I was recently scrolling back through the thousands of photos on my iPhone and was struck with gratitude for an amazing year. There were photos from our family’s international travels, lots of my two daughters, and tons of everyday fun activities, plus conferences I spoke at, business friends I met in real life, and the little things in between.
As someone who is highly driven by goals and accomplishments, I don’t often take enough time to reflect on the past; I’m usually more focused on what’s next. But as I continue to work on slowing down in my life, I thought this a perfect opportunity for reflection.
2019 Impact
In 2019, we served purpose-driven leaders of nonprofits and businesses from around the globe in a variety of ways: bookkeeping, CFO services, financial analysis, education and more. Here’s our impact by the numbers:
- We served 14 nonprofits who are helping to change the world through education, healthcare, refugee support, legal and consulting services for other nonprofits, microgrants, and community developments
- We supported 8 purpose-driven businesses that provide online education to help creatives build businesses, health education to communities and schools, marketing and branding services to nonprofits and community organizations, and products to help women cultivate what matters in their lives.
To say we’re passionate about the work our clients are doing is a massive understatement!
Our work is global. Our clients represented locations across the United States and around the world, including:
- Indonesia
- Uganda
- Rwanda
- Kenya
- Burundi
- Somalia
- Tanzania
- Mozambique
- Peru
- Nicaragua
- Ecuador
- Panama
- Dominican Republic
2019 Investments into Our Tribe
We doubled-down this year on education for purpose-driven leaders around the globe. We spoke at conferences, including Creative @ Heart and Unfunded University, and presented webinars to thousands of leaders in partnership with Bloomerang, Blackbaud, Grant Professionals Association, and Nonprofit Learning Lab.
We made tons of upgrades to Master Your Nonprofit Numbers, the online course in financial management for nonprofit leaders, thanks to our first round of students’ feedback, because helping leaders better understand, use, and communicate their financials is an important element of our mission.
We continued to build and improve upon free resources for our tribe. For our business leaders, we created the Profit Playbook to create a roadmap to increased profitability so business owners can pay themselves consistently, have enough cash in the bank, and a clear path to achieving their goals.
For our nonprofit leaders, we created the Storytelling with Financials masterclass, a 45 minute long webinar that shares the importance of being transparent with your numbers and exactly how to interpret and analyze your financial statements to tell a more robust story about your organization (and raise more money!).
2019 Game-Changers as a Business Owner
It is very easy to get into the grind of working day in and day out, especially when we love what we do, without pouring back into our own cup. Even though I didn’t invest in any big trainings or coaching, I tried to make little deposits into the self-care bank throughout the year.
PowerSheets. Like I’ve said a dozen times, I am incredibly goal-oriented. But what I found was that I’d set goals at the beginning of the year, lose steam on them, and then just set new goals a few months later. I was motivated to set and accomplish goals but sticking with one set for a whole year was a challenge. Enter: PowerSheets. This amazing goal-setting planner, created by one of our clients, has been a game-changer for me. It leads you through a thoughtful, introspective process to actually set your goals, then checks in with you throughout the year on your progress. Game. Changer.
Books. Here are some of the business books that changed the way I thought about and ran my business this year.
- Rocket Fuel, by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters
- You are a Badass at Making Money, by Jen Sincero
- Building a Storybrand, by Donald Miller
- Becoming, by Michelle Obama
- The Pumpkin Plan, by Mike Michalowicz
Environment. I work from home 95% of the time from a little office at the front of my house. The space is quite small – maybe 100 square feet – and physical environment is important to me so I’ve spent a lot of time making the best of my tiny space. I rearranged my office, got my big bulky printer out of sight, and hung up art that brings my joy every time I see it. It was a small, but impactful change in my everyday life!
2019 Time and Travel
One of my goals this year was to be intentional about time and travel with my family. As a result, we were able to transform business trips into family adventures and create memories by doing something special nearly every week. Our family travels took us to Ireland, England, Iceland, and Cape Cod.
