“Why wait?”

“Half.”

The words hung in the air with a nervous, pregnant energy,

“Excuse me?”

“Half. A Full 50%.”

I’ll admit, I was at a loss for words. And if you know me at all, you know that is not something that happens often.

......

I had met a friend of mine at a local brewpub to discuss his latest venture; he wanted to pitch me on making an investment. Things looked great. The market opportunity was massive, yet underserved. The economics favorable, yet fair. Everything lined up.

Then, the kicker.

“I want to contribute a substantial amount of the after-tax profit to charity.”

“I can get behind that. How much?”

“Half.”

Half. 50%.

 I blinked. Sat back, and took an admittedly longer-than-necessary drink from my beer. 

“Ok, I’ll bite. Go on.”

“Why does everyone wait until they are rich in order to give back? Why can’t we work on making the world a better place WHILE we build our business.”

“Why Wait?” So simple. So direct. So perfect.

People inherently want to give back, I’m convinced of that. But competing interests, responsibilities, and just plain reality can get in the way.

But what if you start your moonshot with that baked into the business model? What if doing good was priced into the opportunity from the beginning? Would you try any less hard? Or would you try harder? Would it really sap your drive, thinking that you were only seeing half the return in your pocket? Or would it give you double the motivation to make it work?

It didn’t take long for me to realize this was something I wanted to be a part of. A chance to build something significant with a friend, care for my family, and give back to causes that I deeply care about, all at the same time. 

I realized it was all a matter of flipping the perspective – giving back was table stakes, if you will. 

Half of what you build is going to do good. Now go build the best business you can and do the most good possible.

The best part? The commitment-prior-to-success helps define the business relationships we are going to have in the future.  We support causes important to us and to our customer base, making for a virtuous sales cycle. More importantly, by cementing our commitment upfront, we ensure any investors we take on are 100% aligned with our charitable mission. 

A number like giving 50% serves as the greatest filter of all time – you don’t care about supporting the community you are selling into? You are not our kind of customer. You’re not interested in investing because your return on investment should be higher? Peace be with you.

In the era of The Giving Pledge (full respect) and the unrelenting, societal-impacts-be-damned quest for immediate billionaire-hood (less respect), I think it is important to recognize there is nothing stopping anyone from both pursing their entrepreneurial dreams AND giving back at the same time. 

Yes, it makes things harder, but what is easy in this world? The hard truth is, you don’t need to wait until you are a billionaire to give back. 

By all means - pursue your dreams; But why not commit to making the world a better place while you do it?

Why wait?

Christopher Lay and James Parker founded ENDEAVOUR to provide invoice factoring to contractors serving the Defense and Intelligence Community. They have committed to giving 50% of after-tax profits to organizations serving Military Families and providing Veterans’ Services.