The Man With A Vision- Steve Patzkowski CEO

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

We’re all here because of our Chief Executive Officer’s vision and purpose. He envisioned the very financial institution that he has worked for many years, the merchant services industry evolving into an ethical solution to the economy. This was an unbelievable thought at first when the large banks were crumbling our US economy and making headlines doing so. He believed that we could remove the greed and run a business with good intentions and transparency. This would gain the trust back from the people and with our fair, low rates save them money and help the success of America’s small businesses. On top of it all, we give 25% of our revenues to non-profits of the merchant’s choice. Talk about power to the people!

Steve has great ideas no doubt, but is also a spiritual man that leads us in our business and social purpose. He is welcoming and a real leader with an abundance of knowledge and positive energy to share. He welcomes each new sales representative and make himself available to the entire Ethix team with weekly live broadcasts, forums and more. Follow Ethix and the team on our website blog, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to see how we are helping communities and broadening our social impact.

 

If You Could Give To Charity……?

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

If you could give to charity, where would you send your generous donation? What if you could help that charitable organization raise money just by spreading the word in you daily conversations? What if all of this could be done without costing you or the other donors any money out-of-pocket?

Ethix Merchant Services makes this possible to anyone that processes credit cards for their business.  We donate 25% of the revenue we make from each merchant account to your choice of charitable organizations. Even if you don’t own a business yourself, you can help spread the word and our community outreach materials to raise funds for your cause. Once businesses know that this is something they can do to help their communities, they will make an easy switch of credit card processors joining the socially responsible movement and feel great knowing a check will be sent monthly to their cause in their behalf.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” ― Maya Angelou

Ethix for Schools

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

Education is part of our core mission here at Ethix and raising money for schools is a Community Partnership program that we are very excited about.

Most schools are already raising money from parents or their local community to save academic, athletic, artistic and after school programs that not covered by the ever declining education budgets.  Ethix is a powerful new tool in your efforts to give your kids a well rounded and comprehensive education that will help them imagine the future that they deserve.

We work with PTA and other school groups to assist you in introducing Ethix to business owners, be they parents or merchants in your local community.  We handle all aspects of the conversion of these businesses to the Ethix Program  and start sending your group the 25% donation monthly.  That is cash, residual income that you can rely on and put to work supporting your kids and your community.

Read more about the Ethix Community Partnership and drop us a line if you think this program will work for you.

Ethix Wins SF Bay Area Social Enterprise Alliance Pitch Night

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

SEA Pitch NightOn Tuesday of last week I received an email letting me know that Ethix had been selected to present at the Social Enterprise Alliance Pitch Night in San Francisco.  I had been eagerly awaiting the news as it had been some time since I had completed the lengthy application to be included in this event.   I was excited and started to think about what I wanted to say about our company.

Social Enterprise Alliance is “An alliance of leaders across sectors advancing social enterprise to benefit communities.”  This is very much in our wheel house here at Ethix and I was looking forward to the opportunity to get feedback and insight from this audience.  Thursday came around and I headed over the bridge from our Oakland office and into the city.  On arriving, I was welcomed by Antonio Aguilera, President of the SEASF Board and Jan Cohen, a veteran social entrepreneur and SEA Board Member who spoke with myself and the other pitchers about how to make an effective presentation on our young companies.  We picked numbers to determine the order of our pitches and settled in with a packed house to commence the contest.

I pitched second of five and was inspired by everything I heard that night.  It is really amazing to be a part of the Bay Area’s vibrant community of changemakers.  At the end of the evening the audience was asked to vote.  Ethix and Yellow Leaf Hammocks came out in a dead tie for first place in the first vote.  It was very exciting.  In the run off vote, Ethix took the day!

This has been such a powerful validation for myself and my amazing team of partners who are working to build this company.  We know that we are doing something powerful through re purposing a much maligned model in financial services to make it work for communities but it is really meaningful to share that and have it validated by an organization like Social Enterprise Alliance.  I feel very appreciative of the opportunity and pretty psyched about the results.

The Not So General Election

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

 

Vote with your business

Just a few short days until our next general election.  Everybody, well almost everybody, gets a vote.  Not everybody feels like they have a say.  Democracy gives us a chance to choose every 4 years but each and every day we are making choices that probably have a greater impact on our economy, our culture and our collective health than the ballot that we cast.  If I think about my day, I can choose to get up at 6am instead of 7:30am and have time for a swim or a trip to the gym before work.  Then I can pick between the kale and eggs in my fridge or the really amazing (and I mean really amazing) chocolate croissants that are just a quick stop on my way into the office.  Hmmmmm??????  Bike or drive, lunch box or restaurant… it goes on and on and, when I think about it, these are all economic decisions.  What products will I buy and what industries will I support?  Am I funding the problems or driving resources into areas where people are looking for solutions.  The thing is that we live in a economy that is shaped by a cultural and political system rather than a culture that is shaped by an economy.  I think that means that our real voting power lies in how we spend our time and our money.  How we allocate our resources.  The great American thing about that is it brings us back to the fact that we really do live in a democracy even while our politicians butt heads and behave like arses in Washington.  Vote with your business, vote with your wallet, vote with your feet and your facebook friends and your page fans and then tweet tweet tweet away and vote some more.

And while you are at it.  Vote for Ethix.  We “”sell” the difference we want to see in the word”:)

Team Building Is Already Successful At Ethix

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

A few weeks ago we hosted an evening event here at our Oakland office for our new and potential outside sales representatives. We are so happy with the success of this event with a great turnout full of people who really get what we are doing here at Ethix. They came, they ate, they chatted and asked their questions. We really appreciate all of your questions because they help us grow and get better at what we do. We also love to hear success stories that let us all learn from each other. We have so many new forums and webcasts that have really started the connection of our outside sales team. Not only do we want our sales people to feel supported by this community but to also know that Ethix really supports it’s representatives and celebrates their successes on a personal level. We are so proud to have a team of people promoting social business responsibility and community building with us and that also have a passion for this movement.

We really appreciate your feedback so:

Contact us via website

Friend us on Facebook

Follow our pins

 

How The Ethix Community Partnership Can Work

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

Ethix is based in the Jack London District of Oakland.  As soon as we opened our offices we reached out to the local neighborhood association, The JLDA to see if we could support them in their fundraising for the application to be a Business Improvement District (BID).  This is a great example of how our Community Partnership Program works.  The JLDA has already spent time and effort building relationships with local merchants and working with them towards the goal of becoming a BID.  They have done a great job of building a community of committed residents and business owners who want to see the neighborhood improved.  We are developing a relationship with them and have added the Ethix Program to the ways in which they can raise money to support their area.  We have started reaching out to local merchants with the JLDA’s advocacy and support and requesting that those merchants designate the JLDA as the recipient of their 25% donations.  The association will benefit from a residual income stream to pay for programs that benefit the merchants.  The merchants benefit from lower fees and neighborhood improvement that does not cost their business any extra money and the residents benefit from a cleaner, safer and more vibrant local business community.  By converting fees that would traditionally disappear onto the balance sheet of large financial institutions into funds for community improvement and development we are strengthening the ties between businesses and the neighborhoods they are in.  I think that is pretty cool and I am excited to see this program used all over the country by neighborhood and merchant associations that want to save money and raise money using Ethix.

Helping Organizations Make A Difference-Community Building

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

 

Global CharitiesWe are dedicated to the organizations doing good in communities and worldwide. We support them like you do, by choosing merchants that donate to charities, getting our cars washed by school kids, buying cookies from scouts, writing checks annually to causes, donating toys for the holidays and more but as a company we do something unheard of… WE DONATE 25% OF OUR REVENUE TO NON-PROFITS AND CAUSES! If you are one of these organizations or are an advocate for them you should read on.

Use Ethix to process your credit cards – Join as a non-profit and…

  • Reduce fees you pay on credit and debit card donations
  • Receive a monthly 25% rebate on Ethix fees
  • Raise money by introducing Ethix to your community of donors

We are here to help by providing printed material and email templates to reach your supporters and introduce Ethix as a way to donate more to your cause at no cost to them.  These donations come from the 25% donation of our revenue that we make in fees from each merchant account. This donation will be a monthly, residual check that you can count on for the life of each merchant account, which means years of income for your organization.

Call us to sign up!

(510) 844-5903

Why is Ethix a For-Profit Company?

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

This week we had the opportunity to talk about Ethix with a group of students from The San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking.  They were looking for innovative companies to use as the subject of 30 second ads that they are creating as part of their course work.  We are eagerly awaiting news on whether we got selected for the project but in the meantime they asked us some great questions that got me thinking about some of the principles that were foundational to Ethix and that inspired us to launch the company.  One of the questions was “Why is Ethix a for-profit company?”

Answer is Yes!

Ethix is a social enterprise.  Enterprise as in a productive endeavor in the private sector and social as in thinking beyond our bottom line in the way we do business.  I have a huge amount of respect for all the work that is done and the impact that is created in the non-profit sector but I had a different vision for the company I wanted to help build.  There are a lot of reasons for this but these are the highlights.

Philanthropy isn’t enough!  On a very basic level, the idea that we should support the health, well being and education of the majority of our citizens through government spending or donations is running out of rope.  If the fact that this model is broken is not enough to convince you, think about it like this.  Should our social, educational and community needs be reliant on “left over” money that drops out of the private economy in the form of charitable donations.  There is something wrong with that.   Companies all over the world are learning that they have a vested interesest in the health and education of their customers and employees.  It is part of their bottom line.  Doesn’t it make more sense to move towards a more integrated economy that promotes the creation of private wealth while contributing to the broader social economy on which it depends to thrive?

We have a point to make… Seriously!  The financial service industry is chock-a-block with revenue models that baffle consumers and charge huge sums in fees and murky charges with very little value or accountability.  Merchant services is one of the worst offenders here.  We want to prove that it is not simply possible, but profitable to repurpose these models and make them transparent, ethical and socially responsible.  Possible to the tune of 25% of our total revenues at Ethix and profitable to the tune of… Well.  We will find out and keep you in the loop but things are going great.

Business is Social.   We think that the distinction between business and social needs is false.  Businesses do better in thriving local communities.  We are in the business of reconnecting businesses with social needs in their local areas in a way that does not cost them a dime and actually saves them money.

Making Money… is great.  We think so and our sales people think so and the non-profits and community groups that benefit from our Ethix Program agree.

Make Money and Raise Money for Your Community – Come Work for Ethix

Posted by Brian Thivierge on

It’s official!  Ethix is looking for passionate, motivated folks who want to build a financially secure future for themselves and make a difference in the world.  We thought it might be useful for us to explain a few things about this opportunity.

We are a PURPOSE DRIVEN ORGANIZATION.  That means that our central goal is to make an impact socially and in communities all across America and all over the world.

We are a SOCIAL ENTERPRISE.  A business focused on meeting social as well as financial goals.

We are SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE.  You know… ethics and integrity are really important to us.  They affect how we treat our customers, how we treat our employees and how we do business in the world.

And if you decide to work with us…

You will earn RESIDUAL INCOME.  So when you stop working you don’t stop earning.  The acconts that you close are billed fees for our services every month and, every month, you get a portion of those fees.

You will BE YOUR OWN BOSS and set your own schedule.  Whether you want to do this for a couple of hours a week or full time, it is entirely up to you.  We will give you the training and support that you need either way and you will be a part of the Ethix Representative Network.

You will MAKE A DIFFERENCE by generating residual income for the causes selected by your accounts.  You can also advocate for any cause that you personally want to support.

So come join us in creating sustainable local economies and getting money from local businesses back into local communities.