Our Values

It’s not very straightforward, is it? Giving financial advice while being anticapitalist. 

Capitalism needs to be dismantled in order for us to collectively thrive – and it's not gone yet. We need a way to navigate these systems of oppression while we’re stuck living under them. 

To that end, we’ve laid out our values for all of you to see. It is important that we be radically honest with each other, and in that spirit, we want to start with one that most businesses won’t admit:

BiFi puts our employees first

Businesses exist to make money. In our case, BiFi is a worker-owned business that exists primarily to provide its workers with steady income and good lives. We believe that we have a valuable service to offer our community, and of course we seek to do the best we can for clients. But to say that clients come first – that the customer is always right – is to be dishonest with you about where our priorities lie. We’re carving out space for ourselves to work in a way that makes sense for our brains and bodies. We’re clear about our own personal financial goals. We’re working with clients we actually like talking to. And we’re helping folks take control of their finances along the way.

We seek a solid foundation based on our values

Our consumer culture is always trying to tell us that consumption is the path to happiness. Our cisnormative, heteronormative culture is always trying to pull us away from our queerest selves. Our white supremacist culture is always trying to devalue and steal from people of color, and tell us all there’s only one way to exist or succeed. Be Intentional Financial wants to create as much resistance as we can to these forces that try to pull us away from our values and beliefs so that we can create and maintain the space we need to build a better world. 

We want to foster independence

The phrase “financial advisor” is confusing because different people use it to mean different things. Some financial advisors just sell insurance. Some just manage your investments for you. Some (like us) help you with life planning work – what you want, and how to use financial tools to get it. Some do a combo of the three. Most want to manage investments for you, either for the rest of your life or the rest of their career, whichever happens first. We don’t want you to have to pay us every year for the rest of your life. We teach you how to manage your money, rather than managing it for you. Our goal is to get you what you need and then have you stop paying us. And that doesn’t mean you’ll have a lack of support! We plan on doing this work for the next 30 years, and creating new services over time.

Your experience matters

We recognize that our brains do not all work the same way. The realities of navigating a neurotypical world as a neurodivergent person are especially infuriating when trying to get our finances in order. Money can be a fraught, pressure-filled topic, making it easier to avoid than to face, and the systems we’re expected to navigate are laughably inaccessible: spreadsheets are supposedly the “best” tool and you’ll totally remember they exist next week (/s), finance bros pretend that there is one correct way to manage your finances but often contradict each other, calling an insurance company takes forever and leaves you feeling terrible at the end, and the list goes on!

It’s essential to acknowledge up front that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions in a world of neurodivergence, and it’s important to not only validate the challenges of being autistic or having ADHD but also to construct an approach to personal finance that accommodates those challenges. We at BiFi are continuously improving and adapting what we’re doing to better serve ourselves and our clients. We only use best practices if they are best for us, and we are never done learning or growing.

Our services are predicated on forgiveness

Capitalism is oppression, and we’ve been raised under it our whole lives. So it only makes sense at this point that we (both the workers at BiFi and our clients) would be somewhat invested in harm and oppression! In having conversations about how to divest from these systems, we start from a place of compassion for the ways we’ve become indoctrinated in an effort to create space and awareness around that, and to commit to healing those parts of ourselves. By lessening the sense of urgency and choosing a more contemplative approach, we find greater success in moving towards a post-capitalist world.

We’re not for everyone

We can’t solve everything, and we can’t help everyone. We recognize that the LGBTQIA+ community is incredibly diverse in identities, backgrounds, and experiences. We know that we are not the right fit for every single person in our community. And it is important to name that this business wholeheartedly stands against white supremacy and all forms of oppression. 

Capitalism is bad for all humans, but the harm is compounded by each axis of oppression. Our liberation as trans people is inherently and irrevocably linked to the liberation of people of all races, abilities, sizes, health statuses, nationalities, class backgrounds, and more. 

We always welcome feedback about how we can better serve our clients and community, and live in our value of dismantling oppression in all its forms.