Building a Business for Good: Community Business Law, Benefit Corporations, and Strengthening Small Businesses and Nonprofits with Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas, a JD/MBA licensed attorney and community advocate, joins Kim Allchurch Flick to discuss building values-aligned businesses for good. Michael shares his path to law, including financial hardship, losing housing twice, struggling to find employment after graduating law school in 2009, and taking nine bar exams before becoming an attorney in 2017. He explains why he created a values-based practice and the meaning behind his former firm Rational Unicorn Legal Services and his current firm Narwhal Law and Business Strategy, emphasizing accessible, practical legal help, flat-fee transparency, and business formation as economic justice and community building.
Michael discusses challenges facing small businesses and nonprofits in Oregon, including confusion about navigating the business ecosystem, limited resource coordination, staffing issues, tariffs, low profit margins compounded by pandemic-era SBA loans and commercial lease debt, and high small business taxes. For nonprofits, he highlights risks from shrinking government funding for contracted social services, the need for hard decisions about narrowing focus, consolidating, or closing, and the lack of a nonprofit equivalent to the Small Business Administration, leaving nonprofits without sufficient technical assistance. He describes common nonprofit needs such as managing restricted vs. unrestricted funds, creating partnership agreements, scaling responsibly, clarifying board vs. staff authority, resolving governance conflict, and updating outdated, non-operational bylaws.
They explore how Oregon’s economy depends on small businesses and a large nonprofit sector, and Michael argues for shifting emphasis from “startup and exit” toward sustainability, incubation, and helping local businesses grow into long-term anchors. He suggests encouraging shared use of commercial spaces to reduce lease burdens and address empty downtown buildings, improving triage support for organizations at immediate risk of closing, and modernizing public systems to reflect contractor, remote-work, and e-commerce realities learned during the pandemic (including unemployment coverage gaps, digital access, and childcare).
Michael explains why he pursues Benefit Company certification, focusing on the triple bottom line of profit, people, and planet, and how Narwhal supports community through pro bono/low bono work and extensive education and presentations. He notes Narwhal operates in Oregon and Washington for business and nonprofit services, and can serve clients nationwide for federal matters like intellectual property and certain nonprofit work. They discuss how policy shifts affect clients, including DEI-related funding pressures, guidance for farmers markets on responding to ICE presence, the instability of changing or unenforced rules, and concern about Medicaid cuts affecting health organizations.
Asked what makes him optimistic, Michael points to everyday community support and mutual aid, and he encourages people to ask “why,” check on neighbors—especially those who feel unsafe, including trans people, immigrants, and others—and lean into empathy as resistance. He shares ways to reach him via NarwhalStrategy.com, Instagram (Narwhal Law and Biz Strategy), LinkedIn, and mentions a new podcast, “All American Why,” plus an upcoming values-based directory project, Narwhal Pods (narwhalpod.com), supported by a Portland State University MBA capstone team. Kim closes by inviting listeners to explore Narwhal’s educational offerings and resources.
