THE FLAGSHIP TOOL
The Feminist Business Model Canvas™
Build your feminist values into the way your business works.
The FBMC is a design tool for building a business around your strengths, your collective values, and your purpose, without asking you to choose between your politics and your livelihood.
Taught in business schools and entrepreneurship programs around the world, it departs from conventional canvases to introduce revolutionary feminist ideas, the kind that drive innovation and change.
WHAT THIS TOOL HELPS YOU DO
Retooling the smartest ideas from the Lean Startup movement with the power of feminist inquiry, the FBMC helps you clarify the ideas and goals that drive your business, so you can head off in the right direction from the start.
Liberate
Free yourself from feeling like you need to contort or compromise what matters to you to succeed in business.
Rethink
Open up to mind-blowing AHAs about what you do, who you serve, and why.
Advocate
Name the values that make your business meaningful, and use them to craft distinctive products and a distinctive message.
Clarify
Identify your foundational strengths, and know how to explain the full benefits of what you offer.
Innovate
Build a business model that’s generative, not extractive, so your business contributes to a culture of care and renewal.
Embody
Practice feminist principles of collaboration, inquiry, reflection, and experimentation.
THE STORY BEHIND THE TOOL
Where did the FBMC come from, and why do activist entrepreneurs need it?
In this short video, I share how I discovered we needed a feminist business design tool, and how the FBMC works.
WHAT MAKES THE FBMC DIFFERENT
The FBMC affirms what you already know is true, and important, about your own business.
In truth, the FBMC is a Trojan Horse. It looks just enough like a conventional business model canvas that conventional business people can recognize the opportunity in your business. At the same time, it weaves in specifically feminist elements, so you and your team can focus on values, meaning, contributions, and social change as core parts of your business.
An added bonus: it’s fun to use. Asking the questions and talking through the possibilities helps you clarify what you’re up to, and builds stronger connections with your teammates, employees and stakeholders.
How the FBMC diverges from the standard Business Model Canvas:
01
The FBMC centers what conventional canvases leave out.
Sections unique to the FBMC include Collective Values, Foundational Strengths, Values Streams, a Simple Theory of Change, and Purpose, surfacing human costs, social stakeholders, and social-change outcomes along the way. Feminist values don't get added to this canvas. They build it.
02
It asks important questions, not just "fill in the box."
Most canvases give you a box and one question. The FBMC gives you layered questions for every element, designed to push past the obvious answer into richer, more honest, more creative ones. Conventional canvases assume you're building to succeed within the status quo. The FBMC assumes you're building something transformational, and asks the questions that help get you there.
03
It's a different process.
Rather than rushing you to fill in blanks, the FBMC invites you to explore, experiment, and reflect, in conversation with your team and yourself. It asks you to dwell on possibilities rather than rush to finish, because that time is what surfaces your deepest concerns, your clearest hopes, and your most honest vision for what your business could be.
GET THE WORKBOOK
Your complete guide to designing a feminist business.
The FBMC Workbook walks you through every element of the Canvas, from your foundational strengths all the way to your impact: the feminist thinking behind each block, step-by-step instructions, reflection questions, and action steps. Now in its third version, with a powerful second step, Test Driving Your FBMC.
You’re not just filling in blanks. You’re designing how your business makes decisions, creates value, and treats everyone it touches. By the end, you’ll have confidence and clarity about the value only you can provide, how you make money, and how to push toward collective flourishing, without sacrificing the financial stability you need.
Prefer a guided course?
The free online course Building Your Values-Driven Business with the Feminist Business Model Canvas™, developed in partnership with the Canadian Women’s Foundation, walks you through the full process and gives you a downloadable record of your decisions. Available in English and French.
BECOME AN FBMC COACH
Want to use the FBMC in your own work?
If you’re a coach, educator, or feminist support organization, you’re welcome to use and teach the FBMC. Watch my coach training videos, use the Coach’s Guide, and bring the Canvas into your consulting, your course, or your community. More power to you.
And if you’d like my direct involvement, I offer free coach training sessions and consulting to help you run it well.
THE NEWSLETTER
Think differently about business. Every month.
The Feminist Future of Business is my free monthly letter on putting feminism to work in the businesses we build. Reconsider conventional business advice and explore feminist practices, one insight, tool, and framework at a time.