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Russ Stoddard

Russ Stoddard

Here's how I roll: B Corp & Brand Expert, 1% for the Planet, Farmer, #ClimateAction #SocialImpact 🚲; Founder, Oliver Russell; co-founder Unit Co, a benefit corporation; co-founder Social Good Network.

📍 Boise, Idaho

Radical Transparency

When I grew up – a long time ago, let’s just call it “the 60s” – the notion of radical, especially in an arch-conservative household – was anything but positive. Think “free love,” Students for a Democratic Society,” that kind of thing. Around the same time, surfers started hanging ten on the

Breathing Through the Fire: Community Wisdom on Mental Health

Yes, it’s still May, and May is Mental Health Month, which is just another way of saying it’s Mental Health Month all year round, really. Last week I wrote about mental health (My Mental Health) and invited readers to impart their experiences and tricks for keeping their noggins

My Mental Health

Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I thought I’d write something about it, and since the subject I know best is myself, at least in “concept,” I thought I’d be self-centered and start with me. I wake at 4 AM every weekday – perhaps a clue itself to

The Art of Gift Giving

By day my friend Gregg Mizuta is a commercial banker. And beyond, well beyond, he is a documenter (photographer with a fantastic eye) and supporter of the arts. He has a quietly big heart, too. Turns out he also has a real knack for gift giving. I know, because I

Bernie and the Renegade

You’re forgiven if you thought this would be about U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, as a renegade, or about his cross-country tour traveling partner, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka AOC, and frequently known by the same descriptor. It’s not even about politics, though it tiptoes into those waters,

Oliver Russell 2024 Impact Report

Friends, Welcome to this year’s impact report, where we capsulize the public benefit Oliver Russell created throughout 2024. My company, Oliver Russell, was founded in 1991 became and became a Certified B Corporation in 2011 and Idaho’s first benefit corporation in 2015. Today, the company really is just

The Dirty Little Secret of Benefit Corporations

It seems as if public benefit corporation (PBC) designation has become the soup de jour for some high-flying companies lately, noticeably in the tech space. OpenAI is making noise about converting into a benefit corporation. One of its rivals in the AI space, Anthropic, is already a benefit corporation, as

13 Ways of Looking at AI

A poetic musing today – it’s National Poetry Month after all, which I’ve foreshadowed aplenty in recent issues – though to hold the line a bit today’s writing does have overlap with business and technology. I first encountered the poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird in college,

The Prank That Took on a Life of Its Own

The congratulations are still rolling in, and I’m feeling a wee bit sheepish. A bit of an imp, a rascal. Last week for April Fools I pulled a prank. I wrote here that I would be accepting the role of social mission director for Ben & Jerry’s. Note