontier Marketing Co as a result of my bank telling me ever so gently that I need to have some documentation to support my use of the word Frontier, until then the ‘grandfathered in*’ trade name of my sole proprietor consulting business. 

The shift from Frontier Consulting to Frontier Marketing Co was made after discussions with key people at the time that it’s time to burn our boats and pursue the path of an agency with a bunch of staff instead of a small group of consultants in a tiny office in Fernwood. We found several thousand square feet, turned contractors into employees and started firing bad clients. 

Suddenly we were a dirty dozen forging a path for integrated marketing with a dozen clients and some big projects.

[…usual rambling]

You can support FMC by offering support and encouragement to all the staff. You can help us manage expectations during unexpected change and remind us from time to time what you think is so awesome about the team at Frontier, its mission to support charities, and its great work.”

The letter goes on to describe other people and organizations, some of which remain, but most that describe the beginning of a very wild three years for me. One that I did not particularly want, and one that stood in contrast to my original vision. 

The purpose of these letters veered from their original purpose. I didn’t want to write company memos to communicate and clarify operational details. I wanted to share stories, talk authentically, and emulate my business-writing heroes in Warren Buffett and Phil Knight. 

I wanted to publicly process ideas and guide an organizational vision to support leaders like Francis, Mariam, Steph, Sarah, Jon, Liz, Innes, and Heath. In my mind, it was my job to connect with these leaders, connect them to each other, and connect myself with the outside world. 

Ultimately some of my favourite moments writing these letters were getting to do whatever the fuck I wanted, celebrating our team, and bidding them farewell. I enjoyed finding quotes, analogies, pop culture references - whatever it took to convey a concept or feeling. 

While I’ve been so sad to see some of my best friends and colleagues leave the last few years, I’ve also enjoyed honouring their departure through these letters. I’m glad I got to say goodbye to Anna, Zach, or Mariam the way I was able. 

It was so fun telling you all about our Rookie of the Year award and even more fun letting everyone know it was Katie! I enjoyed celebrating Nick, Sarah, and Sophie crossing the 4 year mark, which meant joining the rest of us on our 4 year plaque and getting an extra week of vacation per year.

I could go on, but here again, that’s not the point of a company memo. If I wanted to get to the point, I’d probably use some bullet points and say the following:

• In recent months I communicated that “we are all now Frontier” and while that’s more significant for BKeeper than Charity Electric, it means that all of Benifactor’s employees now report to one General Manager. 

• That General Manager is Francis Quintal and not, Ben Johnson. 

• Frontier is run by management (senior leadership), not ownership. 

• Ownership will have limited powers, via the board of directors. 

• Ownership and management operate through healthy systems, not arbitrary goals. 

• Management’s job is to communicate, delegate, predict, and to lead with systems and structures.

When I left management of Frontier to Sarah and the “three wiser women” as they were known several years ago, it was a dirty dozen (an homage to both my baking roots and what I believed to be a super cool movie when I was in grade 9). Now, the company started by a 24 year old is a team of 24. It’s reached a maturity that requires mature leadership, which it now has. 

There are a few things I want to get across to you as we close:

• Our company memos are no longer my domain and so this is the end of getting eblasts from me and seeing posts on this website. 

• This upcoming era from Frontier, turning 10 and growing into its maturity is pretty cool

• The other ideas and organizations were and are pretty cool but ultimately it’s up to management to see how to chart a course for the next ten years

• My next ten years is focused on three things: 

  • enjoying my final ten years with Matthew and Ellie in the home 

  • Stabilizing my family’s financial life and preparing for retirement

  • Enjoying a career as a Marketing Strategist for Frontier

  • (And continuing my obsession with dodgeball)

What’s a letter from Ben if there’s no quote, right? How about an organizational one and a personal one. First, this great quote to ponder from Scaling up: 

“To get to 10 employees, founders must delegate activities in which they are weak. To get to 50 employees, they have to delegate functions in which they are strong! In many cases, the strength of the top leader becomes the weakness of the organization. “

I’m sure in the years ahead you’ll see Frontier continue to mature as an organization and balance its strengths through efficient and effective leadership, systems and structure.

Personally, I’m enjoying the impracticality of my brain and heart. I’m embracing my desire to be a dad and to help others. I am tossing out tired personal and societal labels and enjoying letting my emotions show and guide me and not giving a shit if as many people like or understand me. 

Alice in Wonderland is where I wanted to finish these letters to you, because I’ve always loved the absurdity and resistance to conventionality. I too think of six impossible things before breakfast. Alice’s wisdom led her to say, “It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." That phrase alone has saved me from much negativity but it’s this one that will light my path ahead:

"‘Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!"

Thank you to all of you who’ve helped me help others. Every one of you who’ve encouraged me to be my authentic self, to enjoy being a dad, to accept the shoes I need to walk in, and simply be a good marketer, you’ve had a tremendous impact on my life. 

So long, but not farewell. 

Ben,

Lead Strategist and Original Frontiero

Marching Forth Into The Unknown

Dear Reader, 

The severity of the current health and economic crisis makes me want to keep this letter brief. It’s Saturday morning and the sun is pouring into my house as I study the mystery of podcasts (we’re working on a Frontier podcast!). Meanwhile, anxiety and uncertainty are running high so I wanted to give some big updates that I hope will be welcome. 

After 256 days of wearing black to work, I’ve decided to retire this motif meant to remind myself, and perhaps others, of Benifactor’s focus to get back “into the black”. In other words, increasing our retained earnings is not my foremost focus. 

Frontier’s clients are, as they always should have been, my focus. 

“Benifactor” from henceforth is simply the legal name of the wonderful business I own, Frontier Marketing Co. My job as owner is to make sure the general manager has enough funds to continue operations and lead the business of giving charities efficient and effective expertise. 

My working role, other than being founder and owner, is to be lead strategist for the team and serve our clients with responsiveness, resourcefulness, and curiosity. It’s my role to mentor the strategists that are serving our clients, to provide as much direct expertise to clients as I can, and to connect with the outside world. 

Good Marketers Group will live on as an apprenticeship program of Frontier. BKeeper has moved into Frontier as a service we like to offer to great non-profits like The Table Church. Charity Electric will fold fully into Frontier to become our consulting and projects, and Quartermaster will simply be the quirky name ascribed to long-time Frontiero, Heath Johns. 

What’s changing for other people? 

We’ve asked Sarah to dust off her Frontier hat and become our Director of Administration. 

Nick’s title, something he’d be the last person to obsess about, will become Creative Director. This reflects his oversight in all of production, including the websites and branding performed by the firm formerly known as Charity Electric. 

Innes Purdue, the bloke from Bristol, is going home. Typing out those words makes me very sad. Innes has been one of our most brilliant strategists and his growth is something to behold. Innes, please think of one last Horcrux to celebrate our time together (an inside joke/tradition between Innes and I). 

Heath, as hinted, will be Frontier’s Quartermaster, the mad scientist building contraptions like Glass Register, our data auditor, and other tools to equip our agency. He’ll be moving into production and no longer be shackled to the burdens of senior leadership. 

Francis will have a broader oversight of Frontier’s operations, because we are now all Frontier. The guy I first witnessed walk into the Frontier office three years ago to shadow Henry as a junior programmer is, and continues to be, the embodiment of our core values. His leadership in operations management is what Frontier needs now more than ever. 

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed using this medium to communicate, and a few of you have enjoyed reading the updates. I’ll be expanding my writing to include posts for Frontier like this one. As for the Benifactor posts, those will continue as regular company updates where I get to share some of the amazing things that have happened and be transparent about our corporate life. 

And on that note, I wanted to say thank you to any of you who do read these. Thanks to anyone who’s reached out in this time of upheaval. It’s reminded me to reflect and clarify my priorities. 

It’s been eerily handy to be reading Howard Shulz’s memoir about leading Starbucks back to its roots. Two quotes really crystallized for me lately, and this is the first:  

“Companies pay a price when their leaders ignore things that may be fracturing their foundation”

Our strategic guidance to clients and problem solving abilities are the foundation of Frontier. From day one we’ve been a ‘strategist lead organization’ where other agencies were started by copywriters, account executives, or designers, this one was started by a former marketing analyst with an accounting designation. 

What’s more, we’re data-driven. Now that we’re in our tenth year, data abounds. Heath just sent me week over week giving data from Glass Register, and Eric showed me crucial data for one of Canada's largest charities that will immediately impact our advice on their budget priorities. 

Our standards will be raised, our pace will quicken. We will be wise in the use of our resources. Our curious and candid demeanour will be the mark of our trade. 

This leads me to the other remarkable thing Shutlz said,

“The merchant’s success depends on his or her ability to tell a story.” 

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on Frontier’s marketing for the last year. At times I’ve been rude to my team. It’s embarrassed me often and I don’t know precisely why. The actual production work for clients and our presentations to them during visits make me a proud Papa. 

So what gives? Our team is behind the curve on Frontier’s brand. The story we’re telling clients needs to be clarified internally as well as externally. We’re old enough as a company that some of our staff were the same age my daughter is now when I got started. We’re big enough now that I don’t know everyone’s birthdays or idiosyncrasies. We need to clarify our story. 

My peers running other agencies have a similar problem. I researched the cliche everyone kept saying about the cobbler's children have no shoes, it’s a common means of describing how someone can’t heed their own advice more than share their abilities internally. 

Frontier needs to follow the advice we give clients - to focus on what they do best, clarify their message, make sure it's consistent and authentic, and that it conveys the message they want the audience to feel. Importantly, make use of experts and don’t put out amateur work. 

Over the coming months, I encourage you to follow along as Frontier grows while the world shrinks. I know now more than ever that charities are needed to serve the poor and care for the sick, and we’re here to guide and problem solve for them.  

This is a great year to prepare for an incredible decade.

Sincerely, 

Benjamin Johnson 

PS- Frozen II has just come out on Disney+, I highly recommend it.

February 2020 Update

Dear Reader, 

It’s been 216 days since I last wore colours to work. I’ll stop updating you about this since it’s going to be my uniform for some time to come (I’ll be unpacking this over my next two monthly letters).

Have you ever been in a hurry to get bad news? Like, you know it’s going to hurt, but you can’t wait to hear it nonetheless. I’ve been in that situation a lot recently, and this quarter’s financial situation is one of them. We knew it was a rough one, but boy oh boy. 

To start, we had to make some cuts. Spaceman, our little department overseeing 1025 Pandora Ave, is now unmanned. Ryan Sawatsky, serial entrepreneur and long-time friend, is off the hook from cleaning the Roomba and dealing with plumbing messes. Blessed be Melissa who's taken over that role and shined immediately.  

Melissa, my amazing assistant, has graciously accepted working 80% time until the next fiscal year starts in August. 

Good Marketers Group, our apprenticeship program and would-be recruitment arm of Benifactor, has been shelved. April has agreed to work reduced hours and serve as Frontier’s HR leader and Francis’ assistant. There is tremendous value in Frontier having apprentices, but this isn’t our year. 

Frontier has seen the departure of Jordan in Client Success, and Megan, David, and Tori have all agreed to work fewer hours. Frontier’s winter has been the focus of our financial fracas and while I’m sad our quarter fell so far below expectations, I’m in awe of the great team that has pulled up their socks and resolved to make 2020 our best year yet. 

Finally, BKeeper, which only recently generated some buzz by adding new clients, has set forth a contingency of reduced summer hours to stay within the agreed upon budget limitations. 

With the untimely demise of Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant, I thought I’d kick off this financial update with a quote from the man, and this one was simply incredible:

“Pain doesn’t tell you when you ought to stop. Pain is the little voice in your head that tries to hold you back because it knows if you continue, you will change.”

Our senior leaders know what I’m talking about, and I’ll expand more on this change next month. For now, I’ll share with you the pain that was quarter two. 

In our fiscal 2019/2020 second quarter, the company posted quarterly revenue of $608 thousand, a decrease from $867 thousand the year-ago quarter. A couple of months ago I said Q2 will be much smaller year over year, but I didn’t think it would be a quarter million less. 

For the first half of the year, our revenue is $38 thousand less than a year ago. This is unheard of for us. In fact, the most recent four quarters show that we’ve only grown by seven thousand year over year. Normally we grow by half a million per year. 

News like this is why we have cuss words. 

Ironically, cash-flow, my primary focus of the last while, has been great. We coordinated a new financing agreement with our major supplier and in the end we netted $87 thousand in cash this quarter, all while continuing to front load our expenses. Last year we had a net cash outflow of $24 thousand. 

For the first half of the year we netted $205 thousand dollars in cash, compared to $93 thousand a year ago. In some ways I feel like saying “mission accomplished”, as this was a major focus of mine in the fall. We have front-loaded so many expenses that we’ve never had a clearer view of our profitability financial performance. 

But, for the first time ever, we had a losing second quarter. Our ‘best’ months, November and December, were losers. We budgeted profitability of $59 thousand and ended losing about as much. 

Where the cuss did we go wrong?

I’ll expand on this more in the next few months, and on how we’re responding and growing as a team. As mentioned above, we’ve had to get leaner. Now everyone is focused on growing revenue to match our size and abilities. 

Frontier budgeted for significantly more clients than it currently has, and instead of growing towards a portfolio of 20 clients, we’re currently at 14. Back in June when I declared the 20/20/20 vision we had 16 clients and thought 18 was imminent. To say the least, that didn’t cussing go as planned. 

We pre-hired in preparation for growth. Underlying this was a reliance on inefficient communications processes (which we’re correcting, more on that next month). We also didn’t anticipate the pain of our first winter in years without Mariam, Sophie, or Sarah (as a client success leader).  Operating expenses shot up over $100 thousand in the first half of the year, while revenue went down $38 thousand. You don’t have to be a CPA to know that causes a real cuss up. 

2020 has started off painful, both personally and professionally. I hope that I’ll have the opportunity in future months to tell you how it’s changed me, and this organization, for the better.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Johnson

January 2020 Update

Dear Reader, 

It’s been 190 days since I last wore colours to work. I’ve expanded my definition of ‘black’ to include various shades of grey, and it turns out there’s quite a few. Charcoal, basically black. Iron, smoke, pebble, graphite, and slate are all acceptable. Cloud grey not so much. 

This many days in and it’s starting to feel like a uniform, but the real point of it is to act as a sort of chastity belt to keep me from losing sight of the task at hand. 

Growth, profitability and cash flow are the priorities of every CEO. We’ve excelled at one of the three over the past few years, though it appears that our growth has flattened. Revenue and payroll (inclusive of contractor fees) were both near identical year-over-year. 

The trouble is our focus, my focus, was not sufficiently on profitability. I’ve enjoyed creating new things and trying to include as many people as possible along the way, but I’ve avoided addressing the discipline needed to create the necessary margins for survival. 

It’s my hope that better use of budgets, improved business development and production processes, and smarter compensation will improve our profitability. 

Each of our senior leaders has a budget, and over the next couple weeks we’ll be working to review our Q3 and Q4 projections. This will help us have a more accurate prediction of the year ahead. It’s an absolute must for us to be profitable after depreciation, a first in the Benifactor era (in year one we were profitable before depreciation). 

Francis and I highlighted business development as an area requiring significant improvement. We will be working with Frontier’s client success team (and I’ll be working with Sarah regarding BKeeper) to better secure the growth that our entire organization has planned for. 

Production-wise, even though we have a significantly larger team of digitally savvy Frontier folk, the efficiency and effectiveness that make for happy clients and generous donors has been below-par. We also haven’t been entrusted with as much advertising spending as hoped and need to take a small step back from having a full-time ads and awareness coordinator. 

Due to a rough start to the year, we’re offside our original budget. I trust the work of our senior leaders to guide Benifactor into the era of profitability. Which brings me to an important thought. Smarter compensation.

On occasion, Benifactor employees have received commissions for sales, and I hated it. The reward was front-loaded, based on revenue (v. profit margin) and directly proportioned to the employee performing the sale and none to anyone performing the actual work. 

We’ve moved on from commissions, and now have every employee earning a straight salary, much of them receiving raises after several quarters. 

While our revenue fluctuates, it’s hard for our compensation to fluctuate aside from management taking salary cuts (of which I’m tired of), or layoffs (of which we’ve averaged two per year), or cutting non-essential expenses (of which we have little). 

So how about a bonus system that tracks with growth? Once we’re in the black and I’m wearing colours (that is, once we have retained earnings) Benifactor will institute a savings program to create a bonus pool of 1% of revenue. 

If we were using 2019 numbers that would equate to approximately $27,000 to be divided among our team. I’ll leave the details of our bonus system to Benifactor’s HR manual, but in short, our culture and compensation should take our need to focus on our client's growth seriously.

If our charities spend more on the Benifactor team, it means they are growing. That’s why we exist. And it’s on that note I want to make a final comment on better business development and being smarter with our priorities. 

I’ve asked Francis to devise a means of rewarding clients when they do something mutually beneficial, such as paying on-time and avoiding unnecessary cash flow issues, or signing their contract earlier rather than later. What’s more, I want our clients to know how determined we are to hit our targets, particularly around acquisition. Our growth is their growth. 

What should emerge is a process whereby if we miss our targets, we contribute to next fall’s efforts to acquire new donors. And, if they act like our best client and save us wasted time and money, we put those savings towards their acquisition. 

If Benifactor grows, everybody benefits. 

Finally, I wanted to say thanks to Innes Purdue for two years of growth and a sense of unparalleled ownership.  Last year I described my time with him as “Insights with Innes”. Now I get to see him grow each day as Charity Electric’s lead consultant and an outstanding member of our leadership team. Thanks for being part of this wild journey Innes!

I always welcome feedback and questions. Email me at ben@benifactor.com if anything struck you.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Johnson, CEO

December 2019 - A Not End-Of-Year Benifactor Update

Dear Reader, 

You may not have noticed, but I didn’t send you an update last month. While this month should be me giving some sort of end of year message, instead it will be an overdue quarterly financial update. 

What I would’ve told you is how amazing our Frontier Feast was, and how great it was to celebrate nine years of life on the Frontier with 30 outstanding colleagues, friends and family. Or, I could’ve talked to you about how proud I am to see the team flourish while Sophie is on parental leave, or while Francis went on his well-deserved vacation, but instead we’re talking numbers. I really wish I could’ve taken the time to gush about how Nick’s now in his sixth year, and short of me, has worked for Frontier longer than anyone else. 

But here we are, talking dollars and cents. I wouldn’t be able to spend so much time talking about numbers if it wasn’t for the dedication Sarah has had whilst growing a baby, taking two quick breaths, then diving right back into life as BKeeper’s general manager and our very own bookkeeper. Heck, I wouldn’t even have the capacity to sit down and type if it wasn’t for Melissa’s superb assistance. 

To reiterate why a small business owner is talking publicly about finances, I’ll quote myself from a year ago: 

Transparency is, to me, a universal good. These updates are a means of accountability as a financial steward and small business leader to the community (you). Imagine if more privately-controlled companies disclosed their performance. Perhaps there would be more ethical behaviour as well as a greater financial literacy among communities. 

So yeah, a bit of a reach, but I also enjoy writing if we’re being honest. A friend of mine suggested that I expand my writing beyond corporate memos, I heeded that advice this morning and I’m quite glad I did. 

These quarterly updates will be my opportunity to let you know Benifactor’s progress in getting back into the black. So how’d we do?

For our fiscal 2019/2020 first quarter, the company posted quarterly revenue of $960 thousand, an increase from $738 thousand the year-ago quarter. This is astounding, but it’s also because a lot of activities that would normally happen in November, completed in October. 

Continuing the trend of annual growth, our revenue this quarter is 61% higher than two years ago. Q2 will be much smaller year over year, but continuing a trend we started last year, we’ve been front loading expenses from insurance to hosting to ensure our expenses are paid when the times are good. 

And, just like last year, we netted cash to the tune of $115 thousand to last year’s $118 thousand. That means that each year we receive six figures worth of cash more than we send out over this period. The trick has been that every other quarter has seen significant outflow, particularly this spring. 

If we’re going to get into the black, it will mean strong performance not just now, but in the warmer days of the year. We’re making expected steps in the right direction, but while it’s cool to generate almost a million dollars in revenue in three months, it’s scary how easy it is to stumble. 

Some other highlights:

• Quartermaster (formerly simply just Glass Register) now has five figures in product revenue for a single quarter, a feat to be sure.

• Charity Electric broke a string of three straight quarterly losses to have a profitable quarter all while delivering outstanding value to new clients.

• Payroll is up $30k from a year ago all while changing over staffing structure with significantly fewer executives to junior employees. 

• We spend zero dollars on advertising and marketing for ourselves, something I hope we can invest in better in the months ahead. 

As usual, I welcome feedback and questions. Shoot me an email at ben@benifactor.com if anything struck you.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Johnson, CEO

October 2019 Update

Dear Reader, 

We’re now in full swing here, and in our usual fashion, change is in full swing too. 

Here’s what’s happening under the Benifactor umbrella:

Since my last letter, Frontier has added Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation to its roster, and hopefully soon, Calgary-based Cause Canada. Meanwhile, BC Women’s Health Foundation and Regeneration Outreach Society’s relationship as clients of Frontier have ended. 

In our effort to grow to 20 clients this year we’ve managed to do little more than tread water. The budget I created in mid July did not account for so few clients heading into fall. 

In prep for our fall growth, as well as Sophie’s upcoming parental leave, the Frontier Team welcomed Alix as Print Marketing Strategist. We also moved to two full time writers by bumping up Sam’s hours and welcoming back our second boomerang, Mariya! 

And, because life would be boring if everything went as planned, “matt leave” Matt has moved to Scotland to serve Global Family Care Network for the next six months and Shay went the way of Steph Field and got scooped up by Big Brother. 

It feels like we’ve been blessed with a great farm system, with Mark stepping into Shay’s boots and “we’d have hired him sooner or later” Sawyer joining the Client Success team. 

We’re now on the search for a Digital Marketing Coordinator to fill out our roster.  

To sum things up, in the immortal words of Mike Tyson, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. 

Meanwhile, Charity Electric has been rolling with a steady diet of Capacity For Growth Plans. I’ve been working to support Innes with a growing roster of subject matter experts to help him deliver the best value in the business. 

BKeeper finalized its brand but was unable to retain Acts for Water as its initial client. It was a devastating blow at the time, but thanks to our clear focus on getting back into the black, our leadership team has done an excellent job thus far of adjusting to this reality. 

Related to the above departure, we’re also reeling from the sudden loss of one of our administrative leaders and Benifactor’s accountant. If you can recommend an accounting firm to help oversee a steadily growing  $3+million business, that would be pretty cool.

All of these changes have led me to ponder a couple things. In July 2018, just prior to taking these letters public, I wrote about a core philosophy of Benifactor that I now consider gospel. I said the following:

“[Draft and Develop] refers to our philosophy of creating our players. [...] Free agency works well in some sports (baseball) and poorly in others (football). [...] Our culture matters too much, our system too refined, to let someone who isn’t prepared to be humbled enter our tribe.” 

To emphasize this belief, I’ve created an annual award to celebrate excellence from a first-year employee: the Rookie of The Year award. The effect an outstanding new employee can have on our team is so impactful that it needs to be recognized. 

Each year I will poll our Senior Leadership on  who they feel most fulfills the qualifications listed below:

• Have their first year be between retreats

• Not be a member of Senior Leadership

• Embodies core values (now posted here)

• Demonstrated progression over the year

• Quantifiable impact

• If part-time to full-time, this demonstrates progression

• Apprenticeship time and contracting time does not count against eligibility 

As a reward, they will see their name on an award presented at our retreat, they’ll receive up to $2,000 towards attending a conference of their choice, and be recognized as having an extra year’s service time (in other words, they’ll earn their fourth year vacation time one year sooner).  

This year was a tough choice, but the inaugural name presented at our retreat this week was Katie Mutrie. Katie has excelled in every way at Frontier; she’s resourceful, curious, independent and a servant leader. 

You see, great performance isn’t limited to veteran leaders. I witnessed this first-hand watching 19 year old Bianca Andrescu take down Tennis great, Serena Williams. I also noticed a quote on the wall as Bianca was walking out of the stadium that speaks so well to another core belief I have. It said:

Pressure is a privilege - it only comes to those who earn it. 

- Billie Jean King.

The Benifactor team experiences great pressure on the regular. Those who thrive here have excelled with increasing pressure. Excellent junior employees naturally become great leaders as we’ve seen from our entire senior leadership (Francis, Innes, Sarah, Nick, and Sophie). 

Finally, it’s not just the outstanding rookies that need to be recognized. While our team isn’t showing up to work each day for the money, we shouldn’t be left behind either.  

I recently announced to the team increased limits to our Health Spending Accounts, the roll-out of a group RRSP program, and the summer implementation of annual bonuses. No one should work here for the money, but it also shouldn’t be a barrier. 

Sincerely,

Benjamin Johnson, CEO

2019 Annual End of Year Letter

Dear Reader,

What a year it’s been. This time a year ago I quietly transitioned my letters from private Google docs to the openness of the web. I shared the strategic goals for the year for all to see and began our march forward, providing monthly updates along the way.

In a single year’s time, a great deal has happened. But it’s not my story alone. This letter below includes the 43 names of those who made this year what it was.

In this letter I plan to review each organization’s year and point towards the future.

FRONTIER

Frontier has added five wonderful clients, while releasing one client after many years of partnership and growth. Most have expanded their relationship with Frontier by signing on for expanded contracts while a couple have pared down.

The Frontier team has seen some dynamic action:

• Hired eight new employees - Eric, Katie, David, Mariya, Jordan, Shay, Mark, and Tori.

• Welcomed three team members from Charity Electric, Francis, Ryan, and Sam.

• Expanded our work with super-contractors “Paper Jack” Jana and Marcin.

• Had our first-ever boomerang with the return of Laura.

• Celebrated Silvana’s parental leave.

• Wished Amy farewell to conquer the world of triathlons and landscaping.

• Marvelled as Sarah quit and subsequently co-founded BKeeper.

Frontier revenue grew alongside these massive changes, up $257 thousand from a year ago and $795 thousand from two years ago.

We’re just waking up to Frontier’s potential and ongoing success. This year we had our first ever Frontier Feast, celebrating 8 years of serving charities. We’re learning to talk about ourselves more to the outside world through Facebook, Instagram, email, and case studies.

The real impact, though, is that of Frontier’s clients. In 2018, $11.6 million was raised for our clients. The outcomes can be shown in this amazing Annual Report.

So, I hope you can see why I wrote in my June letter, it’s our time to shine.

While we rejoice for Mariam to return home to be with her family in Malaysia, we mourn her loss to the team. I look forward to hearing of her continued growth and I await what contributions she can bring as an alum.

The mantel has been passed to Francis, now the fifth GM in Frontier’s history. As previously mentioned, his role will be primarily managing people and processes while others take on production and external leadership.

With Megan’s move both to the northern outpost of Edmonton and as Ads and Awareness Coordinator, the “rhombus” of senior leadership now falls onto Francis, Nick, and Sophie. These three are icons of our culture.

The changes outlined in June’s letter have begun. We’ve welcomed Royal Alex Hospital as Frontier’s newest client and added nearly $10 thousand per month to payroll in the form of August raises.

We’re aiming to meet or exceed 20 clients managed by a team of 20 this fiscal year. Can they raise $20 million in 2020?

As I said in my last letter, the year ahead is about optimizing a winning strategy, not expansion into uncharted territory.

Frontier is a perennial winner.

GLASS REGISTER / QUARTERMASTER

When I first drafted the vision for Benifactor in May of 2016, I structured a department known temporarily as “Product Enterprise”. The idea, of course, being that this would be a Benifactor organization focused on building the products we need as marketers; like our donation system, Glass Register.

Well, the funds kept going towards the growth and maintenance of Glass Register and the client growth of GR was slow, so the vision faded away.

But now it’s back. I don’t have aspirations of Glass Register seeing explosive growth, but we have a small list of further products that our team of programmers can build to make their work for Frontier more efficient and effective.

Structurally, to ensure that Quartermaster serves at the pleasure of Frontier, Heath has been renamed Assistant General Manager and reports directly to Frontier’s general manager.

Glass Register revenue is up 26% year over year with now 20 clients.

One aspect of Charity Electric, hosting services, have been moved to Quartermaster. Hosting revenue grew 20% year over year with 18 clients.

In the days ahead there will be some branding work done by Frontier alum Luke, continual growth and development, and additional team resources as the client roster grows.

Steady as she goes for Quartermaster this year.

CHARITY ELECTRIC

In the same way as with Quartermaster, Charity Electric has been restructured to serve as a division of Frontier, with Innes as Assistant General Manager reporting to Frontier’s general manager.

But that’s only the beginning of a very complicated year for CE. While there are many highlights in the annual report, it was a down year for Charity Electric.

Revenue, excluding hosting services, was down nearly $100 thousand. Meanwhile, expenses were up $35 thousand. What was once an organization with modest profit turned into a $79 thousand loser.

Worst of all, we weren’t delivering excellence with our clients. I wrote in December about these issues, to which Innes and Francis have made great strides to the point that I have a skip in my step when I think of Charity Electric.

We began the year with Francis, Jon, Johnny, Innes and super contractor Erikka. Shortly after our year started, Johnny left to join the tech industry and Ryan arrived to take his place. We also saw the departure of CE’s co-founder and first general manager Jon, as he set about on his own. We then grew with the addition of Alisha and welcomed Sam from elsewhere in Benifactor.

As mentioned in June, and above, we’ve whittled Charity Electric down to two employees. We’re planning on refining further and maintaining focus on the above core activities.

Charity Electric is here for charities during their watershed moments. Currently those are Capacity For Growth plans, website builds, and brand refreshes.

While we may still be hearing a few sour remarks from former clients, I’m proud to say that our decision in the new year to focus on three core projects has been fruitful. We’ve recently completed plans for Bissell Centre and Cause Canada, and are about to embark with plans for Mission Possible and Welcome Hall Mission, with several more prospects in the pipeline.

Back to black for Charity Electric as it once was, so it shall be again.

GOOD MARKETERS GROUP & SOCIETY

There’s not as much to say for Good Marketers Group & Society, and at this point you’re skimming anyways, but there were some key moments.

Good Marketers saw the spring departure of co-founder and first general manager Steph to work at “the man” shortly after hiring April as part-time Recruitment Coordinator.

While I miss having Steph around, I’m glad she’s still in our world both as a key contributor to my softball team, and through the success of every one of the new hires we have.

As our year was beginning, the first cohort of apprentices, Kelby, Taylor, Zach A., Tori, and Jeremy were finishing their summer with us. I hope their time with us with valuable and memorable.

Then, in the second half of the year we incorporated Good Marketers Group Society to be the home of our apprenticeship program. The bad news was that the foundation of the program, the Canada Summer Jobs grant, never came.

While we never hired GMG apprentices officially, Steph managed to find homes for Mark, Maddy, and Tori. Keep a lookout for these three.

Next month I’ll expand on my now deeply ingrained draft and develop philosophy. It’s because of the way these folks live out our core values that I’m so keen for us to build up leaders from within.

Good Marketers Group, the recruitment organization, aided Benifactor with an unbelievable 14 completed placements.

This year we’re aiming to stay as small as possible and break even while serving the search needs of Frontier and Charity Electric as needed.

The future is bright for GMG once we can get back into the black.

CAPSTONE

While Capstone Fundraising was able to engage with four clients and $21 thousand in consulting revenue, it cost nearly $100 thousand to do that.

Needless to say, Capstone had to be shut down.

I write these letters for pleasure and to provide transparency. Thinking about this painful loss and the experiences around it isn’t fun at all, but if you have questions feel free to email me.

BKEEPER

Throughout the year I had been pondering what’s next for Benifactor.

Combine a review of where Benifactor spends its money, a conversation with a would-be client, and Dave’s desire to move on from bookkeeping services, and bam!

A bookkeeping service dedicated to charities and like-minded organizations is born.

Sarah began her tenure working part-time from home overseeing our organizations as well as Acts for Water.

In the year ahead we plan to partner with another accounting agency as Dave moves on to pursue another career, and add a couple more organizations to the roster.

The hive is just being built. In the years ahead I can foresee Bkeeper being a million dollar business overseeing tens of millions in transactions.

Good thing our office lease expires in 2022. To steal a quote from actor Roy Scheider, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.

BENIFACTOR & BEYOND

We’re rounding third and heading home now.

This time last year, those of us “running” Benifactor included myself, Emily C., Zach, Heath, Dave, and Chris. Emily’s departure made way for GMG graduate Tina, but that experience was short-lived. In November, after a sabbatical in the fall, Zach departed for a cool job with Domain7.

Briefly I was dubbed “Zina”, assuming the roles of Benifactor’s assistant and chief of staff. During that time Heath was seconded to work exclusively on Glass Register, and Chris was asked to focus exclusively on Capstone.

Further, Dave began focusing on other pressing issues in life and was less consistently present.

While we hired Sam to help, her gifts were ultimately best as a junior writer, where she finds herself at Frontier.

Admittedly spring 2019 was a difficult time of life for me. I didn’t express it at the time but the stress was crushing me, and I found myself without any support.

Capstone and Charity Electric were bleeding money. Consequently, I felt I needed to work through the weekend to try to keep up with the day to day administration and cleaning of Benifactor, at least for a season.

This difficult period allowed me to recentre on my purpose, and ultimately Benifactor’s, and build an epic comeback.

Here’s a few highlights of this spring and summer:

• We increased our engagement with John Caplin to ensure leaders have access to a coach.

• We increased our engagement with Amala and hired Ryan S. to be our “Spaceman”.

• I received my Birkman certification to be able to provide all of our staff with the Birkman’s invaluable insights.

• BKeeper was launched and Sarah relieved me of bookkeeping duties.

• A meeting with John Pellowe, CEO of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, convinced me I needed an EA.

• Melissa was hired and has exceeded my every hope.

Life started to take off thanks to Melissa allowing me to travel often and fully embrace the role of “Ben the connector”. I’ve never travelled so much in my life nor had so many meetings, and I can’t believe how much I’m loving it.

As mentioned, this time has allowed me the opportunity to focus the vision of the company and my vocation. Check out updated copy on the website.

Our strategy is clear - it’s to serve charities by increasing their revenue, overseeing their expenses, hiring their talent, and growing their leadership.

Finally, I love to use quotes in my letters so I thought I’d conclude with an excerpt from Sapiens that helps to explain why I speak of our corporate history.

“Unlike physics or economics, History is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither nature or inevitable and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we can imagine”

I look forward to experiencing the year ahead with you folks. I’m excited for the challenges ahead as well as the rewards of our efforts.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Johnson, CEO

PS - Next month I will be talking about our culture, revisiting the draft and develop philosophy, and announcing a new award, Rookie of the Year.

July 2019 - A Benifactor Update By The Man in Black

Here’s something I hate to admit, especially to myself: I’m terrible with money. 

Don’t get me wrong, I know my way around a budget and a balance sheet better than most. I can even create money, as evidenced by our growth from a one-man shop to next year’s budget revenue of $3.2 million. We’ve had Frontier clients remind me of revenue forecasts I’ve created for them years ago that have been reasonably accurate predictions of their outstanding growth.

Recent financial challenges at Benifactor hit another summer low, this time a scary one. The others have been scary but this one has left a mark. This year there was quite the story, last year it was different, and the year before that yet another issue. I shouldn’t be surprised. A year ago, in my August 2018 letter I wrote the following:

 “A pattern seems to have emerged where each summer new things begin while admittedly other things burn to the ground and choke our ability to live a full life.”

 I also wrote this in that same letter

“After ten years of entrepreneurship I’ve got to be honest here. I haven’t broken even. I have more debts than assets and so does Benifactor. I gave up all equity in a house during the hottest housing market in Victoria’s history to keep full control over this company. I was married and now I’m not (well, basically). I went to close a Frontier client a day after Matthew was born, and only realized a month ago I don’t have any photos of his birth.“

The good news I have to report a year later, is that as of this month I’m no longer married. 

So what gives? I believe money is a story.

There’s a blessing and a curse with this belief. When I was the treasurer for the Table Church I told them that their budget was “the story of their year”. I’ve told employees to increase their worth as evidenced by growing paycheques. I’ve influenced donors to give up their money to the better story of a gift to help others.

When it comes to Benifactor I’m an expansionist because growth tells the story of success. Money sitting in the bank, particularly my bank account, is a boring story. 

However, this recent season of life has left an indelible mark on me that has ultimately reminded me of the story I want to tell with money and why, after all, I named this company Benifactor - I want to help people who help people.  

See, when I was 16 and my dad passed away, it resulted in two major stories around money. 

He passed away at 51 and his dad at 48. He was also recently divorced, living in a mobile home, his bakery shut down, and dead broke. He lived a hard life but it didn’t seem to amount to anything. 

Though I had become a Christian a few years prior to his passing, he wanted none of it. And so when my priest Peter Parker (not Spider-man) was giving his eulogy he mentioned that he didn’t know my dad but knew him by his work, a baker. So he quoted the following:

‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ - JC

It’s taken me years to realize the stories I’ve been telling myself. First, I didn’t think I would live very long so I haven’t cared to save for old age. Second was I need to spend my time helping others in real need. 

This quote from Steve Jobs has always stood out to me,

“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

And it’s with that quote I want to focus my letter. I didn’t create Benifactor to make money, but to do good in the world. Any step away from this focus has resulted in pain. In other words, if you want to help me achieve my mission, organize yourself and your resources to help me help charities.  

I said in my previous letter that I would write more about Quartermaster, but I went a different direction with this letter than I was planning. 

Next letter, however, is our annual report and the core message I will expand on will be these two points:

• the year ahead is about optimizing a winning strategy, not expansion.

• Our strategy is to serve charities by increasing their revenue, overseeing their expenses, hiring their talent, and growing their leadership.

For now, I’ll explain the headline of the letter, and try to lighten things up. 

I was pondering how I got into this financial mess and how I was going to tell myself the story I needed to get out of it, and what story to tell others. Then came a moment of inspiration when I was driving Ellie home from summer camp.

Ellie was telling me about the theme from camp, It starred Princess Penelope and Prince Julian and to her, it was absolutely riveting. A keepsake she has from the week was a note of encouragement from Princess P. That reminded me of my camp days and got me thinking - I need a theme for the year ahead. 

As a financial nerd I came up with the following theme: to get “back in the black” both personally and professionally. If Benifactor and I are in the black, then it’s part of the story that helps me help others. One can’t be a generous benefactor if they’re not in a position of strength themselves.  

And then a song came to mind. 

“Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,

Why you never see bright colors on my back,

And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.

Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,

Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,

I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,

But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,

Or listened to the words that Jesus said,

About the road to happiness through love and charity,

Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,

In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,

But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,

Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.”

I started wearing black to work on July 9th.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Johnson, CEO