Interview by Steven Assarian, Business and Career Librarian
People First Economy is a business support organization that provides equity and resiliency-building resources here in Grand Rapids to help build a ‘people first’ economy. But what does it mean to be ‘people first’ in business? I sat down with Carlos Martinez, President of People First Economy, to find out:
Steven Assarian: How did that get you into the kind of entrepreneurial space that you're in now?
Carlos Martinez: My bachelor's degree was in sociology and I earned a master's in higher education while working at Grand Valley State University—four of those years in admissions, four of those years in career development—before transitioning over to NYU and doing some more career development work. And so I've always worked with external stakeholders. I've always worked with the business community, even though I was within higher education. At NYU, I ran a global internship program, because they had 12 international sites where students will study abroad and do internships.
To wrap up the latter part of your question, I've always been an entrepreneur. I used to sell burnt CDs in high school, before I knew that it wasn’t necessarily legal [laughs].
Steve: Before we all figured that out somehow. [Laughs]
Carlos: Once I moved back to Michigan after leaving NYU—I lived there during the first years of the pandemic—I transitioned to work at the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I'm bilingual. I've always worked in the community, but at the same time, my wife and I also started a small business, so she's a licensed professional counselor.
Now I'm President of People First Economy. We're working with over 500 businesses around the State of Michigan, and our core focus is offering them tools, education, and supporting different networks statewide of folks who want to build a stakeholder economy where we know that people and environmental well being are essential. We can make a healthy profit, but we've got to take care of those around us.
Steve: Tell me about the structure of People First Economy. What is it, and how do its different parts fit into the larger whole?
Carlos: We were founded in 2003 by a group of business owners here in Grand Rapids who were all about supporting local businesses. Studies show that when you spend your money locally, a greater percentage of that will remain in your community, including studies we’ve done ourselves. It becomes a virtuous cycle.
Over time, though, we grew to offer programs like Good for Michigan, which is about helping businesses make a measurable impact in their communities. We all say we want to do good. We all say we're in agreement, that we love local, we love the environment; People First Economy is about giving businesses the tools to make those sentiments real.
We partner with our friends at B LAB U.S. & Canada, and they have some assessments that certified B Corporations take. That's just a third party certification for impact. And so we offer those in Michigan to help folks get a better sense of their impact. Are you sustainable? Environmentally, but also socially? How are your different business practices implementing the values that we all agree are good? It's not about judging anyone. It's about starting where you are.
A lot of this work is about connecting to the different resources in the ecosystem across Michigan and then People First Economy would be that umbrella that houses all the different programs and services.
Steve: You'd mentioned B Labs and B Corporations. Could you walk us through what that means, particularly for us in West Michigan?
Carlos: B Lab is the nonprofit entity that certifies B Corporations. And so B Corporations are businesses who have completed the same assessment that we're offering, but they take that extra step of being certified, having a third party audit some of those practices. We're building that community, but we're not a certifying body. Major companies like Ben and Jerry’s and Patagonia have this certification.
If you go to Latin America, you'll hear about Sistema B, which has all of this in Spanish. There's B LAB Asia, there's B LAB Africa. We're joining this global community of practice, and there are about 8000 certified B Corporations around the world, but there are over 300,000 companies, who have taken those same assessments that you can take, in West Michigan.
So for us, it's about bringing global best practice in a local context, in a non-judgmental manner. It's just saying, 'hey, we want to help you, if you care about this thing too. Let's build a real, strong economy together. And here are some tools to act in a more meaningful way, so you can measure your impact and continuously improve.' And we can have a pathway to continuously improve and just become a model community for what that means.
In West Michigan, you have companies that are doing that too. Last Mile Cafe is a B Corp. Cascade Engineering is a B Corp. Atomic Object is a B Corp. But for us, it's not B Corp or bust. We have a lot of companies in our region who will say 'this certification is the one we think makes a lot of sense for us.' And our response is, 'we love it. Join a community, even if it's not us, find a community of practice and keep improving on your actions.'
Steve: Are there any statistics related to B Corps in terms of their sustainability? I could see someone saying ‘Well, that’s all well and good, but do these companies that do good compete?’
Carlos: Studies have shown time and again that purpose-driven companies thrive. One came through Harvard University, and their studies showed that purpose-driven companies outperform the general market by a factor of 10. Whether they’re B-Corps or not, that’s pretty impressive.
From a talent attraction perspective, when we're talking about millennials, when we're talking about Gen Z, Gen Alpha, an increasing numbers of young professionals want to work with companies that are mission-aligned.
We're still keeping in mind that it's entrepreneurship. Most businesses are going to fail no matter which way you shake it. Entrepreneurship is really, really difficult. And so as you're implementing these practices, it's also important to understand that a B Corp certification is not a guarantee of success, but it speaks to a deeper purpose of the company, which is clearly important.
Steve: People First Economy does a lot of advocacy work in Lansing. What kind of advocacy work does People First Economy do? And as part of that effort, what are you seeing?
Carlos: One of the biggest things that I always advocate for is that we need to expand the definition of what it means when we say 'the business community.' We can't speak about the solopreneur who just started a consulting company in Grand Rapids, and put him in the same boat as a successful local brewery in town. They’re both here, they share commonalities, but these are very different business experiences.
When we look at the Small Business Administration statistics for Michigan, they showed about 908,000 small businesses in our state. Out of those, roughly about 880,000 of them have less than 20 employees and over 700,000 of them have no employees.
When the Small Business Administration counts a small business, it’s 500 employees or less. So again, what do we mean? We're not talking about the same people in the same sets of challenges.
Take something like family leave. That's a hot topic item right now in Lansing. If you look at the way the policy is written, those businesses who have less than 25 employees, it's at no cost to them on their business side. So is it good for a small business? I would argue that when you're a small business who can offer that at no cost, you're now able to be more competitive with a more mature company that has the resources to offer that leave out of pocket.
We need a little more nuance on how to advocate for small businesses, and a lot of education on what it means to create policy that supports small businesses in a way that allows them to compete with more mature companies, while also being clear that we're not saying big is bad either. Of course, a lot of these small businesses want to become bigger. But we want to uplift the voice of those small business owners who maybe don't feel that they're represented.
Steve: So are there any books that you would recommend to our audience that would be a good primer on either economics or a people-focused economy or a shareholder economy.
Carlos: I got two for you. Because we chatted a bit on the B Corp topic today, there's a gentleman who actually studied at the University of Michigan who’s been doing some great work: Christopher Marquis, and one of his books is called Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism. The second book of his I’d recommend is called The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs. It's the idea that somebody's still paying for it, right? And the idea that if you're paying your employees below a living wage, that means that the state is paying for it in terms of social service programs. If you pay them a livable wage, then less of those costs go to the state, and they're actually paying more into taxes, and it's less of a ‘quote-unquote’ burden for our social safety net.
Steve: Do you have any closing thoughts for us and our readers?
Carlos: I want people to know that there’s a fast growing community of businesses that want to be a force for good all around Michigan. In the last few months, I've had the pleasure of connecting with them in Traverse City, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Holland, all over. You don't have to feel that you're alone just because you want to use business and operate in a different way. We want to support you, and we want to show you how to build a strong business while having a huge, positive impact on all the people you serve.
