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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

The Crumpled Dollar Bill (and Other Stories to Restore Your Faith)

You're getting this issue a day early to test my suspicion that starting tomorrow – if it hasn't already happened – many of you will be escaping for the holidays. Happy Thanksgiving to you! It’s the week where we launch into the holidays, which for many brings

I Thought I Was Mentoring Them. Then These Two Founders Flipped the Script.

Every once in a while a story just falls into your lap – or walks through your front door, which is what happened when Paul and John came to my office one day. I do a lot of mentoring about B Corps and other business models focusing on social and environmental

Where Is Your Red Line?

There’s nothing I love more than values with a backbone – as I’ve often said, if your values don’t occasionally cost you something they aren’t worth anything. So I was gratified to read this piece by Yuval Ackerman, a Godspeed reader and one of the sharpest email

A Wolf Dressed in PBC Clothing

I was preparing to write a story about why OpenAI shouldn’t be allowed to become a public benefit corporation when this week brought news that it had already transitioned to a PBC as part of its corporate restructuring from nonprofit to for-profit. For me (shaking his head), the heart

Building a Forever Company

How Purpose Trusts Ensure Mission Outlives Founders While the big money boys of the Silicon Valley set are trying to figure out how to live forever, there’s a certain class of mission-driven founders who are finding ways to forge their company’s purpose in perpetuity. They’re doing that

Knowing When You Suck

The Forrest Gump of the Internet: Craig Newmark of craigslist I don’t normally abdicate writing responsibilities to point you to a podcast, but I’m going to do exactly that this week. And no, I’m not being lazy, I simply want to share this with you because I

Stop Talking About Your Values. Start Measuring Them.

Corporate leaders love, Love, LOVE to talk about values, even while many of these values are laughable – anodyne verging on meaningless: honesty, integrity, excellence – I mean, seriously? And beyond their generic character, many companies don’t walk the talk; their values are simply talking points for PowerPoints rather than tactics

The Courage of Youth

Lighthiser v. Trump With today’s constant stream of Big and Beautiful caca de toro from Washington D.C. capturing headlines and mind share, you may have missed this news out of Montana: A group of young people is taking President Trump to court. At the heart of Lighthiser v.

I'll Take "Things That Matter" for $1,000: A Jeopardy-Style Roundup

Back when I used to watch the game show Jeopardy! with my grandma, there was a category called “Potpourri.” Probably still is – haven’t watched it in decades and a quick Google search tells me it’s still a thing, which means I definitely know what my grandma is doing

How an Ice Cream Meltdown Sparked a Corporate Revolution

To understand the birth of benefit corporations, you must go back to the year 2000 and the acquisition of Ben & Jerry’s by Unilever. When Unilever made an offer in 2000 to acquire Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million, the Ben & Jerry’s board found itself in