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Reink Media’s Mission

Our mission is to make the world a safer place for investing, while sustaining an ethical, environmentally conscious approach.

“People before profits.”

We use this phrase a lot around here because it drives everything that we do — externally and internally; from major long-term business strategies to seemingly minute decisions about employee wellbeing. 

Here’s another one:

“Have fun, while growing in a scalable and sustainable way.”

That’s our corporate mantra. And now, the back story …

The RMG Origin Story

A passion for investing. A personal blog started in a freshman dorm room. Skipped classes. All-nighters. Booming website traffic. Growing accolades. Resisting the easy money — and inherent conflicts of interest it brings — to do things differently. 

You know, it’s your classic dorm-to-successful-dotcom-business narrative arc.

But seriously, the story of Reink Media Group (RMG) starts with Blain Reinkensmeyer’s first blog post from his dorm room in 2006 under a “for traders, by traders” tagline. Brother Brandon, an honors college grad who was working in commercial real estate, came aboard some years later. After a few domain name changes, StockBrokers.com stuck — and so did the brothers’ very un-corporatey modus operandi.

People Before Profits

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Fueled by green energy

As Blain rigorously tested broker sites and collected and analyzed massive amounts of data, he wondered why his ratings and rankings often differed from what was published elsewhere. Although “pay to play” wasn’t a well-known term back then, Blain soon figured out that most sites were awarding accolades and highlighting products based on whichever paid out the highest referral commissions. Not cool. 

That wasn’t how Blain and Brandon wanted to operate in the world. The “easy money” was riddled with conflicts of interest. They’d seen firsthand how the flipped mantra — “profit before people” — had a profound negative effect on individuals. People, like their grandparents, who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to conflicted retirement advice from advisors they thought they could trust with their life savings. We’re talking about advisors whose way of operating is status quo in the financial services industry! 

Reink Media would build its reputation as the place for individuals seeking fair, thoughtful, informed and unbiased information about investing products and services. 

People came first. And then profits.

Cue business expansion montage: StockBrokers.com garnering respect of executives and the broader brokerage industry. The company’s awards referenced on earnings calls, national TV commercials, and around the web. A model airplane flying around the globe as RMG expands into international trading platform reviews with ForexBrokers.com. The launch of investor.com, RMG’s consumer advocacy project to help everyday Americans find trustworthy financial advisors. The expansion into personal finance product reviews (credit cards and high-yield savings accounts).

“Pursuing purpose-filled missions is part of our DNA.”

Today, Reink Media websites are run by a small but mighty team (check them out!) serving millions of visitors each year. Despite many opportunities to raise growth capital, pocket a profit and move on, we proudly remain privately owned and 100% bootstrapped. Ultimately, as long as we are having fun and growing in a scalable, sustainable way, we know we’re sailing in the right direction.

Reink Media’s Impact

We believe we have a responsibility to use our collective expertise as a privately held, 100% bootstrapped organization to give back. Doing business for good has been — and will continue to be — a part of our DNA. Here are some of the ways we have found to make a social and environmental impact.

In the United States alone, there are more than 16,000 registered investment firms and over 680,000 licensed individuals who provide financial advice. Who can you trust?

Conflicted financial advice is rampant in the U.S. due to the confusing regulatory system and a financial services industry that has a history of putting the financial well-being of their own companies above that of their customers. For example, instead of recommending a no-load mutual fund (a fund that charges the customer no sales fees), the financial advisor selects a mutual fund with a load that pays the broker or the broker’s firm a sales commission.

In 2015, the White House Council of Economic Advisers calculated the annual cost of conflicted investment advice to be about $17 billion.

We launched investor.com in 2018 to tackle this problem.

Set up as a consumer advocacy project that covers financial advisor firms, our mission is to help everyday Americans by providing an answer to the question, “Can I trust you with my finances?”

At investor.com you can pull a full background check on more than 16,000 registered investment advisory firms. We collect more than 500,000 data points from SEC regulatory filings, state and industry databases, and run the information through investor.com’s proprietary Trust Algorithm. We identify potential conflicts of interest and generate a list of questions for individuals to ask a financial firm they’re considering hiring.

Firms whose score is at least 4.5 stars earn the Trusted badge, which can be licensed for a nominal annual fee in support of the project.

In the world of global investments, there is no shortage of fraudulent financial products. Among the most infamous of these scams in the past decade has been the creation of binary options. 

While many countries have since banned binary options outright, this spurious financial instrument is still legal in many parts of the world. This is especially true for the 82 low-income and lower-income countries (as designated by the World Bank), where there is little — if any — education or regulatory protections for investors. 

Unfortunately, binary options are just one of the many pitfalls awaiting inexperienced investors. The first step in avoiding such scams is registering with a trusted, well-regulated brokerage firm. 

To help global investors find an online broker they can trust, our team at ForexBrokers.com tracks the regulatory status, licensing and financial health of brokers across 23 international regulatory jurisdictions.

Our independent research fuels our proprietary Trust Score rating. With this tool, international investors who visit ForexBrokers.com can easily and intuitively compare the regulatory standing of major investment brokers.

At RMG, our goal has always been to have a social impact while remaining environmentally conscious. By actively measuring and reporting our own emissions, we have identified ways to make bolder commitments to a sustainable future, and will continue to do so. Our focus on the environment included some key milestones in 2021: 

  • Committed to Net Zero by 2030. RMG officially pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2030 with the B Corp Climate Collective with a combination of both actualized efforts and verified carbon removal offsets.  
  • Switched to 100% renewable energy at our Michigan headquarters. All electricity at our Michigan headquarters has been switched to 100% renewable energy, via DTE’s MIGreenPower program, with roughly 85% sourced from wind and solar power, and the remainder from DTE’s other renewable sources. This pivot represents the equivalent of planting 1,167 trees per year, or taking 9.6 cars off the road. 
  • Purchased 42 carbon Offset Credits. In the pursuit of our goal to achieve net zero emissions, we utilized industry-standard emissions calculations to determine how we could implement a long-term carbon credit strategy. Through a partnership with Bonneville Environmental Foundation, RMG acquired 26 Carbon Offsets that support the Crow Lake Wind Project, and 16 Regenerative Agriculture Credits supporting the Prairie Pothole Avoided Grassland Conversion. 

In addition to the milestones above, we have introduced new environmentally friendly workplace policies, such as our Virtual Office Stewardship and Non-Toxic Office programs. These policies encourage recycling and green-living best practices, and empower all RMG team members to contribute to a positive impact on the environment.

Our goal for 2022 and beyond is to continue to the momentum and double down on our long-term commitment to employees, consumers, partners, the community and the planet by becoming a certified B Corporation. By expanding our efforts to achieve operational efficiencies, we can and will continue to reduce our net environmental footprint.

Read Reink Media’s Full Impact Report