Making a Positive Impact on the Economy with Don Golden

Oct 11

Written By Angela R Howard

angela_r_howard (00:02.021)

all right hey Don welcome to the podcast thank you for joining us today

don_golden (00:06.12)

Angela thanks so much for having me

angela_r_howard (00:08.881)

yeah a dod please tell us you know we always have a quick discussion before we jump on the podcast and I'm excited about all the work that you're doing at Just Capital and the work the impact of the work you're doing on the world so would love to hear more about you who you are what you do and that impact that you're looking to make on the world what is it

don_golden (00:28.92)

yeah awesome so yeah I'm the founder of Just Capital Quotient Just Capital is another entity we are just capital quotation and my work comes out of thirty years of working in international relief and development and coming to understand that the economy is something that has to be changed if the world is going to be changed that charity the best of charity still lives off of the real economy

It kind of lives off to the economy as a host and the host itself needs to be transformed that's where now the spirit of charity the desire to serve others and to lift communities the social imperative that comes from charity needs to infect the overall economy and so that's where my passion

and that's what we do at Just Capital Quotient invest in businesses that are making a difference and then help us businesses that want to make an impact make a better one so what kind of impact do I want to make I want to see a new economy emerge as an economy that is life-giving for people and planet that take that gives back more to people planet than it takes i want to see us leave a legacy of a of a

angela_r_howard (01:47.201)

don_golden (01:58.8)

the new regenerative economy and life-giving that's the impact I seek

angela_r_howard (02:04.761)

yeah I love that and I would love to hear more about what that vision looks like for you but for those who are not I guess in the space of you know financing our business or you are keeping up with the economy what would you say the current state is today and why do you think it is so taking versus giving

don_golden (02:25.66)

mean I think the nature of capitalism itself has been structured especially since the nineteen seventies the kind of shareholder capitalism the Milton Freedman school that the only obligation of business is to make a profit for the shareholder the whole life of capitalism has had its rapacious side but since this

seventy uh that has become and with the end of communism as even as a theoretical alternative we have a type we have a type of ascendant capitalism that is dehumanizing it is extractive is colonial and there's no way around it as being a death-dealing force in the world so it is either healed

angela_r_howard (03:06.901)

don_golden (03:25.54)

is either transformed um or we pay the consequences as we are and as our children will even more so so I think it's i think it is common tells the point of all humans today to see our political and social arrangements change in such a way that they can be life-giving

angela_r_howard (03:48.761)

and are there any examples of economies that are closer to your vision today I mean help paint a picture for us as to what this future state or this change could look like

don_golden (04:00.08)

yeah Charles Eisenstein who does a lot of writing and research on this topic talks about gift economies and you know having traveled and I just came back from Honduras and we were up in the mountains of Honduras looking at agricultural communities where gift economies once existed and have broken down but you know where I'm currently at my dad's farm in southern Ohio and local small farming communities

were once much more based on the gift as opposed to commodification so I think I think there are memories of it all over the place both in the indigenous context and even in a more simple rural context what more excites me because we really can't completely go back are the examples on the horizon now of regenerative approaches to economic so just yesterday we enter

and a pitch from a company in the midwest called Tree Range Farm which is bringing indigenous practices of land management into chicken farming it's very much capitalist trying to make money but it's also highly tuned to ancient ways of seeing the energy in land and and in the life-giving forces in land and what that land can give in this case to chickens

and give us life so what excites me is a more emergent future in which the best of capitalism and the best of science begin to re-appreciate what has been lost in ancient wisdom traditions and begin to help us imagine a new way of conducting our social arrangements

angela_r_howard (05:55.061)

yeah what I love about this is your point I think it's getting back to basic and a lot of ways getting back to the human condition the best parts of it and also this breakdown of power where the partnership is more prevalent and I talk a lot about that from a workplace perspective right where we see the employer-employee relationship changing just like some of the relationships you're talking about between land and food

don_golden (05:59.1)

m hm

don_golden (06:11.4)

yeah

angela_r_howard (06:24.881)

people and how that becomes more regenerative where you know we are trying to give to get together in a partnership versus somebody is overseen or overpowering to get something or to take something and so that's a huge shift in philosophy for this country

don_golden (06:43.22)

indeed yeah I think power and how it's used how it's abused how it's misunderstood that is central to this conversation absolutely

angela_r_howard (06:55.501)

so tell us more about just the capital question I apologize for missing a quote there in the beginning but you are doing some great work around this with your company and I'm sure that's impacted and creating a ripple effect with another business but tell us more about what you're doing and how it's contributing to this new vision

don_golden (06:59.4)

no worries

don_golden (07:16.48)

yeah well we have two arms we have an investment vehicle and so you know for your listeners if you have a business that's up and coming that needs capital we don't have loads of it lying around to hand out like chocolates but what we do have we like to look together at what opportunities are there and we are a club so it's a very interesting model and people are getting a lot of life out of just

angela_r_howard (07:32.641)

don_golden (07:46.34)

the community gathering around taking seriously our part in the new economy you know we've invested in a business called the Halo app which is seeking to take on the payday lending industry and to provide access to people who fall prey to predatory lending a different mode of pure to pure lending that's an awesome business quanta mental health providing psychedelic-assisted mental

health therapy to the insured that's amazing it's a Denver base company and then believe it or not a mining company in Ronda uh called Power Resources International this cell phone of mine has a tantalum which is the rarest stable earth mineral in the solar system it's highly sought after and it's being taken from Africa and the value add

made by Americans and Chinese and canadians this company is the very first refinery on the African continent and it will be a game changer because it will bring rowdies into the process of all that is required in the technology of cell phones and bio medical and the other

technical technology development so we get to do those kinds of things that's the investment arm and we love to hear pitches from great businesses that are solving problems on the other side is our consulting our impact and sustainability consulting for businesses currently all in the u s and that has proven to be surprising and for me now the most interesting because I'm a pastor and theologian that's my background

angela_r_howard (09:23.721)

don_golden (09:46.38)

I don't have no business being in business but that's where I found myself and what I'm finding is that people are desperately hungry for reintegrated life they might even be people of faith but they don't know really how their faith interplays into their business life where they might have a they might be socially social justice minded but don't always know how that relates to well what actually you often see in the social justice space is

angela_r_howard (09:47.201)

angela_r_howard (09:59.301)

don_golden (10:16.32)

all that become depleted you know they're so pressured by injustice and the ravages of this capitalist system and so angered by it that they deplete their their life power to to be able to stay in the struggle and so the integration of the self the re discovery of the self as as as a divine being as you know we don't lean on any particular

angela_r_howard (10:19.401)

don_golden (10:46.36)

dal or faith tradition but you probably have to have faith that that you're more than what you see you know that there's an underneath of things that there's a flow of energy and power that we can tap into give example they've been using with my clients lately i was recently at detroit airport and i was on my way to another terminal and some one was clearly late for their flight and they're they're running towards me while i'm coming down the escalator they're running to my downs

angela_r_howard (10:52.401)

angela_r_howard (11:13.401)

don_golden (11:16.32)

later and this poor woman not so desperate she jumps on the down escalator and and even when she realized this she's on the down escalator she just bears down and just tries to work harder but with all her might she's not moving anywhere and i thought that was such an analogy of some people make it up and then we write books they write books about how i climbed the down how i climbed the up escalator really there is a lie

angela_r_howard (11:22.401)

oh my goodness

angela_r_howard (11:34.101)

don_golden (11:46.46)

force there is an energy in this world that we can align ourselves with and so a lot of our work is really on that spiritual mind set the work that you do in culture change like how can the first step to culture change is the change of the self and and anchoring the self within that which is irreducible the ithe irreducible self who are you really and and why did the universe bring you here and can you go with that energy and can you find where

angela_r_howard (11:57.401)

angela_r_howard (12:02.321)

angela_r_howard (12:11.001)

don_golden (12:16.4)

energy leads you to the impact you were designed to make a flower has an impact it was designed to make it pollinates well what you know as jesus said are you not more important than the flowers and you know so what is yours to make so a lot of the work that i do in um impact and sustainability is to help business leaders feel the freedom and the value to re discover themselves

angela_r_howard (12:21.601)

angela_r_howard (12:26.001)

angela_r_howard (12:29.801)

yes

don_golden (12:46.48)

as a force for good and then to align that um with their the desire for their business to make an impact

angela_r_howard (12:57.541)

yeah and i think what you're talking about and you know it has many different names but i think what's been popping up the most is purpose and you know what why do we exist and as a business owner you have kind of this multi dimensional manifestation of that through your business because you have a platform that you've developed you've developed another entity that is uh is executing on your purpose and to your point i think it's really really important

don_golden (13:04.08)

yes

don_golden (13:14.9)

right

angela_r_howard (13:27.341)

for organizations and leaders entrepreneurs founders to understand what is that purpose to constantly re connect with that because i do think we've lost we lose our way a lot of the times right we start a business for a reason for a purpose and you hire a big team and it does really well and you we kind of go back to the way the system was designed within this country which is focusing on capitalism and shareholders and profit

and all those things are important but how does one so when you're doing this consulting how do you discover explore that shift with the business owner of the founder

don_golden (14:09.64)

yeah well we have you know i tried to think about how that has happened for me as a fifty five year old man who's been involved in the process of trying to make an impact you know one thing i realize that there's a gap between the desire to make an impact and the capacity to make an impact so i'm very interested in that neccess of knowledge that exists between the desire to do good and the capacity to actually do good even the charities that i've worked for or around you know

angela_r_howard (14:21.441)

mhm

don_golden (14:39.5)

the best marketing wins because because the actual change that's sustainable at the local level is always less than what you hear being marketed and what i'm really interested is how what are those dynamics of transformation and borrowing from integral theory i won't only mention that so i can sit where it comes from but we really work on these three simple ideas of wake up grow up and show up you know so

angela_r_howard (14:47.881)

angela_r_howard (15:09.001)

m i love it

don_golden (15:09.5)

wake up is wake up to yourself and the world you know and the people with the most power it's in their interest to stay asleep because if the structure in the system is benefiting you why do you want to wake up to it you might be held accountable for it and some people even worse than wake up they just build structures of justification as a theologian actually know that one of the reasons we go to church is to get justified in who we are as opposed to what it should be as a path of liberation

angela_r_howard (15:19.301)

angela_r_howard (15:37.201)

don_golden (15:40.32)

instead of being a path of liberation it's a structure of justification so waking up is first waking up to yourself and then waking up to the world that you live in growing up is sort of technically about stages of growth and adult development you know when you start out it's all about me and then as you grow older it becomes maybe hopefully about us but you know that us can be very selfish my family my community my gated commune

angela_r_howard (15:41.001)

don_golden (16:09.52)

in my country ultimately full adult human development is we move from me to us to all of us and even all of us and everything so who are you within the political economy of where you live and who are you within the life systems that of which you are part i m in the bio sphere you know can you really wake up to where you are and begin to grow up in

consciousness of your connectivity to others and then ultimately can you show up can you can you bring your power and we try and people often like i don't want to talk about power well wait a minute you don't want to talk about power because you don't want to admit that when you walk in the room people act differently because you've got the money you better own the fact that you have power because then you will be responsible for how you exercise power just because m a the

ogan i have to do this is this amazing time in the jewish tradition in which the queen of sheba an african queen hears about what's happened in jerusalem under solomon and it's so amazing that people who were once slaves are now the leader of a great nation and so this african queen hears about it and she makes this pilgrimage all the way to jerusalem to meet solomon and she sees what

angela_r_howard (17:28.801)

don_golden (17:39.52)

s done with this kingdom and it's amazing and so she says i know why this has happened because of all people you a former slave you will use this power to uphold justice and righteousness and justice is really finding out what belongs to him and giving it back and righteousness is just about right living with people and planet and environment unfortunately in that case right before that

story the text says and here is a list of the forced labor solomon used to build his build his house in the temple and we american churches read right over that when a slave uses slavery for his economy where we're in trouble it's kind of like when a nation of immigrants start talking about putting up a wall to keep out immigrants when that kind of thing

starts happening and the writing is on the wall so that so to speak and so the need to find justice and righteousness there is essential for the health of the economy and people on the planet

angela_r_howard (18:39.701)

angela_r_howard (18:53.921)

yeah and it goes back to the regenerative part i think what you're talking about is the opposite of regenerative i don't know what the opposite of that is but just destruction compounded destruction maybe but you know one of the things that i don't know if you experience this in your work but you know i work with a lot of leaders who come to me and say i want to change culture within my organization you know all the buzz words right d and i innovation i want i want to accomp

don_golden (19:03.5)

yeah exactly

angela_r_howard (19:23.721)

is all of these things but my people my people they just can't get there and you're kind of looking at them like well have you done the work and you know are you truly committed and that's probably the biggest barrier to change within organizations and society so do you find that there is a lot of kind of performative or saveyourism in this work and how do how do we get past that and can't we get past that

don_golden (19:49.56)

yeah

don_golden (19:53.86)

yeah one of my favorite scholars today is a man named slavoygjek slovinian marxist actually and he has this phrase that is stuck with me that is virtue begins in hypocrisy in other words one we begin hearing the discussions about all of these things sustain ability diversity equity inclusion and they're often bandied about

and and they're kind of virtue signals and but and then people get cynical about them but they're also i think the beginning of culture change you know what what someone is being hypocritical about someone else may start taking seriously and then you know then somebody else starting to take it seriously and someone beginning to build a case study and then someone's actually seeing a thriving business a business that's getting ahead that's competing on its impact that's kind of out loving the world so p

angela_r_howard (20:34.241)

don_golden (20:53.74)

ple are choosing that business or investors are putting money into that business and they're talking about this stuff so what was once hypocrisy starts to become virtue and i say i just don't any time someone starts talking about what is life giving let's celluprateed and let's sort of encourage it and you know where do we see those signs of life one of the great joys for me has been you know here and the

mid west working with often white male sis gender middle age you know that walking privilege but when you actually find when you actually get to know a human being you find that they care about the environment you know one question that we ask is what do you love most about your favorite place to recharge it doesn't matter who you voted for or what your stance is

at the end of the day you want to leave a better environment than you found you want that and so i think finding the common pursuit of virtue within all of us and celebrating it and encouraging it at least that's been my approach and i find it it gives me joy in seeing that culture change happening even

places where it might you might at the beginning think that's the last group of people that that are going to care about this or that

angela_r_howard (22:33.541)

yeah and you talk about this work as a differentiator and so i think that's a really important conversation because a lot of this can sound you know to some people who are really focused on a capitalistic economy what's the bottom line right at my k p is what what's what are the results so tell us a little bit more about why this is actually turning into has been a differentiator probably

don_golden (22:53.38)

yeah

angela_r_howard (23:03.461)

or for a long time and how businesses can re think their their score card on success

don_golden (23:10.62)

yeah great well i'll give you kind of the theory we're working on and then a specific example we actually call what we do a balanced impact square card so we look at this you know the noble purpose and then under your noble purpose that for four ps being a preacher it's good to have a literation but you know of course profit and and we have to have a you know a healthy respect for profit and all of its many uses

the language that we use healthy respect for profit and all of its many uses business can't thrive without profit but to understand it has a life force as a as not just a store of value but as a source of energy for the other three pease planet place and people so we make profit and i or if our household or economic household is well balanced unlike our current economy

where one room at the top has all the wiring and all the plumbing and so all the energy goes to you know it's going to it's going to fall over because it's not a well balanced house but we can build our own micro economies and hopefully eventually a larger economy that is balanced around those four capitals of people place planet and profit so that's our balanced impact score card and then we just sort of borrowing from you know the business world and the idea of a fly way

angela_r_howard (24:20.001)

don_golden (24:40.66)

but if you if you be if you were to state for example that we would like to be a company that's net zero by twenty thirty let's just say if you stated that whatever your company is if you if you stated that internally well you'd be forced to look at the data so you'd start digging around and you'd get your team and you'd be able to say well that's because some of our national clients are now recording that they only want to work with downstream partners that are net zero or at least

mindful of their scope three outputs for example so we're going to do that well making that statement you begin to gather the data gathering the data starts to build your confidence an you're starting to influence culture and while you're starting to gain some confidence you might even be able to go on a podcast and talk about how you did that i might pick up some some new client interest but definitely young talent who are saying hey i i have this degree i have this interest and i'm going to go

somewhere where there's going to be an impact made so you know attracting new talent enriching culture and then beginning to compete on impact landing that national account because you can say hey we want to help you in your obligation to report on the impact you are making in the planet we're a company were much smaller but we want to participate with you in that you're then gathering the data you're gaining

the confidence you're attracting people and then you're able to put that energy into that virtuous cycle that's your impact fly wheel let me give a very specific example of a company that is a roofing company and they had already created land roofing ter offs are the number two land fill material in the united states tearing old

angela_r_howard (26:15.981)

don_golden (26:40.64)

stop putting in land fills a number two material so they designed a fluid applied roofing you don't have to tear the roof off you apply this this fluid application solution so that in itself is an environmental environ a forward business solution but they didn't know how to talk about it so beginning to explore what that well it's white so it reduces the temperature of the building which lowers energy costs

angela_r_howard (26:40.641)

wow

don_golden (27:11.26)

ah and then they started to measure well if we don't tear off the roof how much is that saving you so they were able to package that story and go to a large national clients say we know you have to report on your waste and energy use if you choose us we can help you lower and improve your scores and that you're dis

closing in your impact and sustainability so they went from just contemplating this and these are not folks that are you know granola crunch green you know hipsters these are middle american people that are interested in building successful businesses that they've begun to find that treating the earth well positions them um you know the economy is beginning to reward those who treat people and planet well that's

angela_r_howard (27:52.041)

m hm

don_golden (28:11.16)

that is a good fact that we can all celebrate but it's a fact that business is the flip side of that is that you may be at risk because you can believe that there's some other young m b or some other young person that's figuring out how to do what you do in a way that is more enriching for people in planet so there's actually a negative risk for not being concerned about impact

angela_r_howard (28:11.701)

angela_r_howard (28:34.301)

angela_r_howard (28:37.621)

yeah that was actually going to be my my next question which is for those who are not interested in changing or growing up to your point what what is the risk do you think that there's going to be detrimental impacts to businesses like that ll do you think there's a audience for that well they thrive what are your thoughts

don_golden (28:59.18)

yeah well i think it's it behoves us all to step back and look at the major risk which is uh the conditions in which human life thrive are dependent on the biosphere life on planet earth and our current economy is continuing to currently we were you know there's always

um species going extinct there always has been and that's called the background extinction rate but the current extinction rate is one thousand to ten thousand times higher than the standard background extinction rate so our current way of organizing our life on planet earth is killing life so one risk is the lights go out you know the rocks tell a story which could be

angela_r_howard (29:56.501)

don_golden (29:59.undefined)

suicide now how we failed to wake up grow up and show up i think that's in our shared human interest to whatever your political to depoliticides that and to recognize that as a common shared human interest on the more pressing side as i said whatever for example in the built environment eighty percent of the pressures on bio diversity loss come from land use and the built in

angela_r_howard (30:02.201)

don_golden (30:28.92)

ironed so more and more and more if you're if you're a builder if you're a roofer if you're a painter if you aren't finding ways to do what has to be done we can't quit painting or if we didn't if we didn't preserve our assets they would deteriorate and we wouldn't be able to survive as humans we have to cote our buildings we have to preserve them someone will find out how to do that in a way that's life giving for people and planet

if you are not one of them maybe you're at an age range that you can write it out and it's not going to matter but for your your forty year old thirty five year old new incoming you know c f o or other talent they're going to value that and so there's a risk ring this shift in the economy

angela_r_howard (31:23.661)

ah i m i really agree with you and in every way there i think that there is this techtonic shift that is happening i think in this world of the economy of in the context of society business is having a platform and influence and responsibility to those things so absolutely love this conversation don i think we could probably talk for three more hours on many different you know

don_golden (31:50.9)

if i can while we're still talking i'd love to learn from you when

angela_r_howard (31:53.161)

topics that we mentioned today but we've talked about a lot

don_golden (31:58.68)

sorry i think there's a little lag there but i wanted to ask you one question if i can and in that in the realm of culture change it feels to me that there is a you know you make a brand promise but you also have an employer promise so that talent comes to you and how do you see that you're working culture change relating to that employer promise to talent

angela_r_howard (32:02.821)

yes absolutely

angela_r_howard (32:14.601)

angela_r_howard (32:26.381)

yeah so great question i think you know another name for that is employed value proposition that's probably a word that somewhere familiar with which is what what is the experience you're going e to get as you're coming into this organization into this partnership what are some of the things we're promising not just to the people within the organization but as a brand what is the impact we're looking to make and you know i think the perfect marriage of

ployees to employer is you know we're working towards the same purpose right we have the same value system and we're doing all that in the context of community which is your work for use that you've built so this is absolutely crucial i was just recently working with a client actually because we work on before we do any of our culture assessment work we get the executive team together and we develop if they don't have a purpose statement the kind of why do we exist it's the ver

first thing we do because your value system has to align to that how we're showing up within the organization outside of the organization needs to connect back to that and to your point that the story telling behind that is just a very human way of communicating like this is a part of the human condition so it's crucial in culture and culture change work

don_golden (33:50.06)

yeah so it's that purpose that ultimately uh infects the culture that people want to be part of they want to they want to go to work every day at a place that is contributing to that purpose and so a business that's owning that purpose is beginning that that talent attraction process awesome awesome well i appreciate the chance to chat with you about these things it's awesome

angela_r_howard (33:57.101)

yes

angela_r_howard (34:11.601)

yeah and we try to get

yeah yeah i i absolutely loved our conversation and would love for you to just to tell everybody where they can find you if they are interested in working with you are connecting

don_golden (34:26.1)

yeah well just come to our website just capital quotin dot com there's a have i i speak to anybody that once to sign that take fifteen or thirty minutes to chat on zoom and i've really found that a very enriching process so come to our ourwebsite just capital quotin dot com also for you listeners the idea of moving from charity

angela_r_howard (34:39.981)

don_golden (34:55.82)

i find a lot of business leaders they if i get to a certain point then i'll get involved in a charity and i think in exactly the opposite way i did that for thirty years you're the ones that are changing the world you're the one that are giving people jobs on a horizon of career and hope you you're the entrepreneurs figuring out how to build a new world i think we need to think beyond charity so i put together a little fifteen minute little teaching piece on beyond charity and so i'd like to make that is as a gift for folks who come

angela_r_howard (35:02.001)

angela_r_howard (35:10.761)

don_golden (35:25.94)

just capital quotion dot com slash gift and see this little idea about how you don't need to think in terms of charity necessarily and go beyond charity into the very substance of your business to find the real and sustainable impact so love to share that and and you can also find there a connect with me button and we could we could have a chat so and that also includes if you you know if you have a business again we don't have all kinds of money to be throwing

angela_r_howard (35:40.401)

don_golden (35:55.88)

around but we do like to hear pitches from from businesses that are trying to solve some of these social and environmental challenges so angela i'm glad to be in your network and be a part of what you're doing to help us build this new economy

angela_r_howard (35:56.141)

m hm

angela_r_howard (36:14.441)

thank you so much don we will make sure to include all of those links in our show notes so folks can listen but also click down thank you so much for being on the podcast

don_golden (36:18.92)

awesome

don_golden (36:22.76)

my pleasure awesome