2021 SPC Report
Not all businesses make maximizing profit their primary focus, and as a Social Purpose Corporation, Dayspring Partners is one that doesn’t. Dayspring Technologies (doing business as Dayspring Partners) is an incorporated Social Purpose Corporation (SPC): a for-profit corporation registered in California that not only provides valuable services, but also recognizes a broader range of stakeholders and promotes a positive impact beyond profits.
Dayspring puts significant effort into three focus areas: our company’s workplace, the work we do in the marketplace, and the ways we serve and build up our local community.
The Workplace
According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs made 350 times more than the average rank-and-file employee in 2020 (the figure is even higher when compared to the lowest-paid employee). At Dayspring we believe that every employee deserves a more equitable share of income, especially as we reside in one of the most expensive cities in the country. We proactively monitor our highest-to-lowest salary ratio in an attempt to reverse a trend that we find difficult to justify and that goes against our core values. In 2021, we were significantly under our commitment to stay below a 3:1 ratio. This is our way of participating in just economics as envisioned in Isaiah 40:4 and Luke 3:5.
Beyond leveling salaries, Dayspring seeks to be a compassionate and just workplace, a good place to work, and a place where people thrive. We also continue our efforts to recruit and make welcome a broader diversity of people as employees of Dayspring.
The Marketplace
At Dayspring, we try to positively impact the marketplace by serving our clients in ways that nurture, rather than exploit, the relationship. We consider each project an opportunity to care for our clients, each of whom faces different pressures and demands from uncertain economic realities, marketplaces, and economies. It’s no small thing to have a consulting partner who cares about you and your team’s success.
Dayspring is also grateful when our work directly contributes to addressing the critical needs and issues of our society. In 2021, it was a pleasure to serve the AAPI Equity Alliance, Chinese For Affirmative Action, and their co-sponsored initiative, Stop AAPI Hate. Their mission is to respond to the significant rise in violence directed towards AAPI communities in recent years. Our staff helped AAPI Equity Alliance rebrand, and built their new website. We supported and extended CAA’s CRM and digital engagement systems. We also rebuilt the Stop AAPI Hate website, making it stable and secure, and allowing them to handle their increased visibility and site traffic. These are some small ways that our work in the marketplace helps make our world a better place.
Every day, we are grateful for the trust our clients have placed in us and the stability of our relationships over the years. Each day, we are encouraged by our staff’s care, the ways they support our clients, and how much our clients benefit as a result.
Our Community
As an SPC, Dayspring has the goal of donating 5% of staff time and 10% of profits to other organizations, with the lion’s share going to businesses and nonprofits in our Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood. In addition, 2021 marks the first full year where 100% of Dayspring’s equity is devoted to the common good, with a specific focus to economically uplifting our neighborhood community.
In total, our 2021 efforts have generated $290,000 for the common good of our community. It is gratifying to see how these resources are being used to make a difference in people’s lives.
In 2021, we continued to focus the majority share of our donated staff time to a single recipient. Rise University Preparatory is a middle school with the aim of bringing quality education to Bayview. Some of our staff produced their annual report; others supported their Salesforce fundraising database. In addition, many of our staff tutor after school on company time, allowing us to use our marketplace skills to benefit students. In addition to these donations of funds and time, Dayspring has continued its extra commitment of funding a full-time position at Rise through the 2021-2022 academic year.
A final highlight in 2021 is that Dayspring was featured in an academic book by Dr. Jonathan Tran, of Baylor University, entitled Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism. One section of his book explores the work that Dayspring has done in the Bayview neighborhood in partnership with Redeemer Community Church, Rise University Preparatory, and other community organizations.
The Neighbor Fund is a community-vetted, character-based small business loan fund with a participatory loan committee — meaning borrowers also sit on the loan committee. Rather than checking credit scores, we vet potential borrowers by talking to people we know in the community. This has the added effect of building up relationships and networks within the community. Most of our borrowers are folks who, for a variety of reasons, wouldn’t be able to borrow money from banks.
The Neighbor Fund issued two new loans in 2021 for a total of $15,000, had one loan repaid in full, and received nearly $12,000 in loan payments.
For better or worse, money matters in our lives. When Dayspring launched its first mobile app in 2009, it did so with the idea of improving people’s lives by helping them align how they spend their money with their core values. Our solution was Goodbudget, a budgeting tool that helps you track your spending, whether you have your own individual budget or share one with a household. Based on customer feedback, we have witnessed that when people’s relationship with money improves, their overall lives can too.
In 2021, our product team continued its focused support of budgeters in financial distress through features that support debt tracking and payoff, and online courses for people who’ve hit a financial emergency. We also rolled out new functionality to help people prioritize their budgets when cash flow is unpredictable or insufficient to cover everything. It is gratifying to see Goodbudget users making financial progress in the midst of challenging times.
