CV Harquail

 So you’re not a ‘feminist’ and you don’t want to build a “feminist” business…. but you want a values-driven business model?

That’s fine!

All activist entrepreneurs have an important choice. They can choose which values they build into their businesses… they don’t have to have their businesses reinforce the values of the conventional extractive business.   They — YOU — can build in feminist values, and or substitute one or all your own four or five central values. 

Although some features of the FBMC are decidedly feminist (e.g., starting with your company’s strengths and values instead of jumping to the market opportunity), other features are more agnostic.  This means that any time the Canvas mentions “feminist values” or simply “values”, you can insert any value(s) that you want your company to demonstrate and reinforce.

For example, if your company values “democracy”, “resilience”, or “sustainability”, you might change the questions to:

•       “How can we design our products so that our customers practice democracy?”

•       “So that they experience resilience? “

•       “To enhance customers’ sense of connection to the earth and their responsibility for stewardship?”

As it happens, the FBMC has been used a few times in contexts that were decidedly hostile to the label “Feminist” but much more welcoming to the term “Values-Driven”. So we renamed the tool, briefly, just for these organizations. And you know what? The entrepreneurs loved the tool, because it centered on their strengths and helped them bring their values forward at every design decision.