We founded Living Proof Advocacy (LPA) on a commitment to helping purpose-driven individuals and organizations harness the power of first-person stories to drive positive change. For more than two decades, that has been the cornerstone of our work.

Recently, we took an important step toward codifying this commitment and are proud to announce LPA’s conversion to a public benefit corporation, weaving our promise to generate positive social impact into our corporate governance.

In case you’re not familiar with the term, a “public benefit corporation,” or PBC, is a type of for-profit corporate entity that commits a company to making a positive impact on society, workers, the community and/or the environment. As opposed to conventional corporations that typically make decisions based first on profits or shareholder value, a PBC views decisions that deliver specific positive public benefits as being “in the best interest of the corporation.” Well-known PBCs include Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s and Kickstarter.

Why now?

Over the past five years, we have been reflecting on and discussing the work we do at Living Proof Advocacy, the values that motivate us and how we want those values to guide us as our company develops. Events of the past two years—especially the social and economic impacts of the pandemic, the overdue advance of racial justice, the rise in threats to our democracy—have moved us to consider this even more deeply and with a new sense of urgency, as has been the case with so many other individuals and organizations in the past two years.

One result of this reflection is that we have recommitted to being more transparent and intentional about our values and the change we hope to help create in the world. For example, we’ve now articulated an assumption we had when we founded LPA: that we would specifically support “advocates and organizations that promote the arts, communication and community, health and safety, environmentalism, equity, peace, justice and anti-racism.”

We’ve also stated our three key social responsibilities:

1. Do value-driven work.

2. Create opportunity.

3. Support communities.

What changes?

As a PBC, these commitments and values are now written into our bylaws, and we are legally bound to use them as the measures of our success. The day-to-day at LPA will not change, except perhaps for the nature and depth of our conversations. We will continue our work as a for-profit company while deepening our social mission of helping drive positive change via the power of shared lived experience.

We look forward to updating you on our progress in early 2023 when we release our first Impact Report.