The Story Behind the Story
Jim Henderson + Jim Hancock founded Humane Resources in 2019 — as a home for 3Practices Circles and 3Q Check-ins.
The whole thing was pretty bootstrappy from the start … low operating costs … no debt … no salaries. Revenues generated by events and training have gone to (1) making sure we train as many people as we can, as well as we can, and (2) making sure our non-employee trainers get paid (not a lot, but they get paid on time). When there’s cash on hand, the founders have taken a modest draw from time to time. When we’ve offered complimentary training seats for tiny organizations or social entrepreneurs without the means to pay, it’s come out of the founders’ pockets (and, here and there, the kindness of folks in the extended 3Practice Circle Community).
We decided to start Humane Resources as a business, instead of a 501(c)(3), as a way to keep ourselves honest. Without casting shade on the nonprofit sector, we’re familiar with an approach to leadership that is experimental to the point that an organization can go on for years, trying one thing and then another, without much to show for it.
On the upside, perhaps that’s a bit like the sort of pure science that tries a lot of things that end up not working on the way to finding something that does work. On the downside, not-for-profits that don’t manage to produce results can go out and raise money to cover their losses. Again, no shade, but we decided we’d better try to do something that produces value — meaning, in this case, that people are willing to pay for it — or else we’d better go do something else.
And so, we’re a business — doing business to the best of our ability, generating modest operating profits, on the way to creating what we have reasons to hope will be substantial value.
Meanwhile, there are more poor community organizers, underfunded institutions, and mom-n-pop operations who could use our training than we can afford to pay for out of our own pockets.
From time to time, friends of 3Practice Circles have asked if there’s a way to help us to extend our tools to people at the economic margins … folks who can’t afford to pay retail for those tools but certainly know what to do with them once they’re trained.
Now, there is a way to help that happen. The United States Internal Revenue Service ruled that grants made to Listenocracy are tax deductible.
Listenocracy is a 509(a)(2) public charity — which means it must be funded primarily by the public, for the public good.
Being a “public charity” means that two thirds of the funding must come from the public. It’s not a tax shelter, and it’s not a private foundation. If we were to hit the jackpot, we wouldn’t be allowed to funnel the proceeds into Listenocracy.
Members of the public — like you, maybe — prove they think what we’re up to is a public good by pitching in as much as they care to pitch in under IRS rules.
Which is what we’re inviting you to do.
If you think extending 3Practice Referee Training and 3Q Check-in Training to leaders, institutions , and organizations at the economic margins is good for the public, we invite you to make a tax deductible contribution to help us get those tools in the hands of people who would pay for them if they could … and most certainly know how to use them for good in their communities, institutions , and organizations.
