A firm Commitment
The following are statements of intent that the Lellco business and its members must be accountable for, but first we must acknowledge that this is a for profit business and expects that all of the following are achieved alonside us being a profitable business, that is in keeping with our business and social purposes.
Lellco’s Business Purpose
SME capital raising is a fundamental activity for Australia’s economic development. Only when equity financing becomes as systematic as finance broking or financial planning will it meet its full economic development potential.
SME funding presently comprises 95% debt: 5% equity. This imbalance should be adjusted to 70% Debt:30% Equity, to maximise SME funding flexibility and optimise outcomes.
This can and should be done and we intend for Lellco to achieve this.
Lellco’s Social Purpose
Lellco shares the same purpose as Purpose Driven Capital; i.e. Encouraging and facilitating the engines of human action, business, to help solve the defining issue of our lifetimes, the imbalance between nature and humanity.
Imbalance is a massive and complex set of issues. Arguably, it may start with the imbalance within humanity itself, i.e. global poverty, the ever widening wealth inequality, gender inequality, racism. Of course we can do little, but that is where it starts, by doing the little we can.
We bring financial partnership to vital matters by driving investment and innovation in projects that take real and successful action.
Lellco’s Business Contract
We care for our clients’ business as our business. We think and act like business partners, not merely technical advisors. We share our clients’ aspirations, work to understand their reality, and align our incentives with their objectives — so they know we’re in this together.
Calling Bullshit
If anyone ever catches any action of any member of Lellco and it’s offshoots acting in a manner that is, or seems counter to the above statements, please Call Bullshit on us so that we may pull our heads in, then get back on track.
Integrity
The Lellco service is only as good as our name and reputation. We strive to maintain that integrity in everything we do and all that we deliver.
Long-Sightedness
We are not in this for a quick buck. We want repeat business and that requires a long-sighted strategy of quality client outcomes.
Challenging Staff
Any business is only the combination of people that work in it. We engage highly skilled professional staff that need to feel fulfilled. We constantly strive to challenge our team members.
Privacy and Safety
Client, staff and business privacy, confidentiality all go back to our integrity.
Quality Services
To ensure quality services we keep our consulting services refined and focused.
Innovation Solutions
Often imagination is missing from capital solutions. We have buckets of imagination but innovation should never be adopted for its own sake, it must also be pragmatic and create solutions to real problems.
Continuous Improvements
After 25 years of finding capital solutions and constantly evolving those solutions we can finally say that we have a firm introduction behind us. Now we shall continuously improve our business and ourselves.
Operational Excellence
Achieving operational excellence not only saves us money, but it saves our clients time and money while delivering higher quality outcomes.
Aspiring to B Corp status
To strive to be a purposeful business right from our founding is pretty daunting.
Fortunately, it is an objective our founders have desired, researched, debated and argued about for years, separately and together. So when one proposed we have a social purpose it was a meeting of minds.
But after many years in business both knew the challenge lay ahead in setting the culture and living it every day, particularly in the challenging days.
What was needed was a set of guiding principles against which to be accountable.
We have chosen to seek B Corporation certification as soon as practicable because we subscribe to the philosophies.
We need an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system.
We envision an economy that works for all people and the planet. Business can help us get there.
B Lab Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand
B Corps are businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
For more details we recommend going to B Lab Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand. We will keep you informed of our progress to certification.
Clients, Projects & Our Purpose
We believe it is important for us to control our own actions and impacts, rather than judge those of others. That being positive role models and influencers, while harder in the short-term has much greater long-term impact than dictating others behaviour.
As such, we do not place any extra requirements on our clients and their projects, and do not ask them to join or support our Purpose or social giving.
Social Giving
Our Giving Policy
It is our policy to allocate 15% of profits to social causes that assist in achieving our Purpose.
A selection of charities and causes will be made, and contractual agreements entered into with anchor causes. As the value of social giving increases, we will be seeking advice and guidance on the best causes to support and notifying our stakeholder community on all aspects of Lellco’s Social Giving.
No Negative Impact
Any social giving commitment of Lellco does not have a negative impact on our ability to deliver our services to all stakeholders or to maintain the highest levels of service as it would be contrary to our Purpose if our pursuit of that purpose caused strain on or the failure of our business.
Governance
The governance of the social giving of Lellco is still to be determined, but will be structured and implemented in accordance with B Corp guidelines for effective governance practices