It was one year ago that we turned on the lights at FM Civic.
As a person driven by vision—who spends as much time in her head mapping the future as she does navigating the present—it was an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty, like switching on the porch light at night and not being able to see much more than the front steps.
I knew I had one goal: to build the company I want to see in the world.
I planned for two things: to hire independent contractors with a strong bent toward women entrepreneurs like myself seeking financial autonomy and work/life balance, and to earn enough that we could give away 10 percent of revenues to community.
Armed with these tenets, FM Civic turned on the lights and stepped out into a year of incredible growth. Within a few months we’d hired nine partners to work on as many projects across the Pacific Northwest. The business model was working. Our systems were dialing in. Our culture was humming.
But something was missing—clarity of purpose. It took nearly a full year to articulate it. A summer of word salad. In the end, the answer had been simple and had been there all along.
What do we do at FM Civic? We impact community.
What are we? A community impact firm.
Is community impact a thing? It is now.
And with that, we carved out rock-solid ground in the shifting sands of public affairs and public relations. At FM Civic, it’s not about what we do, it’s about why we do it.
We support leaders of business, government and nonprofit to impact community. We are project managers in the civic space building initiatives that create community outcomes that matter. We support businesses to lead with visionary community investments, government to achieve excellence with inclusive civic engagement, and nonprofits to change lives with projects that make our communities thrive.
That’s us, a year in. Stay tuned for what happens next.