Money with a mission

At New Resource, we also see our borrowers as part of our community and the provision of loan funds as the start of a deeper relationship dedicated to positive change. For instance, we give all our clients customized sustainability tool kits geared toward helping them move farther along the sustainability path.  It’s part of the way we develop a relationship with our borrowers that enables us to understand, support and expand their vision and their strategy.

Another example: when the Environmental Defense Fund recognized our client Wild Planet for providing the world’s most sustainably caught seafood, our team went to work supporting Wild Planet’s infrastructure expansion and business growth. Our goal was to help Wild Planet become a leading supplier of consumer seafood, and to help it change the way seafood is caught and delivered to the marketplace.

In almost any exchange of money for a product or service, there is a connection that could be formed, then built into a community consciousness. Out of that process comes a broadening of vision that can start imbuing our otherwise dry, featureless economic activities with a sense of purpose. You get something more and you try to give something more. We begin by saying “I’m acting on my values in the way I spend my money,” and then continue to take the next steps built on relationships formed for a higher purpose. It’s about ongoing involvement that leads to a new perspective on the communal impact of our exchange of money.

Money can have a mission—and when it does, it can be a medium for change. Finance and lending can go beyond the manipulation of economic inputs and risk management to become much more: the purposeful stewardship of assets to achieve a greater good for all of us.

image: Quaziefoto via Flickr cc (some rights reserved)