We will build a lucrative expert practice one profitable engagement at a time, and then use the strength of our firm to help those that need it most. For these carefully selected charity clients, we will work for free.

We will leave to our competitors the unseemly practice of working for charities for free in the beginning in hopes of up-selling them to paid services. We will let others choose their charities based on the business connections they hope to make in the boardroom, but not us. We will treat charity as charity and not confuse it with business development.

Among those charities whose causes align with our values, we will work with the neediest, commit to them unselfishly and sacrifice any opportunity to benefit financially from this work. We will thus give ourselves the courage to ensure that every for-profit engagement is indeed profitable. This relieves the burden of the mushy middle of barely-profitable clients and quasi-charitable causes.

This is the emancipating duality of pro bono work: it is the charity we must do, and it gives us the courage to turn away work that would be only marginally charitable or questionably profitable.

Every one of our for-profit engagements will bring us profit. Our carefully selected pro bono clients will bring us nothing but fulfillment. We will leave to our competition those clients that would neither bring us profit nor merit our charity.

Using Pro Bono Work to Build Expertise

In the early days of a firm, there can sometimes be little foundation on which to build expertise. Here, pro bono—or even deeply discounted work within the selected field of focus—might be required to build that expertise. In these cases, there is no shame in being upfront with a prospective client about working cheaply or for free to amass expertise. Such an approach is valid, for a period of time. If we truly are trading profit for expertise building, then we will be honest and direct with our client about it. To do it quietly is to employ the generalist tactic of competing on price.

~ wwp ~