In his latest contribution for Green Entrepreneur, CEO Colton Griffin details Flourish's social equity program which launched in April 2021. Griffin highlights how the program's first beneficiary, Sunset Connect of California utilized Flourish to not only meet compliance requirements but cut labor costs and increase productivity.
According to Griffin, Flourish's social equity initiative was "spurred by a team member who lost decades with her father because he was imprisoned for nonviolent cannabis. We wanted to help the pioneers of this industry so we launched a program last April to give qualified social equity cannabis organizations a 99 percent discount for access to our platform."
The first beneficiary of the program was San Francisco's Sunset Connect. Founder Ali Jamalian was arrested in 1999 for cannabis-related crimes. Originally from Germany but living in the Bay Area to attend college, Jamalian's conviction led to years of incarceration and deportation threats. Jamalian returned to Germany until California legalized medical cannabis. In 2020, he opened Sunset Connect as one of the first social equity license holders within San Francisco.
"It was easy to feel overwhelmed by the myriad regulations required for cannabis sales, let alone the inventory and distribution tracking and calculations," says Sam Joo, Sunset Connect's Director of Manufacturing. Having a software solution to automate tasks related to compliance and inventory was a critical component of maintaining their license. After launching Flourish, Ali and Sam reported a 20% decrease in their labor costs and have noticed 10-20% increase in their productivity."
We find our program especially gratifying when we are helping those who took incredible risks and suffered immensely in the darkest days of the War on Drugs," says Griffin. "And, in case anyone has doubts, people are still going to prison for cannabis."
“It was easy to feel overwhelmed by the myriad regulations required for cannabis sales, let alone the inventory and distribution tracking and calculations.”
- Sam Joo, Director of Marketing, Sunset Connect
“One of the most important aspects of continuous improvement is empowering everyone to speak up about problems and fix them,” Griffin says. “Employees usually know what's not working and the pain points in their processes. Listen to them and work to eliminate those problems. At my company, we ask and expect employees to voice these issues.”
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