The Fortitude Foundation: 10% of everything we invoice

Ten per cent of everything we invoicegoes to founders in crisis.

We have had the good years and the ones nobody puts on a website. The Fortitude Foundation was established by our co-founder Ross Williams to help entrepreneurs through the worst of it. Every invoice we send funds it, every month, without exception.

Ten per cent of revenue invoiced, not of profit · Paid monthly · Your price is the same either way

In plain terms

What does the 10% actually mean?

For every £10,000 we invoice, £1,000 goes to The Fortitude Foundation to support an entrepreneur in crisis. It comes off revenue, not profit, so there is no year in which it quietly does not happen. It costs you nothing extra: it is our money, given away, and it is one of the reasons we started this business.

Why we built it this way

We know what the bad year looks like.

Between the three of us there are thirty years of building companies. Some of it went very well. Some of it did not.

Entrepreneurship is sold as a highlight reel. The truth is quieter and harder: the month the cash does not arrive, the contract that goes away, the conversation at home you have been putting off. Almost every founder we know has had a year like that, and almost none of them talked about it at the time.

Ross established The Fortitude Foundation for exactly that moment, to give founders in crisis somewhere to turn that is not a bank, a creditor or a brave face. It needs funding to keep doing that, year after year, not just when someone feels generous.

So we built the funding into the business. Fortitude Media exists to do excellent work for founder-led firms, and to send ten per cent of what it invoices to the Foundation. Those two things are the same plan, and they were the same plan before the first invoice went out.

fortitudefoundation.com ↗

How the 10% works

Invoiced, set aside, handed on.

No small print, no cap, no year off. Three steps, every month.

Step 01
You are invoiced
Normal work at the normal price. Nothing is added to your fee for this, and nothing is held back from your programme because of it.
Step 02
Ten per cent is set aside
Of the invoice value, not of what happens to be left at the end of the year. It is a standing line in our accounts and it is reconciled monthly.
Step 03
It reaches a founder
The Foundation puts it to work supporting entrepreneurs in crisis, in its own name and on its own terms. We fund it. They do the work.

What the funding supports

Help at the moment it is needed.

The Foundation decides how the money is used. In broad terms, this is the kind of help it exists to give.

SupportA founder in crisis, heard

Somewhere to take the thing you cannot say to your team, your bank or your family, from people who have been there.

Practical helpGetting through the next month

Help with the immediate, practical mess a business crisis creates, rather than advice about next year.

Mental healthThe part nobody posts about

Founders carry the risk personally. Support for the health cost of that is not a luxury.

Back on their feetA second attempt

Failure is data, not a verdict. Support for founders rebuilding after a business has gone under.

A rowing crew at full effort, close up — Nobody gets through it on their own

If you work with us

Your spend does two jobs.

You are buying a growth programme, and you should judge it on pipeline, enquiries and meetings held, like any other line in the budget. The second job happens automatically: ten per cent of what you pay us reaches a founder having the worst year of their life.

No premium. Prices are the same as they would be without the Foundation. This is not a cause you are being charged for.
No conditions. It applies to every invoice, every month, on every service we sell.
Not a campaign. It was in the plan before we had a client, and it does not end when the quarter is tight.

Read about the Foundation's work in its own words at fortitudefoundation.com.

Questions people ask

The short answers.

Is it 10% of revenue or of profit?

Revenue. Ten per cent of everything we invoice, before costs, before salaries, before anything is left over. Profit is a decision. Revenue is a fact, and it is the only honest basis for a promise like this.

When is it paid?

Monthly, against the invoices we have raised. It is a line in our accounts, not a gesture we remember at Christmas.

Does it cost me more?

No. Our prices are the same either way. The ten per cent comes out of our side of the invoice, not yours.

Who runs the Foundation?

The Fortitude Foundation was established by Ross Williams, co-founder of Fortitude Media. It operates in its own right, and you can read about its work on its own website.

Why tell clients about it at all?

Because it is part of why this business exists, and because founders choosing between two firms deserve to know where their money goes. We would rather say it plainly than keep it quiet.

A four person rowing crew coming towards the camera

Good work, put to good use.

Thirty minutes with a founder. You leave with the three things we would fix first, and every pound you ever spend with us sends ten pence to a founder who needs it.

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