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