A "DIY" Double Bottom Line

Want to create a business with a double bottom line-- profits and social benefit--but don't live in one of the 14 states that allow it? Former OPIC GC Deborah Burand says you can do it yourself. (There are already DIY TV shows for houses and gardens, how about one for filing articles of incorporation?)

Michigan lacks any benefit corp legislation and is the home ofDodge v. Ford,which says that companies' sole purpose is to maximize profit. Buta group of female engineering students at UMich incorporated their company, DIME, with the help ofthe Michigan Law SchoolInternational Transactions Clinic.Deborah founded the clinic afterspending time as a lawyer at theFed andTreasury and asGrameen Foundation EVP. Michigan's Corporations Division acceptedDIME's articles ofincorporation, giving the company most of the protections it would have received under statewidebenefit corp legislation (eg, protecting company directors from liability for not maximizing profits). Moral of the story? If you don't want to wait, DIY.

DIME co-founder Gillian Henker shows off one of the devices the group created: a blood filtration process that requires no electricity. (It's already been tested in Ghana, where it could replace somethingcalled the "soup ladle method.") The company aims to make technology to improve maternal and infant healthcare.Behind DIME's incorporation is an ITC team with two new grads,Michael Byun and Gabriel Katz, supervised by Conlin, McKenney & Philbrick's David Guenther. They've paved a path for those in all jurisdictions without a benefit corp statute to craft a benefit corp themselves through their articles of incorporation.