Measuring a Different Bottom Line

This week, I was awed and inspired by the speaker at women’s luncheon—Columbia professor, Ms. Geeta Mehta.  Ms. Mehta is the founder of several global non profit organizations, and is a passionate pioneer in the social capital conversation, attempting to tackle poverty while also building community spirit.

What caught my attention in Ms. Mehta’s presentation was her advocacy of triple bottom line accounting for corporations…she believes focus should not only be on a company’s financial capital, but also on their social capital (the good they do for society as a whole and the communities in which they reside) as well as their ecological capital (their impact on the environment).

I will leave the ecological capital discussion for Ms. Mehta and her counterparts, but I was struck that in the financial advisory world, we should be focused on the double bottom line reporting—being interested not only in the financial bottom line, but also the social bottom line.

We think of social capital in the terms of what makes you happy, brings you joy, and ultimately what fulfills you.  To us at Meridian, money is only valuable when you are able to spend it or share it with people you love or doing things that you enjoy.  So, single focus on the financial bottom line misses a large part of what is truly important.

During the financial planning process, exploring your “social capital” goals is extremely important.  Realizing how you want to spend your time and money to bring happiness to you, your family, and others you care about, these goals are what we design your financial capital resources around.  By adding perspective to the financial goals, it truly unclutters the path to your financial future, allowing you to relax and enjoy life!

To start working on your double bottom line goals today, please call us anytime!