We were thrilled when last week in Toronto at the 2016 Wealth Professional Awards we received the Best Practice Individual Office award. It was great – a big fancy award show and ceremony with all the attendant bells and whistles. And we won!
While it was certainly nice to get all the attention and the accolades, coming back home with a heavy piece of crystal to add to the office mantel was in stark contrast to a completely different recent accomplishment. One in which we had a significant global impact.
With your help, we spent the last two years raising almost half a million dollars for Kiva, a non-profit that loans money to low-income entrepreneurs around the world. But this was no ordinary charity campaign. It wasn’t even a donation, as these are loans that have been 98% repaid within a year.
So together we’ve boosted the bottom line for the more than 1,200 women in 33 countries who received these loans. But it’s not just the numbers that are remarkable, it’s also how this social enterprise initiative created community and changed relationships within the company and with clients.
Even though we are proud of receiving national industry recognition for excellence in client service and reputation, honestly it’s the tangible difference we’ve been able to make in the lives of women entrepreneurs around the world, that is clearly the more significant reward.
We now joke that we can add Give a Little, Get a Lot to our corporate tagline of Enjoy Your Life.
Thank you again to those who have joined us in this amazing journey!
