Why is profit a dirty word in purpose driven businesses?
In purpose-driven businesses, profit is often seen as a dirty word because it has historically been associated with exploitation, unchecked capitalism, and short-term gain at the expense of people and the planet.
This perspective emerges from a mindset that values community, fairness, and sustainability above individual accumulation. It reacts against an earlier, more mechanistic worldview that measured success primarily through growth, efficiency, and financial gain—one that optimised systems for economic expansion, often at the cost of social and ecological wellbeing.
From this vantage point, profit can appear as a zero-sum game, where one party’s success must come at another’s expense.
Profit is regeneration
However, as our understanding of complexity deepens, we recognise that profit is not inherently exploitative; it is an essential flow of energy within any living system. In nature, a healthy ecosystem does not merely sustain itself—it generates surplus, which enables growth, resilience, and regeneration. Likewise, within a business or organisation, profit is the surplus energy that allows the mission to continue, evolve, and expand its impact. Without it, even the most purpose-driven initiative risks stagnation, dependency, or collapse.
Holistic Financial Planning
This is precisely why Holistic Financial Planning takes an entirely different approach to conventional budgeting. Instead of treating profit as whatever is left over after expenses, it begins with a fundamental question:
"How much profit do you want to make?"
This shifts the focus from passive financial management to proactive financial design. By establishing a target profit figure at the outset—one that aligns with the holistic context, ensuring the business remains financially, socially, and ecologically viable—the entire financial plan is then reverse-engineered to achieve this outcome.
Rather than starting with expenses and hoping that income will cover them, Holistic Financial Planning prioritises revenue-generating activities first, ensuring that income is consciously structured to meet essential costs while securing a predetermined level of surplus. This approach transforms profit from an uncertain byproduct into a deliberate outcome, allowing for strategic reinvestment in the health of the business, the people involved, and the ecosystems it depends upon.
Designing for profit and regeneration
By designing financial plans in this way, profit ceases to be a mechanism of extraction and instead becomes a regenerative force—one that funds resilience, innovation, and long-term impact. The key is intention: when profit is consciously planned and aligned with a broader purpose, it enables businesses to thrive without compromising their values. The question is not whether profit should exist, but how it is pursued and to what end. It is not profit that corrupts, but the unconscious frameworks that wield it without regard for the whole.
Rather than rejecting profit outright, a more integrated perspective sees it as a tool—not the purpose itself, but a necessary function that enables sustained contribution. When cultivated through conscious structures, profit ceases to be a mechanism of extraction and instead becomes a regenerative force. It funds resilience, innovation, and the ability to give back in ways that create lasting change. The question is not whether profit should exist, but how it is pursued and to what end. It is not profit that corrupts, but the unconscious frameworks that wield it without regard for the whole.
