The Flow Office Wisdom Story.

Flow Office Wisdom is the brainchild of April Burrows, an inspirational idealist business-hippy, and was assisted into fruition by the enthusiasm and ridiculous positive thinking of Crystal Wilson. 

After many conversations about the state of the world, and the number of societal issues that could be solved, at least in part, by businesses taking responsibility for creating a more just and inclusive economy, we decided to stop talking and DO something.   

Many iterations later, after thoughts of cafes, restaurants, and career training, a focus on business administration emerged, and Flow Office Wisdom took shape.  With our purpose - to inspire and empower leaders by supporting their vision, mobilizing plans, and getting tasks done - as our guide we began providing administration and project management, bookkeeping, and marketing and communications management services for small businesses and not-for-profits that are stakeholder focused.

After about a decade offering a full suite of services we realized that the heartbeat of every successful mission—whether a small business or a non-profit—is a healthy set of books, and a clear understanding of the organization’s finances. So we've narrowed our focus to provide the specialized financial mastery our clients need most.

With roots firmly planted in the responsibility of business to do good we identified a set of values to steer us:

  • We are committed to become better as people and in our professional work and skills. We face challenges head on and seek understanding, with a high level of skill, wisdom and creativity.

  • We know that what we are creating together is a dance between different skills, experiences, awareness of role and availability. Clients will receive the best from us when we know and draw on the highest leverage skills of each other.

  • We own the success of the work entrusted to us and never act complacently. Our client, not my client. We speak up when needed, work with focus, persistence and determination to bring 100% to the work.

  • We reflect on our work, our relationships, our successes and challenges to continuously glean the deeper learnings so that we are always evolving and able to offer more wisdom to our clients and each other.

  • We do not take for granted our lives or our work therefore we actively envision our future, create bold goals and plans to move us forward.

  • We will always give our very best to each other and our work. We are focussed on skills, culture, accountability, outcomes and impact.

 

As part of our commitment to these values, and to using businesses as a force for good, we prioritize:

  • Operation as a social enterprise

  • Paying all team members above the local living wage

  • Having an impact on the environment that is as positive as possible

  • Active community engagement

  • Exclusively working with values aligned businesses and organizations

  • Seeing the best in each other and ourselves

  • Stakeholders over shareholders

As we navigate our second decade in business, we’ve honed our service offerings and gathered an incredible tribe around us. We concentrated on building solid relationships and have helped dozens of small businesses and not for profits to level up and move towards their visions. We achieved B Corp Certification in 2015 and over the 8 years that we chose to remain certified, we increased our score at each recertification. We continue to use the B Impact Assessment as a guide for improvement. We are looking forward to where this journey leads!

Wait… What’s a B Corp?

The B Corp movement is a global initiative of businesses working together to create positive change. They are required to meet high performance standards in the areas of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability. Certified B Corporations are committed to considering all stakeholders, not just shareholders. For more detailed information on B Corps, head over here.

Any business can take the B Impact Assessment - if you want to see where your company stacks up head over here and take a look.