Voting with your wallet for the world you want

Anna Lappé said this nicely with

“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”

Of course this affects various aspects: whether you spend that money at all for a specific purpose, where you spend it (with whom), and how much.

In Upstarta terms, any choice (action or inaction) has consequences, and thus you own the consequences as much as the choice, they don’t “just happen”. Often the consequences are quite predictable, and if they’re not in line with where you want your company to go, that choice would be the wrong one. So for an Upstarta, Anna’s choice actually applies to any decision, not just those directly costing money.

Many companies don’t consider these things, but it doesn’t cost much extra effort and the secondary effects are worthwhile as well as the “feel good factor” for yourself and your company. It’s not something you would actively use in marketing (that’s uncool), but others will notice and the proactive stance will score you credit and that’s likely to attract extra business of the kind you want. So it can seriously ease your client acquisition process and thus in fact save money and effort there.