David Aspinall, CEO of Auticon US, Leads with Great Tech Employment for Autism
Jul 23, 2021
David Aspinall advocates for people on the autism spectrum to explore the full range of their natural talents, while making sure not to clump the entire community into a stereotype. David is the CEO of Auticon US, which is a technology company focused on creating jobs for people with autism by tapping into their natural skills and abilities. As the company developed, they found a great model for those on the spectrum to overcome barriers to employment and thrive in better suited positions. Among a few common skills that seem to flourish in the technology field, David says the people who usually find their way to the initiative tend to show phenomenal attention to detail, ability to spot patterns, and launch amounts of data, sheer cognitive strength.
Auticon has an expansive view of the stakeholders they hope to help into better suited positions. David shares Auticon’s open-minded outlook:
“… we employ people that are really at every stage of their career, from individuals that are just starting on their technology career to mid-level tenure individuals up to 15-year kind of principal architect type roles. In our mission to employ as many people as possible, we do try to employ people that are junior, mid and senior.”
David Aspinall, CEO, Auticon US
Identifying the level or range of a person’s capabilities can help avoid the person from being underemployed. Underemployment where the a person is fulfilling a role that is below their capacity to naturally perform. Someone could have a higher skill capacity or have a wider range of ability than a position calls for. If left in that position, the person’s valuable contributions will be misplaced, and their skill level may possibly decline. David explained that people on the spectrum frequently experience underemployment, and he expressed his thoughts on addressing the concern through Auticon.
David explains how Auticon approaches another close concern in proper employment: an autism friendly work environment. He delves through the process the initiative uses to screen candidates, and how the process matches with the needs of their stakeholders. Reflecting the needs of the stakeholders can be found in how the initiative families their interview, or in the coaching done with the companies hiring people on the spectrum beforehand. In this social enterprise model, Auticon is assisting companies in developing an autism friendly environment so that people in the company can see the process, and it can grow from there.
Auticon operates the initiative globally. David discusses how the global team communicates, and what topics come up in meetings. He also gives his perspective of what it is like to discuss initiative frameworks with a global team while having the freedom to keep the autonomy of the local US portion. David expresses his satisfaction with working within the US, particularly in Columbus, OH. He talks about how support from the community helps the initiative, and he touches on why the awareness of social enterprise makes Columbus, OH an easier community for building connections.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Today, our guest is David Aspinall, CEO of Auticon a technology company focused on creating jobs for people with autism. They found a great model for those on the spectrum to overcome barriers to employment so that they can thrive in position suited to their natural talents and abilities. So to speak about this company, David, welcome on the podcast.
David: [00:00:28] Thanks, Adam. It's great to be here.
Adam: [00:00:30] Can we start off, can you tell us a little bit about Auticon.
David: [00:00:33] Yeah, absolutely. We're a technology company. We are a for-profit in fact that's really important to us. We believe that the principles of business are needed to help solve some of society's challenge. It's not just the efforts of philanthropy. It's not just legislative efforts. It's not efforts of individuals.
We believe that business is going to have to be behind the drive of change. And we have a very specific social mission. Our mission is to employ as many people as possible as many technologists as possible that are on the autism spectrum.
Adam: [00:01:13] And why technology?
David: [00:01:16] It's an interesting question. When the company was first getting started the founder of the company, saw a connectivity between the talents of the individuals that he knew on the spectrum versus the openings and performance advantage that certain traits brought to technology roles.
Adam: [00:01:41] Got it.
David: [00:01:42] And it's, it's interesting because, there's a famous saying that once, you know, one person on the spectrum, you know, one person on the spectrum and that is absolutely accurate.
We stand by that. However, the people that are attracted to work at Otter con bring. Strengths to technology roles. So where as the traits of Autism are sometimes seen as barriers in the employment world, a lot of the people that are attracted to work with us, they use their autism as a performance advantage in the technology space.
Adam: [00:02:22] How does that come into play for the technology roles?
David: [00:02:27] Yeah. Some of the traits of individuals that are attracted to work at Auticon that represent a performance advantage are things like just really phenomenal attention to detail ability to spot patterns and launch amounts of data, sheer cognitive strength. The. The ability for the data to be the data and not have that preconceived notion of what you want the data to be.
So there's an element of accuracy and then also an incredible kind of factual mindset that when applied in the technology space just represents enormous performance advantage. And again, I'll be really careful to say, This, we don't want to stereotype. We're not describing the community here. We're describing the people that are attracted to work at Auticon..
Adam: [00:03:20] Yeah, that makes sense. And one of the reasons they call it a spectrum is that, it's a wide range of individuals.
David: [00:03:27] That's entirely correct. One of the statistics that we follow very closely and the reason for the mission is that this community suffers from an 85% under employment rate. And that's the reason the mission exists. There is no good reason why this community of people should be subject to an underemployment rate of up to 85%.
What are some of the things that feed that unemployment rate.
.It's so it's under employment. And so it's really important. It's a really important question.
Adam: [00:04:02] So what do you mean by underemployed?
David: [00:04:04] Yeah. let me explain. There's really two major scenarios in what we term underemployment. The first one is that an individual might have the cognitive strengths, technical ability or aptitude, because remember that we employ people that are really at every stage of their career from individuals that are just starting on their technology career to mid-level tenure individuals up to 15 year kind of principal architect type roles. And so in our mission to employ as many people as possible, we do try to employ people that are junior, mid and senior.
Yeah. And so we see all kinds of backgrounds and underemployment for us might mean that the individual has been doing a role that might be hourly in nature. Oftentimes we see people that work in fast food restaurants. And that's not to belittle people that work in fast food restaurants, it's a vocation, but these are individuals that have either that technical ability, that aptittude, or that cognitive strength to be a force in technology.
And so that's under employment. There's also another interpretation of underemployment, which actually isn't reflected in the statistic, but for us is really important. And that is that the individual may not have been in an autism friendly work environment. And we see a lot of mid or senior level people come to us who have bounced around from, really well-paying job to well-paying job.
But it wasn't in an autism friendly environment and therefore they didn't feel at home and they couldn't properly flourish.
Adam: [00:05:48] Can we dive into that a little bit? I'm curious, like what is an autism friendly environment?
David: [00:05:54] So it's really interesting. It's not cookie cutter. It's not formulaic at all. And this is really important. let me start here. One of the sources of anxiety to a lot of the community is the traditional recruiting process. And the traditional recruiting process, where there were three interviews and fast questions, questions coming out and you thick and fast.
Many of our constituents are just not comfortable in that environment and don't perform well in a traditional recruiting scenario. And that's one of the drivers, in my personal opinion to that underemployment rate that we mentioned previously. So what we do is we take that time. That would have been the traditional recruiting process and replace it with an autism friendly recruiting process.
So we've got a degree of game-ification. Which allows us to understand the technical skills that an individual technologist has. But then we also have a series of chats. We have an initial chat, we have a job coaching chat, and we have a technical chat. And so at the end of this process, we've got a really good picture of who this individual is, both from the hard technology skills, but also from the, soft skills, the human skills, the communication skills. And that's really important. Because the hard skills allow us to match that individual with a job opening or a project opening with one of our clients and then the soft skills inform us, how we need to support the individual going forward. And so at the end of that process, we've got a really good picture of the individual and how to support that individual.
The support comes from our job coaching program. And so in addition to technical mentorship, as an employee of Auticon there is also a job coaching program that can help with communication preferences. Can help with environmental preferences can help with just work place efficiency and workplace effectiveness, any stimulus issues that may exist.
And so the job coach is more of the kind of facilitator from an autism at work perspective. Whereas the technical mentor is more the guide on the learning and development path of the individual's career.
Adam: [00:08:32] Now that sounds like something that continues beyond the interview.
David: [00:08:36] Oh, yes, absolutely. To be abundantly clear. Yes. That job coaching is forever. The interview process allows us to understand where to start the job coaching, but those job coaches also work really closely with the client organization. And so let's say for example, we have a consultant and placed in Cover My Meds in Columbus, Ohio, fantastic organization, partner, organization to us really our anchor client in Columbus.
So let's say for example, and this is a hypothetical part from the Cover My Meds, but we have a consultant place to cover my meds and we learn. On the first few days, the first few weeks, the first couple of months of that project that the individual has additional needs that we didn't know about through the recruitment process, the autism friendly recruitment process, the job coach pivots, the job coach will pivot to provide the support that is needed.
What is also really interesting about job coaching is it's not just for the consultant. It's not just for the Auticon employee, and this is where it gets really powerful. It's also for the client organization. And so ahead of time, there's some training before our consultant even walks through the door, whether that be physical or virtual in this world.
And so there's some training about autism in the workplace generally, but then also some training about the specific individual that's joining that team. And so the team that has the individual joining can feel prepared. And what we find is this was a beautiful thing within this program. We designed it so the job coach could support the autistic technologists. But what we found is that the job coach is supporting that whole kind of environment that our technologist is in. And so the pockets of culture build that start to appear within organizations. It's super powerful. So instead of having a top down training about autism in the workplace, and what is it we that have the opportunity to create these pockets of experiential learning, which is a lot more effective in an organization, because what happens is.
People look across the team where a technologist is and saying, I want somebody. And so it naturally helps us grow the business, but then it also helps the organization understand neurodiversity in the workplace. And we've had a number of examples where the organization has had people declare that have already been in that company that they're on the spectrum.
And they would also like some of that job coaching.
Adam: [00:11:41] Oh, fantastic.
David: [00:11:42] Honestly, that's our celebration day. Of course we love it when we start a project, of course we'd love it when a client says they want more projects, more consultants to join them. But the biggest high five is when we hear that a client organization has had someone that has raised their hand and say that they're on the spectrum and they need support.
Adam: [00:12:07] Sounds like a very great way to basically help a company develop their culture to be supportive of those who are on the spectrum.
David: [00:12:16] Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's a very active way to do it because companies try to do this and absolutely no disrespect. I know that compliance is needed, but companies try to do this through clump compliance and training. And I don't know about you, but I see younger people joining the workforce and compliance and training is not something that excites them experiential, and seeing it in action is typically how we're affecting an outcome with culture.
Adam: [00:12:46] That's fascinating. We've explored this topic of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Whether that is cultural diversity or gender equality, And quite often what I've heard is that, it's not about finding somebody and just placing them in the workplace.
Because if the workplace isn't already ready for them, then they won't fit and it will cause problems and people will just blame the person. Whereas if you can change the culture of the company to be supportive, then you naturally attract more of that talent because you're already ready for it.
So it sounds like in this model, what you're doing is you're allowing somebody to come in and you're developing that experience in the company so that people in the company can see it and it can grow from there.
David: [00:13:32] That's really spot on. And in fact, we've actually got a couple of examples. Obviously the fact that this company has placed hundreds of technologists in big companies. You just in Columbus, some of a client companies and some of our kind of reference client companies include Cover My Meds, Nationwide Insurance.
So we're working with large recognized brands. And what we've noticed is that we've done this now, worldwide a couple of hundred times. And we've exercised the muscle of doing it. So we've exercised that muscle of what it takes to really from an experiential basis have a neuro diversity at work program and autism at work program. And so companies sometimes come to us because we've developed as a, almost as a result of that that intellectual property of how to do it. So it almost comes like it becomes like an advisory role that we'll play in really interesting is that companies will come to us and ask us how to recruit neuro diverse talent.
And we just stopped the meeting and say, that's the last step? Like the first step is how do you become an environment in which somebody can disclose. Right. How are you an environment where there's that culture build? How do you understand what you, what your people need? How do you listen? How do you then take action?
And so we move them along really to retention and start with retention. And it's only really when you nail retention that you can work backwards to recruit.
Adam: [00:15:23] Sounds like a great process and a strength to be able to teach companies. Hey here's what you can do to adapt in order to be a good workplace and tap into people who are naturally talented at this.
David: [00:15:35] Yeah, it's super interesting because the motion actually acts as discovery. If you think about the way that consulting works, the front end of any consulting engagement is that process of discovery where there's interviews and surveys and ride alongs and data crunching. And what we find is by companies taking an Auticon consultant to do their technical project, whether that be like a Salesforce project to SQL project, a software development project, data project, Ruby on rails, whatever it is because we literally do everything. In fact, we believe that there is an autistic technologist for every tech opening in America. So by virtue of. Placing and supporting and having a project going with one of our consultants within our client's environment.
We can get the discovery that's needed for an overall transformation project, because as we work with that individual, we understand what it's like to be an artistic technologist in that team. And that's not a viewpoint that employer had. And so for transformation, it actually forms part of the discovery process.
Adam: [00:17:00] That's really neat. So you're able to bring that knowledge back in house of what that experience is like in order to refine and, adapt for that company.
David: [00:17:09] That's correct. Yeah.
Adam: [00:17:10] Now Auticon started in, in Germany and then it's spread throughout Europe and through other parts of the world. I'm curious, like what have you learned just from working in different parts of the world?
Has there been a different approach to the model.
David: [00:17:26] I think broadly speaking, the approach is somewhat similar. However, Auticon has taken the decision that for cultural reasons, the seven different operating companies in those seven different countries, we'll take the best practices from each other and apply them. Within their own marketplace because of cultural differences.
And we collaborate very closely. So I have a weekly conversation, a call with all six of my counterparts and the global CEO where we talk about what's working, what isn't. And so there's oftentimes some really good learnings. And I think we've struck a really good balance of having a global brand.
Global best practice playbook, but then applying it and having the freedom as a business, again, back to that really important notion of, the principles of business being behind social change. We know, we have the freedom within the us to apply those best practices as we see and read the market.
And so for me, it's I, it's interesting, I've never been asked this question, but for me it's actually the, it's the perfect balance of having, almost like a board of directors. To help form the playbook and the best practices and what we're seeing around the world, but then also having the autonomy to best place it in the U S.
Adam: [00:19:01] And when did you come to the U S market?
David: [00:19:03] We actually acquired an organization in the U S in 2018. And what's really interesting about that is obviously with the U S being such a large marketplace and to enter the U S market place, it was just a really good option to acquire an organization that already wasn't going concern. That organization brings us a, just a phenomenal capability. So the organization that was acquired traditionally had more of a project services type motion whereby the project team would ingest work from clients and then deliver against milestones. Rather than the consulting motion of putting somebody in the client's four walls.
And because of this, we actually have both those capabilities now in the U S so we have a project services team for people's kind of QA projects, a manual QA, or test automation, their Salesforce, admin projects, or their data projects. But then we also have the consulting motion. If you want a super specialized skill.
Adam: [00:20:15] Great. And what's the model are people placed in companies?
David: [00:20:19] The best way to describe it is that everybody remains a W2 employee of Auticon.
So everybody remains an employee. And the reason for that is twofold. And I'll say this, and I'll do aan asterix on what is aspirational versus what is reality, but we want people to have access to healthcare regardless of our client's policies.
So we're not a placement agency. We don't place people in walk away and give them a phone call 30 days later and say, how's it going? Because we've got that job coaching and we've got the technical mentorship and it's, but we're very deliberate about that. We want individuals to have healthcare with us regardless of the client policies.
And also we want individuals to have retirement savings. And currently today they have retirement savings if they're in the right part of the country. But we will be doing that across the country this year. The best way to describe it is that the technologist joins Auticon, and then that technologist is placed in client organizations as part of a client team.
So they'll have a supervisor in the agile environment within an organization. And we just, we cut an invoice to that client for the services rendered and ideally it's in perpetuity. So we have engagements where it's absolutely the intention that, that individual is functioning, almost like a employee of our clients, but they're an Auticon employee.
And they benefit from everything, all the additional support that comes with that.
Adam: [00:21:57] Now on the podcast, we have a ton of listeners here in Columbus, Ohio. It's a market we've explored a lot. What brought you to Columbus, Ohio?
David: [00:22:05] It was really the support. I'm not surprised you have such an active following and listeners in Columbus. I was blown away by the reception that we received, both from clients and kind of support agencies from community partners, advocacy groups. It didn't take a lot of connecting.
For the community to basically rally around us. And it was just, it became a decision that was just a no brainer because of that support. Just really phenomenal forward thinking employers and then advocacy groups and, state support groups that have really come together and share the mission.
Adam: [00:22:47] Personally, it feels like a great fit here. One, because we have a lot of technology companies here from Chase and IBM to the insurance companies, like Nationwide. And then Cover My Meds and Cardinal Health. So there's a lot of great kind of technology services here, but we also have a really strong social entrepreneurship community here. So partly driven by Social Ventures really connecting different companies in different missions. So I think there's a lot of awareness which helps.
David: [00:23:14] Yeah, absolutely. we, we sensed it straightaway. When we talked to the stakeholders in Columbus, There wasn't that much explanation needed. It was like this, like they had already seen the possibilities. So to the extent that the people listening to this have a part to play in that, I just want to say thanks because it's really made us very welcome.
Adam: [00:23:41] How do people in Columbus find out about Auticon?
David: [00:23:44] So the best way is the website. The website is www dot Auticon .us which is A U T I C O N.us. There is also A info email address that we monitor, somebody's monitoring it on a normal constant basis and that's info@auticon.us. And really what I find super interesting is when we connect with the advocacy groups and the community groups and like the.
The community at large it's amazing to us how many candidates that we get. So when we first started this kind of outreach, you've, we've got a revenue plan. And so I thought that we'd be contacted more by potential clients. We weren't, and that was okay because we're contacted a lot by potential candidates and potential employees, which is even better.
Because right now we have exclusive openings. We've got jobs on file. Employers have said, Hey, Auticon, I'm going to give you as much time as I can stand for you to have exclusive on this job. We want someone from Auticon to fill this role. And as we grow that process gets easier because you have more openings, you have more candidates, it's a lot easier to see the connections.
So I love the fact that I love the fact that we get outreach from candidates by talking to like awesome audiences, like yours.
Adam: [00:25:37] And what about on the company spectrum? Are there certain companies which are great to come and work with you?
David: [00:25:42] Yeah it's really companies that understand that D you have to take DEI diversity equity inclusion, and you have to look at it in a multifaceted way. There were some companies that will say that they've got an autism at work program, so we don't need to work with Auticon and that's fine. That's their decision.
But I believe that an organization is really only going to truly embrace our community when it's not just the program in house. It's also part of the fabric of that. Kind of vendor ecosystem. It's also part of the fabric of that kind of channel partner ecosystem and that they are using their influence to pull up smaller companies around them.
As that also share their DEI philosophy. And so companies like that, companies that have that mentality and that the best two examples in Columbus for us right now is definitely Nationwide and Cover My Meds.
Adam: [00:26:46] How big is Auticon globally?
David: [00:26:48] Globally, we have over 200 consultants. I think the number actually is more like 250 now. In the us we have 40 consultants currently we have plans very clear plans that we think we can execute against the exiting Q3 we'll have 50. And so that's the kind of growth that we're seeing.
We actually, June of 2021, the last couple of days of which I am here, talking with you, we've hired more people in a single month than any month and record.
Adam: [00:27:21] Wow.
David: [00:27:22] Yeah. We hired six people this month and it looks like July. You might be a little down on that, just given the holiday, but it actually could be the same as well.
So that's the kind of growth. That we're experiencing that it's just really phenomenal that the community groups and the advocacy groups and the individuals of finding these really rewarding jobs because the jobs are off the charts. These are. These aren't altruistic jobs, it's not, it's not oh, let's find something for these people to do.
These are jobs that are at the center of the businesses that we work with. We have one client where we have four people basically running their go to market segmentation database. That's.
Adam: [00:28:09] That's here.
David: [00:28:11] Autistics technologists in the center of their revenue machine. They're not doing that through altruism.
They're doing that because they need the performance advantage.
Adam: [00:28:22] And I love what you mentioned at the beginning that, some of the places where people on the spectrum excel is this kind of objective. Detailed oriented mindset so that, they can approach things in through a huge amount of data and that analytics without getting caught up in it or biased as much as somebody else might.
David: [00:28:40] We had a client who had a, an algorithm that they had an entire mathematical team strapped to this algorithm trying to find an outcome. And one of our consultants basically, whole heartedly disagreed with that stearing kind of research team and was right.
Adam: [00:29:04] Wow.
David: [00:29:04] Yeah, that was correct.
Yeah. Yeah.
Adam: [00:29:11] That's a great success. So if you know, Companies are here in Columbus I hear there's an event coming up in September.
David: [00:29:18] We have a, an event coming up in September, which is a, an in-person event. It's we think we've timed it appropriately. Details will be forthcoming and I'd love to share that with your community. And it's going to be an in-person recruitment event, but also an in-person client event as well.
So we're gonna. Basically all of the stakeholders together and celebrate the process so far than the progress so far, but then also with the stakeholders and we welcome as many people to participate as possible. Really chart the course for the next year as well.
Adam: [00:29:58] I love that. And if you're listening, we'll keep that information up to date on the show notes so that you can find those there.
David: [00:30:04] Yeah, that would be fantastic.
Adam: [00:30:07] Wonderful. So just bringing it all together. I feel like we've covered a lot, just, talking about one, some of the barriers that, that people on the spectrum have to finding employment, to areas where they excel to, what Auticon has been doing to actually really help,
this population Excel in, in the right positions. And for me, I really love this concept of underemployment. Where, if they have difficulty in the interview process that, that they're not in the roles that are maximizing their potential so that they can really excel.
David: [00:30:38] You're absolutely correct. And I was guilty of this. So I was, I w it's in big companies and I've had, a career where I've gone from job to job and promoted and stuff like that. Yeah and I've interviewed probably hundreds of people I've been guilty of it and I'll readily admit it.
Now that I have been guilty of that human bias in an interview process where you connect socially with someone or you connect on a level. And you think, okay, this is an individual that I want on my team and you rationalize it by things like when the chips are down, I know that we'll be able to work together and it's just complete fooey.
Yeah. That notion is a human bias is a human bias based on a social connection and has zero bearing on the ability of that candidate to do the job or otherwise.
Adam: [00:31:34] I've heard of the beer bias of if you're hiring somebody, you tend to hire somebody who you would naturally go out for a drink with that you would socialize with. You just understand each other better if you have that similar cultural background. And so sometimes, a lack of diversity, isn't intentional.
It's just that ability to connect with other people. And so there's a lot that you have to do in order to overcome that.
David: [00:31:58] That's entirely accurate. And then oftentimes it's the invisible, which is the most difficult bias to overcome.
And so that's why we've tried to turn it around a little bit.
Adam: [00:32:11] Fantastic. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and sharing the story of what you're doing.
David: [00:32:17] Yeah, this was great. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. And I look forward to connecting to as many of the community members as possible. And Thank you for the opportunity. It's been really great. Thanks Adam.
Adam: [00:32:28] Fantastic. And if you're listening, go and visit Auticon.us that's A U T I C O N. Dot us. For more information. And you can also get more resources on the show notes at peoplehelpingpeople.world. I thank you so much for listening and David, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
David: [00:32:46] Thank you, Adam.
Saif Ali of Dastgyr Explains the Opportunities for Digital B2B Entrepreneurship in Pakistan
Jul 16, 2021
Saif Ali from Dastgyr shares knowledge on idea validation, connecting with stakeholders, innovative tech B2B, and the fast-growing startup scene in Pakistan. Dastgyr is a tech platform that helps emerging and local businesses manage their inventory more effectively. More specifically, the initiative is a B2B e-commerce solution working with mom and pop stores throughout Pakistan. Local businesses in the area usually experience fragmented service when trying to coordinate between receiving inventory from distributors and matching the demand of consumers. Businesses often pull from their savings to make up for gaps between the two. Dastgyr creates an option that saves local businesses in Pakistan money and time.
Dastgyr started testing the idea with a pilot period from May 2020 until August 2020. Colliding the idea with reality, Saif says that the founding team literally the pilot conducted deliveries themselves and used their own homes as the warehouse for their work. Through this idea validation, Dastgyr confirmed that there was utility for the stakeholders involved in the service. The product-market fit was there. Saif explains that the team sought investors after the pilot, and officially launched in September 2020.
Being a company based in Pakistan, Dastgyr is responsive to the culture of the region. Saif mentions the precautions and care of following regulations specific to the region. Within the region Dastgyr operates, there are laws built to respect the lens of Islamic belief that businesses will find in similar locations, such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Saif notes that this is natural when thinking of the history and culture of the region. Not originally from Pakistan, Saif shares his observations of the current state of business, tech, raising VC funds, and international expansion in the Pakistan startup market.
Adjusting to the region was not the only new piece of information for Dastgyr to learn. When having such a direct relationship with the local businesses, the initiative found ways to approach interactions with business owners. Saif shares the concerns of communicating with business owners who are less tech-savvy, or who were adding Dastgyr to their business after decades of working manually. Once Dastgyr is set up, everything creates a positive ripple effect. Saif shares a few of the positive impacts the team recognizes as the initiative helps the community.
Young people in Pakistan are showing great interest and innovation in how they incorporate technology. Saif points out that access to information allows young people to actively research different career paths. Young people are experiencing a level of enthusiasm to participate in the market that signals a shift. Since the nearby markets are growing in similar ways, there are many opportunities to share insights.
Saif expresses his shared excitement of what the future holds as innovation happens inside of Pakistan and nearby hubs in the region:
“This is the precipice of something very large and very exciting, and I’m just glad that I get to be a part of it.”
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Previously we've had Dalia Kamar on the podcast to speak about building purpose-driven entrepreneurship ventures in the middle east. Today, we travelled further west into a conversation with Saif Ali, from a tech startup, Dastgyr out of Pakistan.
Dastgyr uses technology to help emerging and local businesses manage their inventory more effectively. So to speak more about empowering local businesses, Saif Ali welcome on the podcast.
Saif: [00:00:34] Hey, Adam, thank you for having me glad too.
Adam: [00:00:37] super excited. Can we start off, can you tell us a little bit about what you're building with Dastgyr?
Saif: [00:00:42] Yeah, absolutely. So in a nutshell this is a hypergrowth B2B e-commerce platform and the core concept behind it. The supply chain for mom and pop stores in Pakistan and the larger mean app region is quite fragmented, right? There's a lot of problems up and down this value chain for both suppliers and retailers that we're aiming to solve through technology.
So today we have an app that's launched and in a little less than a year's worth of operations. We have delivered orders to 35,000 mom and pop retailers that are worth millions of dollars. And these are retailers that are ordering their wholesale inventory through that app the same way you and I would order shampoo and Amazon, right?
So it's a complete marketplace and it solves that fragmented supply chain problem for them so that they can sell more inventory focus on what matters.
Adam: [00:01:39] Can you dive into this a little bit and just describe, what this problem is like for a mom and pop store and what they actually face. What does it mean to have a fragmented supply chain?
Saif: [00:01:51] What I mean, when I say fragmented, is that typically what happens right now with FMCG distribution is that oftentimes the delivery. And, the visits that the order bookers make to these stores are unreliable or ill timed, it's not consistent, right? So for a person that's running a business, they have to be able to manage inventory in a way that they can plan for it.
Now a distributor for Pepsi-Co, let's say, is supposed to come on a fixed Sunday of every week, but sometimes he doesn't show up until Tuesday. And what do you do when you've run out of stock in between those two days, you're bleeding customers who are showing up asking for a high running SKU that you just don't have in stock.
And typically what these retailers would have to do is spend 15 to 20% of their working time in one week visiting wholesale markets on their own. Often during working hours, which means they'd have to close their shops just to buy the inventory that should have been delivered to their doorstep. Now they don't have to do that.
So they don't have to rely on FMCG, traditional distribution to begin with. But even if they still do choose to, they can order a small orders from the Dastgyr's app whenever they choose to. And we'll always give them guaranteed 24 hours delivery. In addition to that, there's a helpline , there's other benefits like micro-lending loyalty programs, et cetera, et cetera, deals and discounts.
And really the biggest benefit is the marketplace, right? So you've got your tea, you've got your candies, your sugar your tissues, whatever that retailer needs, the stock is available in a one-stop shop solution.
Adam: [00:03:38] Got it. So for the customer coming in and they can visit one shop and get what they need, they don't have to worry about something being out of stock this week and having to find it from multiple different stores. And then it sounds like you're also really helping these mom and pop stores where they have a lot of inventory.
And if they run out of something, they no longer have to go down to the wholesale market, to find it and buy it to restock it.
Saif: [00:04:05] Yeah, exactly. And you'll see this in almost every emerging market similar companies like ours have sprouted up and are seeing major success. You have to operate in Africa, headquartered in Kenya, right? And they're operating in multiple markets. They've raised a good amount of funding and they've got that product-market fit.
And that validation already, you have growth, sorry. In the Philippines, you have Bula in Indonesia, you have a jumbo tail and or on in India and Oran is already a unicorn. So the whole point is that in these emerging markets B2B trade is a problem. And if it needed to be disrupted, it needed to be fixed.
And like I said, it's a problem for both suppliers and retailers, right? For suppliers, their reach is limited. And for retailers the inventory that they need, literally the thing they need to run their business isn't made available to them easily. So we're able to solve that problem on both ends.
Adam: [00:05:04] And you speak of emerging markets. Can you paint a little picture of how business is done differently? You're talking about helping his mom and pop shops, Are they a big part of the market? How do people interact with stores and goods differently in Pakistan?
Saif: [00:05:18] Yeah, that's a great question. So SMB retail in Pakistan is worth about $120 billion. It's almost half of our GDP. And these neighborhood stores in, or do we call them , which essentially means corner store or convenience store. These stores are often like hubs or small little communities, small little localities.
And plenty of them in the neighborhood, but each one has his own, his, or her own relationships with their customers. Who've probably been going to the same person for years. So culturally it's a huge part of the fabric and economically it's massive. The opportunity here is massive.
So ultimately. Our aim here is to uplift these SMEs, to be able to sell more inventory. And if they can tell even more, they can contribute even more to the GDP. And furthermore, majority of these people in Pakistan and similar emerging markets are unbanked. So we're slowly introducing them to formal transactions.
We're slowly going to bring them into that net with FinTech products, right? We've already got partnerships with financial services companies to offer them micro lending, to be able to buy product on credit under buy now pay later schemes or micro lending to offer them more working capital.
You wouldn't believe these stores they're typical of working capital in Pakistan is between two and $3,000. Per month. And if we were to give them an additional thousand dollars, that's a game changer for that retailer that would allow them to be able to expand into a new category and create a new section for cosmetics, let's say, or perhaps offer, or be able to buy refrigerators and offer a refrigerated chocolates to their customers.
Which would increase his margins, increase his profits. And again, because we're a marketplace, not only can he get that micro loan from us, he can also buy all of those products under all of those various categories.
Adam: [00:07:11] So two to $3,000, that's not very much for inventory. So if you're able to provide micro lending that's huge. It sounds like you're also saving them a lot of time from having to go out and acquire that inventory.
Saif: [00:07:23] Time is a major aspect of it. If you look at it like I said, typically they'd have to make two to three trips a week to wholesale markets on their own to buy stocks. And you also have to give it to them that you have to give them the credit or cut them some slack. That's, they don't have the capacity to be able to plan for their inventory or plan for their supply in the most efficient way possible.
And at the SME level retail sales go up and down, typically his cyclical trends may have been off by one or two cartons for this week. But what does he do when he's out of stock in the middle of the week, right? He has to go to that market and you have to procure those high running SKU just to keep this customers.
So that's also why our minimum order value is just 1000 Pakistani rupees, which is about what $6. And the idea there is that they can even place the smallest of orders just so that we can ensure that they have, complete availability of whatever stock they need whenever they need it.
Adam: [00:08:24] Fantastic, now how long has Dastgyr been in operation?
Saif: [00:08:30] Dastgyr started in may of 2020 from May till about August was our pilot. We were testing the idea. The founding team was literally conducting deliveries themselves. We were warehousing in their homes, and once we saw the validation, once we saw the product market fit we started pitching to investors.
And we raised a healthy angel round, right? The founding team also has excellent credentials. All of them were early teammates at some of the biggest startups in Pakistan and the larger meetup region like Careem there, Oz airlifts, which at the time had raised flex funds, largest series a.
So a lot of the investors that were coming on board had already previously interacted with them in the ecosystem as well. And. Once we got that on the app officially launched in September of 2020. So officially it's been about nine months of operations and yeah, 35,000 customers served millions of dollars worth of goods delivered.
We've got we're operational in both Karachi and Lahore. And it's been amazing. I wish I could disclose the numbers to you just to communicate the hypergrowth that we've seen, but I can give you an idea that we were calculating sales metrics a couple of days ago, and it was a big moment of, we realized something really fun that the daily revenue that we hit three or four days ago was the total combined revenue that we had hit in July.
And the entire month of June.
Adam: [00:10:05] That's fantastic. Now, just looking back at this last year and starting a business during the pandemic how has that affected launching a company, but also how has it affected the customers that you serve?
Saif: [00:10:19] E-commerce has been COVID has been a boon for e-commerce right. Worldwide. The concept for Dastgyr actually came about because of COVID. It was my co-founder who was visiting his neighborhood convenience store. Like you always would on a typical Sunday morning. And again, like I said these are, neighborhoods, fixtures, community fixtures, right?
There's a, Hey our co-founder has been going to the same guy named Abul for 20 plus years, right? To buy milk and eggs. And one fine day during the pandemic, during the lockdown, he visited up those store, which he would always remember to be completely packed, customers just lined up clamoring to get their own stuff.
And Abul wouldn't have a moment to breathe, but that particular day there wasn't a single customer at a store. Most of the shelves were empty. And that young man was sitting there pretty dispondent. And when's the habe asked him if everything was all right, the guy broke down and he spoke about how because of COVID the supply chain that was already fragmented, had been completely disrupted.
That entire chain had been completely disrupted. There was no visibility on when distributors would be operational again. No visibility on any of the stock that he had already ordered through them. And he was upset that he couldn't service customers. Couldn't do the work you've been doing for two decades.
And it was that, and, multiple subsequent conversations with other retailers in both cities that led them to realize that there's a major problem. And the problem has just been exacerbated by COVID, but that problem has always existed. And it's going to persist unless we do something about this.
And they were both already technologists, right? Early team members of Airlift. So they could very easily put that solution together. And they convinced a couple of their colleagues from Airlift to come and start this with them. And the rest is history.
Adam: [00:12:13] Wow. And if you just think about the context of that, it's not just one mom and pop store that's disrupted. If that supply chain is fragmented, then that's hitting across the country. That's a huge portion of the GDP and just people's livelihoods their ability to do business, the ability for people to get the products that they need.
So having a better system in place to, to facilitate that sounds like it's critical to growing and developing.
Saif: [00:12:40] Yeah, precisely. And now again, the aim is not only to, of course the economy has bounced back right in Pakistan. We're doing much better now. Also the COVID situation is fairly under control compared to other countries. But the aim here is to lift them higher than they ever were before. So if they were previously contributing to 40 or 50% of the GDP, we need to have ways to bring those numbers up.
We need to be able to drive higher GMBs for them by offering them the services that they previously never had access. The idea of 24 hour delivery and this whole concept of B2B e-commerce has just emerged within the last 18 months, or so. There are multiple companies who are competing for the same pie, and. Now it's again, it's a godsend for these retailers, right? We speak to customers every day. Everyone from an intern to the co-founder makes customer calls. And for the most part, what we hear is nothing but positive reviews about how much this has helped them uplift their business.
And that addition of working capital or buy now pay later schemes across the board. Previously, what would happen is. One-off distributors would give them trade schemes depending on their own particular business models. So the PepsiCo distributor, because that business is very large, for example, just a reference can afford to give retailers credit, but others can't right. Whereas we're giving them credit. Or buy now pay later schemes across the board on whatever they choose to put into their basket on whatever they need
Adam: [00:14:13] So you're not restricted to certain pot products that you can put into your inventory.
Saif: [00:14:17] Precisely. And because it's a purely cash business. And it's just about rolling cash for them. It's far easier for them to be able to buy product on buy now pay later schemes. And that gives them more visibility as well, right? Like, all right, I'm I owe this to give this much money. I have to drive this amount of sales in the next seven days to be able to pay off the loan that I've taken, et cetera, et cetera.
It also helps again that all of the buy now pay later skews that we run are Sharia compliant, Islamic law compliance, which is also really important in this region. And yeah, it's been.
Adam: [00:14:52] That's neat. Can you tell me just a little bit more about some of those regulations around the compliance? It sounds like a, an important.
Saif: [00:14:59] Yeah, so Islamically, we're not allowed to pay interest, So these loans are underwritten in a way where they do not pay an interest per se. They pay a flat fee, a flat premium fee.
Adam: [00:15:13] Interesting
Saif: [00:15:14] Again, this is important across the Muslim world, right? You'll see the same thing in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Adam: [00:15:20] Now, you didn't grow up in Pakistan. You've been there for about nine years. Can you share a little bit about some of the differences about life in Pakistan? When it comes to entrepreneurship and starting businesses from what you've seen elsewhere.
Saif: [00:15:31] Yeah, of course. I can tell you that Pakistan has really emerged as a fertile landscape for entrepreneurship in the last few years. The security situation has entirely been calmed down the economics of it all. If you look at the fact that 60% of our population is under 30.
We've now got a hundred million broadband internet users, right? That's why all of these technology startups are just flooding in, literally right now, 2021, Pakistan is having a major watershed moment and it's startup ecosystem. I can tell you thus far, it's just the month of July and we've already raised about, I think $120 million in VC.
Total as compared to $60 million in all of 2020. So this is the most VC funding that's come in this such a short span of time. And this is happening because you have so many industries being disrupted all at once. Taking advantage of the young population of the internet penetration across FinTech e-commerce banking and the opportunity is massive, I can also tell you that Pakistan was the fourth largest mover last year in the world bank's ease of doing business index. If that means anything, a bit of a mouthful,
Adam: [00:16:55] Ease of doing business index.
Saif: [00:16:57] Yeah, no, it's the thing. And they're looking at like regulatory environment and the investment opportunities economic opportunity overall.
And it really is golden and if you're thinking of investing, this is the time.
Adam: [00:17:11] It sounds like a great change in the environment and impact us on for money coming in people being connected in new ways with technology and internet access and just environment where that capital couldn't be put to good use.
Saif: [00:17:25] Previously, the regulatory environment was a bit of a challenge, but the state bank and other similar public sector organizations have made massive strides to really make this a more conducive place for doing business and also for foreign investments and venture capital and everything of that sort, which is why what's happening now is that executives are also more confident getting into.
There are people leaving jobs at major consulting firms, banks, multinational organizations, like the Unilevers of the world to start, a company doing, just buy now pay later or another company that is that has created a stockbroker app or an e-commerce company just for grocery that's BC or another one.
That's B2B like our model. And again it's just, it's. It's like the turning point. It feels like the turning point that India had maybe a decade ago, right? Because about a decade ago, again, it was just, it was unreal if a startup had raised anything larger than a million dollars in their seed round.
And I can tell you now, like it's weird if anyone's raising less than a million dollars in a seed round in Pakistan. That's that trend that's developing that also international VCs have really started taking seriously. You look at the last few years, right? Players like first round capital, players like Kleiner, Perkins are now invested in Pakistan. Our seed round was led by SOSV out of Jersey, right? Another major VC. So these are important players in the global ecosystem and they're watching. All right. And they're putting their money on it. So I think that is, all the validation we need that there's definitely something happening here.
There are also predictions that I'm hopeful will come true because I really believe in what's happening here overall and technology that Pakistan will overtake Egypt this year in VC funding.
Adam: [00:19:21] Now, are there barriers to that capital for entrepreneurs that are starting out that still exists?
Saif: [00:19:29] Not so much those barriers are being cut down a bit by bit. And again, it is the fact that larger players have validated this market. That definitely makes it easier for new players to come in and. Oh, you're doing FinTech in Pakistan. We heard about first round investing in so-and-so and okay.
This makes sense. Let's have a meeting. Let's chat. Is that generally how it goes? When you're doing anything new it's also about who do you know, that's already doing it? Can you form any association with that? And if you do your research, what comes up? And like I said, he's a big names.
There are startups raising large amounts of money. And that, again, speaks to the fact of the overall economic opportunity that exists and all of the great work that's being done by executives, by technologists designers to pull off these amazing tech.
Adam: [00:20:18] Taking a look towards the future. What do you see some of the challenges are for entrepreneurs in Pakistan as they get more funding and continue to grow.
Saif: [00:20:29] I think the real challenge is going to be expansion international. So recently we've seen a couple of Egyptian startups start expanding into Pakistan, like swivel who have done really well, but it remains to be seen whether or when and how actually a Pakistani startup will, execute that international expansion.
And what that will look like. Because the idea is that we're hoping that when, for example, the Pakistani startup, hopefully Dastgyr goes into a market like Egypt will be more capitalized. We'll have a better understanding of what's happening in the ecosystem. And we'll be able to pull off that play.
But again, it is a large bet. It is a large experiment. That again, a lot of VCs, a lot of angels have put their money on. So that's one thing that remains to be seen. And again, in this entire ecosystem, we still haven't had one exit, right? In the main app region, everybody points to Careem as that success story.
But if we're strictly speaking about Pakistan, we haven't had a single exit. So again, it is still. But this is a watershed moment. It is picking up momentum and there are so many amazing tech plays that, I'm anything, if not just romantic about it.
Adam: [00:21:43] Can you tell me a Careem bit about Creem it sounds like they're one of the, initial players for funding. What they've accomplished.
Saif: [00:21:52] I think my AirPods are dying.
Adam: [00:21:54] No worries at all here, back with the audio format, number two. can you tell me a little bit about Careem it sounds like they are, a significant example.
Saif: [00:22:06] Again, Gave Careem an example for Pakistan. Careem was operational in Pakistan out of, multiple other countries in the main app region. Major success story for the region. The Pakistan connection is definitely strong because there tech was built here. For the longest, even as the group, their tech team was headquartered here.
And and ultimately, so they had amazing backing right from a barrage group and saw these kingdom holdings the massive ride hailing giant out of China, whose name I can never pronounce. Rakuten from Japan. So these are major global players that had taken part in Careem and then eventually.
A couple of years ago, it was acquired by Uber at 3.1 billion, if I'm not mistaken. So it was a major successful exit. The initial angel investors reportedly had 100 X return. So I think it's safe to say that we're all aiming to be the next Careem of the region. And if I had to put my bet on anything, it's, Dastgyr, I think I've stayed my career on this.
Adam: [00:23:17] Now, just looking back on your career, you've had some experience working with other brands in the fast moving goods space, right?
Saif: [00:23:25] That's right. So I, from 2018, til 2020 I was working with Unilever. As a dedicated resource and again, so that was really my first introduction to retail entry level engagement. And that was where I really understood the problems that both manufacturers and retailers were facing in the supply chain.
And again, for Unilever, it's a giant, and yet still. They have million dollar problems just in Pakistan alone. Because they still struggle with distribution in rural, for example, or their distribution isn't as efficient as it should be, even in urban centers or XYZ. It's a litany of issues that they're facing.
And Dastgyr again is here to solve those problems even from the suppliers. So for example, one of the many things we do is we provide them with actionable data. Which essentially is a revenue stream for us, but it gives them real-time insights at the trade level of what's happening, where their goods are moving.
We can do it so precisely that we can report to them what their one particular brands GMV is on a particular day, in a particular locality within garage.
Adam: [00:24:35] Before, just because of the fragmentation of the market, there was no way to track that or communicate that I can get that back to companies like Unilever that are producing them.
Saif: [00:24:47] It's not only the fact that it's been fragmented, but it's also the point that traditional distribution is not digital. They're not able to track every transaction every last mile, a number of SKUS, et cetera, et cetera at an individual store level.
So Unilever knows the number of cartons they've sold to a certain distributor. And then at the most they'll know how much that distributor has offloaded in certain localities, perhaps, but they wouldn't be able to get that precise individual level data point of how much they've sold to Seth
at SF general store. And how much he buys in July versus how much he buys in December. Or, and even if there is a shift, what's the reason for that. Can we get some analysis on that? Is it another competitor that's eating up that brands market share?
Is it a seasonal trend? Because we have access across the entire universe, right? We're not only selling that one Procter and Gamble product or that one Unilever product, we're selling their local competitors. So we can give them that analysis. Of course, without divulging their competitor's actual data, but yeah.
Adam: [00:25:55] that sounds like very powerful insight. If you can help people with that insight of where goods are going and what you need to put your attention on.
Saif: [00:26:01] Yeah. And look, the proctors and gambles of the world are not exactly the people that need the most empowerment. Who needs to be empowered is again the SME supplier, or the SME manufacturer. Because we're a marketplace, and we're trying to supply to the entire SME retail sector of Pakistan.
I can tell you today that beyond FMCG, the stationary category is live on our app, right? Because there's a lot of small stores that sell stationary of mobile accessories as a category is live on that. And the idea is that if there is a small scale manufacturer for stationary, they can enlist with us.
And their route to market is entirely taken care of I us, we'll promote it. We'll push it. We'll deliver it. All you have to do is take care of the first mile delivery tower sorting center, and we'll be able to push that product out into the retail.
Adam: [00:27:03] Fantastic. Now what have been some of the challenges for building Dastgyr in the last year?
Saif: [00:27:09] tech has been a major challenge for sure.
That's a pain for every startup. No, I, and I say it's a challenge because we're constantly trying to improve it, to make it as easy to use for a customer that may have not been very tech savvy previously. So often what'll happen is our onboarding agent will visit the store to, personally explained the value prop of Dastgyr, show him or her how our app works.
And what's happening. There is nothing short of behavioral change.
Cause we're really introducing them. We're giving them a real incentive to take this seriously that this is not just a Tik Tok right? This is not just a casual thing. You really should learn how to use this because you get so many benefits, it'll literally streamline your entire business. And by way of doing that, we're paving way for logistics companies for B to C e-commerce companies, FinTech companies, because we're creating that change. But apart from that, the challenges really have been that behavioral change overall of getting customers to understand and really commit to online ordering 99% of our orders are organic and online.
We do not take manual orders. We have a helpline for troubleshooting. If you've received damaged goods or if somehow your delivery was late or incomplete, but we insist on taking online orders from a segment of the market that previously was not comfortable with this. There's also a trust deficit here with anything new, there is a resistance to change, right?
Adam: [00:28:41] If you've been doing something the same way for 30 years, then, changing your business model
take some time.
Saif: [00:28:47] Yeah. And in comes this 25 year old kid with this pitch about how he's going to streamline my business. Yeah. But again, we've been able to pull it off, tens of thousands of customers have really bought into this. Competition that we have in this B2B e-commerce space is also very healthy.
And people ask me a lot about that. How do you feel about XYZ competitor company or their offerings or the fact that they raised this much money, et cetera, et cetera. But ultimately what they're doing is just increasing.
We're all on the same mission. I have no doubt that ultimately all of their customers will either become solely my customers or also become my customers because Dastgyr is the only one building a true marketplace.
Adam: [00:29:27] That's gotta be fun to be part of something that's, connecting so many individuals and has such a huge impact across the country.
Saif: [00:29:34] you're absolutely right. And again, the stories that we get from the field are just amazing. We literally hear back from retailers we've recently actually recorded and publish a testimonial. One of our best customers, oldest customers who talks about how with Dastgyr with the advent of B2B e-commerce, he's now able to run two separate stores that he owns.
Which previously was a huge struggle for him because of the fact that he was visiting wholesale markets at different times to supply both stores. So he could never really keep his fulfillment where it should be.
But today he's working, he's operating on a hundred percent fulfillment into stores.
So his income has increased by at least 50%. So he's over the moon.
Adam: [00:30:21] That sounds like a huge game changer. I love that.
Saif: [00:30:24] And also so many stories come out of this. The direct and indirect job creation that we're, the ripple effect is fantastic. Like for example, our fleet partners are currently contractors, right? These are people who drive the trucks and execute our last mile deliveries previously.
They were operating on very sporadic incomes, right? If, and when they'd get a delivery job, they'd be able to earn, maybe a daily wage. Whereas now they got a fixed income. And again, like the suppliers I mentioned now there are people who are considering becoming suppliers with the advent of B2B e-commerce right. I can operate this from my home. I want to sell my homemade soaps or I want to sell pink salt or anything that would be attractive to an SME retailer that they can potentially stock.
Adam: [00:31:10] And they don't have to go out and sell to a, a thousand different retailers. If they can provide it through Dastgyr.
Saif: [00:31:19] The bigger opportunity here actually is that yeah, of course we'll get them customers in Pakistan, but ultimately we will also expand internationally and ultimately it's very possible for us to export that homemade soap product to Egypt. And again, that's us putting up the capital. That's us taking care of all of the warehousing and logistics involved without the supplier having to move in there.
Adam: [00:31:47] Now one thing that you touched on earlier was just this huge change in Pakistan with the younger generation being really connected to the internet and technology. I'm curious, like what have you noticed in terms of how the culture is changing or I guess different ambitions that the younger generation has.
Saif: [00:32:06] So I think with access to information what you have is people really actively researching different career paths. Even now with the youth that The top talent in Pakistan that would previously follow very traditional career paths which is highly encouraged and highly sort of inculcated in Pakistani households stable jobs with very defined career ladder. And again, the proctors of the world to come into companies like us to Dastgyr, if you look at our team, the young ones that we've managed to bring on board are just phenomenal resources, right?
With excellent educational backgrounds could have been hired anywhere and have come in. Many of them within just six months of being here are functional leaders. Just because of the impact that they've created, right? These are true 10 X people, right? That's something we value a lot that we're only going to hire people who have that 10 X spirit a person may be a perfect fit on paper, but if they're not a culture fit, they're not coming on board.
And so that's definitely a change that I think is coming up because. These kids are able to see what's also happening in other markets. So if that even is that example and all these startups we have in Egypt and Saudi and UAE, And in the larger APAC region as well. And of course, India, right next door has so many amazing success stories, right?
Market dynamics are very similar, right. And again, like I mentioned, this period of time that we're going through is very reminiscent of that initial period of time where India's startup ecosystem was kicking off. I wouldn't be surprised if five, seven years down the line, a Sequoia opens up an office here as well.
I'm counting on it. And so that's definitely a major change that's come about. And then of course, I think there's a lot of more, a lot more civic involvement as well with just general civic education and, all these young people involved on a single platform, able to talk about these issues that matter able to talk about what's happening in the world and in their own country.
And they're able to draw those parallels, right? Like now we know we're fully aware of what's happening in the U S. Or what's happening next door in the middle east. And that's why we know that this is wrong or this we need more of, or that we need less. And it's always great to see that because Buxton again is ripe for technological and social change.
And that's definitely starting to happen now a lot more than ever.
Adam: [00:34:27] That's awesome. I feel like we've covered a lot of ground here. We started off, we talked about, Dastgyr and kind of your journey getting off the ground and really explored what the need is in Pakistan. With so many. Mom and pop stores and their need there, but also taking a step further and taking a look at how capital is coming to Pakistan and new ways and how the younger generations are being affected by that.
So that's really cool to hear all of that. Thank you for sharing.
Saif: [00:34:53] No, of course. And again I can't tell you enough. So everything I'm saying is more or less from an outsider's perspective. I didn't grow up here. I don't have that sort of. So there's no bias if you will, I'm reporting it like it is. And I can tell you I'm constantly trying to work with other startups and we're all happy to partner with each other.
We're all happy to help each other out. We're trying to take on initiatives to lift up the entire ecosystem as a whole capture the narrative of what's happening, because it really is. Just the tipping point, right? This is the precipice of something very large and very exciting. And I'm just glad that I get to be a part of it.
I'm glad that I get to, be a part of this member and helped shape that.
Adam: [00:35:34] How do people find out more about Dastgyr?
Saif: [00:35:37] Dastgyr.com or follow Dastgyr on LinkedIn? I think that's the place where we're the most active you'll see stories of our team, our culture, our customers, our suppliers and our product. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn as well. I'd love to chat with anyone, especially anyone involved in the startup ecosystem worldwide.
Because again, like I mentioned previously with other similar companies in other markets there are just so many learnings to be shared so many insights to be shared and amazing conversations could come out of that.
Adam: [00:36:07] That's fantastic. So that's Dastgry. That's D A S T G Y r.com. And thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
Saif: [00:36:17] Thank you. Again, this has been fantastic
Dr. Lynda Ulrich of Ever Widening Circles Shares the Four Shifts for a New World
Jul 09, 2021
Dr. Lynda Ulrich of Ever Widening Circles Takes You through the four shifts needed to see an entirely different world on media platforms. She lays out principles of changing how you interact with the internet to get a different response from the algorithm, and plug into a greater worldview.
Dr. Lynda started the media platform, Ever Widening Circles and the Conspiracy of Goodness Network. Both initiatives use media and connections to showcase people doing all the good in the world, and to change the negative dialogue about our times. She also hosts a podcast of the same name, the Conspiracy of Goodness Network podcast. Her journey begins as a story of possibility. Similar to my path of having an established career before diving into social enterprise, Dr. Lynda was a dentist for over two decades feeling that she had something unique to contribute.
We agreed that most social innovators have a part of their journey of looking out at the world and seeing something to change before actually taking action. That period of time can be days or years, but overall it’s a relatively common experience. Dr. Lynda expressed how her outlook changed as she talked to more and more thought leaders in the social good space. Being exposed to others who also valued social impact, and actively pursuing the work, creates a boost in our chance of actively engaging the world of social good. Exposure leads to revealing new possibilities.
One point Dr. Lynda chose to emphasize is that “possibility”, and our access to possibility, changes every day. Things that weren’t possible years ago, are possible today to the point we wouldn’t even question their practicality. On that same path, things we don’t understand as possible now can drastically change as we move forward. Dr. Lynda compared “possibility” to the very real example of society’s view on “jobs suitable for women” expanding as more possibilities were proven and shown.
Taking a moment, Dr. Lynda shared the power of a pause being able to create change with what we’re facing. She starts by explaining the neuroscience related to why negative news gains attention from society. From this, we can imagine the challenge of who rises to the top between negative news and social good. Dr. Lynda pointed out that once we realize the cognitive games being played on our attention, we can be empowered to make our own choices about our attention. She shared her thoughts on the influence in choosing which social content to engage: “Your click is a vote.” Then, our conversation builds on four simple shifts that people can make to see an entirely different world in their lives.
Dr. Lynda Ulrich began talking about the Conspiracy of Goodness Network in detail, and the atmosphere that the platform cultivates. Through the network, people interested in doing good can connect with each other. Dr. Lynda shared that the network is also useful for professionals sharing tips and resources around business in social impact. Ever-widening Circles is continuing to deliver positive news to open our eyes to the positive happenings in the world.
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Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Turning back the clock about 15 years ago, I was working in a big financial institution in finance IT. And the essence of investment banking really bothered me as if I knew I wasn't in the right place.
For a decade, I struggled with my own view of this world as a consumption-driven place that felt like it missed the point of humanity. Today, I'm super inspired by social entrepreneurs who are challenging this model, but the question keeps coming up of how to connect with this hidden world of beautiful change makers.
So I am super excited to introduce Dr. Lynda on the podcast. She started the media platform, Ever Widening Circles and the Conspiracy of Goodness Network to bring together a new world of possibility by connecting co-conspirators and goodness. She also hosts Conspiracy of Goodness, a fantastic podcast where she shares the stories of thought leaders that are magnifying this wave of goodness and progress that often easily goes unnoticed.
So without further ado, Lynda welcome on the podcast.
Lynda: [00:01:07] Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you. And I had a conversation recently, and I think we were both just recognizing that we were both seeing the same wave and talking to people that means there's multiples of great people that are out there. You've discovered some I've discovered some, the guys I just talked to on a different podcast have discovered. It's the future is okay, we got this.
Adam: [00:01:30] It blows me away. I was really excited discovering your podcast. And I think your account on Ever-widening Circles is over 1400 articles. But I would love to start off. Can you just tell us a little bit about how Ever Widening Circles came into being and what it stands for?
Lynda: [00:01:47] Yeah.
So I like to frame up my story as a story of possibility for everyone. I always had this feeling that I had a calling, that there was something I was supposed to do. And yet I was doing really good things. There are so many of us who find professional lives and various industries. I was a dentist for 22 years.
And gosh, I was fixing teeth with computers in 2003. That's like the top 1% of dentists and using micro-cameras, , ease with technology. And so I had a really good professional life going. I don't think anybody in their right mind. Geared from that track. My husband's a dentist. We have a decent, I don't have some story of sorrow.
Our 40th wedding anniversary is next Sunday. Yeah.
It's not all been peaches and cream where there's perseverance there and that, that gets you through the hard times. But but here's how I come to talk to you, Adam. I all my life, I felt like I was built to contribute. To contribute something unique.
And I now have talked to so many thought leaders, people doing what you do. People that are multipliers for the goodness of others, that I'm starting to think we're all built to contribute something unique. Some of us are more aware of that than others. Some of us find that calling sooner in life than others.
I come from a generation of women who couldn't be doctors. My dad was a physician. Our neighbor was a dentist. And I remember the day my dad, and he was an open thinker, sat me down. He said, Lynda, you're going to be a pharmacist.
Adam: [00:03:26] Okay.
Lynda: [00:03:28] He thought that was like a really Zoe well for me, but you can only be a secretary, a teacher, a. Flight attendant. I don't know there was a nurse, that's it? That's what women were. Sad, but that's how far possibility is opening up. And that's one of the things that's really important that I talk about is how possibility changes, changes daily now. So whatever you thought was impossible yesterday might be totally possible today. And that's a viewpoint that we can all share. So what happened was I was a dentist for 23 years. And I started noticing I have a very relationship-oriented practice. I have spent my entire life finding something to celebrate with every single patient.
And people really don't want to be treated like a number in healthcare. husband. Yeah.
How about that? And so I was going to be a physician and my dad saw where we were going with healthcare and knew that it would someday be a time when physicians were told they only had 10 minutes with each patient, but he looked next door and he kept seeing Dr. Doolan who had this autonomous life who was also. In service to others and Dr.
Dylan was the dentist. So my husband and I both, he came dentists and we had this professional life very tuned in to relationships. And what I started noticing over that last 10 years after nine 11, was that people's sense of the future was going down hill. People, I call it a kind of future fatalism was settling in like people who I'd known as always cheerful.
Something cool to say we're easily swept into these downward spiral conversations about how the world's gone to hell in a hand basket. And that was 2012, 13. That was before we were where we are now we couldn't even begin to imagine back then. Okay.
So I kept saying, as people do, as I'm absolutely sure most of your guests have done, you say yourself, God, that's a terrible problem.
Somebody's got to do something right. That's what social innovators do for awhile. There's a course of that. That can be years or days, but most of us have that in common.
Adam: [00:05:48] Looking out at the world and seeing something that you want to change
Lynda: [00:05:52] yeah.
Adam: [00:05:53] almost waiting for that
spark.
Lynda: [00:05:56] else. I did. I noticed how dreadful people were feeling about the future. And I would say, gosh, I'm not a news person, another journalist, it never occurred to me to be the one to fix it. And then one day I got an email from a young patient who I'd known since he was a toddler.
And he was riding me from a very bleak place in the world where he'd landed after signing up for the army a way he thought it can make the world a better place. And I knew he'd had a difficult upbringing and I'd always found something to celebrate with this kid. And he thought of me in his darkest moment, he wrote me this female that was full of things that we're all saying now, like it's hopeless.
Nothing I do can make a difference. It was really a level of hopelessness that I just suddenly went and took all the oxygen out of the air because all the other comments like that, that I've been hearing from patients. And when I was out to dinner with my friends, the downward spiral conversations you could get in, it all just came to.
To a supernova in that minute. And I said, somebody's got to do something about this, that somebody is going to be me.
Adam: [00:07:13] I love that. So before we dive into ever-widening circles, like what are some of the things that are magnifying this hopelessness especially around the internet
Lynda: [00:07:24] Yeah.
Adam: [00:07:25] how we interact.
Lynda: [00:07:27] Okay. So the way I, the way my 10,000 foot. Sees it, and everybody has a different view, but I've done quite a, I've had quite a journey. And in eight years I went from ordinary web user to the last Ted talk. I was in build me as a global positive media mogul.
Adam: [00:07:48] Like that title.
Lynda: [00:07:50] Whoa. I can order a pair of boots and 2013 work boots. And now I'm a global plastic meeting. My goal. I accepted that role when they, when that flyer came by and I went, yeah, I've started five platforms, all different, all aimed at changing the negative dialogue about times I've done two Ted talks.
Things that I've observed that could open a new era for us all. And we just recently launched a social media network for all the people doing good in the world. It's called the conspiracy of goodness network, So I keep seeing a problem. And creating a platform. We have an education website that takes everything that's on every wedding circles and and picks up on the wonder that could be connected to education.
So we have this website@ewced.com where people can just turn their kids loose and they're going to come out of that experience, knowing why we need to learn math and how it's connected to what astronauts dream about.
Adam: [00:08:54] It into the dreams, here's just something you need to do.
Lynda: [00:08:57] Yes, no. People that we feature on PWC ad are the kind of things that change kids' lives. It's if you remember the fireman who came to visit one day in third grade, and then, every patient, I know every one of my patients who's a fireman had that who had, that had that kind of experience.
They had a fireman come in to the school and they were changed forever. So that's the way we envision exposure to goodness. And. Is that it can change us at any age it's transformational. I'm sure that's what you find on your podcast all the time.
Adam: [00:09:28] Yeah. And it's exactly why I started my podcast because I felt disconnected from that. And I wanted to, tap into that and I didn't know how.
Lynda: [00:09:38] Yes. Okay. So Cameron writes me this email, I say. Somebody's got to do something about this, I guess is going to be me. And I went on a search of a local, I found a local kid who was quite tech savvy. You could build me up a passion project website. And on March 15th, 2014, I began writing one article every day on anything under the sun that could prove it was still an amazing world
Adam: [00:10:07] Wow.
Lynda: [00:10:08] with three promises, no ads, no politics.
And no outward bound links that would take you to somewhere crazy that had either of those two things as a priority, 92% of our links on ever-widening circles are internal. And if we do send you outside the website, it's going to be to like the Smithsonian website or NASA website, which are crazy good places to learn about beautiful world et cetera.
So that's however widening circles started. I, I. Segue in here that the reason, the why. So here's the why. So my husband and I grew up on a, in a farming town in Illinois. We did not know about the wider world, the most I knew, and I knew a lot about it from national geographic. My parents were great national geographic, every single surface in our house horizontal was covered with yellow, national geo. Yeah, they taught us that my parents were very big about that. The world is a beautiful place and human beings are basically kind and all that stuff. Smart, brilliant ingenious. So when my husband became one of the top basketball players in the world, he was one of the top 20 basketball players in the world.
He was became captain at Kentucky and was drafted by the bulls that launched us out into the wider world. We went. Farming kids who didn't know about the world at all to we have Irish passports. We've lived in Europe twice. My kids have slept on plywood, into vet and gotten lost in the Andes.
We almost slept under our car one night. And that part of the journey, the story combines with the dentist story in. In my dental life, I was with people at one of the hardest moments of our lives. Everybody hits.
Adam: [00:11:53] Okay.
Lynda: [00:11:53] Everybody comes to me in a state of fear, every single one. So 30 times a day, I had to meet people where they were at and find a place where we could trust each other and do work together in a very interesting, fearful, and.
Significant moment. And I got good at that. I got good at connecting with people and understanding the humanity and what I was doing. And then when I went out in the wider world and drag my kids all over the place to crazy places, I said, whoa, we're all the same. What people in the Andes who were, we were.
Super happy to help. And they were poor and, they offered to do what they could for us. People are incredibly ingenious and generous in the world. And that's what I saw in my practice. And that's when I saw in my small town upbringing. And that's what I saw in the world.
Adam: [00:12:50] I'll come with. That's how, what we see when we open up the internet.
Lynda: [00:12:53] Exactly. This is at the heart of the problem. You've nailed it. Or I went on this journey with ever-widening circles. You don't have to say it was probably a pretty narcissistic journey. I was half comforting myself, Right.
Will I have enough to write about every day? I remember asking you that myself.
Boy, if when I commit to this, will I be able to pull it? So not much good happening in the world. And guess what? Within about a year we had a backed up library of articles we could be writing of more than 600
Adam: [00:13:28] Wow.
Lynda: [00:13:29] and we had 170,000 Facebook fans. I, at that, at one point I had 11,000 Facebook fans in Afghanistan. Yeah. 42,000 in. 8,000 in Mongolia, 18,000 in Pakistan. It turns out yes, what, we're all the same. We want to hear that our kids are going to have a right or future. We'd want to know that we can go to bed at night and sleep safely. We want to know where our next meal is coming from. That's not unique.
That's The same across all humanity. And what we hear on the news and the internet. Now this is the big takeaway. They're the outliers, but they are not the norm. They are the craziest person on the day. Who do we hear about on the news all day long,
Adam: [00:14:23] The worst thing that happened.
Lynda: [00:14:26] very worst craziest person who did something incredibly mean terrifying, whatever. But and there's a reason for that. I'll talk about in a minute because I don't want to hate. But we got to go there so I can give people some tools about how I watched this. But anyway, this is the gist of what I'm doing.
And how I got here is that I just happened to have a particular set of life experiences that led me to this moment. It was my next climb. I thought I was meant to be a dentist all my life. And then I figured out I was built to do this. And that's something I'm really run a share with your listeners is that there is something that you are uniquely built to do, and it might be something that changes just one person's life, or it may be something that changes millions and it's worth doing it's, you're built to do it.
And everything that came before is not a waste of time. It's everything you needed for the next climb.
Adam: [00:15:30] I love that. It's like acknowledging that the work that you did as a dentist was really profound in terms of teaching you how to connect with people and the biggest moment of fear. And that experience led into what came next.
Lynda: [00:15:47] And who would know that we were all going to live in such fear for the last year, and then it's ongoing everywhere in the world. We Americans. I just interviewed a woman from Toronto. Who's a thought leader in the world of organizational development and it was for my podcast. Cause I I record the video too.
It was the first time she'd had a haircut since November
Adam: [00:16:15] Wow.
Lynda: [00:16:17] dressers lawn, because they're still in lockdown, total lockdown in Toronto.
Adam: [00:16:22] Wow.
Lynda: [00:16:22] She had to get her haircut for the podcast on her hair hairdressers.
Adam: [00:16:28] Crazy.
Lynda: [00:16:28] This is fear, but this is what fear looks like, what we've all been through together. And yet I, think that there are lots and lots of people don't use see Adam, that there are so many people who are seeing an opportunity in this disease.
Adam: [00:16:43] I think that's one thing that's blown me away of how, even when. Faced with what's portrayed as a global pandemic that there's so much good of people coming together and realizing, Hey, we can come together and make a difference here or here,
Lynda: [00:16:59] W.
Adam: [00:16:59] even when the situation is so different from what we're used to.
Lynda: [00:17:03] Yeah. And maybe it's because the situation is so different than what we're used to, that we were able to. To find these new places to connect and having patterns. I'll share with you a funny little analogy that I've come to think about the pandemic in these terms. I don't know how your garage is. But my garage, the garage I grew up with, it seems to be something that we all were do. It's just a catch all for everything. And there's no organization. My brother has his automotive section has gardening section separate, but not mine. My garage. And everything gets just shoved on top of everything else.
So here's what I think the pandemic, I think the pandemic was like some big, giant that came and let's say our lives are like our garage full of stuff. We use a little stuff to use 50 years ago that we couldn't quite throw away full of stuff that we need every single day. And we can't find it.
I literally have probably 11 snacks. I live in Vermont. And what happens is you go out and you shovel and the shovel gets left, and then you get another foot of snow and you can't see the shovel your head. So you have to, and by the spring, the LUN is littered with chef got married. So anyway, imagine the pandemic did this.
Our lives were like a garage and the pandemic called uprooted the garage and shook it. Everything in our lives and our history, everything that we cared about and we bought that, we thought we absolutely needed, and we didn't, and it wound up on a shelf. Everything is spread all over our driveway and we can see it in the light of day for what it is. Half broken, how many things are half broken in most people's garage. And so you didn't quite want to throw it away. So you put it with. We've got stuff in our lives like that. We've got mental baggage, we've got notions about others. We've got so many things in our garage that we now had the opportunity during the pause.
Cause that's what the pendant has been for. Lots of us to really look at these things in the light of day that our life was filled up with and that we were prioritizing and hanging out. And now I think as it loses its grip at different paces all over the world, we've got that side. What goes on the curb? Let go of it, just let it go. And what we put back in the garage,
If we're going to put it on that very top shelf, do we even need to keep it? I don't know. I think our notions about each other and what's possible. And old things that used to trigger us, trigger our ire or trigger our sadness. Do we need to put those back in the garage? Can we let a few of those things go?
If they're really important, maybe we ought to tap into doing something about it.
If it's So important to put back in the garage and drag along with us, keep track of, and I think we ought to find some way.
Adam: [00:20:19] So being able to acknowledge that all this stuff takes energy to maintain it. And we have a choice now of where we put that energy.
Lynda: [00:20:28] Absolutely.
Adam: [00:20:29] I love this analogy of the pandemic being a kind of a global pause. Cause one of the things that you talk about a lot is the power of a pause and how that can create change with what you're facing and all this kind of badness, that's always going on, where we're hopping from one thing to the next.
Lynda: [00:20:48] Yeah, I have a Ted talk. I was asked to do a Ted talk about the power of the pause. That's actually what it's called. For a Ted ex producer in India. And it came out just about week before the pandemic really hit India bat. So it hasn't been promoted at all. And but they challenged me to really think about the power of the pause because that's a culture that has a history of whiz.
That goes back thousands and thousands of years. Yeah. I don't take that lightly if you're going to add something to the public dialogue in a country like that, or it is always in culture, you got to be thoughtful. And I found that that when I really paused to think about the power of the pause for that podcast I really had to think about the way we're wired. And can we go in that direction for just a second? I don't talk a little bit about
Adam: [00:21:46] let's dive into that.
Lynda: [00:21:47] Okay. So one of the questions I just got on a podcast, I was being interviewed was like, how do you deal with the volume of the negativity on the news? So this is a good place to talk about how we have a choice to pause because what's happening is the news.
Is being created because we will give it our attention. So it's a chicken and egg thing. We shouldn't roast the the creators of the news. Unless we're able to resist that impulse to dive into things that.
are pointing to danger and disorder, because that's the way our brains work content creators, whether it's the news or what have you, they are, they're using neuroscience very deliberately these days to create content that captures and holds our attention.
All that matters. Now on the internet is an attention economy. The only thing that rises to the top is what will capture and hold our attention. And there's this part of our brain. That's on autopilot all the time called the amygdala and how bad news works. How the craziness of social media works is if we are our brains.
Is constantly scanning the world for signs of dangerous disorder. It's been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years. That's what kept us safe during the sun age. If we heard it tweaks.
Adam: [00:23:25] No.
Lynda: [00:23:26] Knew there might be a saber tooth tiger in the witches. And we paid attention to it's snap, but what we are living in now is a world that doesn't have saber tooth tigers, and we have the exact same impulses carrying us along through our day, unless we come out of autopilot.
So the way I explain the brain science of negativity and the negative news is this. Even when you sleep, there's this part of your brain called the mind that is constantly scanning for danger and disorder, and it will wake you up. Have you ever, Adam smelled just a whiff of smoke while you were sleeping and you sit right up.
That's your amygdala. The width of smoke is always a sign of danger and disorder and it makes you sit right up, out of sleep. We created the internet come with any owner's manual, no rules. And what content creators found very quickly was that since there were no rules and and there was No.
order something had to arise to be the order to bring order to the internet.
And it became what we would give our teams.
Originally, it was even thought of as, Hey, someone gets a lot of people's attention. It must be important. It must have merit, but of course content creators figured out that if they can use dangerous disorder or outrage or scarcity to get our attention,
Adam: [00:24:54] Okay.
Lynda: [00:24:56] now we have an internet where goodness does not matter.
Know Aaron's hard work, nothing like that matters. And in fact, I would argue that we are losing a lot of human potential by the fact that I know and and the guys I just finished a podcast interview with, we all know about thousands of people with incredible attention, incredible intention, good intention, but they're struggling because they can't rise to the top.
They can't, people don't know they exist.
Adam: [00:25:29] And I love how you framed this, that, this is our natural impulse to be, to put our attention on things which might be a risk or a danger. And the internet has just naturally evolved to, to rise this to the top because that's what we are choosing to, to react to,
Lynda: [00:25:49] Okay.
Adam: [00:25:51] or not choosing if subconscious.
Lynda: [00:25:54] Yes. Yes. it's the autopilot thing, but that sword cuts both ways. And this is a turning point. And even this interview is that once we realize that's the game being played with our emotions, then we realize we've got all the power. We actually are not victims of the internet we have. Now. We are the creators of it.
Content creators are not creating any content that we want. Here's the big news. Someone is counting. Every click we make, either an algorithm or an actual entity is counting every click we make and we get more of what we click on. So if we're going like this.
at our lunch hour, bite of sandwich grills froze real quick.
We are literally. We giving a yes, vote, a thumbs up, vote to all those things we stopped at for just a millisecond. And if we're on autopilot, they're going to be signs of danger and disorder. Okay. So we can flip that. We can flip that if people remember nothing I said today, remember these five words, your click is a vote. Oh, someone is counting every click you make and what you click on, you will get more of, even if it's left, you horrified sad or, or whatever, and you will get more what you click on. So that's the way the algorithms work
Adam: [00:27:35] Yes.
Lynda: [00:27:36] and that sort of cuts both ways. So if we go to the internet with intention, not on autopilot, we can still scroll at our lunch over lunch.
But before we go to click on that thing, say, wait, do we need more of that? Because if it's someone just traveling on, on social media about some angry thing or purposely being mean, or some product that, That is not real. Or if it's the, how about the snake with the human form in it? The Anaconda that looks like it's followed.
Nope. Don't click on that. Not the blog pitch, not the headline that says death, ships chips in Miami. We don't need any of that. That's the question I asked when I first started really noticing that I had the power to control what I see in my online life. I would ask myself one question. Do we need more of this?
Adam: [00:28:35] Okay. So you're pausing before you click on something and just asking yourself, do we need more of that?
Lynda: [00:28:41] Yes. Okay. That's the most important word in there is we add them because especially in the turmoil that?
we've gone through politically, and I usually don't even mention anything about politics, but I will go there just far enough to demonstrate it. It was a lot of triggering going on, purposeful triggering, and that's not helpful.
It's not thoughtful and it's not helpful. And no matter which side you're on, it's not getting us to a better future together. So
Adam: [00:29:16] And it, it ties exactly back to what you said before of if that's triggering us and we're paying attention to it, then we're getting more of that. People are saying, yes, people want more of this and they're giving it to us.
Lynda: [00:29:29] That no content creators, not one is creating content that people won't click on, but if they see, they can say something outrageous and we'll click on it because we're angry or maybe it's our team. Maybe it's the people that we think have it. And we're clicking on it to go. Yeah, you're right. We can't do that.
If you want a better world, you have to recognize the people who are building the case. And what I think is that we're at a tipping point. Most of us, no matter which side of the politics you're on, I don't hear too many people saying, oh, this is a great time to be alive. I love all this acrimony and chatting and division.
No, not very many people are saying that. And so if you don't want any part of. If you don't want to see it, if you don't want to add to it, if you don't want to keep building that way or be any part of it, the best thing to do this is just remember that your clinic is a vote. Every single thing you click on is giving what I call linked juice to whatever that thing is.
And we can look at even comments from our team and say, do we need more of this? We might think they're right, but if they're hateful they're mean. If they're just creating more chaos, we can say, do we need more of this? And you can just opt out, just don't click on it. And by click, I just want to be clear that's any kind of engagement at all.
The internet is built. So crazily to track our, even our eyeballs really, they can tell if our eyes have sat somewhere for less than a second.
Adam: [00:31:14] Wow.
Lynda: [00:31:15] No. When I say your click as a vote it's a click that swipe a Leica share even as pause on something, demonstrates that they've got your attention.
And just so people know that's what gets rewarded on the internet. Nothing else matters but I'm constantly asked constantly constant, constantly. What are your page views? Page views are what count for everything on the internet now. Your page is I can get a hundred thousand page views on an article, but ever-widening circles.
We, we count how long people stay.
We know exactly how long it takes to see it, to read and finish a never winding circles articles. So we have our Monday morning meetings. We talk about that. We say this article did really well. It was nine minutes and people stayed in average of 11. Or seven minutes or something like that.
So we don't celebrate how many page views we got. You can do that with clickbait or a great photo or whatever, but if people are absorbing your content and our content will leave people transformed. That's what we want to celebrate is how long they stayed, because that means they, they got the full benefit of the piece.
Adam: [00:32:27] So after you've ignored all the bad stuff that you don't want to see more of, it sounds like pay more attention to the things that you want to see more of and be there more deliberately and more intentionally.
Lynda: [00:32:40] So I'm very well known for talking about these four simple shifts that people can make to see an entirely different world in their lives.
Like I literally don't see the craziness that people tells me is happening because I never ever click on anything that isn't making the world a better place. Never. I'm just as curious about that, Anaconda with the snake, with a human for a minute, but I will not. So my algorithm thinks and serves me only good stuff.
Cause that's the only thing I give my attention to. So there are four shifts you can make to make that same transition in your online life. It'll take some time because your algorithm, your algorithms are set. If you've been just randomly scrolling and clicking on stuff that is just getting your attention.
Your algorithm's going to think for a while, but that's still what you want to see, but after you get deliberate about it, here are the four shifts you could make to see an entirely different world in your life. And by the way, there's a We want these to get out into the world so badly. We created a whole website just for the four shifts.
If Yeah.
if it's a 10 minute read, that's it. You can share it with whoever you want. It takes exactly 10 minutes and 10 seconds to just read it and you'll get the four shifts. So you don't have to scramble for a pen right now. The first one is pause. Pause before you click on anything, because someone is counting.
Every click you make and your click is a vote. The second one is. Ignore more. Okay.
Here's the practical tip in that one?
Adam: [00:34:13] Okay.
Lynda: [00:34:14] Never ever click out of anger, boredom or curiosity like that kind of morbid curiosity. So I tell people, never click in a, B, C mode, anger, boredom, or morbid curiosity. So if you're scrolling like this at the lunch hour. Okay. Hang on don't click out of anger, boredom, or cure morbid curiosity. I'm as curious as anyone and give me the NASA channel and I can find the damn this stuff there,
Adam: [00:34:44] Marker.
Lynda: [00:34:45] but it's the morbid curiosity that is plain old.
If we all use that little rule, never click out of anger, boredom, or curiosity, rent, morbid curiosity, we would reduce about 80% of what we used to do.
Adam: [00:35:01] Wow.
Lynda: [00:35:02] Okay. So what that does is it fundamentally changes your algorithms and you are, if you're consistent about that I can't even tell you the times where I maybe the other day, my team was wanting me to check out something on the internet that was horrifying. And then they said, no, Dr. Lyndon don't do it because they knew I would screw up my algorithm. So they screen shared with me instead. That's how precious. And they. They need me to be able to see all this progress in the world. So ignore. Okay. Pause, ignore more. The third one is just what you said a few minutes ago. Seek signs of goodness and progress. It's not going to come to you.
Adam: [00:35:45] so be deliberate about it.
Lynda: [00:35:47] Yes.
The internet is not built to bring us there.
I want to just do a little TV history on the internet for you so people can understand how we got here. And this is super 10,000 foot look so excuse that, but just to do it in one minute in 1993, there were 300 websites, all totals. And in 2003, there were 40 million.
So in 10 years we went for 300 to 40 million. And we have to remember that in that those 300 days those engineers were running into work every day and they were so excited about what they were discovering and the goal of the internet was originally. I've talked to two of the people who would be considered their founders of the internet.
The goal of the internet was to connect people to each other and information. That was the goal in one sense already in the beginning, that was the gist. And so then we went from a 300 websites to the 40 million and an organizing principle. Had to bubble up and it became this, what we give our attention to must be important.
So the way it organized itself was that's the only thing we see is what we give our attention to. And because of the neuroscience, I've explained, what we give our attention to is usually pretty frightening. So that's how we usually see what we see in the screens, in our lives, unless we go to the internet with purpose.
So on autopilot, you're there, you're going to get the dangerous disorder. But if you go with purpose and you seek signs of goodness and progress, you're going to start seeing the world that I see in the Adam privacy's. Cause I'm pretty sure you're seeking signs of goodness every day, too.
Adam: [00:37:37] Yeah,
I still click on the fear. Laden links. Take me down the wrong hole.
Lynda: [00:37:45] You can stop. Now that the game being played with your emotions, you'll go. I was curious about some childhood star now. Here's what she looks like, all see this crap, but. You don't have to play the game. So if we seek signs of goodness and progress, we'll start to see it more. And then you get to the fourth shift.
And this is the most important when you find signs of wonder order and progress and goodness share it
Because content creators watching very carefully.
Doesn't mean anything anymore. I've learned that over the course of my journey, all these secrets to the internet. But they are paying attention to what we will share and they and so if we started sharing podcast episodes, like the one I just listened to like your last podcast. Oh, I listened to that in the car today.
And I got to talk to this guy tomorrow, but everyone should listen to that podcast. It'll break every notion that people have about China and what's possible, and who's on the case and the progress they're making and what corporations are doing. It's breaks so many molds. So you
Adam: [00:39:03] I was blown away by rich Brewbaker he's phenomenal at just describing it what was going on and
Lynda: [00:39:10] yeah, Yeah.
Adam: [00:39:11] but that's a great example of
Lynda: [00:39:13] It's a great example. So when somebody hears your podcasts, like,
I'm going to share it all over the place everywhere I can. I'm going to share we can't just be passive about
Adam: [00:39:22] Hmm.
Lynda: [00:39:22] when we, I always use the example, one day on Facebook this is a perfect example. I remember it was one time.
I was scrolling through Facebook. And before I knew about this girl and I saw this great little posted Y neighbor kid, two doors down from the office. He was 10 and he raised $470 for the local humane society. All on his own. Just some sad story about some sad dog. And it just inspired me to get out there and do something about it.
Now on Facebook, you have this choice. If you can press or you can move your finger over about an inch and a half,
and you start a wave of goodness and progress that will go out to thousands, tens of thousands sometimes. But the point is. We don't know, we don't know the secret of the internet that like just goes out to your best buds, 20, 30 people at most, but a share can start a wave of its own and sharing that a 10 year old had the where with all and interest to raise $470 for the humane society is such a beautiful multiplier for all the goodness. What other ten-year-olds will see it? How many moms will say, look, your classmates did this. What can you do? And then maybe I'll volunteer to be on a board member for the humane society, or maybe it'll inspire me to have a food drive at my dental practice.
It. Once we see that a ten-year-old has this much love for the world and this sense of possibility that he can matter. You need to share it
Adam: [00:41:02] And then that pulls the rest of us in and gives us more ideas of here's what we can do. And it's not that hard. And we don't need 10 years in a degree in, human sociology to make a difference with people.
Lynda: [00:41:15] Yeah. Yeah. So there's the four shifts, pause, ignore more seek signs of goodness from progress and share it. And if you do that consistency, I had a really neat thought leader, lay one on me the other day. That's pretty simple and I love it. This is it. Consistency is more important than excellence when you're trying to make change. So when you're trying to make change, many of us say I couldn't do it fully. It's not even worth my effort. I, I don't have enough money to start that thing. So it's not worth my effort and just, we can give ourselves all kinds of excuses about the limitations of why can't we can't do it a thousand percent.
But this guy said, no, I think it's better to just do what you can do.
Adam: [00:42:03] So keep that consistency, just even if it's a small little effort that you do, once on a repeatable basis.
Lynda: [00:42:12] Where change is involved, consistency is better than excellence.
Adam: [00:42:18] I love all these principles of, changing how you interact with the internet, so that you get a different response and that you can actually plug into this greater world that's going on. I would love to just touch on the conspiracy of goodness network a bit, because it seems like here's a platform for people to connect and even a more powerful way in a very intentional way.
If they're looking at Hey, where can I actually go to get some of this stuff?
Lynda: [00:42:44] So here's what happened to me was that I thought I was supposed to do this. And then that I realized I had another climb I started a second climb but there's people that are coming right out of college and they don't ever want to work for the man. They just want to make a difference right from day one. And then there's people.
..Who have worked for 10 years. And I'm just saying for the man, I don't know what that means, but. You probably remember, I don't want to be work for the men. It's just like work for some other person's dream or work for some place that doesn't share your values and all that stuff.
That's what I mean by that. But there are plenty of people that have done 10 years in that kind of life and they're going, oh, I have so much more to contribute. I'm going to try to call that the next. Whether you're coming right out of college and you're, and you're ready for your, the next climb, which is actually making a difference in the world, a college, or whether you've been in the working world for a while. And you just don't feel like you're able to contribute your best stuff to the universe, or whether you're like me, you thought you were contributing your best stuff to the universe. And then one day
Adam: [00:43:54] Okay.
Lynda: [00:43:55] something happens. I just takes you off your feet and you've got something more to do.
And then you really climbing. And no matter how that works, we need to find others who are on that same kind of path. It can be a lonely path. It can be a lonely path. Maybe maybe your family doesn't support this kind of decision. That happens a lot to young people. No, you've got to go out and get a job and you need to make six figures.
I didn't pay 200,000 for that education. Rita go.
Adam: [00:44:27] Yeah.
Lynda: [00:44:28] Okay. Or my family wasn't too delighted with all this. I had an eighth grader, a freshman in high school and a freshman in college. So the people around us really want the best for us and people that love us. And they want us to have security safety. That's the, that is the impulse for everyone giving us advice in our life that loves us and deciding to do something for the greater good to start. That next climb looks scary to others because they aren't committed to the same thing that we are.
They don't feel that calling the same calling that we do in their hearts. So it looks like a bad decision. So however it works out, you will need others.
Adam: [00:45:11] I just, I got to say, I love the parallel between how you approach the internet and for people who want to approach this part of their life going and working for the man. Is almost appealing to that instinctive fear of will I have enough, will I have that security? And it sounds like you can almost pause and share something different without having to go into.
Lynda: [00:45:34] And you can make a us, you can make the next time a at your side hustle. This is what a lot of the millennials are doing. They're still working in that job that they don't feel very connected to. But they're starting a side hustle to make the world a better place. So there's all kinds of permutations on this, but where are the conspiracy of goodness network comes in?
Is that what we realized? If you're writing thousands of articles and linking to thousands of people who are doing good in the world, is that Adam, we're all just. Points of light in this vast darkness. And there are some days, I'm sure you feel like this. I'm just shouting into this vast chasm and my voice sometimes feels like it doesn't matter or that I can't, I couldn't ever out shout the darkness. And then we started realizing everyone in circles that there was that we needed a place for people who want a better future, whether they're learning. Just want to learn about it or helpers, those people that just want to get in there and help me pitch or you or Damien Mander, who's figured out that single mothers are the best game wardens in Africa.
That's a crazy story, a wonderful story. Learners, helpers, or the doers, the people that just say that's it, I'm pulling up myself by my bootstraps and I'm gonna take care of homeless children in my little town, whatever. We need each other. Cause we gotta ideas. We gotta have somebody who knows how he gets, what gets us out of bed in the morning and we got to connect.
So we created the conspiracy of goodness network to be a, like a social media network different from the big four. No mean people there,
Adam: [00:47:11] Okay.
Lynda: [00:47:12] we create just enough of a threshold of her participation to join this network so that that people who just want to be chaos. They will, they won't all be there and we're providing all this professional growth and development because that's the other very cool thing is that a lot of the people who are doing good in the world want to just do good and teach us how do you get a trademark?
When should you worry about a trademark? Oh, you don't have a copier. Here's this whole group over here that is making sure old technologies are transformed and given to non-profits. Oh, my God, there's this world. I was on the social innovation summit last week. It was a three-day summit of people who are changing the world.
And then there were these hour long networking times when you could jump in with somebody for four minutes, a stranger, four minutes, four minutes, four minutes, and exchange ideas and connect over on LinkedIn and stuff. And I met so many people who are doing the most extraordinary things in the world, right now. Every school in America could apply to get this government grant to just completely redo their computer systems. It's incredible. And no one knows about it.
Adam: [00:48:22] Wow.
Lynda: [00:48:22] there's two different companies that are nonprofits, that refurbish technology for Microsoft and apple and other big corporations and give it to non-profits.
For free. this is just a world of people doing it out there. So the conspiracy of goodness network, this built to connect all those disparate points of light into one big point of light that can actually make a difference.
Adam: [00:48:46] Cool. And that's Conspiracy of Goodness Network.
Lynda: [00:48:49] Yeah, no, it's conspiracy of goodness network.com and there we have once a month, we have a speaker. We do what we call the happiness hour and the speakers. Oh, my gosh. So they get a little talk and then for 40 minutes. So just answer questions while people are having having a beverage.
And we're making workshops from people who need to teach startups, how to make a simple inexpensive website on let's say Squarespace or whatever. We're just bringing in all kinds of people who who can help us all combine our talents and our ideas into something that makes a difference in the world together.
Adam: [00:49:28] I feel like we've covered so much ground over the last hour. I could keep talking for five hours, six hours,
Lynda: [00:49:34] you know what? I come back at him sometime. If you'll have me, I want to talk about the gratitude economy, because you know how I've talked about the attempt, the attention economy a few times.
Adam: [00:49:46] Let's totally do a follow-up podcast on that.
Lynda: [00:49:48] That attention economy is in our rear view mirror and what we're moving to, I'm calling the gratitude economy and all of your guests, every one of them are in that economy. And they may not even know it, but but let's continue this journey.
Adam: [00:50:04] Be part two, the gratitude economy. How cool. I can't wait to record that. But thank you so much for jumping on today and going through everything. What's the website where people can find the four principles that you discussed.
Lynda: [00:50:19] You go to four shifts.com. You can use the number four, therefore, and there'll be this 10 minute read that you can get a real grasp of the four shifts and share it with others. Please share it with others. So we only need 25% of the people on the planet to understand the four shifts. And we would fundamentally. Change the internet almost overnight. And there was a reason for that 25%, which I'll talk to you about on the gratitude economy.
Adam: [00:50:46] I love it.
And for anyone who's listening, go to ever widening circles.com for, all this great news.
Lynda: [00:50:55] Yeah.
Adam: [00:50:56] you'll see the conspiracy of goodness podcast there.
Lynda: [00:50:58] Yeah, I do have to plug the app. The app is the only thing that's supporting us is that we don't have ads. That's that was a promise I made when I started this whole thing. And that's still a promise we keep and the way the Ever-widening Circles, if you want to support media that matters download the app, it's a dollar a month and it can make all the difference in the world and bringing this content to people here and then good people in Pakistan and all the people I've talked to.
Adam: [00:51:24] I love that. And what's the name of the app?
Lynda: [00:51:26] Ever widening circles. It's just the writing circles app?
People in Mongolia, Nepal, South Africa, everyone's celebrating the kinds of things that we're pointing to. There's no like gray area there. We're pointing to things that almost everyone would celebrate as goodness and progress. So we can do this together.
We can open a new.
Adam: [00:51:48] Thank you so much for joining me today and covering everything and I'm looking forward to two.
Lynda: [00:51:54] Okay.
Adam: [00:51:55] And if you're listening, thank you for tuning in and sticking with this great discussion. Go and visit everwideningcircles.com. And if you need more of the resources, you can find them on our show notes at people helping people in that world.
But Lynda, you so much.
Lynda: [00:52:10] All right. Have a great day, Adam.
Youngster.co’s Tony Rothacker Builds Bridges Between Generations
Jul 01, 2021
Tony Rothacker spoke about keeping open communication, and discussed building mutual benefit into a social enterprise. He is the co-founder at Youngster.co, which provides job opportunities to youth and empowers elders to use technology better. Youth assist elders with learning new technology they may need to interact with the world, or programs they may need help to use in daily life. Both sides of the connection, youth and elders, benefit from the intergenerational service as the initiative addresses common issues on the respective sides.
Opportunities arise from the youth and elders connecting, which is a bonus to the impact of the initiative itself. Young people get paid upfront to help seniors with technology. Tony shared that most youth don’t need any particular training, since the youth grew up with the technology. Elders, however, grew up in a different time. They may not be familiar with the latest technology, but they can teach youth what they learned about life. Tony observed that the initiative helps elders who typically deal with isolation have more personal interactions, and youth have a chance to practice patience when explaining technology.
In the beginning, Youngster.co faced a moment that depended on how they could respond to the situation. Tony shared that the initiative started right before the COVID-19. Like many other companies, Youngster.co transitioned online to keep their business alive. Tony expressed how they found success in the online model, and the angle the initiative discovered to boost their mission.
After finding a good flow, the initiative could depend on their reputation to serve more youth and elders. Tony explained that the power of word of mouth made connecting with a larger audience more easy for the team. At first, good service and a good experience kept people coming back. Tony emphasized that this dedication to good service and good experience led to getting referrals. For the youth, a bonus pay incentive encourages the youth to keep up good service and continue participating in the initiative.
Tony shared thoughts on calculating the before and after impacts created by the team’s efforts. Youngster.co is working with an impact tool that measures social value called Australia Social Value Bank. Tony expressed what he pays attention to when considering the impact that’s happening. Ultimately, he suggested that one way to find a perspective on social impact is to ask the question: “What is our social return on investment?”
Tony began sharing his story of being introduced to social enterprise and taking on that journey to merge social impact with business. His connection to social impact goes back in his own life, like when he experienced times of having a disproportionate need for resources. While discussing all this impact, Tony shifted the topic to the meaning of life. He expressed his feelings about powerful and meaningful connections. Through work with Youngster.co, Tony is able to contribute those connections to the world, and also bridge the gap between generations.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Today, we are sitting down with Tony Rothacker, co-founder at youngster.co, a platform, providing job opportunities to youth and empowering elders to use technology better, bridging the gap between generations. I'm excited to explore conversations around providing employment to youth and how we can leverage inherent talents from any age. So Tony, welcome on the podcast.
Tony: [00:00:29] I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me Adam.
Adam: [00:00:32] Yeah, I'm really excited. Can we start off, can you tell us a little bit about the journey that led to youngster.co ?
Tony: [00:00:38] Um, it started believe it or not with a innovation challenge, open innovation challenge, addressing youth suicide.
And it's hard to believe, but he in regional Australia where we are based, there's quite a high youth unemployment, and unfortunately also high youth suicide rate. And so running a innovation hub, we were asked to run a, something called an open innovation challenge where a local health district is welcoming ideas from the outside and looked at, what can we do as a community to address this big problem. And so there was some amazing entrepreneurs and creatives came forward and they pitched the ideas. They got a bit of seed funding and ultimately they got also contract to implement a solution for the next 12 months. But that resulted that I saw the data coming through and I couldn't believe that how big the problem is. And that made me determined that we should do something about it. And it was ultimately a people moment to set up youngster.co.
Adam: [00:01:43] Great. And now you have a background in building businesses and the entrepreneurial scene. Can you tell me a little bit about what you've been doing in that space?
Tony: [00:01:52] Yeah, look I'm a civil engineer from background. I'm always keen to solve problems And many people are asking me, oh, if I only had somebody who could help me with this and that. And I found it was just so easy sometimes, helping some people with internet issues. And 90% of the time is to turn off the bloody thing and turn it back on.
And some people don't know how to do it. And so we thought, we have this unutilized resource, our tech savvy youngsters. So why not get them busy and do something meaningful? And while they helping others, they actually helping themselves. And so it's a beautiful thing to see when the elders are so thankful and appreciative and they're happy to pay money as well to to get helped.
But likewise, many seniors are in isolation. They don't know how to use technology. And COVID-19 was very very prevalent and we saw how impactful it is to be disconnected from the daily life or communities. So this way, they actually become part of the community. They get out of isolation and they help us to teach the youngsters how to live meaningful life
Adam: [00:03:00] And so what does that actually look like when the youth get together with the elders?
Tony: [00:03:04] So there's quite a lot of risks involved. And for us, it's important to be the trusted guide in, in providing this type of intergenerational service. And we looked at what can we do to make it the safest possible, the best experience possible for both the young and the old. And we found trusted spaces like libraries and neighborhood centers are great melting point for the two generations.
So we work collaboratively with aged care facilities with libraries. Where we bring the generations together. And when they complete certain number of sessions and we see, they have the right ethics and we do all of the right checks, vetting and police checks on the youngsters. We allow them also to do home visits when the pairing is fine, but it's important that we address all the different risks.
They are there.
Adam: [00:03:55] And how long has it been up and running?
Tony: [00:03:58] so Now be going towards two years and we started just before COVID-19 hit and you can imagine there was quite a drastic change going. We took a whole bunch of youngsters to aged care facilities, and then suddenly we couldn't do that anymore. And so we transitioned everything online when COVID-19 lockdown started and it has proven actually quite a successful model.
We got quite a lot of media coverage. Simply because we ask youngsters, can you help us to reach out to seniors in isolation and teach them how to go on zoom, how to unmute and and many many seniors, they wanted to continue to converse with the outside world. They just didn't know how to. And so we use this disadvantage.
No, when life gives you lemon. Squeezed them. We did that and that has proven to be quite quite a great leverage for us to get more media coverage and ultimately requests.
Adam: [00:04:53] Now, how did you go about actually reaching a. Elderly. Cause quite often they're not on Instagram or Tik Tok .
Tony: [00:04:59] toddling. Yeah. Look, our best friend is word of mouth. So our key element is to delight the elders and we incentivize the youngsters to, they get the base wage. And when they delight the elder in a sense that we have certain set requirements, be kind, be polite, be on time, ask open questions.
And if they fulfill those, they get paid a bonus. And with this incentive, we we get quite a lot of referrals. So word of mouth is, that's why we are growing the most.
Adam: [00:05:28] Oh, very cool. And so you do it both in a group setting and then also one-on-one.
Tony: [00:05:35] That's right? Yep.
Adam: [00:05:37] And have you had any measures on the impact that you've been having so far?
Tony: [00:05:41] We do. So there's different type of measuring the success on the, we count connections. So when we create a connection between youngsters and Ellis, we. Need to onboard an elder. We need to onboard a youngster, basically all the things need to come together. And we also collect data. What is the current status of, the it literacy of the elder before and after, and also watch do the youngsters get out of it.
What is the status before and after? So we've measured the Delta with our surveys and we have partnered with an organization called Australia social value bank. To calculate through the theory of change. What is the social return on investment, very technical term, but ultimately many funding bodies they want to see what is my return if I give you some money and that's what we want to make it very plain and clear.
What is our social return on investment?
Adam: [00:06:34] That's interesting. I know a ton of social entrepreneurs who are trying to figure out how to measure their impact. Do you have any idea what goes into that calculation or how they figured that out?
Tony: [00:06:43] Yeah, so they are different models and it needs to, this data needs to be based on, scientifically based data peer reviews and we collect our own data, but we also relied at the beginning on some existing data collections. For example, if you improve. It literacy of elders. This is the social return on investment.
This figure can be applied to, or if you employ, if you improve the employability skills of youngsters, this is the fact that you can apply to and so on. And we utilize that and to make it a little bit more precise, we collect our own data and, there are some social researchers on . A whole academic a scene where they actually can calculate and ride papers about what is the social return.
So for example, there was recent study in Australia through a federal gap, federal government program called be connected and they, social return was around the $4 for every dollar spent on that program. And our program we calculated is roughly around the $35 for every dollar spend. It's just simply this intergenerational approach and the major benefit we found.
It's not only the elders learning how to use tech, but more about the youngsters and equip them with life skills, empathy, employability skills kindness. And it's basically a simple skills like listening skills, it's it seems to be trivial to us, but many youngsters spent far too much time on socials and, devices. And so it's so important for them to spend face to face and be patient. Sometimes they are really impatient and want to get things done very quickly, take the device from the elders and I show you how to do it, but that's not the way to do it. In our case, we really hone down that they need to let the seniors do the work and they only show them how to do it in a polite and and empathic way.
They need to understand the challenges that seniors have. And even with seniors with dementia and, quite late stage we found to transformation and the interaction is incredible. The youngsters understand what it means to have dementia. There's more and more of that coming forward. And, to have the future workforce prepared. I think we're doing the right thing to make sure that everybody understands what it means to have dementia.
Adam: [00:08:53] So it sounds like in addition to the direct benefit of what you're doing, that's also raising awareness and the community of some of these issues that people are facing.
Tony: [00:09:03] Totally. Yeah. And one of our best ways to recruit youngsters is through their parents. So many parents are really frustrated that, my son, he just spent so much time on Instagram or Snapchat or Tik Tok or, and when we asked them ah, look, would your teenager be interested in some money?
I said, yeah, I think there would. And it's a really good alternative to let's say KFC or McDonald's nothing against them. I think they have great programs too. But it's slightly different and we find quite meaningful and the youngsters get maybe a little bit more out of it.
Adam: [00:09:38] And it sounds like that also gives them technology backgrounds for other job opportunities as well.
Tony: [00:09:43] They are so technologically savvy. We don't actually have trained them how to use iPhone or tablets, or even if they don't have an phone, they actually know how to use it. It's incredible. And they pick it up from their friends and they are envious because they can't afford a phone. So we right now trying to get other companies to maybe provide us with some phones so we can give it to the youngsters who can't afford to have a phone and be great to have Google on board.
So I've tried really hard, but it's still not coming to the game or even apple. So if you're not anyone, maybe some of those yeah, apple podcasts as who are out there, reach out to us.
Adam: [00:10:20] Very cool. Now I'm always very curious. In addition to this podcast, I run a small work program for youth who are experiencing homelessness. So these are our youth, typically 18 to 24. And it's a small work program where the focus is largely on having conversations around jobs. So we teach them how to screen print t-shirts and then we're creating an atmosphere where we can talk to them.
So I'm curious if you've learned anything from working with youth of how to work with them effectively.
Tony: [00:10:45] Look, we have many youngsters coming towards because they they are challenged by the school system. They disconnected from even the homes and they live quite often with their friends and they finding very rewarding and meaningful work where they can actually do something while they're earning a bit of money.
It is quite challenging because sometimes they just, they don't turn up because they don't have a way to get there. And you standing there with many seniors and okay, where are the youngsters, but it's part of the deal. I think we may trying to make a difference. And often we ask the seniors look this is also about youngsters, not necessarily about the elders and when we, convey the message. Sometimes the many seniors get frustrated because they didn't get their session. But look, I hope you can come back next week because our youngsters couldn't come here. They'd car broke down and blah, blah. So it's all about how we communicate it. And we found many librarians that are really they know how to deal with these situations.
They are really aware because they helping also seniors coming to the library who don't have an email who don't understand technology. And quite often they don't really want to. But they do want to make a difference to the youngsters. So it's like the two groups and, the vulnerable youngsters and the vulnerable elders can help each other, but it needs to be really carefully managed.
I think that's one of our biggest risks that, we facilitate something that we don't, we might regret later on. So we put really big emphasis on the safety and security for both.
Adam: [00:12:18] Cool. Now you mentioned a little bit earlier that you're new to this social impact space. This is the first social enterprise that you've been involved in?
Tony: [00:12:26] Social. Yeah, but not from a startup point of view. So I had several companies and some more successful than others, but to have a higher purpose or a Simon Sinek calls, it just cause everything else lines up. The funding will come towards you, then the customers will seek you.
They volunteer. You have schools, they want to work with you, you have governments want to work with you. It's just simply providing a service that is needed in the community and the community's asking for it. And it's a beautiful thing to do. Cause I was in sales before, and I know how it is how hard it is to actually sell something that not everybody really needs, it's nice to have, but if there is something with social purpose, that everybody's really looking forward to to be part of it's a beautiful feeling and you don't feel like you working.
Adam: [00:13:19] In addition to starting some businesses in the past, you're also involved in the local Startup Grind.
Tony: [00:13:25] Yeah. So Startup Grind has been pivotal for us and, the values from Startup Grind, really resonated with me as well. That's why I started as a chapter director. Two has gone and Derek, the CEO of Startup Grind he is incredible from defining those values so help others before you help yourself, make friends not contacts.
And I forgot the third one. However, there are core values that really very much aligned what I believe in. And I think that aligns also other people to come along. And it's not about making money, but surround yourself with like-minded people. And it's very hard to, do it day in, day out by yourself.
But if you surround yourself with like-minded people who have also social purpose in mind, but also they don't want to make it sustainable from a business perspective. So it's not a kumbaya. We want to make a world a better place. It's also about financial viability. We want to make sure that the business survives financially.
So you need to be financially and business savvy to understand what what is possible.
Adam: [00:14:29] Now, startup grind is a global organization with local chapters. Can you just explain a little bit about what people experience at startup grind in case any of the listeners haven't heard of it before?
Tony: [00:14:40] yeah, startup grind is a incredible organization and they it's basically a network of entrepreneurs. I think they had around 600 chapters before COVID-19 they might have slightly less now, but still I think they are all not. On the groin trajectory they basically invite speakers to speak at events.
It was face to face mostly. And now it's more online during COVID-19 or hybrid events where you can have listened as online while you have also face to face session and speak as like guy Kawasaki on army Simpson from Shark Tank Australia. They are really high caliber speakers, to provide this inspiration and the insights, what really helped them in their career to become what they are.
One really shining example is Justin Dry from Vinomofo. He's in Australia very well known around the wine online retail space, but he's also friends with Gary V you've probably heard of Gary V. Gary Vaynerchuk. He's really out there and that's because for every different type of category, and if you go on Startup Grind, you can look up what type of speakers of interest. And you can look up the previous speakers on the YouTube and they have quite a large following.
Adam: [00:15:53] That's a great place for entrepreneurs or people in, even in the freelancing community to come together and meet and network as well.
Tony: [00:16:01] Absolutely and there's no, you don't have to pay any fees. Some events, they charge you a fee to cover the drinks and things like that, but you can just join the community and they have now some programs when you want to get more mentoring there's like a membership type of base approach, but there's different ways to engage startup grind community. And every chapter director is just super keen to help other entrepreneurs. And that's, that goes without saying, so you need to be the startup mayor of your region to pull up the chapter because you do want to be the magnet to bring those different speakers and the audience together.
Adam: [00:16:38] Back to youngster.co of what's your vision for this and where it's going.
Tony: [00:16:43] yeah, look we have set goals. So by 2025, we want to create 1 million connections. Connections made between connection between youngster and elder.. So it's a clear set goal and we working towards it. Ultimately, we would love to offer the service worldwide. And we have currently a simple MVP platform where we can connect the youngsters it's like marketplace.
And we would like to go global at some stage, but I'm conscious of, we really want to nail down how we do it and what the program does. And how we manage it. And before we really scale broadly, we want to make sure that we can do it in a smaller area like Australia. And we want to make sure that we have the right partners on board who have the same values as we are, helping the seniors and helping the youngsters to have meaningful jobs, and no one is left behind. And and if there's. Organization's willing to be part of it, please reach out.
Adam: [00:17:41] That's fantastic. Now. Can you describe just a little bit about what it's like, where you are in Australia? Cause you're up near Brisbane.
Tony: [00:17:48] No, I'm halfway between Brisbane, and Sydney. So this is my backyard, as you can see for the listeners it's there's Koala habited. So we have actually live Koala in the back here. Which made very funny grunting noise in the evening, and you can look up Drop Bear from Australia, if you want to understand the dangers of koalas. And there was just some really funny anecdotes in the past way. People thought that like a meat eating Koala us up in the trees, but not that all plant eating animals and how I bought the other huge little bear looking top of things. And So Australia
Adam: [00:18:24] And they sleep a little bit don't they.
Tony: [00:18:28] but Australia is one of, I think that's why I moved here.
As you can hear. I grew up in Germany, but I was born in . So I grew up in the Northern hemisphere and I just loved the ocean. I love the water and I love kayaking and, but also fell in love with my wife when I was studying in Sydney. And long story short, we have now four kids, and I just love being here in Australia and swim in the ocean every morning and across, old 12 months.
Now it's currently winter. So we have tonight, it was the first time we hit about six degrees Celsius at night, but throughout the day we still have 20 degrees in winter as well. So it's very beautiful, very great climate to live in. However, we do have our challenges and, as I mentioned, I be trying to make difference and address those problems.
And any entrepreneur who is willing to come and visit us is very welcome. There is some incentives by the Australian government to actually move to Australia and, remote work, you can work, anywhere I think New Zealand and Australia are one of those. COVID-19 heavens and I think we have maybe five cases across Australia now.
And and if there's one or two cases, the whole town goes in lockdown. It's crazy. There's no masks or anything like that. We still have, especially in regional Australia, people just go into cafes without any masks. It's incredibly attractive. I would say for any entrepreneurs who can work remotely to come and live here. Yeah, and look, podcasting is really taking off. There's just so much podcasts. I was just recently interviewed by by another friend and Army Simspon she's the shark on shark tank in Australia. She just launched a podcast as well called Handpicked. And she does provide advice around entrepreneurship and quite often is also about what is your higher purpose.
So it's worthwhile checking it out and but there's just so much happening in Guy Kawasaki. Also, he launched a podcast last year, Remarkable People worthwhile checking out as well. And so a great ways to actually consume some really meaningful conversations rather than, consume the TV that is bombarded with advertising.
Adam: [00:20:41] I think What you mentioned about the podcast is super important that, it's such a great way for people to connect. And especially when people aren't traveling outside the country, just to understand how much great stuff is happening in places around the world. I think quite often people don't understand what it means to live in Australia or China or Europe. And because they haven't seen it, they haven't experienced it. So you just have a notion in your head.
Tony: [00:21:05] Totally.
Adam: [00:21:06] We're all so much more similar, I think, than we are different. But people are figuring out these cool new solutions in their local communities.
And when we can share those ideas it's really powerful.
Tony: [00:21:16] I'm interested. What is the most interesting interviewee you meant before me? And what was the biggest takeaway?
Adam: [00:21:23] I had a podcast with Rich Harwood who runs the Harwood Institute here in the U S and he's been running it for 30 years. But he has a, an approach for creating conversations in communities. So getting together different community leaders. And being able to empower them to have conversations where they're learning from the community and developing solutions in that community to overcome issues.
So for me, that was just an eye-opening way of bringing people together to solve problems.
Tony: [00:21:51] Yeah.
Adam: [00:21:52] Is like what you're doing with, youngster it's like you went out and you realized, Hey, we're having a problem with youth suicide aside and speaking to people in the community and about how you can connect people.
And that's just where magic happens.
Tony: [00:22:03] I had also a different conversation around aging and our guests at Startup Grind not tell a young Chansky she also researched different areas in the world and looked at why there, why people live long, long lives and long meaningful lives. And that led her to explore the blue zones.
I'm not sure if you're head off the blue zones. I forgot the gentleman's name, who was running the research, but I think national geographic still also mapped those five areas in the world with blue markers. That's why they call them blue zones. And long story short, there are some areas like Okinawa in in Japan where people live a hundred years and longer, and the higher proportion compared to other areas.
So they looked at why it is and they defined some core elements. Why are people doing that? So one of them is regular exercise or certain types of foods, or have connection to the community and had some kind of purpose as well. And so she broke down those different areas in our conversation.
And we're looking at now the coast where I live, how we can make this region, theblue zone 2.0, so how can we improve it? If we can improve the life expectancy to let's say 120. And look what we need to do as a community to make it happen. I think it's really interesting conversation.
Adam: [00:23:22] That's great. And especially if you're in such a vibrant place that is so full of life.
Tony: [00:23:25] Yeah, the youth suicidee is bringing it down, so we need to address that.
Adam: [00:23:30] And that's what brought about youngster.co? How do people find out about what you're doing? Where do they
Tony: [00:23:36] So, of course we are on socials, eh, even though we sometimes it's good to help people to go onto social platform, but it's good to actually be not on social as well. And it's a fine line. So under youngster.co our website is the easiest way to find us and Yeah, I would love to anyone from around the world can register actually already on our side to be a youngster.
And we are exploring a virtual type of connection where we can connect seniors from anywhere in the world. And we find that youngsters who speak different languages, they are actually really valuable because they could help also other people who speak different language, or even if they are refugees.
And they need to converse in a different language. And as you can hear, I speak different languages as well. So I feel very at home. And my father was one of the refugees. So that's why I feel committed to help those people as well.
Adam: [00:24:29] All right. Cool. Now, did you have a refugee experience of your own when you were growing up?
Tony: [00:24:34] I did. So my father , he left just Czechoslovakia illegally. I think in the 83 and he immigrated to Germany and he couldn't go back to Czechoslovakia to know my mom, she got cancer, she got breast cancer. We were quite young. I was nine. My brother was 10. And then one year later she died, my father couldn't come back to, look after us.
He would be arrested basically. And it took us about one year until our paperwork was ready to go to Germany. And we lived in Germany. So I had to learn German. When I arrived, I was 11 years old and it was a different world. And, to learn different language, to go into different school system, to live in a one bedroom unit with my dad, my brother was quite an experience.
And I can totally feel it's not the same as if you are in refugee camp and things like that, but I can understand how people feel if they're in a different country and they don't speak the language. So I think that has caused quite a lot of thoughts in me, how we can make things different and how it can help other people as well.
And by helping us, we help ourselves. And it's why I feel when the youngsters learn, how they, how meaningful or helpful they can be to seniors and the seniors, how impactful that can be on youngsters and teaching them, how to ask questions and be patient. It's just so beautiful to see.
We had parents crying at library, seeing their kids. And it's just so nice to see. And just to see them doing something that is helping us, it's just beautiful. And that is just, when I'm busy or frustrated with things, I just do one of those sessions help being a kind of semi youngster and my day is beautiful.
It's just so nice.
Adam: [00:26:19] I love that well, and being able to facilitate those connections where those connections are so powerful and meaningful, right? That gives us, I think, a, just a greater satisfaction when we can connect with another individual and
Tony: [00:26:32] Yeah, my mentor recently passed away and I always reflect, what is the meaning of life? And you always thinking of what is this all about, but when I was I attended one of those speaking session And Philip Hesketh and he really shared the essence of meaning of life. And that really resonated with me.
I'll share that here. And he said the meaning of life is to build a loving relationships and make a meaningful and positive contribution. And if you look at it, it's just simple as that. And there's, we don't have to say anything else.
Adam: [00:27:09] And that makes a lot of sense. The more you're focused on yourself, the, the less satisfying everything is. And when you can focus on the community around you and the difference you're making not only the community up , but it lifts you up as well.
Tony: [00:27:22] Yeah, and I think they have some really great resources like Naval Ravikant. I really liked reading that. I'm not sure if you heard of him and follow too. To read his books and listen to this podcast or Twitter. But how about you? Where is your inspiration coming from? Why you do what you do.
Adam: [00:27:40] Partly for that same reason after working in technology for a long time, just wanting a career that's more satisfying and. So I started a podcast explore what was going on and very quickly discovered social entrepreneurship. And it's led me down a new path just because of that. You feel like you're in there doing something bigger than yourself.
And I realized there's a lot of great, cool ideas going on in the world and the more that we can share them, the more we realize what's possible. And that's where change comes from.
Tony: [00:28:08] that's great.
Adam: [00:28:09] Thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your story of what you're doing.
Tony: [00:28:13] Thank you for this interview and opportunity. And look, if you need to have a chat, feel free to reach out. I'm happy to help.
Adam: [00:28:20] Wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Tony: [00:28:23] Okay, thank you Adam.
Breakthrough Accelerator’s Allison Chaney Advises Social Entrepreneurs on Influence with Emotional Intelligence
Jun 25, 2021
Allison Chaney imagines the world and business being a place where we can go-exist mindfully. Allison Chaney CEO of the Breakthrough Accelerator, a business accelerator that helps create stronger efforts through intentional business development and accelerating results. She talked about the valuable impact that can occur for initiatives both internally and externally. In this case, the results are more than profitability. Results are also focused on the impact initiatives create in doing business. Breakthrough Accelerator is able to develop by sharing communication and mindset tools to shift business into a place of possibility.
Focusing on skills in communication and mindset, such as emotional intelligence, rebuilds the standard for team interactions. Allison expressed how awareness around emotional intelligence fosters a better balance in having hard conversations. Emotional intelligence even relieves tough communication between different staff levels. Allison shared her own experience of when she was a leader that lacked emotional intelligence towards her team.
Another point of focus on improving business practices is the use of a decision matrix. Allison explained why getting clear on values and placing the values in a decision matrix make decisions easier for any business embracing new choices. Preparing a decision matrix helps initiatives to evaluate what actions and choices align with their values. By knowing the values, thinking further to the MVP (minimal viable product), the impact, or the legacy of an initiative.
“Every business can be socially responsible.” – Allison Chaney
Allison gave her insight on the journey to becoming a Certified B Corp. She shared that the process could be seen as lengthy, but going through that process made it possible that Breakthrough Accelerator achieved the B Corp title. Such a process allowed the initiative to implement actions to create a more socially responsible organization with a healthier, happier work environment.
From there, Allison expressed her thoughts on why budding entrepreneurs need to focus on the things that will make the biggest impact on their initiative. She gave an example of someone she knows who spent years on building a website. Being in their own way, the person was trying to figure out all the little details, not realizing they took time away from providing service or building actual credibility. Once coming in contact with Allison, the person built the website shortly, and saw that they could move forward with results.
Alongside that impact, Allison emphasized that entrepreneurs should know the impact created by initiative, whether that be on the community, employees, or the world. Impact and possibility open the way to different approaches. Allison shared how she looks forward to there being a day where people don’t limit themselves by hiding behind a “It’s always been done that way” mindset.
Breakthrough Accelerator is seeking to build an abundance of wealth, time, and joy through mindful business practices. Realizing the contribution created through work showcases the power of new ideas. New ideas are possible, and there’s more flexibility in trying new things.
Joe DeLoss of Hot Chicken Takeover Magnifies Impact with an Iterative Mindset
Jun 18, 2021
Our 100th episode is here, featuring Hot Chicken Takeover! Thank you for joining the People Helping People podcast on this journey, and coming this far with the show. We truly appreciate your participation, your sincere interest, and your shared enthusiasm. Today, we have another insightful conversation through a leader in the community who built a shining example of a hiring model: Joe DeLoss.
Joe DeLoss started the Hot Chicken Takeover restaurant chain that prioritizes fair chance employment. This fast-casual fried chicken restaurant uses business as a vehicle to create opportunity. No matter what somebody’s resume or alternative resume from their past looks like, the intention is to offer an opportunity. Hot Chicken Takeover provides an environment for people who dealt with adversity to steady themselves.
Pillars to Building Culture
Three pillars help Hot Chicken Takeover maintain a strong development of the initiative: clear expectations, relevant benefits, and frequent feedback. Joe DeLoss explained where Hot Chicken Takeover places focus to match the needs of the employees. He spoke on valuing a positive work environment that offers more ownership of career trajectory. By using the three pillars, a more cohesive and clear company culture can be built.
“The best employment is about investing in people’s personal stability because it yields professional stability.”
-Joe DeLoss
In the service industry, many companies may experience a high turnover percentage that could be addressed if looking deeper into the challenges employees are facing. Some common factors are transportation or housing issues that can add additional strain on employee performance. Hot Chicken Takeover intervenes in these issues by providing assistance, such as having parental leave and a partnership with a local biking company. Understandably, Hot Chicken Takeover finds ways to accommodate the needs of employees by keeping open communication and securing relevant assistance.
Success through Iteration
Joe DeLoss discussed how his passion for the intersection of impact and entrepreneurship grew over the years. Success didn’t happen right away, but each moment created a chance at new information and insight. He gave his lessons on encountering new opportunities and problems along the way. With being so involved in the business, Joe talked through specific growing pains, like investors and media presence.
Since Joe has experience with mentoring budding social entrepreneurs, we discussed general tips for creating a career in social enterprise. Joe started off with learning about the business and impact model as an important point in developing an understanding of the field. He spoke about l the kind of transparent involvement social enterprise can require when first starting. To connect the ideas, Joe shared examples from the earlier parts of his journey.
Out of all the lessons he learned, Joe DeLoss emphasized the principle that connects almost every situation. While working through the early stages, he found that moving anything a step forward requires an iterative mindset. Alongside this point, Joe expressed his thoughts on adapting to new circumstances and letting go of ego. Social entrepreneurs will find that these mindsets are especially true when expanding an initiative.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host. Adam Morris. Today is our 100th episode of People Helping People. And I have so much gratitude for the people that have helped us share inspiring stories from Emily Savors at the Columbus Foundation to Jay Clouse and his Freelancing School and Suzy Bureau from GiveBackHack and countless others. But today I am super excited for our guest Joe DeLoss founder of hot chicken Takeover. Joe is a leader in the community and has built Hot Chicken Takeover as a shining example of a hiring model that gives people who have barriers to employment, a chance.
And it's not just about employment, but providing a work environment that helps those people succeed. Plus they've really good chicken, Joe. I love spicy food in your holy drumsticks dipped in ranch are out of world. One of my favorites. So Joe, welcome on the podcast.
Joe: [00:00:56] Yeah, thanks so much for having me and telling the Hot Chicken story.
Adam: [00:01:00] Yeah, start off. Can you tell us just a little bit about how you got started?
Joe: [00:01:04] Yeah. Hot Chicken Takeover is at this point, I think we can call it a restaurant chain. We have seven, almost eight business units up and running and we are a fast casual fried chicken restaurant that kind of is nostalgia forward, community forward in the spirit of how we serve and how, and the hospitality, we offer our guests.
And we power that kind of extraordinary guest experience with a really extraordinary labor strategy as a fair chance employer, as you said, in your introduction. And vast majority of our employees have been up against it, a decent amount of adversity in their past. Often symptoms of poverty, like incarceration, addiction domestic violence, homelessness human trafficking.
And we use our business as a vehicle to create opportunity for that team. And we've been doing that from day one which was just over seven years ago, April 6th, 2014 is the first chicken we sold and. It's been a ride from there.
Adam: [00:02:04] cool. What got you into starting Hot Chicken Takeover?
Joe: [00:02:07] I, as just an entrepreneur my entrepreneurial life goes back into my adolescents of just always finding ways to make money and similarly my kind of interest in being engaged in the community and moving community initiatives forward, goes back really the same parallel timeline.
And my, my sophomore year, I had the privilege of college and the privilege go to Capital University and had a great mentor in my life, my sophomore year, that set me on this path of social entrepreneurship, co colliding, the two interests in my life up to that point. And so yeah, I've been, an aspiring social entrepreneur since, 2004, and have been working professionally since then in some capacity, whether it was as an intern or as an actual entrepreneur and just really believe in the power of employment in particular, to be a source of dignity, pride, and a foundation for folks that are moving forward.
But yeah, so Hot Chicken is probably like the. The fifth, fourth or fifth attempt, depending on how you count them at social entrepreneurship. And I've had some success, and definitely Hot Chicken Takeover as the most commercially successful thing I've done so far.
Adam: [00:03:22] When you launched Hot Chicken Takeover, what were some of the elements that you brought in to really develop out this hiring model and maybe you could explain a little bit what this hiring model is and what you need in order to make that work.
Joe: [00:03:36] Yeah. Yeah, so I'll start on that. The kind of the hiring model and the methodology there, we've been I've been doing some version of this really since I started my professional involvement in social entrepreneurship. So that is, 15 years or so at this point. And the general instinct has always been, I've always been probably more focused on for-profit work environments that have the potential to scale and create growth opportunities.
But the general idea is it starts with a fair chance and consideration for employment. No matter what somebody's resume or alternative resume from their past looks like, but the intention is to offer an opportunity and then welcome people into an environment with a handful of kind of pillars.
And so one is just the easiest way to think about it is we want to be a really positive employer. We just want to be a best in class employer. And in, in particular, in the food and beverage industry, the quality of life and employment is just, the bar is set really low. And so we want to be better than that significantly better.
And so what we think makes for a positive work environment and what we've evolved through the years is one, setting really clear expectations for folks and giving, giving people the ownership and domain of their own career trajectory, through expectation setting and very objective job criteria.
And so if you want to grow here, this is the way you do it. You follow follow this path, but it puts, puts the ownership back into the hands of an employee. And often for this target of employees, ownership of their own future is something that they haven't had a lot of inertia around, based on their circumstance.
So clear expectations is part of it. The second piece of the puzzle is really relevant benefits. And so a lot of organizations, will throw 401ks and paid time off at people all day long. You know, if you're, If you're getting back on your feet and had experienced a lot of instability or volatility in your life, something like a 401k that you might not touch for 40 years, it's just not a relevant benefit.
So we compliment. Things like 401ks, which we do have, with also benefits around match savings accounts to invest in things like housing, transportation education that are in the short term, really critical to somebody. Clear expectations, relevant benefits, really frequent feedback is the third pillar.
And so we have an environment that's very deliberately developmental. And so you should always know where you stand at Hot Chicken and you get frequent feedback about your performance. And that, that's two-fold one is your performance in the job which is like, how well are you frying chicken?
Are you meeting, throughput expectations on how fast you can process a meal down the line, whatever , to also, how are you doing as a member of this team? And every 90 days. Somebody is getting a documented performance feedback on their contribution to the team. That's measured through representation of our company values and their specific job performance.
And then the last thing we talk about is just having a dish tank culture. And regardless of who you are you joined the team on our dish tank. And so whether you're a COO that was externally hired or a newly promoted crew member everybody starts on dishes and we believe that general environment really empowers folks by acknowledging that all jobs are critical and important.
And and also instills the humility that you should always be willing to do dishes. You should always be willing to pick trash off the floor, clean a bathroom, et cetera. And our corporate team members definitely definitely represent that as well.
Adam: [00:07:11] So breaking down the hierarchy and making everybody come together as a team to get things done.
Joe: [00:07:17] Yeah. And when you think about what I've shared, I think it's easy to get wrapped up in the novelty of being a fair chance employer or a social enterprise. The reality is a lot of these things and just being about being a really good business, a really good employer, a really good leader.
And So when you start to think about it more broadly like that, you can look at other great examples of business leadership maybe outside of the social enterprise world and start to extract the nuggets of how you just be the best employer. And for us, we know the best. Best employment is about investing in people's personal stability because it yields professional stability and Yeah.
So that's the framework of fair chance employment, that I opt into which is not time limited. We're not a transitional employer. We are here to be alongside of an employee for as long as they want to be alongside of us, or we want to be alongside of them.
A lot of accountability people get unhappy with us and they quit. We get unhappy with people. We separate them. And so it's not there's nothing really charitable about that. But that also is a way we protect the value structure of the company to make sure that everybody that's on the team represents those things.
Which, our five values are growth, respect, integrity, initiative, team. Spells grit and we try to source candidates that align with that, but also are holding people accountable to that on a recurring basis.
Adam: [00:08:35] Now just looking at the bigger picture, how does creating this kind of supportive environment? How has that reflected in say turnover of the employees?
Joe: [00:08:45] Yeah. Great question. So I think what we've set out to prove is really that, that the nature of this work of being a supportive positive employer also presents dividends to the company in terms of retention, employee productivity satisfaction, et cetera. And so thankfully we've really proven that out.
And so, our industry, this particular moment in our industry is really wrought with a lot of volatility and staffing challenges. But generally our turnover in the industry, it looks around like anywhere from 120 to 150% a year based on. What statistics you're looking at, our turnover is around 50% a year.
And so we're two to two to three times better than industry. And that makes a huge difference in continuity of guest service, support, all those things. And yeah, we've definitely seen a benefit there. And yeah, and we do spend more money on employee benefits and support. We spend more money on wages.
And those are all investments that we make as a company, but we believe there's a, an ROI for our business and for our community.
Adam: [00:09:52] Now, do you have any examples of what some of the personal support is that employees need when they come to Hot Chicken Takeover, that might be different from somewhere else in the industry.
Joe: [00:10:03] Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not sure it's that different than elsewhere in the industry.
What's different, I think is that we just acknowledge it and we try to intervene and support. And most employers that are citing those huge turnover numbers are citing issues with transportation, with housing stability, with childcare which are all just symptoms and marks and the volatility and in the greater community, particular, lower income communities.
And we have traditional benefits like healthcare and 401ks that the majority of our team I believe is on a company health care plan, which makes a significant difference. But we're also offering flexible scheduling. We're offering significant parental leave, three months of parental leave paid in full, regardless of who you are on the team.
And we're investing in transportation support, supporting people with housing recommendations, things like that, but really all those places with volatility, we'll try to build some benefits, earned benefits that can offer there. Some more meaningful than others, we've got a great partnership with local bike shop role bicycle company that gets our employees on really high quality bikes at a really affordable cost to them.
And sometimes that's our intervention for transportation, but it all makes a difference.
Adam: [00:11:20] oh, that's exciting. You didn't know about that. How long has that partnership been around?
Joe: [00:11:23] Quite some time. Yeah. I wouldn't even know. Maybe few years. But and that's, a great example of a we had a single employee that had a need for a reliable bicycle. For his health and for his just for transportation. And So, he asked he's, he spoke up and just said, Hey, is there anything the company can do that can help us there?
And as we started to feel out the question, it was also apparent this is something that could benefit other team members. And so we started making phone calls and I'm a cyclist. So that was helpful and have had a lot of relationships in that community. But that's a great example of an employee, a single employee presented a need, we realized that need might be applicable to other employees. And so we built a benefit around it and that, has become a really meaningful part of our puzzle, for folks.
Adam: [00:12:15] What would you say for other employers who are hoping to expand and work with, populations that have barriers to employment, whether that's, people who've been formerly incarcerated or people coming out of poverty. Are there any ways that companies can expand their hiring practice to jump in and be more inclusive?
Joe: [00:12:34] Yeah. I think thankfully, there's a bit of a sea change around around staffing and orientation towards employees. And we talked to a lot of those employers that are dipping their toes in this water, and I think. We're always advocating that people do the work.
I think where I probably try to provide a little bit more scrutiny is that sometimes as employers are talking about this particular hiring approach, they're really thinking of it as a silver bullet to solve a labor shortage, to solve a staffing crisis. Any one of the headlines you might see in the news right now, based on that, the state of things, but if you're a bad employer, if you treat people poorly, this is not a silver bullet.
And so my, I generally am like, just checking in with an employer from the beginning to make sure they're not in a-hole, because that's where you're not going to produce positive results. And unfortunately when employers that, that are oriented that way, get into the space when they think that labor is a commodity that they should treat accordingly.
And it's more of a cattle call. You see those employers fail and then blame it and project, this target population that they're hiring, whether it's survivors of human trafficking or folks that are reentering from the correction system, which is a really unfair, it's just an unfair projection and doesn't do any of our work, any service.
So I think it's really important for us to just make sure that you can be an employer of choice and and then open kind of open yourself up from there.
Adam: [00:14:08] So if a company's looking to get into this space, one, basically getting your house in order and making sure that you have some good pillars in place for how you treat your employees and how you respond to their needs before you even consider.
Joe: [00:14:23] Yeah, completely agreed.
Adam: [00:14:25] Now, how did you learn all of this stuff?
Joe: [00:14:27] Trial by fire mostly. I think when I joined the social enterprise space , I was deeply passionate about this intersection of impact and entrepreneurship. And there were a couple examples here in central Ohio and more examples on the coast, of course the Greyston Bakery is, and Dave's Killer Bread, these types of organizations and it achieved some level of scale already. And so there's a, there was a lot of information out even then. And I, similar, this is pre-cut podcast, but I would just pick up the phone and try to talk to somebody whose career I admired or had something to teach me.
And I think two of my earlier kind of the earlier conversation we had that doesn't necessarily mean it was another social entrepreneur. It could be somebody who built a really strong brand. And so I very quickly became motivated to be in this space. That was that was very enterprise strong. I think you started to see a lot of very charitable social enterprises emerging that were like have sympathy on who we hire and buy our crappy product.
And it's like, you know, Girl Scouts are sweet and kind and cute, but their cookies are also good. And so there's a reason we get excited and we buy girl scout cookies every year. And it's not just out of sympathy for, it's not a pathetic cookie. And so I became really focused on this camp of like, how do we build best in class consumer businesses and brands?
And build a strong team behind it, but that strong team, the idea of being a fair chance employer is a privilege. I think I earned by selling a good product. It's not the other way around. And I think if you want to play in the consumer enterprise space, you really have to think that way. And so that was where I kept focusing my attention, which is as an entrepreneur, what were the things that I was experiencing out as a consumer that I felt could be better, or it could be different.
What problems and opportunities were you seeing? And, I fumbled through a lot of ideas. I did have an opportunity to build a business as an employee of a large social service agency that was called fresh box catering. And so I built fresh box in 2008 and ran that with residents of the faith mission, homeless shelter system for some time before, transitioning that business fully to them. And I went off on my own. But those were, I think, playing in that space, you learn a lot through the way, and there's a reason why it took till my fifth one to be really successful on it. And even now as our business grows, every day I'm encountering opportunities and problems that are new to me.
And it's still that same sense of kind of bold humility of who can I call? Who can I ask? Who can I learn from? Because it's a much bigger vision than just my success. It's a success of our team and , by the end of this year, we'll have, approaching 200 people on our team.
And so it's just really, yeah, it's really critical that everybody has what they need to be successful.
Adam: [00:17:28] Now, have you noticed any growing pains as you've started to, get up to 200 employees and a much larger family than one cozy restaurant in the top of north market.
Joe: [00:17:40] Yeah. An immense amount of growing pains some points feeling like they were crippling and our business wouldn't make it. And other points thinking they were just bumps in the road, but. Yeah, I think on any entrepreneurial journey what you rely on and what you think works at some point will break and has to get rebuilt.
And it's generally under pretty, pretty adverse circumstances or pressure. We were happy we made it through the last year with COVID-19 and the last week of March 2020, we were set to close a growth investment round for a few million dollars that all got pulled out the last week of March.
And so we went into an already trying time over committed, under resourced and. How to dramatically change our business because of it. Calling that just to grow in pain feels like really an underestimation, but that was, that's it, we've been rolling with those things from the beginning.
And for me as the leader, the primary leader, I, every day, I'm doing something new and every day often treading water in a way that's new to me. And so that's pretty strong reality is that is exhausting and is burnt me out a few times. And something, a lot of entrepreneurs experience social enterprise, or not yet not.
Adam: [00:18:54] What I'm hearing from your story is one like any other entrepreneur, you have to be delivering a quality product for your industry and the basic rules of entrepreneurship exist. If you're competing in the consumer space, you need to be able to learn how to build a business, that services consumers. you ever find that comes in conflict with the social impact side of your business?
Joe: [00:19:17] Yeah, I think there's a gray area there and a line that most social entrepreneurs, especially at scale have found themselves walking, and so as you take investment money you've got to make sure that you find investors with similar priorities and similar kind of orientations and values.
And so that, that has presented conflict for HCT through the years. And and so how you take money is a critical piece of the puzzle. I think for us too, there's this fine line as a social enterprise of how much you depend and rely on your social enterprise story and narrative to, to sell your business.
Or if it's the other way around. And I think the popular kind of media story about a social enterprise is oh, look at this, savvy entrepreneur that saving the lives of these low, these poor people, or, it's just a really egregious generalization versus the feeling we have, which is that we're a single team.
But that's a tight rope to walk because. It's media and it can be positive for the business. But it's just something I think you have to be really cognizant of. And we've always tried to err, on the side of. Let's be best in class regardless of our social enterprise narrative, because that actually affords our team more disruptive dignity and pride and enthusiasm versus, the more sympathetic story, the sick puppies on the SPCA late night commercial with Sarah McLaughlin music.
It's just that's what I think people have come to expect from a lot of charitable minded businesses. And I don't think that serves anybody.
Adam: [00:20:55] From my own experience, people don't show up and go hunting for our social enterprise because they want to support them for the social impact. It's almost a secondary bonus that when people find out about it, it's oh, that's really great. But first and foremost, you have to be a business.
Joe: [00:21:12] I think that is what's often missing from the broader kind of ecosystem is there's a lot of people that are encouraged to go save the world or whatever they think they're self-righteous, mission's going to be. But they're not building the actual competencies to run effective organizations.
And that is really agnostic to any mission. It's just, how do you get things done? How do you manage cash flow? Some of these critical success factors. And so for me, a lot of that was grounded in like business experience and education through the years. But I think it's, it presents a really great opportunity of it's easier to teach people those competencies than it is to teach them deep alignment and empathy for a particular cause or initiative.
And so we've got to find a way in our community that to elevate people with really true competency, objective competency around some of these just organizational requirements.
Adam: [00:22:05] Is there a best way for people to learn that?
Joe: [00:22:07] I do think it, it takes, people's willingness to go get experience with organizations that are effectively or sometimes ineffectively operating. If you want to be a social entrepreneur, that's direct to consumer and in some kind of retail, consumer relationship you should seek out experience both as a consumer yourself or as working for another brand in that space.
I think all too often, they're saying I'm an aspiring social entrepreneur, so I'm going to get an internship at Hot Chicken Takeover, and then I'm going to become a social entrepreneur, like great, and maybe that path works for some, but there's any number of restaurants you could work for if you want to operate a restaurant, and I think folks just have to get out there and cross train themselves in a better way to honor the mission that's important to them.
Adam: [00:22:52] Whether it's a social enterprise or not just getting an experience with some business that's best in class, so you can understand good business process and a good way to
Joe: [00:23:01] yeah. And being a conscientious consumer too, of maybe this isn't a best in class experience I'm having, but what would make it better? And that it does take you when you become an entrepreneur with that mentality, it does take a willingness to suspend, your ego in the sense that you know best, but really that, that consumers as a whole know best.
And I've mentored a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs. That'll say I just can't get anybody to, to buy my product or they don't care about it. And I'm like don't blame them. Like you should be blaming yourself. Like you're selling a crappy product. Otherwise people would buy it. And so how do you flip the script and say that being a social entrepreneur is a privilege I earned by being a really effective entrepreneur and and orient yourself towards that outcome, and it's, I'm saying all this now. It sounds easy, I've learned this through hindsight. And being the one that said those exact same things, and up until hot chicken, all of the social enterprises, I pursued ended up taking my money and not paying me anything and not being a sustainable pursuit for me.
And then this one started, in our living room, super scrappy. And I was feeding people in parking lots. And while I worked a full-time job and just moonlit like it by bit until we were at a point where we had enough proof of concept that we could start growing a little bit more.
Adam: [00:24:29] When did you open in the north market?
Joe: [00:24:31] We opened over an Old Town East as a pop-up in the summer of there, the spring of 2014. And then in December of 2014, we opened up in the North Market. And so we were there through that one only restaurant until we opened two new restaurants in 2017 in both Easton and Clintonville. And Clintonville remains are our, like our highest volume restaurant today of everything else we've done too.
Adam: [00:25:03] That feels like yesterday
Joe: [00:25:05] Yeah, it's crazy.
Adam: [00:25:06] Maybe that's living in the time warp of COVID, but,
Joe: [00:25:09] Yeah.
Adam: [00:25:09] So now have you had any learnings of just surviving the pandemic has that brought any changes to your business model or plans for going forward?
Joe: [00:25:19] Yeah. Yeah, definitely some substantial changes, we've experienced through COVID. When we, so the crisis hit we were caught off guard with the loss of some investment capital that was committed and we're really. Really just trying to figure out how to survive. Had a lot of uncertainty of what the crisis would mean for our team and for our restaurant volumes.
And so we ultimately made a choice to shut down the restaurants. We shut down for almost two months. We moved all, but eight of our team members on to public assistance and support we used the kind of discretionary cash we have left to make sure that people could make that transition smoothly and stayed in touch with everybody.
And so that was a big, terribly difficult decisions to make through that process. And then we systematically started to open back up. We opened back up with an alternative menu strategy. We changed of course, the layout, the physical layouts of our restaurants and protocols. And we downsize part of our corporate team and eliminated a handful of positions.
And so much of that, we're still sorting through all of that, we're a year out and there's some light at the end of this proverbial tunnel for many, but from a business perspective, we're still managing really significant crises around our supply chain or on staffing.
And yeah, it's definitely made us leaner. It's made us a lot more bulletproof and resilient. But yeah we just really jumped into action to figure out how to support our team. As soon as we figured that out we started an initiative to help feed people in the community and just , leaned into our values and had some investors and some funds come together to help us and ultimately were able to stabilize.
And so now we're kind of back in, in growth mode now and looking for the next round of opportunities. So yeah, learned a lot.
Adam: [00:27:11] the horizon.
Joe: [00:27:12] Yeah. More restaurants, we're going to, we're going to continue to build restaurants here in central Ohio and also in Northeast Ohio.
More restaurants or more jobs and career advancement opportunities. And so that, that's the stick for us. And we're looking for real estate looking for opportunities to grow and making some shifts internally to really, continue to make our menu increasingly inclusive and supportive of other guests in the community and lifestyle and dietary preferences.
And we've got a great plant-based options on the menu. We've got gluten-free options on the menu and just continuing to evolve our customer facing brand to be as inclusive as in our employee facing brand.
Adam: [00:27:57] Cool. You still have your unsweetened ice tea.
Joe: [00:28:01] Yeah. Yep. So still bottomless tea though now it's not self service since COVID, so I'm not sure when those things will change back, but just being cautious and trying to keep everybody safe.
Adam: [00:28:15] You mentioned earlier that you've mentored a lot of aspiring social entrepreneurs in the past. Do you have any general tips or guidance for people who are starting off about things that they can do to be more successful, especially in balancing a social impact with starting a business.
Joe: [00:28:29] I think it's important that people continue to, to navigate that double-edged sword,
and parallel of learning about their business and learning about their impact model. I think often people that aspire to be social entrepreneurs there's kind of two camps.
There's the camp of the individual that experienced the same adversity that they're trying to benefit. And I think probably more often than not, it's a group of folks that hadn't experienced the adversity themselves, but feel compelled or motivated to do it. And I think if you're in that latter camp and that's really where I was. It's really important that you build mechanisms and learning opportunities to really empathize and understand the experience others are having.
You're not there to save anybody. And I think that tone is sometimes a little pervasive. I think the broader kind of community dialogue around equity and inequality and inclusion over the last 12 months in particular, hopefully it's broken down some of those barriers to where people seek to understand more than then tell their understanding.
So I think that's important. On the business side, on the enterprise side of social enterprise, I think it's really important that you figure out how to sell something or do something. And so if you're, if you have a vision for a business, it's whether you're gonna bake cupcakes or sell food you need to do it.
I was not long ago. I was talking to an entrepreneur that had a vision, that to build a food service initiative and he had never made the food he intended to sell. And so I just think how are you? How will you. Have a meaningful product, if you haven't figured out how to do it. And it's not as easy as just hiring somebody to do it.
If you're going to be an entrepreneur, you need to viscerally understand all those early components of your business. Like you have to be really intimately involved in them. And for me, that was posting on Facebook that I had chicken to give and I was meeting people in parking lot, strangers in parking, lots to try it out, and then we operated this like ludicrous chicken window for a whole summer, to test out the concept. But if you're saying you want to be a social entrepreneur and you don't have the courage to stick yourself out like that, or get started, you're just bound to be, you're just bound to fail.
I think you have to really be willing to do the work. And I think it's just important. And it's also when you back away some of the accelerator language or the business plan or the business model canvas or whatever. You're going to depend on to lay out that tool. At the end of the day, like you just have to, you have to be able to step off the curb a little bit and just try something out. And I think it's just important. You just dip your toe in the water. If it feels right, and take another step and you keep going. Oh, and then all the while, establishing a stronger vision for what's in the future too.
Adam: [00:31:11] And you mentioned this earlier as well, just even now in your journey, you have to be very adaptable. You have to be able to put your ego aside and say, Hey, I don't know. Everything and be a little bit more curious about figuring out what's coming at you so that you can continue to evolve.
But that sounds like for that aspiring entrepreneur to really get out the door and just get some feedback, selling something at some early level so that you can start to learn that selling process and, have that mechanism for feedback of how you're doing so that you can refine that and improve that.
And build an audience while you're doing that.
Joe: [00:31:43] yeah, it's gotta be really iterative. And similarly, if you haven't been a manager, you haven't been an employer before. If you haven't been an entrepreneur before, you're also having to be iterative about the way you hire people and the way you support people. And it's most entrepreneurs fail, it's just like a statistics are against you and for a whole slew of reasons.
And so you just have to have a lot of intentionality around how you're going to grow and support people and learn and keep it be an iterative on that process too, because most businesses fail because of the execution of things like. Team, morale, support staffing, and so there's there's just a lot, there's a lot more to the story than just how good your chicken is or, whatever that is.
And so I think you have to really become a student of that creative art of business too. And all those things that are involved to be successful, then. That's daunting and but it's also the, if you don't do it, it'll probably close the doors on your vision for your enterprise, your impact too.
Adam: [00:32:47] Thanks for sharing so much today. How do people find out about Hot Chicken Takeover? Where can they go?
Joe: [00:32:55] The internet is the best, probably the best recommendation I could give. We have we have a decent amount of information on our website, our social media channels. It's hotchickentakeover.com. And that's a great place to find us. And we would love for people to come and eat and observe what we do.
And similarly, we've had a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs come and work for us and just get a job in the kitchens and work with our team. And learn through the experience of doing and observing and we, we try to be best in class in a lot of things and we fail at that constantly.
And there are a lot of opportunities where aspiring social entrepreneurs or really, great growth aspiring team members have really helped resolve and improve our system. So we welcome that too.
Adam: [00:33:40] Thanks so much. Just one more question. What's your spice level? when you eat at hot chicken takeover,
Joe: [00:33:46] I am I, if I'm eating chicken, I usually go hot wings with a side of Mac and slaw as my normal meal. But I often I often when I'm not at work, he have more of a plant-based vegan lifestyle. And we have a new product online called nugs by a company called simulate that are plant-based chicken nuggets that are awesome too.
And you get to pick your heat level on those. So maybe hot nugs will be my new meal. They just rolled out here. The last part of May, excited for those to take off too.
Adam: [00:34:21] Very exciting. My wife is largely vegan, so I will bring her along to Hot Chicken Takeover. Next time I come.
Joe: [00:34:28] Yeah.
Adam: [00:34:29] She loves things super spicy. You can never get enough spice for her.
Joe: [00:34:32] Holy will be her meal with uh, she's vegan. She can do the cole slaw and baked beans. She'll be set.
Adam: [00:34:39] Ah, fantastic. I love that. Wow. Thank you so much for joining me today and for being my hundredth guest on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Joe: [00:34:49] That's great. Thanks for having me, Adam. And thanks for the work you're doing out there. This is a great contribution to the ecosystem and really thankful to be part of it.
Adam: [00:34:58] If you're listening, go visit hotchickentakeover.com to find the restaurant that's nearest to you. And then go visit and taste some of the hot chicken takeover. If you have not had it before you can also follow them on hot chicken takeover on Instagram and various social media to see some of the great stuff that they're doing, and if you're not here in Ohio hopefully there'll be having a hot chicken takeover a restaurant open where you are soon.
Thanks so much for listening.
Rich Brubaker of Collective Responsibility Explains Why Nothing is Good, Bad, or Otherwise at First Glance
Jun 11, 2021
Rich Brubaker of Collective Responsibility explains the variety of work he does in both for-profit and non-profit spaces. He teases that even after 12 years of marriage his wife still asks what he does. Rich’s portfolio is versatile, but to describe him he is one of Asia’s most recognized authorities on sustainability, innovation and responsible leadership. Portions of his work include being the managing director of Collective Responsibility, the executive volunteer of HandsOn China and as an adjunct professor of sustainability and social innovation at Southern Methodist University, Richard has a career focused on helping develop businesses to address economic, environmental, and social hurdles.
Among the projects Rich takes on, he finds himself assisting brands like Nike and Adidas with changing the way they impact communities. Most large brands come to Rich knowing how to describe their issue, or what they are aiming to do, but they require suggestions on strategy. Rich explained that there’s more to look at beyond the brand itself: “… a lot of times what I find is, the knowledge gap also extends to who is being impacted, who is relevant and who has the power to affect this change.” Communicating the issues is not enough to understand the systems that are creating a positive or less desirable impact.
Knowing the problem and the aspects contributing to the concern can be developed by engaging with the issue and people related to the issue. Rich suggested that anyone lacking experience in a field should focus on learning about the field first. Whether the person chooses to volunteer, get a job, or pursue academic study related to a specific field, be more involved with the concern by interacting with the system and people attached to the concern. Then, you can consider what you learned to put together a solution.
Rich described it as: “You’ve got to go swim with the turtles to see where the plastic’s coming from.” While interacting with the concern, Rich explained that you should be observing without labeling everything you see at first glance. Since multiple people are participating in a “system that’s fundamentally flawed”, someone being a stakeholder in the system doesn’t mean they are complicit.
We discussed the need for processes as an initiative finds a rhythm to providing their solution. Rich gave insights on which processes help keep initiatives steady, such as hiring a good team, market research, project execution. To illustrate that point, Rich later gives examples of systems scaling up in sustainability from his time in China. He expressed the differences, and similarities, in trends around developing society between the US, Europe, and China.
Rich Works extensively with students, and shared how he connects students with large companies like Target and Jaguar. Students get together to work on a specified concern the brands provide based on real issues within the company. Rich expressed how involved both sides get into the projects, and how these kinds of interactions can fuel change.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast inspired, greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Today. I am delighted to have Rich Brubaker on our podcast today. One of Asia's most recognized authorities on sustainability, innovation and responsible leadership.
As the managing director of Collective Responsibility, the executive volunteer of Hands-on China and as an adjunct professor of sustainability and social innovation at Southern Methodist University, Richard has a career focused on helping develop businesses to address economic, environmental, and social hurdles.
So without further ado, let's dive right in. Rich. Welcome on the podcast.
Rich: [00:00:38] Hey, thanks for having me great to be here.
Adam: [00:00:40] Can you start off, can you just give us an overview of your background and what you do in sustainability?
Rich: [00:00:46] Ooh, how long has this? Alright I'll preface this by saying I've been married to my lovely wife for 12 years and she still has no idea what I do. I've been in China almost for 20 years now. Came over here to be a standard consultant M&A helping brands, in China expand over the course of time, I started a few charities.
I started a few for-profit social enterprises, basically addressing the urban challenges. That I've been seeing blow up in this region of the world. My real history all draws back to high school and one of my teachers asking if I'd like a day off and some extra credit, if I were to volunteer for the special Olympics, I put up my hand.
And about 10 years later, I started a large volunteer network in Shanghai. That's now about 15,000 strong. So I, I don't really have a career. I don't really have a focus. I don't really have advice on how to do either one of those, except to say that I just keep seeing issues. I keep building platforms around it, and that includes a for-profit a non-for-profit academic.
And then I have my podcast slash YouTube channel as well.
Adam: [00:01:46] And now you're based in, Shanghai.
Rich: [00:01:48] Based in Shanghai, and up until about a, what, 15 months ago, I would be traveling probably once or twice a month around the region, if not around China meeting with entrepreneurs, delivering projects for large brands. And then just generally doing research around the region.
Adam: [00:02:05] I'm curious to hear just a little bit about what a social impact you've been able to create in the community in Shanghai, through your social enterprises.
Rich: [00:02:15] It's a good question. And I think, the charity has been going now for almost 17 years , as an organization, about 14 of that. And every year we put up about 35 to 50,000 hours of volunteering connecting with 25 to 50,000 people, cleaning up, 15 to 20,000 kg of trash every year out of the ocean.
There's just a lot of things happening. Through my MBA experience, I was teaching MBAs, what is now probably a top 10 business school in the world to 220 MBAs on average a year.
And we do 36 live projects every year with brands, with entrepreneurs, with NGOs and just, you can imagine all the stuff that came out of there. Like one of the projects that I remember is we rewired the IBM global volunteer strategy and I don't know how to even define some of that stuff.
And then my consulting practice, we work with large brands to help them basically identify and address an issue That's within their value chain somewhere. And so for Target the major retailer, we help them with connecting families where the mother or father, or maybe both are in factories and the children are 3000 miles away, going to school and living with grandma and grandpa. And we try and help bridge those ties, but I've also worked with furniture companies to help them decarbonize and dematerialize, the chemicals in their process and working with groups like Adidas and Nike to close the loop on their plastic waste, being it, literally like plastic bags and the supply chain, or it could be the textiles that we wear and run around on bringing that in, closing the loop and hopefully helping them.
Achieve a better future. So it's everywhere. And I think that's the fun of being here is I have no focus. I don't really focus on measuring impact. It's up to, to look back constantly and say look forward? Are we going in the right way, looking back going, are we going the right way?
It's the way I do it.
Adam: [00:04:01] Now I always get confused when it comes to sustainability, because it's a word that's used to describe a lot of different activities. It's just it's a very broad word.
Rich: [00:04:11] Yeah.
Adam: [00:04:12] Like how do you approach sustainability or how would you break that down into more clear buckets of here's what this actually means.
Rich: [00:04:19] So I actually didn't come at this from the polar bear carbon solar panel equation. Like I don't look at it like carbon is going to kill us and it's evil and we just need to save the polar bears like that wasn't my approach into it. Although I had an environmental bias, from when I was young, I think the way that I really define it now is, we're going to have seven to 8 billion people in cities.
And for us, when you move someone out of the rural environment, that could be a farm that could be a village that could be a suburb into the core of an urban city. As I know it in Asia you know, significantly, increase the size of their impact and their footprint, be it from energy, water, food, the draw in the healthcare education, whatever.
And you need cities to serve their function, which is to bring people in to jobs, provide security, provide an upward mobility and you need all these things to work. So when I look at sustainability, I look at the footprints of urban consumers against the scaling up of those numbers, to where we have 8 billion people and what resources are required to make a city function at that time. So you need jobs, you need healthcare, you need education, you need clean air, you need clean water needs the food, you need properties. Like you, you need all these things. And that for me is sustainability. And I know it's broader than most, but that's also, when I look at what are the human needs.
That we face, it all comes back down to that part. Now I'm not saying that people who live outside of cities don't count. I that's not the intention. It's just the systems that we are building, scaling and see fail are being built for the city. The rural off-grid the village, sustenance farmers.
Like they're not the ones who are seeing or participating in this ramp up for energy demand or ramp up for food. They're living a very similar life that we did maybe 50 years ago or, even more than that it's the urban lifestyle. And so I really just constantly figure out like, how can you improve that?
Be it delivering food more efficiently, or increased healthcare, quality at a reduced cost or, education, future jobs. Like all these issues are super important to people and that makes them super important to me.
Adam: [00:06:33] When you're working with a large brand like Nike what's that approach of going in there and identifying, here's what the biggest problem is that you can solve and identifying a need that fits with their business model.
Rich: [00:06:46] Yeah. For the most part, If I'm and most of the brands I'm working with, including say Nike Adidas, whoever I'm working with. Most of them actually, they're very clear on what their challenges are. In terms of the infrastructure in terms of the externality or what's breaking down or now that they've maybe fixed something, what the next step is that they need to work on?
I think most companies globally are pretty aware of like where they've got an issue and what they need to do. What I come in and do is try and figure out how to get that done sometimes. Or what's the timeline, what's the strategy. But a lot of times what I find is. The knowledge gap also extends to who is being impacted, who is relevant and who has power to affect this change.
And then what are the catalyst for change? So if you think about any of the fast fashion brands, you think about any of the big food brands. The role of government, the role of NGO, the role of media, the role of citizens. It all changes. And then at some point it all interplays when something bad happens.
And I think a lot of brands either take a defensive strategy, which is, what are the regulations going to look like? And what can I do just to stay right above that waterline. And then you have groups like Patagonia and others who, and I'm going to use names that you know, I'm not going to confuse it anymore, but you know, you take a Patagonia, like they've said, look or Interface Flooring.
Like those two, everyone usually knows about them. And they're like, look, where are we so far above? And then what they do is they over communicate the problems. Like you go to both of their websites interface or to Patagonia, and they're telling you every single problem they have and. I generally work with a group like that because they know what it is and they're invested in fixing those challenges.
Now, does that make them more or less sustainable? Does that make them a sustainable company? Does that make them better? I'm not judging that. I'm just trying to figure what is the system that, they're struggling with and what are the ways that we can make investments in people?
Process, product materials. To make an improvement. And generally I'd say that my clients overall are growing more and more open to making deeper and deeper, more valuable investments in time, resources.
Adam: [00:09:02] Now do you find that's something that needs to be baked into the company's DNA, like Patagonia, where that is part of who they are. Or is it something that, companies are like if there's a financial incentive sure but otherwise , is there any common driver behind what brings people to say? Yeah, I want to be more sustainable. Yeah.
Rich: [00:09:21] You can learn a lot about fire by putting your hand on the, in the oven, right? No, I don't think you need to have people that are naturally inclined, like a Yvon Chouinard who just generally look, this is my mission. Or, if you look at the interface story, Ray Anderson, he had what he calls a spear in the chest moment where, the mid nineties she's like.
Holy shit. I am. I'm going to go to jail. People like me are gonna go to jail and I better do something. I think you can have it all. I think it can come from anybody. And in general, we did a piece of research. We called sustainable ambassadors. And yes at the top, I think it makes it easier if you have an entrepreneur led or family led organization that is smaller that's non-public Patagonia would be one of those Yvon Chouinard is still at the helm or he's still the visionary that people rely upon whether or not he's running the organization.
Day-to-day. He can throw out those ideas and people will genuinely follow him because he's also built a culture over years by who he hired, who he trusted and then how he set up the mission values of the organization. But Paul Pullman came into Unilever well into Unilever's history of being, what many would say is a bad actor and said, I'm going to do something.
And it took, many years of his tenure there before he left to. Rewire the organization, rehire, the talent required, restructure the processes and the suppliers and the materials and the design and the customer experience to make progress. Did he get, as far as a Ray Anderson or Yvon Chouinard, would.
It's difficult to say, but he made progress even though he himself wasn't a rabbit environmentalist and he was not leading an organization that started with it at the core. I think you can definitely learn over time to make those changes in short
Adam: [00:11:18] Now, how does that differ? To somebody who's just starting out, who's, maybe a sole entrepreneur who's getting off the ground and they have, maybe they are making a social impact on some other way. But part of their own DNA is like, Hey, I care about sustainability. What do they need to know in order to get the right footing?
Rich: [00:11:39] Look, my question would be, are they starting what I would call a mission-driven organization? Are they a mission-driven entrepreneur? Because if they are, they need to have a clear focus on the problem that they want to solve. And I don't mean it. Like I want to save the polar bears or I wanna fix water.
Okay. There are a thousand threats to polar bears And there are a thousand reasons why California is running out of water. Which one do you want to focus on? And then how well do you know it? Are you are you someone who comes from that background where you, were you someone who spent 20 years in a nonprofit, focused on that issue or that topic?
Or are you a completely fresh grad? Who's I just want to save the world, or a 15 year old and in school thing, I'm going to get my Fridays and go do something. I think it all depends upon the person, because if you're coming out of 20 years of this organ of this working like, God, it's so broken, I have the answer.
It's much easier to build your solution and you have a network, who the stakeholders are. You know how to pitch it. Great. So you got your problem. You got your solution. Now you gotta go build the organization, build a team, get some funding. Then the next pieces, the younger groups, and let's just broadly stereotype this between 18 and say 25, they either did or did not go to college and they do or do not have any experience at all.
Maybe they have a year or two, but they're not necessarily specialists in the field of the. What they want to solve. They don't really know a whole lot. My first advice to them would be go get a job at a non-profit and a for-profit, whatever, academic, whatever suit, whatever floats your boat, whatever medium you think you can learn the most from on that specific issue and do not stay in the office, go be a field researcher, go talk to people.
Don't be a pitch person. Make sure you learn about everything that you can about what the problem is. Where its roots are, who's involved, what are the solutions and what will it really take to solve the problem and then create your pitch, your business plan, your marketing campaign, whatever it may be afterwards.
And what I found is that's what the most successful people do in the space. They really know the problem.
Adam: [00:13:57] And they're doing that by going out and having those conversations and making the connections with the people where they can learn the most.
Rich: [00:14:05] I think a lot of people feel like they can learn everything off the internet. And the reality is you've got to go swim with the turtles to see where the plastic's coming from and you got to go, live in a tree to figure out who's trying to cut it down. Like you, you need to be on the ground and you can't label everyone.
Who's part of the problem as evil either. Yeah, there's a lot of people for various reasons are participating in a system that's fundamentally flawed and resulting in the failure that you're seeing that you're trying to address that doesn't make them evil. It doesn't make them complicit. It's an organ, it's a group.
It's an organization is a technology that you have the opportunity to engage with. And hopefully. Over time flipped around. Now you may learn that they are truly evil. That's one thing, but to go into it saying they're all stupid, they're all evil. You're just going to get nowhere. You have to start with a a place of intellectual honesty learn things and try to respect as much as you can.
All the players in the field so that you can find out the best ways to engage them as you're building out your solution.
Adam: [00:15:13] got it now for a company that's established that says, Hey, I want to be more sustainable. What are some of the roadblocks that they face and actually realizing that sustainability
Rich: [00:15:24] Ooh, that's a good question. Depends upon what layer the organization. Because I've worked with some very large organizations at the global level, and I would say the biggest challenge for them is they're near retirement and they don't want to, that's not to say if they're old and they don't know what to do.
What I'm saying is they spent 40 years of their life building an organization or a process or a product. And you're telling them in the last five years they did all wrong and that they've got to go backwards. You know that's hard and you're not going to get very far. If you start with confrontationally so you have to find ways to pull them in.
And I think that this way is to tell them all, Hey, a government's going to come in and they're going to tax you out of business, or they're going to pass a regulation, or they're going to kick you out of the backyard. Okay. Everyone we're speaking to that because the chief legal officer will come in and say, Hey, Bob, we got to do this now.
Otherwise there's a big fine. That's the easiest way. The second easiest way is to actually show them what customers want and how the future of their company, their personal legacy, their whatever lies in helping people solve that need. And I think most marketers, most product developers, most executives, they want to meet the market's needs.
What you need to do is help them understand how the market wants different things. And I think if you look at big food, you look at big ag, you look at big energy, look at all these things that the fastest growing companies in the world right now are not traditional energy. They are not traditional food.
They are not traditional mobility. They're the new players. And so they're really trying to learn to really trying to win obviously. And you can help them with that. And. Along the way you help them understand that the reason why they're failing is because they're inefficient, they're exploitative.
They are, doing the wrong thing.
Adam: [00:17:12] If you're listening to this podcast, Rich Brubaker has a great YouTube channel with hundreds of videos around sustainability, answering different questions. One thing that I've heard in those videos that comes up a lot is that you have a really strong focus on process and developing good processes.
How does that help with sustainability?
Rich: [00:17:32] So as an entrepreneur, let me address that from a couple. Angles one is as an entrepreneur and my YouTube channels, largely me interviewing entrepreneurs just as you're interviewing me. And what I find is when you, as an entrepreneur, start to develop process. Around the delivery of your product service, whatever you start to take, the first jumps in your organization and the management of your organization, the people involved in the development of your future.
It gets much easier when able to nail down a bunch of big bowls of jello. And I call entrepreneurship nailing bowls of jello to the wall because that's what it is. You get something up there and you're like, ah, damn it's fallen down. But if you can solidify one of those things in the freezer, that's what I call process.
It just keeps up there longer. You could do more with it, your whole HR process changes because you're not hiring people who are all entrepreneurs and all trying to build, but, program managers and engineers, and they're able to. Constantly do the same thing over and over, which means they can improve on it much easier.
It means selling it as easier, which means funding. It is easier. It just makes the whole process easier. Sustainability in general process is very important. The delivery of food needs to be a process that is consistent, right? It's organic. It is regenerative. It is, it's not, if I look at it, Asia, many of the farms are very small plots.
They all plant very different things. There's no scale to anything. That's not going to work in a system where you have 8 billion people, you need systems. And the other thing about systems that I really like and why I find B2B firms do sustainability?
In quotes better than B to C companies is because they invest in the backend processes, the pipes, the foundations, the wiring for.
What the seas are doing. If you look at what Coca Cola does every year, and I don't care, if you think they're good, bad, whatever, but just respect the fact that every year their customers are asking them for a brand new something all the time. This issue water's important to us. No, it's this one biodiversity.
No. It's this one plastic. So their campaigns go up and down and up and down and up because they're responding to the market. But if you're there bottle manufacturer, the only thing you care about is making sure that you're using the least amount of plastic possible and you're bringing in as much recycling as possible.
And then you invest into a process of machinery people. To make that happen, supply chain to make that happen. And that's why that's much more stable than what Coke is trying to do. And again, I'm not saying Coke is good, bad or otherwise, but if you respect the challenges and the fact that process really helps just nail things down, you can forget about it.
You can grow off it, you can measure it, you can report on it. That's why it's important. And. It just, I've just found for an entrepreneur. If you've got 50 people, all doing different things when 25 should be doing the exact same thing, you want the ladder?
Adam: [00:20:40] Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense that, if people have a clear system to follow, then you can measure the effectiveness of that system and you can refine it and you can look for ways to actually improve that system because you know it, and it's something that you can develop.
Rich: [00:20:54] Yeah.
Adam: [00:20:56] That's great. I think that shift and take a look at collective responsibility a bit, and some of the events that you do.
Can you describe a little bit about events that you use and how they pull people into this sustainability ecosystem?
Rich: [00:21:11] Sure. So when I started collective I had my charity, I was a professor at the tone of your business school, not SMU at 10, your business school. And. I had been growing a business, but I've been growing a platform where I was as an external consultant to some companies. And what I started to realize, it was like, there's these huge knowledge gaps, both of them, the people that I'm talking to from a client base, but also within the community.
And this is going back about not quite 10 years, let's say it's seven to eight years. And the other thing that I realized at the same time was like, sustainability. For the global messaging that's presented us. It's a very local topic. So what I did was I developed a series of events where I would actually unsustainably fraught fly from Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore between the three every other month or every quarter.
And I would host luncheons for executives during the day. And because I had free time university students and young professionals at night in the same city. So I was doing six events, every, quarter roughly. And the reason why I did that was because I wanted to help to localize the language, but I also wanted to learn.
What are the topics that are important to people. And then I want to bring in the leading practitioners, I don't really care about the people who have a nice PowerPoint deck from their CML at the global level. I wanna know what project are you doing here? How's it going? Or the challenges?
How can you inspire and equipped others? That's all I care about. So you think about every two to three months I had. No three times since I had 18 to 25 speakers going on, I'm building my network. I'm learning a lot. But the other thing I was doing is I was saving a lot of money on coffees because instead of buying 45 separate coffees in each city, I would have 45 to 120 people coming to my event and paying for it.
So I was accomplishing a lot and actually that helps set up my brand of collective responsibility, which we really try to be in the center of the stakeholders. We're not advocates. We're not just business. We are trying to find that commercial balance. And we're trying to be a platform where stakeholders can come together and not just learn from each other, but also engaged.
And so I would also say it like all my events. The last thing I want you to say is that was a nice event. Great coffee. And I got a couple business cards. I want you to walk away and on Monday, know who to call about how to take another step forward. And so they're very action oriented. And all that did was it led to the development of communities that were much more action oriented.
We closed a lot of gaps. We brawl on that works together. And actually the impact of that was I saw a lot of commercial deals coming out of it, which was great. And that commercial deal could be business, the business, the NGO, whatever. And that's what the platform was. And I've just carried that forward.
I do a lot of research, which I put freely available on collective responsibility and we do all these events. For to attend it's about 10 bucks us, not because I'm trying to make money, but because I realized if I make it free, I lose half the people. Like I'll have 50 RSVPs and it'll show up.
But if I make it five bucks, I'll be at 95% because people, once they pay, they show and that was the only reason. And all that money actually just goes into speakers gifts. Accomplishes a lot for me. Like I get to build a community, I get to learn a lot. I also get to help facilitate, which I just love doing.
And it just constantly keeps the, and when I'm designing them, the other thing I do is I am building a year long calendar. Every year. And then that way I can really tie the topics together. And at the very end of it, I load them all up freely available on YouTube as well. So that way people outside of China or outside of Asia can learn about what's happening here and who are the leading actors in this, because there's a huge divides happening right now.
So that's how I approach it. And that's my reason for doing it.
Adam: [00:25:06] that's great. When you say huge divides are happening what, what are those looking like?
Rich: [00:25:10] Honestly, the U S in Europe, this have no idea what's happening in Asia and they have no idea what's happening in China. And I'm sorry. China right now is the most interesting place to be in the world when it comes to sustainability. Not just because the systems are failing faster than anywhere else, because there's scaling fascinating.
What else? Me think they took four or 500 million people in the last 30 years out of poverty. It's incredible. And they urbanized them and they went from. A continent of local brands to national brands. They went, it's just the amount of buildings, the amount of food supply, like everything's scaled up here.
And that also means that the stakeholders here, when there are failures act faster than anywhere else in the world, the amount of innovation entrepreneurs, the government's focus and framework. I It's stunning. And so there's a lot of lessons to be learned here. And I think that's a big piece of it.
Adam: [00:26:07] Oh, that's fantastic. I, you've been there for 20 years. What are some of the biggest changes that you've seen happen since.
Rich: [00:26:14] You go back to 2014 and 15. When you saw the air pollution pictures in China, like we got blue skies every day. Like it's, they have fixed just amazing number of systems. We talk about, plastic waste, if you read the most Western reports. Okay. China's the biggest contributor of plastics to the ocean.
Really? They used to take 60% of the recyclables from urban. Us and EU cities and they would process it over here. They are very efficient with their waste management systems and that's from installing thousands of incinerators to having a very active manufacturing base that can take up all these pro all these materials.
The quality of healthcare and education has really risen, but just, the biggest one is just the quality of life. The wealth effect that the average Chinese has. Has, experienced the last 30 years. It's stunning to see how people, how their whole lives have changed.
Like everything we talk about in the west about what we want to accomplish for our people, they're doing it here. And I'm not going to say that. They're better or worse. I'm not saying that I agree with everything that the government has done here for God. I'm not saying that, they've got this vision and they execute on it and you can see the results.
Now will it be sustainable is a great question. What's it gonna look like in 15, 20, 50 years? Of course we need to see that. But what we see in the last third is just, it's just a, it's an amazing experiment. In a very different part of the world with a very different application, like very different kind of approach and.
So far it's worked and then the next round was supposed to be Southeast Asia and they were really coming up. I It was so exciting to see these very poor areas, like really seeing a growth. Then the people like feeling pride in what's been accomplished and, the government having the resources to then fix air, water, food challenges that they faced.
Unfortunately COVID sucked a bunch of them back down in the black hole. So we'll see, it might take another 10 or 20 years for the recover.
The way I look at it, there's, every one of these crises, there's an amazing opportunity to build. Yeah. And going back to you don't want to your first question what's the advice that you give? There are no, there's no lack of problems in the world.
I don't care where you are. I don't care if you're in, if you're in the U S if you're in the EU, if you're in Asia, There are problems everywhere to be solved of social, economic, and environment. I just see them scaling up here faster, but honestly, the last 15 years of the U S obviously we've seen other issues, it could be gun violence.
It could be, the urban environment, the urban decay. It could be the imbalance of wealth. There's thousands of challenges. The key that I've been finding is. COVID just exacerbated a lot of these things. It exposed, which governments had a few more tools at the bank, but it also exposed the need for individuals to stop complaining and to do something.
And I think that's why I'm seeing a lot more people interested in the work that we're doing is. Social entrepreneurs. I They don't want to be necessarily non-profit social entrepreneurs. I'm seeing more people interested in for-profits social entrepreneurship, which is fine for me. I don't really care how, what structure you want, but I think it's going to be a very exciting time.
Unfortunately, we have to go through this to get through these exciting moments where people are like, no, our job, our mission in life is to solve a human problem and develop a business around that. And no matter where you are in the world, I think now's a great opportunity for that.
Adam: [00:29:31] I love that. And I think something about that, there's a certain resistance to change, right? So if you're comfortable in how your life is working, it's very easy for you to overlook, Issues or problems that you might otherwise fix. And so when you're hit with a pandemic and it totally messes with you, then it's a really a great chance to step back and say, all right, what can I fix about this situation?
What can I change? You're already in the midst of that change, we're naturally very adaptive as a species.
Rich: [00:30:00] yeah, I think so. And I think, if you look at like the last 10 to 15 years in the states and in Europe, there's been a lot of conversation about problems and I can't believe no one's fixed this. And COVID basically said, no, now's the time to do it. Even if you don't have the resources right now, but a lot of people reset their mind and said, look, I'm going to do something.
I, I've got limited time. They finally figured it out and I want to focus on this stuff now. And I think if I were to like, just grossly stereotype, the difference between what I've seen in China and what I've seen in other places is that the Chinese had that 40 years ago. With the worst parts of the revolution and the great leap forward.
They still remember poverty. They still remember hunger. They still remember all those things. And so the U S and EU broadly, stereotypically speaking, haven't experienced that for a long time. And so maybe this will catalyze people to think a little bit more about solving real problems.
I think that's part of it.
Adam: [00:30:54] Now, one of the other things that you do is you run hackathons. So you're almost bringing in new blood in a sense to understand entrepreneurship and social impact. Can you tell me just a little bit about what these hackathons look like and what you've seen come out of that?
Rich: [00:31:09] Oh my God. They're a blast. So I don't run the hackathon where, a bunch of people go in and. twelve hours later come out with a t-shirt and like no actionable ideas. We structure ours very differently. We'll spend probably three to four months in planning. And then the hackers themselves generally come from master's programs at Chinese or Asian universities.
We run these round Asia and actually I ran one of the states right before COVID in Minneapolis. We will do a ton of prep work research. We provide training to the hackers upfront and the hack is on a business problem that is faced. And that could be, if you look at my website, you'll see that we've done these for Target, we've done them for Exxon. We've done them for buyer pharmaceutical, which a lot of people will know as for the headache medicine. We've we worked with Jaguar Land Rover, nice cars. And basically they will come to us and say, look, we have this challenge. This specific challenge, you want to work on this thing and we want to engage these teams of students on it.
And Kohler was a great example. They wanted to develop a new bathtub for the elderly. Now a lot of these things are they're cumbersome. They're ugly, and Kohler likes, a nice product. Like they, they go for the upper middle class kind of target, obviously, a little bit higher at times a little bit lower at times, but they want, for a lot of their customers, they want to go into a bathroom.
And look at something that doesn't look like a hospital. Set up where you got to a chair jammed into the bathtub. And they engaged a bunch of students. We had eight teams of six, seven, and they did a technical briefing. They did a design briefing. We had just IDEO designers. It was phenomenal. And they produce a product that is on the market and it has a swing door, which is quite standard.
But then the. You pushed down the base in the back and a seat comes up and then it goes back down. It's just a phenomenal idea. And a lot of times we're just trying to solve things like that. Jaguar land Rover was the future of mobility. Will people buy cars or will they be members?
What will it be? And then how does it change everything about the car itself, the footprint, the driving, the parking, what accessories you have? It's just all linked back to sustainability. And what comes out of this is one you get between six and eight ideas that are, not all of good quality, but I always find one is usually pretty damn phenomenal.
Two to three needed like another week, right? You're like, oh my God, they're so close. And then one or two are like, you really thought that you didn't have to work that hard. Oops, you missed it. But for the companies, besides getting the ideas, one of the biggest things that they get is they inspire the hell out of their people because we assign mentors from inside the company to work with these teams for a month.
And what they end up doing is they start hiring them for interns. They start hiring them for projects and they, you get a bunch of people that have been in the company for eight to 10 years. And you're like, man, that was so much, I can't wait to go to work on Monday and, solve something for this company again.
And that's the other benefit. And yeah, I it's just, it's a very specific outcome. Focused approach. And it's amazing. I, on my website I have hackathon videos. We do one for every one of them, and it's just, we try to make sure that everyone walks away with something and the students themselves.
Besides the ideas they come up with, what they learn is they will present, like in the case of. Kohler, the global head of HR, Jaguar Lambert, the head of innovation and the head of HR globally were there. And they were just blown away. Like you think like the person who's designing Jaguars and land rovers sitting in front, a bunch of students going, what is your idea about this?
Please give me more detail, like firing at them. And these students like, oh, we got this. That's awesome for them.
Adam: [00:34:51] that's a great collaboration just in bringing ideas, but also teaching, students that they are empowered and they actually have a lot to contribute.
Rich: [00:35:00] I just say the way that I designed it to begin with was to make sure that the students one. No matter what happened, their takeaway from that event comes first. Their learning experience comes first and second was what's the quality of the ideas and the outcome. Because if I get that, then the third one, which is my client's experience is number three, I want them trying this all the time internally. Because it's a great way to generate ideas, but we came to this, like if the students are in appreciating this experience, they'll pour their hearts into it. And I would say like for the last couple hackathons, I would actually say you guys know, cause they sleep overnight.
Like you guys know sleep is the devil. And I realized like half of them would not sleep because I said that. And so I had to stop saying it because there's, so they give it their all and kids crying because they want and crying because they lost. And it's just, it's a phenomenal experience.
And I feel like that's where we started. So going back to square one, like what's the problem you're trying to solve. I'm trying to make sure students. See, the companies view this as important and invest in them. So they come up with their best ideas. So they inspire the companies, these old people that don't want to be inspired and to change their business habits.
And I think if you get that a hackathon hackathons, a great little medium for change.
Adam: [00:36:18] So what's coming up for collective responsibility over the next few months, few years.
Rich: [00:36:24] More.
Adam: [00:36:25] Well,
Rich: [00:36:27] so that's a good question. I, and I apologize, the listeners who've been listening to me just gap away. This isn't really like a podcast where we're going back and forth like Joe Rogan does. Ideally pre COVID. My idea was really to build a, an Asia. Asia wide agency, I didn't want to be China.
I didn't want to be global. I knew that the lessons I learned in China will be scalable to Asia. And I really want to follow that path. There's nothing more fun for me sometimes than to follow. Informal trash, dumpster divers down the street to figure out what they're doing and to see where it's going and ask them questions.
And I realized so much about these cities, like that's where it's going. Now with COVID. The reality is like we can't get back on those aluminum tubes so easily. So it's very difficult for me to build an Asia business and I had an office that was supposed to open in Bangkok. About a year and two months ago and that got kerfluffle.
So what my focus now is just trying to figure out how do I, create effective bridges where part of my business has to be virtual now. And part of it has to be physical. And for some like my education stuff, when I was working with universities, bringing their students to China, showing them for two weeks about social innovation or sustainability or whatever, Now we're developing a virtual platform where universities can click in, get the content, just virtually, but then we're taking, 360 cameras through a solar factory and we're going to show them like how a solar panels made with all the noise and all.
And then the CEO will give his, give the tour just like they would, but it's just a little bit different, but we're starting to learn like how to manage the process a little bit different. So you overcome some of these things and then. I think what will be interesting is as we're recovering from COVID like just the other thing I'm looking at doing is just figuring out ways to hold more events. And develop more research in a way that could be more widely consumed. Honestly, if anyone has followed us for this long in this conversation, they're likely to go and check out my YouTube channel. And that's another, those are 30 to 45 minutes of just conversation, which isn't necessarily what gen Z is looking for.
But what I find is if you can get through those conversations, You're going to be more inclined to really want to do something. And that's what I really want is I want to constantly find platforms that where the information we consumed, where it can inspire people where they can figure out like, this is a hammer, this is a screwdriver, this is a drill.
I'm going to go and do what I can and okay. Then I'll work out how to level up my tools from there.
Adam: [00:38:54] If people go in and search for Richard, brubaker on YouTube the information there is very informative, which is nice. There's a lot of answers on a lot of different dimensions into what's possible.
Rich: [00:39:06] It's not the most I'm not Casey Neistat. That's for sure, but I'm definitely trying to provide the, if you really want to start something, whether you're in a company or whatever, like you're going to get real information through these because it's through the other entrepreneurs.
It's not even through me, it's just through the other entrepreneurs. One after another and all of these people, only two in all those hundred that have interviewed, have failed, have closed up shop and gone and done something else. One of them just, he's gone from five people to 600 in the last five years I've known him. It's incredible what some of these people are doing. And yeah.
but you got to sit there and listen to them for 20 minutes. Talk about the process and learn through that.
Adam: [00:39:44] that's fantastic. How did people find out about Collective Responsibility? Where did they go? How did they get involved?
Rich: [00:39:50] Co-responsibility dot com or just Google my name. And I think all the stuff's going to come up one form or another I think the YouTube channel is just for entrepreneurs, but co-responsibility is all about what brands are doing, what issues are facing China? I do some videos over there as well.
He's doing one called the collective and I have a sustainable ambassadors series over there , the head of sustainability for Target and the head of the CEO of Bayer which is now Monsanto, which some people be like, wow, that's controversial. But, I interviewed these people because they have a lot of lessons and they reflect and they're trying to learn as well.
And yeah, I think just between those, or just Google my name and go down the rabbit hole of the internet, just like we used to.
Adam: [00:40:28] Rich, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I felt like we covered a lot just around what sustainability is, how to think about it. What are different ways people get involved, even some of the common roadblocks that people face when trying to implement sustainability in their own companies.
So thank you for all of that.
Rich: [00:40:46] no, my pleasure. Thank you very much for the time. And look forward to keeping this conversation going.
Adam: [00:40:51] I think my other big takeaway is that there's just so much great stuff going on in China, that there's just a wealth of knowledge there and experience that we can all learn from.
Rich: [00:41:00] Actually, I will say, look, I need to also make sure That's globally. When I got stuck in the States, I put together a list of a hundred entrepreneurs that I want to meet when I was in the states. I nearly bought an RV and went on the road because there are so many people, to be inspired by, and I'm from St. Louis originally. So not too far from you and the urban wealth gap the racial disparity, the friction, there's amazing entrepreneurs down there on the job trying to figure out how do I take this community forward through entrepreneurship? And then you have people looking at, regenerative agriculture, all over the states and all over Europe.
There's just so many things happening. I've got 500 entrepreneurs just for us and Europe that I want to meet someday. So if you're listening to this, don't think I'm just all about China and don't think the opportunity is only here. It's global now.
Adam: [00:41:45] Thanks again. Thanks so much.
Rich: [00:41:47] No, thank you.
Adam: [00:41:48] And if you're listening, thank you so much for tuning in until next time.
Rich: [00:41:53] Till next time.
Stay engaged people.
Thanks.
TimeRepublik’s Gabriele Donati Shares Why Timebanking Builds Trust into the Community of Your Business
May 27, 2021
Gabriele Donati spoke about his work with TimeRepublik, the world’s first purpose-driven social network. TimeRepublik offers a global online platform for users to provide services in exchange for TimeCoins that can be used to purchase other services on TimeRepublik. With a global reach, TimeRepublik built a strong online community of users that value their social network platform. Lately, People Helping People podcast episodes are focused on how to build a stronger audience and community around your business, so this conversation with TimeRepublik reflects that theme.
Alongside building a community, the business is shifting expectations people have for in personal interactions. Gabriele described TimeRepublik’s function as “a digital platform where you can exchange time instead of money.” He followed up, explaining that there’s an idea of taking money out of the equation: “It’s because we are more interested in creating relationships between people rather than transactions.” Gabriele emphasized the process of building trust between users, and how those bonds open doors. Unlike currency exchanges that can be “one and done”, the service-exchange approach on TimeRepublik starts a mutual effort on both sides to fully communicate.
In the beginning, the platform was made to be global one-on-one exchanges, then, the team realized how powerful the exchanges become when given a common space. Users of the platform can create groups/ communities to connect with people of a similar interest. Groups allow for people to find each other much more easily, while strengthening the bonds in the interactions.
Gabriele gave an inside look at a project involving principles of TimeRepublik within companies. In the project, staff were placed in a small group and told to offer a service of one of their passions, not what’s considered their traditionally “professional” skill”. Gabriele gave an example of what happens when people gloss over what is considered a passion, talent, or hobby. Sometimes society is so clear on sticking to an imaginary limit we place on ourselves that we forget the things that help our different traits shine.
On the actual platform, people are more than happy to help once they identify their talents. Gabriele jokingly expressed how the team needs to remind users to post requests for help themselves. People come willing to help, and almost forget that they can request a service. Gabriele shared that the trend is mainly from users being excited to be on the platform, and he also mentioned that part of it may come from stigma.
Gabriele expressed that culture sometimes relates asking for help as a weakness, which creates the unnecessary stigma. Another reason for the trend connected to the thought that once you ask for something, you are immediately indebted to give something. We both agreed that society can choose more empowering perspectives. By allowing someone to help you, you are gifting that person the moment of happiness they get from helping you. There’s a mutual reciprocity, which leads back to the relationships and trust needed in community building.
If you would like to learn more, visit their website.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Today, we're speaking with Gabriele Donati who co-founded TimeRepublik, Switzerland with his high school friend, Karim Varini after learning about the power of time baking and exploring how to grow a global community on the internet.
TimeRepublik, founded in 2012, prides itself on being the world's largest time bank and the first social network that actually makes you happier. They have over a hundred thousand members in a hundred countries with people connecting and sharing their time. What fascinates me most is their approach to building a successful community online.
This is a question that so many social entrepreneurs have when they're launching their business. So I'm excited to dive in. Gabriele welcome on the podcast.
Gabriele: [00:00:47] Thank you for having me.
Adam: [00:00:48] Can we start off, can you tell us a little bit about TimeRepublik?
Gabriele: [00:00:52] TimeRepublik is really a digital platform where you can exchange time instead of money. So this is like the shortest version that I can give you. The idea of taking money out of the equation. It's because we are more interested in creating a relationship between people rather than transactions.
So today technology is an amazing tool to create transactions, but they're forgetting about the relationship part, which is basically our goal.
Adam: [00:01:18] Why is this form of TimeBanking helpful for individuals?
Gabriele: [00:01:22] Time But 10 banking has been around for many centuries, actually. The modern inventor it's Edgar Cahn, is actually in DC is still alive is 86 years young. I think, around there. And he basically creates a time banking mostly to help the disenfranchised. So it became a more of a movement of volunteer movement to help the elderly do or the veterans or disenfranchised. This is a great idea for us because, when we decided to create a space where money was out of the equation, as I said, we did it really know time banking, and then researching it, we found out this, the system was already available. And the amazing things of time banking is that one hour it's equal for everybody involved.
So no matter what you do, no matter if you're like a surgeon or a musician, your hour is worth the same. And it's not like saying that, were giving you a value or we'd like flattening the curve of the values. We're actually saying we're not so concerning measuring the values of people's skills, but you're more concerned in measuring the relationships. In creating relationships, which for us is the most important thing, because only through relationship, you can generate trust between people.
And once you generate trust, then everything is possible. Really the spectrum of possibilities. Once you know, you trust me and I trust you. It's much greater, you become part of my family, my community, and I opened so many more doors to you once we have that. This is what really time banking is about.
And that's why we adopted the same model for TimeRepublik.
Adam: [00:02:59] I have a question on just like how you build that trust when somebody uses the platform what's that experience like when somebody comes in.
Gabriele: [00:03:06] It's pretty challenging because the barrier of entry. It's much higher than let's say creating engagement.
like on regular social media platforms without mentioning any names, TimeRepublik, it's not necessarily just to, or to post a silly joke or a meme, you really have to be engaged, so you really have to do something. So it's, let's say to start the process and to find the diamond, that, that precious thing, it requires a little effort. And not, once you create an exchange, let's say, because someTimeRepublik, I should say it may be a little bit, how it works. Basically, you registered on the platform, you fill out your profile and then we give you some time coins, which is just a fancy way to call the currency of time.
One time coin equals 15 minutes. And then we basically gift you a five five hours, which is 20 time coins. And then you can start spending those time coins by posting requests. Let's say you need a logo for your business. So you need some legal advice. Anything you need, you can post a request and then you can pay the people that help you with that, with those time coins. It really looks like a service exchange platform, is like task rabbits or like those services exchange platforms. But the service exchange is really the excuse to start something else, Right.
You can, of course, you get something because your logo gets done and pretty nice, because we have some great graphic designers on TimeRepublik, but also it starts a new relationship. You recognize it only once, once you try it. And once you find it, because it's funny because we're so used in the market economy, that anything you do, I, let's say I exchange a fee, a service with you. As soon as I pay with money with feared currency is like saying, Okay, our relationship stops right now.
You get, I got what I want, I pay with what you want and that's it. Bye-bye right on TimeRepublik one's time is involved is exact opposite. We start with a service exchange, you helped me and I get something from you. And instead of stopping, this relationship, I say, Okay.
this is basically we lay the foundations to create something more meaningful, something deeper and not in a new agey way.
I'm not saying, kumbaya now we're friends, as I said, you only experienced it once you try it, because we are so used to get like money for anything that once. You have this awkward moment that, okay, I did something, you did something, and I pay you with this time that, it's really not tangible.
Okay. Is this, what is the catch? What's happening now? You know what and, nothing happens, that's it. We just create something deeper with this person. And we see that. Just how people communicate with each other. Let's say we did a semantic analysis of the word count of the chat, the typical chat on TimeRepublik and typical messages on chat on other platforms.
And on TimeRepublik is like the word count is three times more.
Adam: [00:06:08] Wow.
Gabriele: [00:06:09] So it means that people take more time to express what they need to be more appreciative. And to tell you a little something more about, about themselves, and this is really what we valued. It's, this is why we created TimeRepublik.
And that's how we designed the platform for you to, to do that. As I said, we don't have likes, we don't have a wall where you can post pictures where you can. Know, tell us everything about your life, but we just give you a tool to basically exchange real things with people.
Adam: [00:06:42] It sounds like that generates a much deeper connection between people when it's not just a monetary exchange because you're actually showing up and giving your time.
Gabriele: [00:06:52] Absolutely. And this is, what we're really about. That's what human beings are for, but again, technology, and I don't want to, blame everything on technology because it's a paradox. We are a digital platform, but. We forget that what makes us happy is really helping somebody else.
If you strip down all the BS of relationships between people, what really makes us happy to help you and you get a benefit and, I put a smile on your face. This is really Yeah,
basic human dynamics. We're a social animal, social animal means that, we're helping each other, but what makes us, that's what gives us meaning and purpose.
So technology is not doing that anymore. So Facebook, promised us like in 2005 that it was going to connect the world and everybody thought that everybody would be much happier. We've connected. Wow. I can connect with everybody. And the first part is, they did it amazingly because that's what they did.
The, 80 billions people on Facebook. So this is great. As I said, I'm not criticizing Facebook at all because the first part was fundamental and they did agree the second part to make us happy. It's. It's just, it failed us, there's just not enough to connect with technology.
It's just not enough to create, do those connections. You really have to go a step further. And this is, what we're trying to do with TimeRepublik to create basically a social network with purpose, which is a paradox nowadays, because social media is basically purposeless or leveraging on the dynamic that everybody knows, like narcissism, voyeurism. And so forth that just creates more alienation and more solutide and loneliness and depression. There's plenty of studies that shows that kids are much more depressed if they spend eight hours on Instagram to show to look at people's lives.
Adam: [00:08:55] That makes a lot of sense. One of my friends, Jay Clouse recently was talking about this where, everyone, he follows on Instagram. He's curated to be like people he looks up to. And so people that are much better than him. And, he's doing great stuff, but he said, all of a sudden he has all of this, anxiety around his own performance because he sees all these other people doing really much better.
It's very easy to forget that you are where you are and so that makes a lot of sense. But I think this point that you make we're really happy when we are helping somebody else. Like that is a really important point. I've been involved in a course called Creativity and Personal Mastery.
And Dr. Rao has this, the spiel where he says, anytime that you're in a fight with somebody or angry or upset you're living and then a me-centered universe where you're focusing on yourself, and if you shift that to another center universe where you're looking at, Hey, how can I contribute to somebody else and take yourself out of that equation then, know, all of a sudden there's nothing to get angry about because it's not about me.
And so it makes the sense that, Hey, when you're helping somebody, all of a sudden, it's not a transaction of what am I getting? It's you know, you take that, oh, I'm getting this and I'm giving money. And all of a sudden it's we're sharing time.
Gabriele: [00:10:08] Yeah.
As I said, it takes a little longer and it's not as challenging as I said, we've been around for nine years, as I said earlier we did all the possible mistakes. Like every startup, but we still around, so it means that we're doing something right, is we will actually creating something that people need.
Otherwise, people wouldn't use it. But it takes a lot of effort. And at the beginning, we wanted to scale like Facebook or like Instagram, right then. We would see, like only two people using it. Then the 20, 2000 and 20,000 is never enough. But, it's, once, once you realize that the community in TimeRepublik or people that you're dealing with is so much more powerful.
It's so much more meaningful, you can get things done. I replied to this request three days ago. Was this girl, I think in Portugal, she posted a request that she wanted to create a round table to talk about spirituality in general. She was not very precise. And I replied to that request because I've been doing some reading lately that I wanted to share with her. So she replies back to me like the day after saying, listen, I got overwhelmed by your replies. So what I'm thinking of creating like a zoom meeting. So we can all get together. So I don't have to do this one one-to-one exchange so we can all share together. And that's what we did. We met on Monday and we spent like an hour and a half just talking about these things.
And and then she decided to create a community on term Republic on that topic, because it was so successful. And it's incredible. The people you meet, the level of. Of thinking and intellect that these people had. I I was talking to strangers on every corner of the world and going pretty deep into the discussion.
And I said, man, this is incredible. It's something that I never experienced on any other platforms. Of course you hear it from me, I'm the founder and CEO TimeRepublik. It seems that I try to sell your product, but, as I said, you just have to try it and see it for yourself. You constantly meet people that just want to, To do better and to go to the extra to, to express, something that is much more meaningful than, sharing a naked picture, half naked picture on Instagram next to a swimming pool.
To me, it's it's the said every little exchange is very magical for me and I don't want to sound like corny or cheesy, but it's, really when I see these things happening, that before TimeRepublik, just, this things were not happening, like a guy in San Francisco with a kid in, in, in Casa Blanca, Morocco.
I use these examples because it's great. It's just like senior graphic designer in San Francisco. They work for a big firm, but he's on TimeRepublik. Gingerly, sharing his talent. And this kid in Casablanca is a 17 year old kid. That is a tour guy, like local tour guide that did it like a business card to distribute at the airport to tourists that would come to Morocco that needed, a business card and a logo.
And this guy in San Francisco basically designed them. It's corporate identity and it's, it's beautiful because you have this cross continental across like age and, you put people together that, you couldn't put them together before. Of course you could, to Facebook.
And they said, but with this extra level of wanting to create something better, it's just wonderful for me. It's just, as I said, it's magical. Every little exchange is magical.
Adam: [00:13:37] If it's, equal footing with the amount of time that you're putting in and the amount of time that you're getting from somebody else that takes away that, that question of hey, what's the scam here? Or what's, what's the catch and it's even, it's, we all have same amount of time during the day.
Right.
Gabriele: [00:13:54] Yeah. And then it's, of course it's the biggest criticism of people that don't know time banking. Always the same thing. Okay. But why an hour of my time has to be an hour of your time. Why, I'm a doctor and I study like 20 years and an hour of my time has to be of course, much more valuable than an hour of a person that is cleaning the toilet.
And again, they're missing the point and I understand why they're missing the point, because we always trace the parallelism with the market economy. It really looks like a service exchange platform. It really looks like we're creating a market of like demand and an offer and we're trying to, create an alternative market.
But it's I said before, it's really tricky because it's really, it looks like exactly the same, but just the first part is the same. It's just, as I said, the exchange part, which is, we take it to to the next level.
And as I said before, it's just the excuse. And then what you can create later. It's it's really what. What, Edgar Cahn, which is the inventor of TimeBanking puts in a beautiful way, basically saying that all current economic planning basically augments an economy that is much more important, right?
It's, it's called home family neighborhoods, civil society. There is a children and that, makes a democracy work and so forth. And really that's TimeBanking, , it's like saying, Okay.
the market economy is great to value and to remunerate certain dynamics, GDP, it's positive when you have four wars.
And it goes up and that's, it's Okay.
I'm not criticizing the system. I'm not here to criticize. If, to say we're better. But I'm saying did forget that there is a, at least a third of the economic map that is not accounted for that. Nobody's really valuing. As I said before, the families healthy, dynamic, healthy neighborhoods, healthy communities that are making things work. And that's what time banking is measured. So it looks like market economy looks like a service exchange platform, but No.
It's really trying to measure and to mine, those beautiful best human practices and giving them a market in order to boost them and to scale them. So this is a little bit what it is about.
Adam: [00:16:12] Now you mentioned that over the last nine years, you've had a lot of learnings just of developing this community. Oh, what were some of those major roadblocks that you had to overcome?
Gabriele: [00:16:24] So we naively started TimeRepublik and we launched globally. Who said, Okay.
we have this amazing idea. Let's exchange time. And we were hoping that the old world would embrace it. We translated the platform in 12 languages. And then, we waited for a month, two months, three months, and nothing was happening.
No, of course something was happening because, randomly, we would have people, but we went very thin and very very wide in a way. So we. We realized that the idea is great because some people are using it and they're giving us great feedback, but we have to be more focused with, what we wanted to do.
And then throughout the years we realized that one-to-one exchange. So as strangers or exchange with strangers is good, but we need something else. And that's when we started to create this module that is called what it's called today, communities. So basically giving a tool for people to create their own community within the bigger global box of TimeRepublik, like a Facebook group, if you want.
Yep. You're on a global Facebook, but you can create your interest group or your private group. And then you can engage people that are, think alike. They have the same mindset or they're part of the same group. And and then you expand from there. And this is what we started shifting.
We pivoted basically from this, global platform one-to-one exchange into more creating smaller communities and smaller pubs that then they could communicate with each other. And this is, yeah, this is the best thing we ever did because, it's we could really see like they need from from our user that's physically what, where they needed it.
And this is what, we launched two weeks ago with this new module and it's going very well. So this is more or less in a nutshell what nine years, but we can go more in details if you're interested, but it's very hard to do to make that long story. So short.
Adam: [00:18:21] No, I, this is something I'm very curious about because it's something that comes up in conversation. A lot of people starting out and being like, Hey, you know what? I want to build a community or be part of a community. How do I find that? How do I build that? How do I make that community engaging and successful?
Gabriele: [00:18:40] This is like work requires so much work. It's not just a tool, a great platform that gives you very powerful tools. But at the end of the day to create community? you have to meet face to face. You have to start small. And when I say small, it means really small.
There are some very successful communities that started on TimeRepublik, but now have thousands of users that like for six months or even a year, you were exchanging between 10, 12 people. So it's extremely important to start small, to make sure you set the tone of your community, that people know exactly what you're trying to do, that your goals and your vision are extremely clear.
And you basically, curating that community 24 seven. And this is really, the media is no shortcut. As I said, I was naive like that. When we started that, I thought, we creating a great tool and everything's gonna grow by itself. and that's not in the works,
Adam: [00:19:38] It's like planting a garden almost right here. When you start off and you have empty soil, you've got to give it a lot of time and attention. You're planting seeds, and then you're watering the seeds and you're pulling out all the weeds and you're being very intentional about here's what I want to grow.
And being able to communicate that clearly, but also to be the force for making sure that what you want to grow is happening. And then it sounds like over time, it's okay, great. You have an apple orchard. And then you're taking care of the trees, it's a different type of effort when you have an existing orchard, as opposed to when you're starting.
Gabriele: [00:20:15] Absolutely. And that's a beautiful analogy and that's exactly what happens when you try to create community, the tool, the technological tool. It's great after, because once you create it and you moderate it and you really curated your community. Then the digital tool gives you like the scalability effect and the network effect that you wouldn't have without technology.
We know it's the chicken or the egg, but we know that it's the egg, right. You really have to start small to grow little by little. And then, you have the tool that makes you like, expand. And this is, again, this is. Something that we thought about it a lot because, when we start looking into time banking, we've seen that, traditional time banking I worked with are working extremely well.
And they generate millions of hours in this past the 10 years. But, we thought it could be even better. We can really scale it much faster and much wider. And that's, basically why we created TimeRepublik, not to be in competition with time banking and this amazing local organizations, but to really tackle the problem from, we said the cloud down basically from a digital world down to the ground, while the traditional time banking to do the, they get their hands dirty right away and they really work on the ground.
But then for them it's very hard to expand and to scale. So we thought that if you would tackle the problem, from the opposite direction. Maybe we could meet in the middle and really create like a serious movement and really to create change and try to make a better world, like you said before. So this is, our strategy and of course, to try to target also a younger population, because if you want to scale. Man, you have to change the perception, that time banking and volunteering is this boring thing that you don't get anything in return and only older people do it or people with disabilities. no, man. It's it's not like that. What we're giving you is a tool for you to understand that you're a human being and for you to understand that what counts is, it's really, getting together with somebody and help each other, little bit where we are.
Adam: [00:22:28] It seems like with those communities, you can focus that attention around particular topics. So it makes it easier to find out , here's how I can actually participate , both to help out as well as, here's how I can contribute.
Gabriele: [00:22:41] And you're also helping people to find purpose. Our first business model, because of course we're, unfortunately we cannot pay servers and developers yet only with time coins. So we have to generate some sorts of revenue to, to keep the dream alive.
So we created this business model which is a bit to be a business to business model. We decided because at one point a bank, a large bank in Italy by countries or some Paolo, which is the largest bank in Italy, the third largest in Europe. So it's like a giant entity. They contacted us and they said, listen, we have these organization that is helping us to engage our employees. And we discover about you or the local newspaper. And we wanted to see if we could collaborate. Their biggest challenge, like any larger organization from 2000 employees, it's considered a larger organization. They have this basically cancer that they basically, they cannot engage or to ask the extra from from their employees because they're not emotionally, not really actively engaged with the company.
And that doesn't mean they don't work well. They work nine to five doing amazingly. But, in such a competitive landscape, they need to extract more from their employees and companies. They try everything, monetary incentives. They try to throw a party every month and so forth, but nothing seemed to work. So we start to think about it. And then we said, okay, let's try to create basically a white label type Republic for the company. So it's a closed group. We're basically we force every employee to offer what they really love to do their passions, their hobbies, not their professional skill.
We set up this group and then we created the first workshop to explain what it is about. And we had about 20 people coming to the first work shop. And and in a way we were super enthusiastic, you have this group, you can share all your hobbies, what you really love to do, what you do during the weekend and so forth.
And then you would see their eyes like this, looking at you what are you guys thinking? What are you guys trying to do? And then, I asked him, so why you don't see it? And they say, man, no, I don't see it because, I've been an accountant for 30 years. I I don't know how to do anything else.
That's the only thing I can do. And I said, listen, you're talking to me and we're talking in Italian. So I'm pretty sure you speak at Tanya pretty well. So Yeah.
Yes, of course. And I'll tell him, that we have about hundred requests a month of people who want to just conversation in Italian or via zoom or via Skype. And then it says, so this is, this could be my talent. This is something I could share on term republics, of course. But then, like the spark, like in their eyes and little by little, it said, man, I think playing violin also for since I'm six years old and I'm pretty good.
You think I can teach violin too? Somebody said, man, yes, that's exactly. what is this about? I'm sure you, in your resume, you had your soft skills, right? You wrote your soft skills and nobody ever reads the soft skill. Not to mention utilizing that it's oh, I can really do that.
And then, a new world opens up and you realize that, they're so like brainwashed that, and they're so accustomed to just do one thing. And, the company is asking me to do one thing. So I'm the accountant. And everybody knows me as like the boring accountant. And whenever I call somebody, let's say at five on Friday, nobody answers because they know that they, I'm asking for numbers and there's something beautiful happen.
So we launched this pilot and people start, exchanging and exploring and after a month or so the same accountant. Contacted me personally. And it tells me, listen, now I understand now I really understand. And the stories that, somebody posts a request that they needed, like to know a little bit more about violin lessons, because the son of discipline, he wanted to always want student violin at the the boring accounted reply to the request they made during lunch break and him being like, Leveraging on something they really love to do.
Once, you ask about your passion, you become evangelists. So you give the extra emphasis and you go the extra mile to explain and everything, the other person, which was the I forgot what it was, I think was in the creative world. If it was the graphic designer for the bank, or I don't remember what it was, but I remember it was, more than the art creative part.
They became so close, they invite him over for during the weekend to meet the kid. They did the first lessons of Eileen and the became really close. And after that, every other weekend, they would invite each other's family over for a weekend for dinner and they created this thing.
So this is really in a nutshell, what would time banking can do. And this, it seems I'm saying something that is out of The ordinary, it's something like over a, it's romanticized, but this is really what's happening. And so suddenly, the boring accountant is seen within the community of the employees as something great.
Somebody that is gradient some hidden talents that nobody knew and new, new type of Exchange can be born from there. And also the benefit that the company has. And that's why we've been so successful with that model is that the company by having a more engaged community as a return of investment too, because now when, once the boring accountant is calling me at five on a Friday, and I know it's him.
Now I have a deeper relationship. I have something else to share. So I answer the phone and I'm helping him more then before, because now I know I'm under a different light. And so this is really, it is in a very micro level, but this is what's happening on a micro level and this is what we're trying to do.
And it's, what seems to work.
Adam: [00:28:38] I really love about that is just this idea that you can bring things that are unique to you that you enjoy doing and just say, Hey, this is what I love. And you can share that with somebody else. And it's not like you're being told, Hey, you need to do X, Y, and Z because I'm paying you and that's your job.
You can show up with who you are and that unique skill that makes you you and use that to connect with other people. So that's, that sounds really awesome. Cool. Has that business model changed over the years?
Gabriele: [00:29:12] Yes. It's just changed because. As great as it is to have a corporate client, in order to have a corporate client, you really have to structure yourself to be, corporate. And for example, the, we signed the contract, your bank, and some Paolo after basically a year since the first encounter.
So the cycle is it's really long and it takes a lot of effort. So we said, it's great because it's really, it's, once you have a corporate client, it's cool in terms of money and and the insecurity, but that's not where our heart is. So we really wanted to focus on, on, on the B2C business to consumer model and by introducing the community model, which I explained before.
We decided to change the model into a premium model. So basically we give you like a basic module for the communities, which is free. And then together with the administrator of those groups, we create custom tools that they need maybe implementation of a calendar, or like a more extensive dashboard to see the statistics and so forth.
And then we charge a certain fee every month for those custom tools.
Adam: [00:30:27] That's fantastic, as you're developing the business, you'll be gearing it towards new enhancements that serve the community.
Gabriele: [00:30:35] Yes the lean approach, you start with something basic and then you're, you have to be ready to reiterate and to develop super quickly something that. That your customer wants. For example the girl that created this community that we spoke before about the circle, the round table about spirituality.
She invited me into the group. And then since we already created something outside through zoom at the end of the zoom call, they said another person said, okay, let's keep in touch. So let's create a WhatsApp group so we can exchange links. And then the other person, oh no, but I don't have WhatsApp.
Okay. So let's do a Facebook group. And then I said that let's do, it on TimeRepublik on the community, and then that's what she did. But then I realized that, those other platforms are great because they're much more immediate. It's easier to send a link and to create like a forum like thread.
And that's something that actually since yesterday with trying to design. So to have the possibility also on the community page to create a thread like the conversation where you don't necessarily need to create a request and wait for the other person to reply, but it's much more immediate.
And then maybe instead of the like button, you can introduce ways to donate time coins right away. Because if somebody is giving a commented, it actually is helpful. Maybe you want to. Donate some time coins to the person because they actually helped you. So create different ways, different dynamics to give to the administrator of the groups.
Adam: [00:31:58] That's brilliant. So what's the best way for people to get involved with TimeRepublik.
Gabriele: [00:32:03] It's still go on timerepublik.com and register, fill out their profiles and start using it. We weren't sure at the beginning, if gifting time was the right thing to do, because we were afraid that people would come up, they would register, they would gain five hours and they would spend them right away and then they will disappear.
But we seen the exact opposite trend. So we see people that registered, they collect their time coins, but they don't post requests. And there they spend all their time helping other people. So they collect time coins and they don't bother in asking for anything. So you flip the whole thing. On the, on, on its head.
And now we'll have to force people to actually ask for help. Let me say, stop helping please post a requests because I'm sure you need something. So basically we're working on a campaign to push people, to ask for help, which is a luxury problem for us.
So I'm saying the best way is to go to fill out your profile, collect some time coins, and please post a request. I'm sure you need a logo. You need to brush up your Spanish. You need some cooking recipes. You need simple things and that's the best way to start understanding the dynamics of time bank. So this is, the best way to get involved. And then you feel like a community that resonates with you. You can join the community and see how that works.
Adam: [00:33:30] That's funny that you say that because it does sound counterintuitive. But if you think about it, there is like a certain comfort factor in giving, right? Because there's no expectation or no, no feeling that you owe somebody something. There's a feeling if I'm asking for something for free there's almost a guilt factor or something in there of not participating.
But it seems like as soon as you actually participate, you realize, hey, this is the value of exchange. So I'm okay to share up and ask for something and allow somebody to give something to me because I'm going to do the same for them.
Gabriele: [00:34:04] And that's. I should have very good at what you said than I ever thought about it. I thought that the reason why they don't post and that it's culturally as well, because we've seen certain places that they're not afraid to ask for help. And I always thought is cultural, especially in the states where we have to force people to post, because there is this stigma, I think that you need something.
So you've seen us. As like a weak person, that you're needing something, especially in a social media ethos that everybody's like the need, anything they're flying private jets. And they're like on holiday 360 days a year. So I always thought that's the reason why people don't post requests, but maybe you're right.
Also there's that factor that if I post something means I have to give something in return. And and what is the catch?
Adam: [00:34:54] I do understand that difficulty in asking for help. I have a friend who's always been very giving her entire life and then she fell ill and she needed help from other people. And she struggled with that because, just having to ask somebody for help and needing to do that, felt wrong to her. And I remember having this discussion and watching her come to this conclusion that, Hey, me being in this position is the way things are right now. And I do need this help, but by putting myself out there and accepting help, I'm giving somebody else that chance to give. And so in a sense, you're giving somebody that, that gift to be able to help by asking, and that completes a circle.
Gabriele: [00:35:37] Yeah. We have to change the mindset and realize that actually asking for help. You're gifting somebody because you're gifting that happiness moment that. Basically realize itself when the person is allowed to freely help you. So that's what reciprocity is about.
And we have to rediscover that because as I said, we're social animals and we see that reciprocity is it's really the essence of human beings. So it's yeah, and we have to. To the world.
Adam: [00:36:10] If you show up and you offer your time doing the things that you love to do for somebody else. Not only are you helping somebody else, but you're spending that time doing something that, that is important to you personally that you're good at. So there's just a whole nother dimension to that, which is fantastic.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Gabriele: [00:36:30] Thank you for having me. I I would, that's what I love to do.
Talk about it and learn things and and really spread the word because I truly believe that this could be a game changer. I still believe that money is extremely useful for certain things. It's certainly, works very well for certain things, but for others, it's just this is not just a good measuring tool. It's like measuring a sphere with a ruler. So we have to create a more malleable currency for things like a sphere, and and I think time's a great, was a great currency for that.
Adam: [00:37:06] And if you're you want to live your life as a whole person, I think the world of working, earning money, spending it is very linear. And so it sounds like TimeRepublik is tool for bringing that sphere into being.
Gabriele: [00:37:21] Because at the bottom line, I think what the world needs is more trust. I think at the core of every conflict, every challenge that we have, from small to big, from the fight that you have with your partner or from, a big war, really at the core there's lack of trust. So if you're able to generate a little bit more trust between people and then the city you found like the philosopher's stone, you find something that really turn anything into gold and we believe that you can only do that through relationship by boosting relationship between people.
We live in a society where like technology basically transform any potential occasion to create a relationship into a transaction. If you like delivery or you need a ride or like a sex relationships and like food mobility, it's visibly, there are all things that before technology or not even before 2005, we were doing it. And we were creating a sort of like exchange with a person with a real human being. And then technology came and created this extremely fast access to everything, but it transformed everything to a transaction. Actually it's like something extremely new, that scaled so fast, of course we're binge watching on Netflix because it's right. Hopefully my generation, we have to wait like a whole week to see the second episode right now I can watch four season in a weekend.
So it's great. Don't get me wrong. I do that too. I think everybody does that. But again, it's great, we have to start creating tools that leverage on different dynamics and start to create platforms that are not designed to create these like super dopamine effect. And, it creates this like a gambling, like dynamics. I don't know if you saw that the social dilemma it's pretty popular, documentary about that, but you really have to be courageous and start, building technology and building platforms leveraging on different dynamics that might not generate the return of investment that, Instagram is generating, but it's creating a better world.
I don't feel shame in saying that we want to create a better world because it just really, what. What our goal is.
Adam: [00:39:40] People really are looking for a more human connection. And I know that emptiness, looking at Instagram where you do feel disconnected because there's no exchange. There's no real solid connection there. So on TimeRepublik, if you can come in and build that connection.
Yeah. It's going to take time and effort because the front is what a human interaction is. But by participating in showing up, you are, going find that much more fulfilling.
Gabriele: [00:40:08] That's the ah-ha moment of time banking platform like TimeRepublik.
Adam: [00:40:13] Thanks again for joining me today. I feel like we covered so much just about what TimeRepublik is about. I learned a lot more about time banking. But also we dove into how to build an effective community and looking at some of those things of what people can do to get more connected and just this whole understanding that what fulfils you is what you give. So being able to turn that into building real relationships.
Gabriele: [00:40:38] Great. Thank you. Thank you for hosting this wonderful chat.
Adam: [00:40:43] If you're listening, go visit TimeRepublik.com that's Republic with a K and sign up and get involved make some requests and give some time and see if you can experience what it's about. Thank you so much for listening today.
Once again, that's TimeRepublik.com. And if you want additional resources, you can find them in the show notes on people helping people that world.
Grow Ensemble’s Cory Ames and Annie Bright Prioritize Quality and Consistency to Develop an Attractive Content Creation Strategy
May 21, 2021
Cory Ames and Annie Bright discussed their ongoing work with impact media company Grow Ensemble, which also includes their podcast Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Podcast. Grow Ensemble is a content and media company inspiring businesses and individuals to consider more sustainable business and life choices in support of the impact economy. Cory and Annie also train and consult other purpose driven businesses to achieve results to build audiences of advocates that connect with the mission of impact companies.
Both Cory and Annie describe their journey into the world of social entrepreneurship as coming from backgrounds of digital marketing and law. After being active in their own respective fields, they came to discover that there was a way to get involved with initiative’s closer to values they support. Cory’s journey is the kind where you see a different picture once you climbed a mountain. Annie’s story is the kind where you’re deciding between two paths until someone shows you there’s a third path. While telling their origin stories, both Cory and Annie blend into what led to using their skills for social impact.
Through content and media, Grow Ensemble is encouraging people to consider more of what their choices mean. People tend to downplay the personal impact they have on the world, but Annie gave an excellent example of how small actions influence larger outcomes and trends. Annie shared that the main point of personal small action is the way it significantly reduces what’s being added to the problem. Annie actually reconnected to share the exact statistic she mentioned in her example after our conversation, which is “The shampoo bottles thrown out every year in the U.S. could fill 1,164 football fields.”
As a social enterprise, Cory spoke about what it’s like to present information to an audience without overwhelming the audience. Two major factors he mentioned are access points and momentum of how people interact with the initiative’s content. He goes on further relating the two factors to providing opportunities for people to engage with better choices, as well as explaining how each small choice builds momentum. He explained what approaches he suggests for budding entrepreneurs versus established companies. The common thread of both approaches involves content creation, which Cory explained why discoverability is outside of “gaming” algorithms.
While speaking, Cory and Annie expressed their latest interests in regenerative agriculture. The duo came across the topic after working with a company focused on the issue. They learned how new age farming techniques disrupt nutrients and carbon sequestration of the soil.
Cory Ames and Annie Bright shared what’s coming up for Grow Ensemble, including the launch of a new series focused on the impact of fashion. Grow Ensemble is continuing to introduce people to living with choices that more positively impact our world. The duo emphasized that it’s important that people don’t blindly trust certifications or advertising from companies, but that people are engaging with companies that truly care about the positive impact.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. I'm so excited to have Cory and Annie of Grow Ensemble on the podcast today. Grow Ensemble is a content and media company focused on making sustainability and better for the world business practices the norm for both individuals and businesses in support of the impact economy.
Their focus is on inspiring consumer audiences to become more active participants in making the world a better place. Cory and Annie also train and consult other purpose-driven businesses to achieve results with their SEO driven content and efforts to build audiences of advocates, to help support and maximize the impact companies are making.
Personally, I'm really excited to dive in and do what Cory and Annie are doing because we're trying to figure out how to grow our own platform on people, helping people. They also have an excellent podcast called the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Podcast with some great guests on there.
So without further ado, Cory & Annie welcome on the podcast.
Cory: [00:01:02] Yeah, we really
Annie: [00:01:03] appreciate it.
Adam: [00:01:04] Can you just tell us a little bit about what Grow Ensemble is in your own words?
Annie: [00:01:09] Yeah. And I think that was a pretty good intro. And like you mentioned an impact media company. Aimed at increasing access and engagement with what we identify as truly sustainable businesses. So we're really trying to do is provide opportunities and information for regular people like us to make decisions that are in alignment with their values.
Whether that's through the daily purchases or the businesses that they're engaging with or working with.
Cory: [00:01:33] I would reiterate much of the same. Grow Ensemble for Annie and I is kind of something of like our own, documentation of our own sustainability journey and journey into sustainable business. As we connect with really exceptional people, as you mentioned through our podcast, learn about all sorts of things like regenerative agriculture, B Corp certification, composting all sorts of different stuff. And we like to really write that down, record it, record videos, and share that with the folks who consume our content.
Adam: [00:02:06] How did you guys get started on your journey?
Cory: [00:02:08] Before grow ensemble I always had some overlap in digital marketing, content, marketing and entrepreneurship generally. I first worked in a digital marketing agency that, randomly serves dental practices all over the U S and Canada. I was more excited about the opportunity to learn digital marketing itself and learn the ins and outs of the dental industry. Also important. And so I had a great opportunity to, to work right under the CEO of that small but fast growing company. Gave me a license to try, experiment with things and he, his promise was, he'll teach me everything. He knew about digital marketing and kind of set me up to, to run a business of my own in a few years.
And sure enough, he did. And I worked my way up in that company ultimately moved into the CEO position. And it was at that point in which I really had a full scope of the business and had to really grapple with why they were in business. What the purpose of it was to where I felt a little bit of a mismatch with what my values were particularly.
And I think what most appealed to me about entrepreneurship generally and why I think businesses should exist in the first place. And so with a little bit of a mismatch in values that kind of took me into an existential crisis of some kind, because not that motivated to just make money for the sake of making money.
And I sorted through what I thought about business, entrepreneurship and the skills I've developed over the last couple of years. And in question, if I should really continue on with any of those and thankfully, this was near the time of when Annie and I originally met and she is a much better person than I am.
And so she encouraged me to check out social entrepreneurship communities. It was specifically the certified B Corp community and learn about, great companies like Tom or Allbirds or folks like that. And I saw that they're having an annual conference. Actually in New Orleans at the time we were in San Antonio and it's an eight hour drive and it was a month away.
And so I reached out to the organizers and just asked to volunteer. And so I was trying to mismatch the skills that I had in digital marketing and entrepreneurship with who's my community of people. Are there other people who I think do business in a way that's ethical and a way that feels in alignment with what I value, what I believe in.
Went to that conference and met all those different types of companies. And I was blown away. I remember calling Annie. She was in law school at the time, so she had to stay back in San Antonio. But after the first day I was calling her saying Oh, I think these are my people, that's that and a good few ideas and things later, I think the core of Grow Ensembles idea really came from Annie herself, as opposed to me, I'm just like the skillset.
Annie: [00:04:54] This is why we got married. Yeah,
Adam: [00:04:58] I love that.
Cory: [00:04:59] From there, it was really diving deep into just learning more about community. What's different about these types of businesses, these business people, and as well, the realm of the areas of impact that they're involved in social or environmental, or what have you.
Annie: [00:05:14] I think there's also a thing of when you learn about with these businesses are doing. Truly sustainable and social business. It's very easy to then want to get on a rooftop and scream and every conversation you have, you're like, yeah. You're like, Oh my God, no. Did you hear, have you heard, did you know this was an option?
And so it makes our job very easy.
Adam: [00:05:32] How did you learn about social entrepreneurship or get on this journey, Annie?
Annie: [00:05:36] Yeah.
So I think one before, when I was deciding whether I wanted to go to law school my older brother runs a education-based nonprofit in Austin, Texas called college forward. And I had mentioned like, Oh, wait maybe I'll go to law school or maybe I'll get engaged with some type of business, which isn't where my family naturally goes.
There's a lot of like teachers and attorneys. And my brother said, you got to look at this, these poor people, there is a different way to run a business. And so he introduced me to that. And then when I was in law school and for a brief stint after I was working on immigration and a very common response that people would have to me, would be to say something like, Oh man, that's such a terrible problem.
I'm glad people like you were doing something. And I would think wait, now we're more of a triage side of things. There's a lot more that everybody could be doing way before the problems get to an asylum or an immigration attorney. And I think my brother made me aware of the community, but having that, like worm's eye view of how regular people can get to know this ecosystem of change around them and take action.
And that kind of came through a culmination of quite a few experiences like that.
Adam: [00:06:43] I always love hearing people's journeys to learn about social entrepreneurship or get involved. But one thing that you do Grow Ensemble is you're delivering this message and helping reach new audiences to teach them about social entrepreneurship. So what are some of the things that you find are helpful in the way that you spread that message for companies?
Cory: [00:07:03] Oh, that's a good question. It was really just, what was our existing skill set that we had laying around, as to why that was our approach and method degree. I had a lot of experience in online content and SEO and Annie's done quite a bit of writing and editing herself.
And so those things together is just alright, you know what's the first way that we immerse ourselves into this community. And that was our first approach, but. And a number of things that I guess we find to be most effective in spreading that message is one from the get go is just consistency.
I think just because, especially when you get into these bubbles of any sort of realm of social entrepreneurship, like social impact, environmental action. You start talking to all these people and you think wow, everyone thinks this way. And everyone is very considerate and mindful of the purchases that they're making or what they do with their waste or whatever it might be.
But then you know, maybe you talk to some family members or her friends or whatever it might be. And you're like, Oh wow. Nobody shares this same experience or that it's a very small little slice of the pie that we're looking at. And so I think that repetition first and foremost has been very important to us from the very beginning.
We've been doing grow ensemble now for two and a half years, and everything has been compounding on the other. It started with the podcast, then the blog, and then now we're getting into video production with our YouTube channel. But our plans with every single one of them is to find what is our kind of consistent cadence, that we can adequately publish on each platform, given our resources and capacity personally.
And plan on doing that for a decade or more is our thoughts. So that's the first one. I don't know if you have
Annie: [00:08:39] anything else. Yeah, I think so. We talk about this all the time of especially when companies are product focused, they're selling a product. And so what they're doing is looking for who's interested in the product and how can we get in front of them and inherently in girl ensemble, our focus isn't so much the people who've already drank the Kool-Aid as it is.
A water man or water person who doesn't know about reef safe, sunscreen, or an animal rights advocate that doesn't know about regenerative agriculture or social advocate that doesn't know about labor rights and companies?
the B Corp requirements for labor protections. And so for us, it's, there's a very centered group of people that are committed, like I said, but then there's so many people that really care about stuff and just don't even know that they don't have to make these daily compromises.
And so all of our content is geared toward coming in, getting out in front of those people. And it's, our expertise is SEO. We use that to reverse engineer, like what all these people looking for and how can we present sustainable options is something they find.
Adam: [00:09:44] So you use that expertise in SEO to help companies make sure that their content is reaching the right people and maximizing the impact that they're trying to make.
Now I have a question for you. This question has come up a lot recently. Quite often there is pushback of an individual who says, Hey, I could change my behavior. I could change what I do, I'm one person, what kind of impact does that make?
And one person among billions, it's easy to look at that and say there's not much change that me modifying my behavior is going to make. And I'm just curious to explore the other side of that. Because that's a relevant topic for everybody whose just wondering, how much is an effort for me worth in creating change in the world.
Annie: [00:10:26] That's a very, like you said, it's an extremely common response. That's also a good question. And it's something that has to be answered if people are to be motivated to stay consistent in making sustainable decisions. And I think there's two components to it. One I don't think it's completely accurate.
I think it is in some regards where yeah, the individual impact isn't, what's gonna make the big changes. But at the same time, it does influence trends, consumer trends, which companies respond to. And there are things that people can do that do have big impact. For example, we worked with Plain Products who did they make personal care products like shampoos, conditioners, lotions soaps, and they're in aluminum bottles that you send back to them.
Also, they smell really good, highly recommend them. But, one thing that we found when we were working with them is how many plastic bottles, one human being uses in their entire lifetime. And it's it's an, I don't want his quote if it's like an absurd amount. It's some dozen football fields.
It's like crazy. I don't want to misquote them. You can look at their website, Plain Products and they have that figure up there. But it is this thing of think of, the toothbrush that you bought when your first toothbrush still exists in a landfill and the shampoo that your parents washed your hair with, assuming it's plastic still exists.
So yeah. That's not gonna solve the pollution problem, but that does reduce significantly what's being added to the problem. And then I think the second thing is making compromises on your values and your beliefs every day, I think, and we think it Grows Ensemble does weigh on people. It's easy to say, I, for social justice, I don't believe in child slave labor or any slave labor for that matter.
And it feels, it's something you don't think about when you're engaging with all these companies that might engage those practices. But what does feel noticeably good is when someone says, I like your shoes and you say, Oh my God. Yeah. They're made out of recycled products and they're sustainable. Or I have these girlfriend collective like biker shorts that I. wear almost every single day and they're made out of recycled plastic. And and everyone, it feels noticeably good when someone compliments me that this is the social currency that I'm operating on is that I'm making values aligned decisions. It's not just based on a logo. And so the impact I think, is also in your own personal life, knowing that the way you are living your life is going to create impact.
And the question is whether that impact is going to be positive or negative.
Adam: [00:12:51] I love that.
Do you ever find that you're communicating with people and they just get overwhelmed with all of the different ways that they are impacting the earth and just don't even know where to start?
Cory: [00:13:03] Definitely I think for us, that's why like access points and momentum is critically important. Both of those. Just because, we're very open to wanting to meet people where they're at and invite them into making so much of what is core to us is like making that everyday change, very accessible, approachable, digestible.
And so wherever that is at for any one person, like really open to accepting that invitation, because, thinking about our own experience for one. Be it in the spectrum of, what types of sustainable businesses exist, just because you could go very deep on trying to define exactly that all the various certifications whether it was that timeline between where we started and where we are now to what we do with our food waste and how we think about the purchases that we make, there's layers and layers of things that. We feel, we think we know now however, we started in the same place as much as anyone else did. And so it's not necessarily about making the absolute most massive impact now, or, as Annie mentioned making some massive sacrifice tomorrow, I think it's more so about finding where there's momentum to make small, meaningful changes that perhaps, encourage and incentivize and facilitate other larger ones being with yourself or as well, the community that you have around you with friends, family, or colleagues or what have
Annie: [00:14:32] you. I think it's also what we're talking about. When we say we're increasing access to sustainable decisions. Like change paralysis is so real. Your kitchen, you see all this plastic and you're like, I'm going to become zero waste. And then you're like, I don't know what that means. And I know that, at two days in you're like I am failing. And so we, we try to keep all of our content, like Cory was saying is like, Hey, choose your gateway drug into sustainability.
This is yeah, just we'll make this plastic in your bathroom. And these are, we have, all of our, most of our recommendations are based on these are the ones that you can make with the least amount of resistance. And then there are some that require you to either adjust to what you're used to or find a new way to do something. It's never a good place to start. What we're focused on our content is providing more access points to people who are interested, but maybe don't know how to get started.
Adam: [00:15:22] Now at the other end of the spectrum here in Columbus, Ohio, we're very fortunate. We have a a weekend hackathon launchpad called GiveBackHack where people come in pitch ideas on a Friday night for social enterprises they'd like to start. Then they form teams and develop an MVP over the weekend.
Which is it's really exciting. And they've actually had a lot of success that people launching small ideas through this. We're also really lucky. We have a 12 week accelerator specifically for social entrepreneurs. So quite often people will come out of this, GiveBackHack weekend and have a 12 week accelerator that they can go through to really develop up their business.
It's just been great at growing the community and getting more people in. But what we find are a lot of people, they had an idea. They're not entrepreneurs. They're starting up. And one thing that they really struggle with is how do I grow my audience?
How do I connect with more people? What can I do to actually get my business off the ground? And that's a huge question on everyone's mind. And I'm just curious what your approach is with working with companies and what a budding entrepreneurs should know to get off on the right foot.
Cory: [00:16:24] First off, it's going to vary quite widely between the budding entrepreneur and then, maybe other companies that we work with to have in-house marketing teams, those are completely different scenarios. And I think it's important, not for the sake of you can never achieve what they could achieve, but, being realistic in the sense of your expectations. So you don't set yourself up for failure, when it, especially when it's early on, because so much in starting something new, being a business or whatever it might be, I think again, is really about continuing with momentum and enthusiasm and excitement because it is challenging like inherently.
And so you want to set yourself up for wins as much as you possibly can. And so what we typically recommend , particularly for folks who are just getting started is to document their process and their journey and figure out for one, what's perhaps the best medium for them to do that's most comfortable to them cause like we started with the podcast, but I don't necessarily recommend everyone starts a podcast or a blog or a YouTube channel. But I do think that there is some incredible value to picking one medium that works for you. Some sort of sense of consistency or frequency.
I always get asked like, how much should we publish your week or whatever, you know what I say, as much as possible without sacrificing on quality. And so if that's twice a month, once a month, once a week, or more like you just got to figure out your cadence and stay consistent. But I really think that the value in choosing any one of those realms and staying consistent with it is that there's so much serendipity that gets created as a product of the internet. And I think that's been something that's really appealed to me originally about SEO. And when I first started building websites to grab traffic from different places, I was just absolutely dumbfounded with, like people from all over the world are visiting this site that I built.
Knowing very little about websites or marketing. It's gotten a little bit more difficult now than it was then, but I think the very same thing with who we see come across, Grow Ensemble every single day, literally people all over the world, starting different social ventures, nonprofits of all different demographics and generations.
And that is because we've put things out on the internet consistently. Because in the world of search engines that we live in right now, it's like the search engines are going to do the work for you. Providing you're putting some interesting perspectives some useful perspectives, some honest and authentic perspectives out there.
They, the search engines, their job is to essentially do the work for you in connecting your content with people who are interested in looking for it. And you know why I liked the podcast. One for a way to get started is that it connected me with people first and foremost, as opposed to just publishing a blog.
And depending on what type of your business you're in, or maybe not really, it it's really people who are going to be everything to that business. Either customers, investors, or just advocates and supporters who are going to share what you do with much wider, communities or audiences, it's all.
Like richness in serendipity, both in business and in the relationships that you cultivate and curate are going to come from the people that you meet. So that's why I really loved podcasting. And then if people are doing podcasting, if you're going to write a blog, I highly recommend interviewing experts in folks in your space, just because so many people are very open to being interviewed, and you're not asking them for anything, but just their time, ideally you're doing something for them by curating some really useful piece of content and then share it with a wider audience, as much as you can to hustle and do that. But maybe that's a bit long-winded of an answer, but it's really where I'd recommend starting is picking your medium, ideally integrating other people in your industry, the space that you want to be a part of and learn about integrate that into your content process and then be consistent to whatever feels comfortable for you at that point in time and start slow.
First and then build up to other channels and other consistencies and frequencies over time. That's why we started with one at a time, the podcasts, then the blog then YouTube and our newsletter. Like those were all happening at the same time. We built those up one after another.
Adam: [00:20:33] Fantastic. Now, how does that approach differ for established companies that would say have a marketing department or kind of a larger budget and just a more established a business.
Cory: [00:20:44] I think with those types of resources available, you just have the opportunity to move a lot faster. And I think perhaps you'd invest in other things that I wouldn't recommend, a budding entrepreneur or a small startup might invest in. From tools, resources, high quality, like highest quality writers that you can possibly invest in just because everything of where I think organic discoverability is headed with SEO, as it relates to Google YouTube or any other search engines that exist is that the focus is really going to be on quality over time. And that's a very subjective measure and it's very relative to who you're competing against, in search engines. But if you have more resources available, then you know, it's ultimately like you're creating a mini, even if you aren't a media or a publishing company, you're creating your own little media or publishing engine within your company.
And so if you have more recent resources available, some of these bigger companies, I recommend that they go all in on the sense of what they can do to increase the quality of their content as quickly as possible. And so that looks like different things. I'm less concerned with the budding entrepreneur, with the quality of the video that they're producing or the audio, the podcasts, it's like more important that you get started and you probably meet people, and that you learn things. Versus it would be weird if a company that's, it has a very significantly sized marketing budget.
Starts producing videos. It doesn't have to be perfect. Doesn't have to be cinematic level, but if they started producing very pixelated, not crispy videos, it maybe be a bit off-brand or what, what folks wouldn't expect. So I think the resource investment is certainly different.
Annie: [00:22:20] I think also that one of the, this is just reiterating a bit of what Cory touched on, but a big thing is that content creation, as I'm sure, it takes a lot of time. It takes resources. You're researching and preparing for every interview or you're writing a blog post and then it's being edited and then it's being like quality checked and then it's, someone's publishing it.
And with a more established or larger business they can hire writers. And then there's people sitting in, content all the time. There's this idea of no, just put some on the internet, but the important thing is that it's quality content, and it's always so sad for us when someone's Oh, I've been, publishing a blog for a year and they're, really short pieces that they could put a lot of time into, but if they've maybe would have reduced the frequency to once a week or twice a week instead of every single day or once a week from twice a week, then there would have been a little bit more, it could be more of a resource for them as content.
Adam: [00:23:15] Got it. So really focusing on information and resources that are useful for people. So things that people will want to digest and will help them. And. In that sense, they're more likely to share and refer back to over time.
Cory: [00:23:29] I think everything follows from that anyways, because that's really the core of what like discoverability, like search engine optimization is about. It gets muddled when you're trying to game an algorithm. And that's what people think it's about. Those are very short term approaches. They're getting less and less effective.
But instead of that, if you are creating things that people are actually going to engage with find useful, find interesting. That's really the core of it because Google is really attempting to meet your useful content with someone who is literally searching for it. You can get far more technical than that.
But if you're doing that first and foremost, focusing on, identifying who your audience is, who you want to connect with reverse engineering from there, like what are the questions you should answer that are important to them? What kind of content could you serve them that would be engaging to them.
You're going to be far better off with that approach and then matching it with some more SEO tactics and expertise over time, versus just focusing on how do we do SEO and how do we, game the algorithm and focus on optimizing for SEO as much as possible versus engagement.
First interest, first curiosity
Annie: [00:24:38] first, We're very excited about SEO as a tool so we can talk about it all day.
Adam: [00:24:44] I'm loving this. I would love to, shift direction a little bit. And I'd love to just hear from both of you, if there's a particular area of the social impact arena that calls to you something that you've learned about, or, you're really passionate about in the broad spectrum of social impact.
Cory: [00:25:01] We ran a couple good campaigns at the end of last year and started this one and that introduced us predominantly through the world's first regenerative, organic certified vineyard to regenerative agriculture for one.
Adam: [00:25:19] What is regenerative agriculture?
Cory: [00:25:21] So I guess contrasting it with more traditional or conventional agricultural methods, regenerative agriculture, maybe it's its simplest explanation. I'm sure. If there are any, true, purist environmentalist listening. And they'd be like, that is so wrong at the core of it, how it works is that the earth, the planet is better off as a product of the agricultural practices being implemented and used as opposed to the other way around very traditional conventional agriculture, and farming practices are very exploitative and extractive of the earth to where ultimately.
Th the thing that it really boils down to is that the health of the top soil is the soil becoming healthier with time. And as a product of healthy soil, we get healthy everything else ultimately. But is that becoming healthier over time? Or if you've, you'll look at some conventional farms, are they essentially extracting in, in pulling out all of the nutrients in any sort of organic capacity of that soil to where it's, they farmed it, they've tilled it, all this kind of stuff over time to where it's just a big flat dirt patch. And so it's going to contrast these two examples to where the ecosystem that's around the farm or the home as people start to garden a bit more.
Is that area becoming healthier as an ecosystem, a micro ecosystem as a product of it, or the opposite of that, are we taking more from the environment than we're putting in?
Annie: [00:26:49] Importantly, this might be public knowledge. I always feel like people are like, yeah, obviously, but if we did not know one of the, the super powers of soil is carbon sequestration.
So it takes carbon out of the air and holds it in the ground. It's a soil is really healthy. Not only can it hold more carbon, a bit of holds it for longer. It turns into nutrients for more plants, biodiversity. If that's increased, you're just getting this really healthy microbiome in the soil. And so as conventional farming practices are tilling up the land, they're releasing all this carbon into the air and as we all know, we have a very large carbon problem.
And so yeah, back to your first question of people feeling like, Oh, what I'm doing, does it matter? You can literally help reverse climate change by having regenerative land at your own house, make regenerate your soil and make it really healthy. And now you create an eco system, that's literally taking carbon out of the air reversing climate change.
We just were like floored, when we learned that existed, we were like, I always thought, yeah, there's going to be someone who's going to invent something. That's going to stop climate change. And then we watched. Kissed the Ground. And it was like, Oh no, it's literally the dirt it's soil. And we were like, just mind blown.
Adam: [00:28:01] I love that example because my friend Lindsay Stevenson was leaving her practice as a doctor because she cared so much about this. And she went out to buy a farm, to turn it into a permaculture farm so she could reclaim the traditional farming and put it to good use.
because she had just read so much about how all the oceans were being destroyed with all the fertilizers and bad chemicals and that runoff that comes in and creates dead zones. And then the carbon capture that is usually impacted so much by farming. So I love that example.
Annie: [00:28:34] Yeah, it's a different one. And I feel like that was one of our like gateways. We've become very obsessive. We keep saying, we have a backyard that's just dirt. And so we were like, we're going to regenerate it and it's a process. So we're always on that journey, but it is it's.
So it's one of those things that kind of has momentum built into it because like we have phone cases that are compostable. We compost all our food scraps. There's a company called Keela that makes phone cases and technical technology accessories, and they're, doing a Indiegogo for a composting machine that compost, usually your compost bin, if you've ever had one sits on your kitchen counter, we'd recently had some fruit fly roommates move in.
It's just, it feels it's like a Dante isn't photo. You're like changing the compost and they are extremely innovative and they've created, they are feeding and are raising money right now to produce, a compost bin. It just, it composts it like immediately, like you sit there. Yeah. How cool is that for us?
That's it's a space that's has a lot of innovation in it. There's a lot of, you literally look outside, I'm looking right now in our backyard and it's like green stuff exists where it didn't exist before. So anything that helps us keep momentum, we're always pretty stoked about.
Adam: [00:29:51] You're going to have to send a photo of your backyard.
Do you have a topic as well? Which really got you into this?
Annie: [00:29:56] Yeah, so well, Cory came back from the B Corp retreat. I tell a story all the time I came back from the B Corp retreat. And was talking about?
all good products and it's reef safe, sunscreen. And I have surfed my entire life, that's something I really enjoy doing. And I had no idea that the sunscreen that I was wearing was coming off in the ocean, killing the coral reef.
And it took 13 seconds for me to be someone who had no idea that existed to being the person who sees somebody else who's sunscreen. I'm like, Oh, it's really part of the problem. You shouldn't do that. So that was the first like slap in the face. But I also, I do study and work with migrants.
And so for me, one thing that's constantly shocking on one hand and also really makes me hopefully in the hand is how people integrate very easily exploited human beings for work and how they integrate them into healthy businesses, where they can thrive. And just treat human beings like human beings.
And that is a big thing that I think we find is both, strengthening a diverse workforce and strengthening labor rights and business practices around that. So that's always, for me, that's science, very present daily for me.
Adam: [00:31:10] No. Are any of those issues, something that you learned about when you moved to San Antonio?
Cory: [00:31:14] I it's interesting just because San Antonio it's a city that's grown on us rather steadily in that it feels like it's the small town in the world. So like San Antonio?
is a top 10 city in size population. It does the whole country and the whole country. It spreads the city limits spread very vastly and it takes a long time to get to know the city.
So there's also is a very, this kind of like folksy, very friendly, demeanor that most people have out in San Antonio. But you also, you can be constantly and we've lived here now for four years. We're constantly coming across things I had no idea that this like little pocket, this whole neighborhood existed.
And so sadly, no, I wouldn't say that these are things that we learned about directly through coming to San Antonio, but indirectly they've, there has been so much here in San Antonio, as it relates both to the realm of sustainability and as well diversity and migrant and immigrant populations.
I'll let you speak to that, but. We were just having conversations with I think the company's called Atlas organics and they work in the composting space and
Annie: [00:32:28] commercial composting, like really lifestyle. They worked for
Cory: [00:32:32] cities. And so they presented us with news and they're on the East coast.
And in that first call, they gave us the news that. San Antonio was one of the most sustainable cities in the U S and they were moving, they're moving or expanding their composting operations into San Antonio because of so many different other conditions. And in like city, government programs that have been set up.
And so we were like shocked by that. We're like, how are we not knowing any of this information? And there's a lot of people doing really exceptional work here in San Antonio, as it relates to that, sometimes it feels like they're disconnected. And it's a matter of, bringing it together and COVID, didn't really help with that and bringing people together.
So maybe as we approach the light at the end of the tunnel, we can do more of that community going. But I know Annie's work has as far more overlap here.
Annie: [00:33:19] I went to law school here I, that was here at St. We have St. Mary's law school and I went to my first detention center.
Not a particularly uplifting. Daytime activity, but very impactful. And So one thing that I think I really liked about San Antonio specifically is that it's a very human city. Obviously. It's something I'm very interested in by the number of times I can work the word human into a conversation. But it is, it's just. It'd be this thing where we're like, Oh, it's like a big town. It's these are just like real people live in San Antonio and extremely diverse set of people. And so we meet our really good friend Alma, who knows everything about composting and soil health. And you're like, Oh yeah, you're just like a gym in this massive city.
But of course we found you because once you get your toe into this community, you start, it's very easy to get enmeshed in it. And so there's one that our individual community, like individual community members that we have that are experts in sustainability. And for me the immigration aspect of my legal community is here.
And so I, I've learned quite a bit about human rights since I've been in the city.
Adam: [00:34:30] So what's on the horizon for Grow Ensemble. What's coming up?
Cory: [00:34:34] At the moment we are about to launch a new series on the impact of fashion, where we'll be exploring the social, environmental, and economic challenges facing the fashion industry. And we're doing that in partnership with a fashion technology company by the name of Donna they're really great folks and leaders in the space of sustainable fashion and as well, circular fashion another interesting term there, but we just yesterday recorded a good handful of interviews for that.
And we are queuing up, in partnership with Donna, a book on the entire subject and breaking down the different components. That are currently of a great challenge to fashion in both their impact on the people affected by it, and of course the planet. So we're excited about that. And I'm about to queue up launching,
Annie: [00:35:28] some of that content.
Adam: [00:35:30] Fantastic. I definitely want to know about that when that comes
Annie: [00:35:33] We'll keep you up.
Adam: [00:35:33] My, my side hustle social enterprise is a work program for youth experiencing homelessness. We go in and we screen print t-shirts with them. So we're getting a lot of local orders. And the more I learn about making t-shirts, the more I realize the impact that has on the environment.
And so anything we can do in order to improve that process, I think it just makes such a difference.
Annie: [00:35:55] Yeah. What, where there's big problems is big opportunity for impact. So it's always exciting. At first shock is Oh God, this is really bad. And then you're like, Oh, but I can make small changes and make some big differences here.
Adam: [00:36:06] Yeah, definitely. That's wonderful. How did people find out about Grow Ensemble?
Annie: [00:36:09] Of course ,
Cory: [00:36:10] you can just go to grow ensemble.com easy access to all our stuff, their YouTube channel, blog, podcasts. But I would say maybe the greatest way to get connected with us and keep up with the week to week pulse of what is going on. Is our a better world, weekly newsletter, which I write curate and publish myself every single Monday.
I think I've done 82 consecutive and that's probably about 90,000 or a hundred thousand words now that published over the span of that time. And so every single week I'm sending out this email to give a little update as to what's going on with Grow Ensemble. What kind of, interesting things in the realm of sustainability that we're exploring and new content we're publishing.
So that's at grow ensemble.com backslash newsletter. That would be the greatest place. Cause that's really where you get what's top of mind for us on a week to week. It's a great place
Annie: [00:37:00] to get a book and reading recommendations. Also that's my primary use of the newsletter.
Adam: [00:37:06] I love that. And if you're listening to this podcast, also check out the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Podcast where they'll hear some great stories of the conversations that
Ensemble is having.
Cory: [00:37:16] I'm always bad at flagging that. So thank you.
Annie: [00:37:19] Yeah, it was a nice thing. It's nice to be able to listen to what other leaders and social business CEOs from really impactful companies like what their perspective is, what their story is. I think my last, and then also I'll shut up. But the, one of the things that we'd really like to drive home is
it's not about certifications or what companies are telling you. You're not just trusting that sound like the various companies values lined with you. And you're engaging with them. You want to know a bit about the human beings behind the company and know that their values align with you, and then trust that they're making decisions in alignment with the shared values.
And so the podcast is a really great way to get to know some of these people that are really making large differences through their companies.
Adam: [00:38:04] Thank you so much. Cory, Annie, for joining me on the podcast today, it's been a real pleasure. I feel like we covered a lot of ground, so I just really enjoyed that.
Annie: [00:38:12] No, it was really lovely. Obviously, we love to chat so we could go on forever. Thank you for having us, Adam.
Adam: [00:38:19] And if you're listening check them out at growensemble.com Or if you're listening to podcasts, check out the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Podcast as well as sign up for the Better World Weekly Newsletter, which you can find at GrowEnsemble.com/newsletter.
For other resources, you can check them out on the show notes on peoplehelpingpeople.world. And thank you so much for listening. Until next time. Cheers.
Jen O’Ryan of Double Tall Helps Company Staff Expand their Worldview by Sharing Perspectives in a Safe Space
May 07, 2021
Jen O’Ryan from Double Tall discussed diversity and inclusion as it relates to the LGBTQ community. Double Tall provides service as a consulting firm for strategy, design, and implementation. Jen also placed her knowledge in her book “Inclusive AF: A Field Guide for ‘Accidental’ Diversity Experts”, which explains how to cultivate a more welcoming workplace.
When first working with companies, Jen revealed that most approach Double Tall for consulting on unconscious bias. Jen shared that people tend to get stuck in their own worldview. Companies start the program, and realize the there is much more to the picture than what they thought. Jen explained that expanding the worldview of someone can be “a little mind blowing.” She further expressed that she is careful not to package LGBTQ+ experiences as a monolith, but as many experiences of different people in the community with similar aspects. It’s the type of learning that once you “see it”, you can’t “un-see it”.
Before getting into consulting, Jen spent her time volunteering with Mpowerment, where she connected with LGBTQ+ youth. She saw the value of peer-mentorship that helped youth to choose healthier decisions in the way they lived their experiences. Here, she would also be exposed to the the stories behind the youth, such as discrimination coming from people in their lives and the institutionalized discrimination creating barriers. These scenarios continue into adulthood, which leads to Jen explaining what these scenarios look like in the workplace.
An environment, like a workplace, can thrive if willing to take multiple perspectives into account. Unhealthy environments tend to be ones where different perspectives are shut down, whereas a healthier environment is open to a variety of perspectives. Being open to different perspectives is not solely about challenging each other to think differently. In reality, different perspectives allow people to gain knowledge of what else exists, like expanding the worldview.
“I use the example of curbs all the time; so you’ve got the curbs, and then you’ve got the little slope for people in a wheelchair with mobility issues. Unless you’ve had mobility issues, or been in a wheelchair, or seen it, you would never think to have that curb.”
— Jen O’Ryan
Jen explained her thoughts on how to create a new norm in the way we interact with each other. People can support each other by speaking up for one another, as well as by becoming more aware of ourselves. She helped explain what can happen if people try to balance conformity when their identity doesn’t reflect the majority, or the environment built around their experiences.
In life, you’re working with other people, and acknowledging them for who they are really opens up human connections. It allows us to meet people at the level of who they are as a person. Jen understands that acknowledgment as a “human need”; a form of authenticity that says “I see you for who you are. I see you as you are.”
Bruce Waltuck of Freethinc for a Change Builds Business Processes with Insight and Accountability
Apr 29, 2021
Bruce Waltuck shared the work he’s doing with Freethinc… for a Change. He holds three decades of experience from real-life settings and academia, which he spent improving business processes, teaching business courses, and being active in the U.S. Department of Labor. Bruce discussed methods social entrepreneurs can use to build an efficient and inclusive process for a social venture.
Time spent in the federal sector was a monumental piece of Bruce’s later efforts in managing business processes. While working alongside notable names from the federal sector, Bruce emphasized that his role made home focus more on “helping other people get better results together.” He explains why he was able to carry out the innovative approaches he accomplished, despite working in a sector that usually places strict limits around what is implemented. Bruce was able to transfer these principles into entrepreneurship where working in a strong team towards an aim is part of a daily practice. He gave questions that help people to figure out the impact and measure the effectiveness of the approaches to creating impact.
Bruce Waltuck mentioned one particular qualitative method of research called ethnography, best thought of as “narrative inquiry”. In this method, the focus is to get people’s stories. Collecting feedback from people telling their personal perspective provides insight you may not come across otherwise. Bruce went further to discuss defining impact, showing impact, and the complexity of merging and considering perceptions outside of our own narratives. Being able to see out and include other narratives becomes a powerful tool in developing new ways to experiment with creating an impact.
Gathering perspectives is one layer, and then comes the layer of being able to translate what you learn into metrics. Finding which metrics work within a certain setting and approach will likely take more group effort. There’s also a personal effort of making sure we each release our own bias to have a real dialogue with others. Bruce said one way to go about doing this is to see if we can “learn to suspend our judgment in the moment of listening and of observing.”
Understanding the ways we can connect perspectives leads to better identifying the infrastructure of the social venture we start. Bruce spoke about valuing the process of measuring an initiative’s feasibility, which comes alongside gathering insight from different perspectives. He presented a way for business to write a business plan that helps outline the developments required in forming an initiative.
Bruce expressed that entrepreneurship is more so related to a collective rather than the social efforts being done solo. He shared his thoughts on working as a collective, and revealed realizations he received from teaching his students. Bruce described his current aim is to “help people better understand what the real nature is of these social ventures that they’re intending to engage in, and what they can learn that will help them be more effective in organizing, leading, and operating and impacting.”
If you would like to learn more, you can visit his website freethinc.com.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Today, our guest on the podcast is Bruce Waltuck, founder of Freethinc For a Change. He's also a professor at Kean University where he teaches entrepreneurship and marketing communication.
He's got a unique master's degree in complexity, chaos, and creativity, and a long, fascinating career at the department of labor where he co-created the Department of Labor is award-winning process improvement system. Now through Bruce is able to help others entrepreneurs with his 30 years of experience as a leader in collaborative dialogue and business process improvement.
So let's jump right in. Bruce, welcome on the podcast.
Bruce: [00:00:45] Adam. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Adam: [00:00:47] I'm excited. Can we start off, can you just tell us a little bit about Freethinc and the work that you do?
Bruce: [00:00:53] So, Freethinc really emerged from my experiences as, and it was a word I didn't even know at the time. I didn't know what it meant to be an intrepreneur. I had never heard that we talk about a lot about entrepreneurs, but I had the opportunity. I call it the opportunity of a lifetime, to create a major nationwide change initiative and business process improvement initiative in the US department of labor.
Not a place where one might ordinarily think that significant change and collaboration and self-organizing and self-managing would usually be possible. Uh, which is one reason I called it the chance of a lifetime. And that experience led me to really focus on helping other people get better results together.
Adam: [00:01:40] What did that look like?
Bruce: [00:01:42] We were very fortunate. What really made it possible were two things. One was, there was actually a presidential mandate at the time under president G H W Bush. For every federal agency to work on business process and quality improvement, it was something that had really been highly successful and visible in the private sector and federal agencies were mandated to do it.
And for a variety of reasons, I was pretty much literally the only person out of 10,000 field employees who even knew what this was. That's a long story maybe for another day. But in 1989 I sat with then secretary of labor, Elizabeth Dole, a very well-known public figure. Her husband later was a presidential candidate.
So I was told with the person I was asked to work with Jim Armshaw. Things one never hears from a chief executive, which are take your time. I don't want this rushed. You have, here's a budget and an office and a staff. And I don't want my usual people. I don't want my team of usual managers involved in this.
I want more innovation. I want more openness. And we were very fortunate to connect with some folks. Notably, a fellow named Ed Cohen, Rosenthal who had written a book called Mutual Gains. We also knew this needed to be a partnership between management and the principal employee union. And that was unique as well.
There were only a very few, you could count on one hand, examples of that in the US federal sector at that particular time. And so we spent six months developing an initiative that was based on self-organized self-managing teams. We created a very short list of core values and operating principles.
We provided them with a very simple framework for brainstorming and addressing the issues and challenges that they wanted to think about and work on. And within six months, we had over 220 teams around the country that had taken this to heart and we're meeting on a regular basis. Less than three years later, we won a, one of the, this is the second-highest level of national recognition award.
It was called the quality improvement prototype award for having saved thousands of hours of people's time and millions of dollars of funds, by these improvements. And we were very grateful for that. I was certainly very grateful for that opportunity. Well, a lot of it had to do with finding ways to think differently, really. So much of what any business organization does. And the department of labor is primarily the six principal agencies that account for it was about 85% of its staff. Are largely law enforcement agencies, occupational safety and health, wage, and hour mine, safety and health, and some other things.
The Bureau of labor statistics who is economist collect wage and salary and price and other economic data and federal contract compliance. And so on. And in each case, you're dealing with an organization that is structured and governed and bound by rules laws regulations, as well as its own history of practice and culture.
Just as with any private sector organization, there are things that they set out to do. There are policies. There's this is the way we do X, Y, and Z, and have always done it. And so this was really an opportunity, perhaps the first opportunity ever for people to openly sit together. And say, what really is our objective here?
What might be some ways that we could explore and experiment together without the fear of failure we're going to learn. If it doesn't work as much as we learn if it does. And we're going to try and keep and solidify and amplify, what's working, do more of the good stuff and less of the stuff that isn't getting us the result we want.
And. Later many years later, now as I deal more with entrepreneurs and particularly social entrepreneurship, those same lessons are the core. Th the idea of people convening to make sense of their experiences together, consider options and opportunities together, and try and explore possibility together, and then reflect and assess and keep going.
That's at the heart of entrepreneurship, too.
Adam: [00:06:05] Got it. So it sounds like it. There is a lot to creating this space where people can actually work in collaboration very effectively. Are there certain boundaries when people come together of how you set that tone?
Bruce: [00:06:20] Great question. So one of the things that we were very fortunate to find at that time, the global standard for teams and collaboration was a book called the Team Handbook. I think it's still in print and went through several additions and two of the three principal authors, Peter Scholtes and Brian Joiner who were from Madison, Wisconsin.
I got to meet and know through some coincidence and became friends with them. They were very helpful and supportive, and this was literally the book that was the Bible of team books around the world. It was in like 50 languages around the world and everyone knew it and used it. And then we were very fortunate and made that book available and had it distributed nationwide in the department of labor. So that every one of the 900 field offices had a copy of that book and people could read it, access it, learn from it and apply some of the very simple core concepts about being together in these kinds of settings.
And at the same time again, we had this very short, simple list of operating principles about how to listen and not immediately judge the opinions and ideas of others to hear all ideas equally and then to consider through respectful dialogue, what might be done and then simple ways to all right, how are we going to assess the impact just as with entrepreneurial stuff, just as with social entrepreneurship that we'll talk about.
How will we know how we are doing, not everything is the simple outputs of how many, how much, how fast, the better, faster, cheaper mantra. Some of that stuff is easy to count. That's true in any venture government, private sector, for-profit non-profit but when we ask the question of how well are we doing, what is our impact here?
And that's true in government, especially in regulatory compliance, which we were mainly doing. What really is the impact of investigating businesses and finding violators, you're helping individuals certainly. But if the goal is to influence people to voluntarily comply with a law, think about stop signs and traffic lights and speed limits is an obvious example, we all see every day. Is the goal really to give the tickets to people or is the goal really to get people to understand and to voluntarily comply. And if it's the latter and I think it is. How can we assess our efforts to influence behaviors? That's a much harder metric to assess.
Adam: [00:08:49] It seems like that act of measuring or coming up with how you're going to measure that impact is at the core of being able to say, am I doing a good job or not?
Bruce: [00:08:58] I think about impact and effectiveness. And again, to put that, not only in the context of what I did those many years ago, but to bring it forward to today, as I teach and think about and work with and mentor entrepreneurs, both commercial and social, and particularly in the social sector. And again, it's not just about the profit and loss statement of a commercial venture, but when we talk about social impact, how are we helping the people in that place who have that social need or problem?
And there are many ways, much more in line with the qualitative methods of research and particularly the methods of what is called narrative inquiry or ethnography, getting people's stories. Tell us about what happened and how it worked for you and what you thought of it and what else might you want.
And then you can get a much better picture of really the impact that your efforts are having in terms of influencing thinking belief and action.
Adam: [00:09:58] Can we stay on this for just a little bit? I know, Just from my local community, that quite often, the impact that we feel is very subjective, right? We're connecting with individuals in our community and providing a service or involving them in some way. And that's very hard to put down on paper.
Whereas sometimes the numerical metrics are very easy, but they don't really capture the soul of what you're doing. I'm curious, what's a good way for these social entrepreneurs to approach measuring their impact?
Bruce: [00:10:29] Great question. And it's certainly something that it's really one of the last few things that I teach in my classes. And I think it's one of the most important. If you're going to start a social venture and your intention is to have that social impact to help those people in that place, with that problem and need well, how do you know how you're doing?
It's important not only for the social entrepreneur. But it's obviously important to the intended beneficiaries, the recipients of your service. And it's really important too, for those who you might go to and seek funding from. Are they going to continue to donate or give you grants and loans, if you cannot go back and show them how you are doing and what you did with their money over time?
And so this is, there is a small, but growing body of research and literature, that's applying these other methods, both of these qualitative or narrative inquiry methods, getting people's stories and also understanding that these are highly variable and complex kinds of dynamics. We, human beings are just that way.
Exactly. As you said yourself, a minute or two ago, that different people will see the situation in different ways. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you might be right and I might be wrong or the other way around, we can both be right. I forget the source, but there's a quote that says one definition of the complexity of something is how many coherent narratives can be told about it.
In other words, how many points of view make sense, even if they are different. And so it's really only by gathering those kinds of stories and information and then getting people to say these are the important things in my story. That's called self signification. That's a mouthful. That just means it's your story, you decide what it means. Not having me, the researcher sitting in my office saying, Oh, that's what they meant. As many researchers do, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of folks get famous doing that and do tens of thousands of research points that way. Brenae Brown among them. For example, if that's the methodology that she has used for years, and it's an accepted methodology, but there are other ways.
And so when a social entrepreneurial, when we want to know what is our social impact, really? Yes, there are going to be some things we can count the number of homeless people that we've taken into our shelters. Or the number of children that we've fed on a given day who didn't have enough to eat those things are the easy things to count. I was reading a study to my students recently about this, about a homeless shelter, where it turned out that when you ask the people that you got off the streets and into the shelters, how are you feeling about being here?
One thing that the social entrepreneurs in that place had not foreseen or thought of or considered was that the homeless folks out on the street at night, they gathered together and they form their own network and community. There's the same group that comes to the same place each night after whatever they do during the day.
And so the folks as they went to the shelter would say, I miss my friends, out there under the bridge in San Diego at night. I miss seeing my people. Well, when we talk about assessing social impact, what is the impact of that story on how the venture is doing and what else it might do and can do and will do, to try and address that part of the social need.
Adam: [00:14:01] So being able to ask those questions might open up new venues where you understand, Hey, there's a need that I'm didn't consider before that if we address this, it could really lift up the quality we're serving.
Bruce: [00:14:16] Yes. And so one of the critical things then becomes the ability of the social entrepreneurs or any entrepreneur really. To keep eyes, ears, and mind open and to keep looking and listening and thinking and reflecting, not just alone as many entrepreneurs do, they're often solo founders and leaders, but who else can, and should we, as the entrepreneurs are talking with to get these other perspectives, to get these other insights, to get these other stories, That will then give us those valuable, powerful insight and lead us to trying new and better ways.
Adam: [00:14:57] Now is there anything we can do as individuals to cut down on those biases that we naturally have that prevent us from listening or opening up.
Bruce: [00:15:06] Yeah. And it isn't even, I think only a bias in a way. We are who and what we are, and we're the sum, total and product of our own lived experiences. We are the sum total of where we lived and who we met and what we were taught and what we now think and believe and all of that.
So there's a set of norms and values and beliefs and intentions and actions that we all take. That's absolutely true. And so the way to go beyond that, as it were, is can we learn to suspend our judgment in the moment of listening and of observing. Two of the great sources that I refer my students to on these particular skills one is the wonderful Jane Jacobs who wrote a very famous book about American cities.
And she was such, I don't know that she was trained in this, but where she lived in New York at the time and what she saw, just the smallest kinds of details in neighborhoods and the little things, the differences that made a difference about the degree of satisfaction and happiness and success of communities and neighborhoods that kind of looking at observing was very powerful and we can learn as entrepreneurs and others too.
To learn to see in that way that Jane Jacobs taught us to look and see. Similarly, there was a composer who also did other work, Pauline Oliveros, and many people may not know that name. And she was a musical composer who wrote some very interesting experimental compositions, but you can find a great Ted talk of hers about what she called deep listening.
And so very similarly to the kind of looking and observing that Jane Jacobs taught. In cities and communities to make them better. Pauline Oliveros teaches us ways to just stop. And as she put it listened deeply. And when we are with others and when we are, as social entrepreneurs have to do scanning and assessing the social landscape, what is really going on with those people in that place?
What are the sources of influence and the constraints and the possibilities. Whether it's government, whether it's faith-based, whether it's other community groups, whether it's gangs and whatever the case may be, whatever the factors are. Can we learn to see them better and more and listen to them better and more and in so doing, hear what the stories are, find the ways and the things that are significant and then find ways to act on them.
Adam: [00:17:41] So once we've gone out and we've collected these stories and hopefully listening very well to what's being said, how can we turn that information into metrics that we can present or things that we can share with our stakeholders or other people?
Bruce: [00:17:59] The issue then of the metrics becomes really a function of what are the questions we're asking and what are the things that we are looking at and looking for. And then the other piece of it that I also teach to folks is as the group of people who are, yourself as the, perhaps the entrepreneur, the founder, your leadership team, your own organizational managers or whoever and other key stakeholders, when you all come together what then are the guiding principles and core values that you will filter ideas by?
Can we as a group or a team, just this came really from what we did at the department of labor years ago, very short list. And this really also comes from work I did with what's called win-win negotiation, the work of William Ury, the book Getting To Yes. How will we filter ideas and issues and options?
And can we say, all right, this is, these are the four or five, six, seven things, not much more. That any idea or issue that comes forward through our dialogue before we will consider it to act on that, how will we act? What are by, what will we hold ourselves responsible and accountable for? We'll act in ways that are legal or ethical, or we know that our constituencies will agree to it and verify it, or whatever the case may be for these shortlist of principles.
And then one of the other metrics you now have is through inquiry and survey, or typically did we act and do what we said we would do? And the ways we said we would do it. Are we holding ourselves accountable that this is what we intended is so a social or other entrepreneurs and are we acting and doing the way we said we would?
And that data then becomes key and valuable. We may not always get the impact and outcome that we projected. Things may not go the way we thought they would certainly look at the last, year and a half, two years, whatever it isn't, what businesses and social and commercial ventures projected. If I looked at somebody's business plan from two years ago, it didn't have this, right.
But we still can say two years ago, we intended to start a particular venture and we were going to act in these ways. This is how we were going to interact with our beneficiaries, with our stakeholders, with our funders. Did we do that? So even if we don't get the impact and the outcome that we intended, are we on the right path?
In our thinking and our belief and our behavior, are we honoring those kinds of commitments? And then what else might we do to get the impact and the outcome?
Adam: [00:20:44] Got it. So if you can tie those stories back to here are the values that we are about, and here's what our objectives are. Then all of a sudden you see a difference of like here we did really well, and you might have a story that, that. Exemplifies that, and you might have a case where it's no, we didn't do that great here, we didn't get the outcome we wanted and we didn't quite match our value of acts. And that would give you some room for discussion of actually how to improve. So it's like you have a stake in the ground and you're comparing against that, that, that stake of who you want to be in the impact you want to make.
Bruce: [00:21:20] Yes. Exactly. So it's, in the stake, in the ground, in this case, being that this is what we have discussed and agreed would be our guiding principles. These are the core values and operating principles that we believe are important for us to live by, to act by, to think by in our venture.
And did we, or did we not? And to what extent.
Adam: [00:21:41] Gotcha. Now as people are developing ideas for their social enterprise or social ventures. What are some good things that they can do to plan for how they're going to launch that and get that off the ground.
Bruce: [00:21:54] Question. So there's certain steps that we see in the literature. That are guidelines and processes for aspiring social entrepreneurs to consider. One of the best ones that I know is a place to start just to help organize on the key functional areas is the social business model canvas.
That's just the simple one page kind of map diagram. About, what is our mission and purpose? What are we going to do? Who are our principal, beneficiaries and stakeholders, our market segments, what will our marketing channels be? What are the intended impact and outcomes, things that are central to any kind of social venture?
Both, some very simple, minimal statements about income and funding and expenditures. That's to me, the place to start in terms of beginning to organize one's thinking. The next step up from that is the social venture business plan. Now in regular commercial ventures, there's typically a, a business plan.
So too with social ventures. But if you look at the more recent literature, there's also been a, what I would call almost a counter movement or sidebar movement to what they call the lean startups. Which is people arguing that you don't have to spend all the time and effort necessary to research and develop the full business plan. Myself personally, I disagree.
And I'll say why. Particularly for social managers. But I think for commercial as well, but here's my thinking at least. The things that are an aspiring social entrepreneur needs to know and to do. You have an idea. I recognize that there is a problem here that government and other service providers there, the problem is not being addressed or the people in the place with the need and the problem.
I have an idea that may help them, whatever that is. Now you've got to do, as they call it that ecosystem or social landscape assessment. What can you learn about the people and the place and these many complex interacting factors, again, especially so for aspiring social entrepreneurs, where there are so many interpenetrating interacting factors, forces, influences, it's not quite as simple as should I open my cafe on this corner and where's the competition.
And, can I open a coffee shop with Starbucks two blocks away or not? This is different. And so we know that there are government impacts and there are other social organizational impacts and there may be others trying to address the problem in the same place. There may be restrictions of law and all kinds of other factors impacting that social landscape.
So the first thing then is to do that assessment. That's before you even write the plan. You do the feasibility study. If I really did this in the way that I think I can and should, and would things that all go into the plan itself, can this work, can I get this off the ground? Can we get this started?
Can we sustain this venture over time? And in this case, comparable thinking and research to the commercial venture and the social venture in my view.
Adam: [00:25:16] So what you're saying is when you start off. First you're really going out and just surveying what you can do and what the other restrictions are and what the other organizations are that are addressing the need that you're doing. But then what you mentioned was doing this feasibility of what this organization that you're trying to build actually looks like when it's operating how you envision.
And really qualifying that .
Bruce: [00:25:43] Yes. And so those are the first two things that an aspiring entrepreneur, and in this case, social entrepreneur, you really need to do. What's going on in that place. What can I learn and understand that will help me better organize better design my social venture, my processes of work and activity to to get the greatest effectiveness, do what we intend to do and the greatest efficiency get the best outcome for the least amount of time, money, labor, effort and so on.
And. Yes, we begin with what's going on in that place. And there are many factors almost always, especially with and much more so in the social venture when we're assessing that landscape of the potential venture. And then the feasibility thing. All right, we try to be realistic with ourselves.
If we can get these sources of funding and hire these people and open this place and do these things in this way. Is this really something that can work. So now to your specific question about business planning, so the different components and key sections of a social venture or commercial business plan, I believe that the activity and the exercise and the work of the social entrepreneur or commercial entrepreneur, Writing and crafting the full plan.
And it's not like it's a hundred page treatise or dissertation, these run about 10 or 12 pages typically. But I believe that the work is really important because each of these core steps that it takes to organize and start a venture commercial or social. They're key components of that plan.
And it's only a page or two on each of the topics. But you have to think and write in a way that is both concise and clear. And especially in the first couple pages, what's called the executive summary, which tends to be the very first piece of your plan that your prospective funders and stakeholders and others relevant people are going to see. You're writing that as much for the outsider as for your own people, but the exercise and the work of doing it.
And the rest of the plan really helps you to become more clear and I believe arguably increases the potential you have for success. If you're addressing and thinking about. What is my mission? What type of venture are we going to be purely philanthropic? Are we going to be a hybrid venture? Will we be selling our products and services at the competitive market rate?
Or will we be able to offer a discount for our products and services? Because we're taking in some donations and other funding sources. Again, you asked before about marketing, the marketing channels, the marketing segments, the marketing message and ways that you'll do it are all things that are in that plan.
Who's my management team going to be? Who else do I need? What do they need to know how to do. What knowledge, skills and experience do I need to recruit and hire? And what do I need to know as the entrepreneur to assure that the people I recruit that I'm asking the right questions to get the best possible people to give us the best chance of success.
All of that I believe is critical and key. Similarly, with financial projections, an area that a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, at least in my experience, seem to struggle with. How can I really know. What my necessary income and flows will be over time the first month, the first quarter, the first year, same with expenses so that I can have sufficient cash reserves to meet those bumps in the road as it were when something happens.
And now we've got a bill I have to pay, Oh, I didn't anticipate the repair to that, or the breakdown of this or the need for the other. We know from all kinds of data, that one of the most common problems in causes of early entrepreneurial collapse and failure of ventures is insufficient cash reserves, for example.
So that, again becomes part of if you do the work of the planning and the thinking and the research and the learning. I believe that again, it all enhances the entrepreneurs chances and odds of being successful and sustainable.
Adam: [00:30:14] How does having multiple bottom lines that you have in a social venture come into play in the social venture plan.
Bruce: [00:30:23] So that's a great question. So again, we're looking at different things. In many cases, depending on the nature of the venture, you're looking at financial monetary rates of return. You're looking. Simultaneously at the social impact. You've got these multiple things that you're trying to achieve.
And again, being successful in one way is almost certainly going to be related to and may impact your success in the others. And so these again, make it harder to manage on a day-to-day basis. What can we know and understand about the comparatively simpler things of cashflow, revenues and expenses and all of that, am I, again, that notion of effectiveness compared to efficiency?
And can we learn as over time? Can we learn how to be simultaneously more efficient and effective? And all of that relates to how we, as the entrepreneur, the leader are looking, listening, learning those triple L's that get us to. The better outcomes and enable us again to explore new options, new ways to organize, to do and to assess.
Adam: [00:31:41] Got it now for your students that are going through your entrepreneurship classes. What are some of the things that they struggle with the most when learning about this?
Bruce: [00:31:54] Oh, besides meeting assignment deadlines and I've been, and that's not a joke. I really should not make light of this. This has been a semester, like no other. And the challenges for many students have been really significant. And I promise you not in ways that we can, or even should think about making light out, but in terms of the real work of their own writing, their own social venture plans.
And doing that work. I would say that the financial projections tends to be the most challenging part, even if they've taken some accounting courses and other business management courses and many, if not, most of them have, when I talked to them about the needs of the social venture. And some of the ventures are they're hybrid they're for-profit ventures at market rates in which a percentage of the proceeds will be used to do social good.
We're going to buy school supplies and things for kids who don't have them in need, then we're going to use the money to feed homeless people or hungry people, whatever the case may be all the way to purely philanthropic ventures and everything in between. But the thinking and the details of all right, we're going to need this and this.
Oh, my insurance. I know one, one student submitted a plan where they said that their monthly insurance on a on a significant venture, this was a venture that was going to use a certain sports training activity to get kids off the streets in a troubled neighborhood and afterschool program that would engage and attract and appeal to these young teens to keep them out of trouble out of gang influence, drug influence, and so on. A really great idea.
And the student has had significant experience in this and in their plan, they said that their insurance costs would only be $75 a month. Even as they showed a picture of a kid on a skateboard in midair with the skateboard, about five feet under them going down a flight of steps . And when they did their presentation, I said, I think insurance is going to cost more than $75 a month.
Adam: [00:33:57] So what can people do to get better financial projections, especially if they haven't run a business before and have that kind of general sense of different things what they might cost.
Bruce: [00:34:07] Great question. And one that one of my students asked me just a few days ago. Where do I turn to get this knowledge and expertise? And the short answer to that is. What research, who can you ask and where can you look? We start out today, we've got this thing called the worldwide web. Most people have heard of it.
Some have not. And can we find sources of people. Are there other, for example, whether it's things like score the Service Corps of Retired Executives, people who volunteer their time with their knowledge and experience and wisdom to help and mentor. People like aspiring entrepreneurs. Can we turn to our small network of small business development centers, which we certainly have in New Jersey.
I work in and teach at Kean University. We have an SBDC right on the campus. And I know and work with the guy who runs that. The state has a very active economic development authority. Again, there are resources that people can turn to. This becomes more challenging, particularly for folks, for who may not be native English speakers, but are still trying to do this.
And in many of our communities, a lot of the startups and small ventures, particularly on the commercial side, tend to involve people from other countries. We see that a lot, and they're not as likely to engage in a local Chamber of Commerce or to know about Score and some of those other things. And yet, again, go to the web, who can I turn?
Who can I ask for guidance about financial projections of this kind of new business. And, most people today have a smartphone. Doesn't matter what your native languages, ask Google, ask Siri asks, literally ask your phone which is tapping into that web thing, where can I get this knowledge and expertise?
And that in a way is a hard thing for a lot of entrepreneurs to recognize. You're not going to know everything that you need to know to be successful. And so the skill and the insight and the capacity to seek out that knowledge, and even to the point of hiring and engaging, you may need to hire a financial expert or recruiting expert and bring people into the picture either temporarily or permanently to help you obtain that knowledge and practice that you may not have.
Adam: [00:36:26] I love that. So really just understanding that there are a lot of community resources that are available to you, whether that's through the Chamber of Commerce or through community development organizations that you can reach out to or universities where there are students who are working on projects and there might be some collaboration there.
But that there are people around you naturally, who've been through this in one way or another, that can give you better estimates and better information.
Bruce: [00:36:54] Yes, absolutely.
It's really part of an exploring and learning journey for us as entrepreneurs.
Adam: [00:36:59] And taking that pressure off that you need to know everything in order to start be successful, or at least you have to figure everything out on your own when you don't.
Bruce: [00:37:08] Yeah. And it's almost contradictory in a sense to the entrepreneurial mindset where we think about entrepreneurs as being, I'm the solo person. I have all I need to do this. And that's often true when we think particularly about. There's a term that you see in the literature bricolage, or being a, an entrepreneurial bricollure.
And you may or may not, and your audience may not know the term, but what it refers to is people who use what they have and what they find. And not necessarily in the ways in which it was originally designed or intended. And there's another term that's very common and now well established in community development and entrepreneurial circles and it's called Asset Based Community Development, ABCD. And what does that mean? It means what help isn't coming. We're not going to get help from the government or this group or that group or the Gates foundation or anybody else. What can we, who are right here right now do to address this issue with who we have and what we have right here.
Right now, we will use the assets and the people that we have to improve our situation and address these challenges. And so we think about entrepreneurs as being that kind of spirit and mindset that we have enough and we are enough. And well, sometimes we're not. And we don't, and they'll be a capacity to admit and to understand and to agree that we don't.
And now we need to look outside of ourselves. We may not always have, we may need and benefit from that additional expertise. That's part of the picture too. It's not either, or it's more both. And.
Adam: [00:38:51] So have any of the students in your class come up with really innovative ideas that they've gotten off the ground.
Bruce: [00:38:57] I don't know how many have gotten off the ground. I know that there are a few that have been really, to me, very powerful concepts. There's one I have this semester from a student who has traveled extensively in central and South America. I believe that's the part of the world that their family came from originally.
And it has to do with manufacturing, a certain type of product that we need in many kinds of it has uses in certain manufacturing and in homes and other places from a naturally sourced item and their intention is to do this. In underdeveloped third world nations and communities both to create jobs and income, but also to then that the product itself that would be built and created will be a product of significant value, particularly at this current time in the world.
This is one that struck me and it's not to single this one out and not mention all the 15 others or whatever, but that's just one example, where I think that there's significant opportunity and potential. And I think that this is a student who does have some motivation to say, let me see if I can really do something with that.
Adam: [00:40:03] I love it.
Bruce: [00:40:03] And there are others.
Adam: [00:40:04] Now that's great. When you have a whole class working together with different ideas and everybody can be exposed to the class as a whole, what people are coming up with.
Bruce: [00:40:13] Yeah, we had oral presentations last week on the pitch decks, the, kind of thing. And I've got another, I think, 13 or 14 presenting tonight.
Adam: [00:40:21] Oh exciting. That's super cool. That's gotta be very refreshing. Seeing that term after term is what people are able to come up with to bring in new ideas.
Bruce: [00:40:30] Absolutely. And you see their creativity and even those who it's been interesting to me that even some folks who, when you just engage with them in the classroom virtually or in person. Don't seem terribly outgoing or they may not seem like they would be the best storytellers of their own stories when they are telling their own stories.
I have found that even some of the ones that I thought were weaker have done a really good, solid job telling the story of their intended venture. That's been really great to hear that.
Adam: [00:41:03] I love that. Looking forward with Freethinc what do people need to know in order to get involved and how would they best use the services of Freethinc?
Bruce: [00:41:12] Well, I have a website, and it's freethinc.com it's think with it C not a K the one with the K that site was taken. So that's how it got spelled the way that it is. It's not to imply that it's only on the incorporated side in that way. And folks can find me on LinkedIn and a lot of people have, I've been really fortunate to connect with particularly social entrepreneurial folks around the world, in the last couple of years. I'm also an organizer of our group in union, New Jersey. It's a part of a nationwide network called 1 million cups. Some of your listeners will almost certainly be familiar with it sponsored by the Kauffman foundation out of Kansas city. And we provide a forum for entrepreneurs early stage to tell the story of their startup, ask a question for which they would need guidance and assistance, and then engage in a Q and A and dialogue with our community to support and help them.
So there's a number of things that I do and continue to do particularly as it comes my emphasis increasingly is on the social entrepreneurial side where my 20 year history of studying, learning, applying, and teaching, particularly insights and methods from a field known as complex adaptive systems science, which is what we, human beings are.
We're not the simple creatures that we in logical Queens creatures we think we are or claim to be. And so as I say, finding and discovering the inherent complexities in assessing social landscapes in social ventures, and then on the other end assessing impact again, small group, but growing body of literature and research on applying these insights.
That really is where my personal focus and emphasis is. If I can help people better understand what the real nature is of these social ventures that they're intending to engage in and what they can learn that will help them be more effective in organizing, leading, and operating and impacting. That's what I want to do.
Adam: [00:43:15] Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's been a real pleasure.
Bruce: [00:43:20] Oh, and I can't thank you enough for the invitation and for the opportunity. And I look forward to hearing the finished podcast and to sharing this with many people that I know.
Adam: [00:43:30] Fantastic. Thanks. And if you're listening visit freethinc that's think with a C .com for more information, and you can find more resources on the show notes on people, helping people dot world. Thank you so much for listening. Cheers.
Jodie Larsen and Grace Beard Support People Finding Their Purpose with Paws and Pause
Apr 22, 2021
Jodie Larsen and Grace Beards spoke about their work with Paws and Pause, a social enterprise doggy daycare center providing opportunities for the unemployed recovering from mental health and addiction. The pair first started working together when running a project for St. Mungo’s, a homelessness organization in London. This is where they first began incorporating dogs in their work, which would lead to launching Paws and Pause in 2019.
At St. Mungo’s, Jodies and Grace were able to learn about the stages of transitioning to a more sustained life of people experiencing homelessness. People in the programs expressed a need to return to activities that allow people to have fun and rebuild soft skills. Activities could be a day trip to a theme park or walking park; people only need space to regain confidence in daily life. With this same principle, Paws and Pause allows participants to relearn what it feels like to interact with others and have fun. Grace described it as a “slight sense of normality, a slight escapism from maybe the kind of overwhelming challenges that they might be facing at that time.”
Recovering depends on each person’s individual journey for what they need to be supported, and avoid entering a cycle of coming reentering the program. Some participants may need to be placed in a job soon after joining, so they can have a sense of purpose or fulfillment. Another group of participants may need to wait longer, so they feel more equipped to restart employment. If people are not supported to a point where they are willing to take a leap, they will go in unprepared and perhaps relapse into what they are trying to grow away from.
Jodie and Grace explained the relationship Paws and Pause built with the customers. Overall, the customers view the initiative positively, since the initiative supports social impact while providing a quality service. It also doesn’t hurt that the dogs receive more cuddles and playtime. Paws and Pause did focus on promoting the service more than the social element in the early stages. The initiative was mindful about the stigma around “addiction” and “mental illness” that could cause customers to be wary of sending their dogs to this doggy daycare. Mindfulness and learning along the way is part of the journey for Jodie and Grace starting Paws and Pause as their first business experience.
In their first experience, the major lessons the pit learned include interacting with people. They break down one misconception many social entrepreneurs have around sharing ideas. Then, they touch on what will help social entrepreneurs when considering how to delegate tasks. A huge lesson came from organically speaking with people in similar organizations, where the support would increase based on networking within the community.
Moving forward, Paws and Pause pains to diversify the pet industry and open other locations. Through their work, Paws and Pause is continuing to help people explore what they want to do.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris.
And I'm super excited to have Jody and grace from Paws and Pause on our podcast as a guest today. Not only because I love dogs, but my own volunteering with the Samaritans in London gave me insight into how much our mental health can impact our ability to thrive. Jodie and Grace started Paws and Pause in 2019 as a social enterprise doggy daycare center, providing opportunities for the unemployed recovering from mental health and addiction.
So let's dive in and explore what this means. Grace and Jodie, welcome on the podcast.
Jodie: [00:00:40] Hi, thanks for having us.
Adam: [00:00:42] Can we start off, can you just tell us a little bit about what Paws and Pause is?
Grace: [00:00:47] So Paws and Pause is a dog daycare. So we look after people's dogs during the day, a bit like a nursery, like for children, but for dogs. And then alongside that, we provide employment training programs. So people in recovery from mental health and substance addiction. So that's where the Paws and Pause kind of intertwines.
The dogs are a motivator for people to attend and the dogs get extra cuddles from the extra people that are around.
Adam: [00:01:19] I love that. Now, how did the two of you get started?
Jodie: [00:01:23] We met a few years ago working together for St. Mungo's which is a homeless organization in London. So we ran a project together, working with people in recovery, from substance use to make decisions and think about the next steps in their lives. So it was during that time when we started to bring dogs into work with us through the Borrow My Doggy Scheme. I saw the impact that had on people.
And they wanted lots of people who worked with, wanted to volunteer with animals. And there was just wasn't any opportunities. So after trying it out, I think about a few different ideas. We came up with Paws and just started it.
Adam: [00:02:05] And you started that in 2019.
Grace: [00:02:07] Yeah. So for ages, we were going back and forward with different ideas. We knew we wanted to combine dogs and animals with mental illness and recovery, but we weren't quite sure what we were going to do. So we spent about a year and a half, like going backwards and forwards. Thinking of different ideas and how we could do it going with really big ideas and then bringing it down to a smaller kind of concept.
And then we finally decided on a dog daycare. We really wanted a business that would fund itself. So then we found our venue in April and then we started in August.
Adam: [00:02:46] So you had about six months of running before COVID hit.
Grace: [00:02:50] Yeah, exactly.
We closed for like about three months. And then when the restrictions started to lift in England, we reopened. And then everybody got a dog in lockdown. I think the latest figure from one of the British newspapers was the UK has like 2.9 extra million dogs. So we were in quite a lucky industry and we bounced back quite quickly.
Adam: [00:03:15] Oh, that's super cool. I'd love to go back a little bit to the volunteering you were doing at St. Mungo's. I'd just love to hear, like what you heard from working with people who are homeless or experiencing mental health and some of the struggles that they were facing.
Jodie: [00:03:30] Yeah. So we worked project together. So the people we were directly supporting were referred to us through substance use teams. So the high majority of those people experienced homelessness in some form. In the UK, we think about street homelessness initially, actually, it encompasses a huge other kind of group of people that are affected by this and people that are put in, temporary housing, sofa surfing and living in the BnBs that the local authorities and then and it's and people in that situation there, the thought of doing anything steady, like work or employment is is near impossible. The people that we generally work on that project were largely thinking about what kind of a next step work genuinely moving into more stable accommodation. And so now thinking about, okay, what's next. And actually, a lot of people that was so daunting because they haven't worked for, if not decades and just have no idea what they wanted to do. So we were employed to really focused on the employment elements for people, but actually, a lot of the work we focused on was around the kind of social skills how to interact in a group, how to figure out what people enjoy.
We really how do we focus on people need to have fun and do something else that isn't thinking about them into their illness or their addictions. So we go on day trips and go-karting and Thorpe park, theme parks, because actually, that was a huge thing for people to have some kind of normalcy and just start living a bit. And then we could get to the soft skills build up. There was confidence and then think about the next steps. And that's something we've really tried to bring in to Paws and Pause.
Adam: [00:05:23] How do you bring that into Paws and Pause?
Grace: [00:05:25] Yeah. I guess we really try and bring in as much fun as possible at Paws and Pause. It's super important to us that our dogs have a really fun day and they playing all day and therefore that kind of transfers to our trainees as well, who is really important for us, that they have a fun day when they're in, when they're in our center, playing with the dogs, interacting with the dogs, which kind of just gives us an, a slight sense of normality, slight escapism from maybe the kind of overwhelming challenges that they might be facing at that time. And just actually just have a break for a minute, cuddle the dog, play with the dog.
Let's de wind a little bit before we start looking at all of that.
Adam: [00:06:09] What does the training program look like?
Jodie: [00:06:12] We recruit trainees through a number of different channels in the community. People come in for an initial meeting, see if they like being around the environment. And then people stay with us like one day, a week for six months. So they get involved with walking the dogs in the morning, looking after them paying games, feeding. But then also people develop like little projects on their own. So someone might be interested in working with animals and then they can develop an enrichment project for them, or get involved in some of the more kind of how to do basic health checks or someone's thinking more about going into something that requires like admin skills or social media, they can reall y get involved in that kind of business side with us and different skills in those areas.
And then the idea is that during the six months trainees really feel employable and feel like they've got the confidence and the skills to make decisions about the next steps of work. And also one of the things we try and work with people is around how they're gonna manage their mental health when they do get back into the workplace.
So it's sustained rather than so many employment projects just match people with a job and, that's an outcome and off you go. Actually really want to make people feel like they've got the tools to make decisions themselves going forward and make decisions that are going to improve their wellbeing and be like long term decisions that they make.
Adam: [00:07:42] That sounds like a very important point that, whatever mental health experiences you have, they don't disappear overnight. And so you need some long-term strategy for here's how I'm going to be successful in the long term. And it's not just, here's a job that you can go to, but you mentioned the confidence multiple times that you're building confidence in your own skills so that you'll be successful in the future. Can you talk a little bit about why that confidence is so important?
Jodie: [00:08:11] Yeah, I think having the confidence to, have ambition and have the confidence to think, actually this is this, that X, Y Z is something that I really want. And so often people felt like they can't do that or that they don't see a way to get there, and actually if people have achieved something and have completed something and feel like they've got the tools to move forward with it and got the tools to be a bit more resilient. So actually, you know what, it might not, it might be hard to get there but actually, people are feeling like we'll let you know there are going to be setbacks, but I will be able to apply for the next thing and it's going to be okay.
And, eventually I will get there. It's so important to be able to move forward and develop and also have the confidence to then, speak to the right people. If you're not being treated fairly in the workplace, that kind of thing.
Adam: [00:09:04] For somebody who's coming out of addiction. How long does it typically take to really get their feedback on the ground?
Grace: [00:09:11] I'm not sure that there is the right amount of time for anybody. I think everybody is on their own individual journey and that's going to look completely different for each person. If somebody has maybe been in addiction for, five, 10, 15, 20 years. It's going to take a long time to rebuild their lives and find out who they are without that substance.
Which is really kind of part of what was really important to us is actually you are so much more than this thing that you'll feel having trouble with at the moment. You're all these other wonderful components. And that's a real once you're coming off that substance its a real-time to explore all of that and which you might have not had the opportunity to do. It's how long this piece of string is, it's completely different for each person and what each person needs. Sometimes getting into an employment quite swiftly can be really key for someone's recovery because it becomes part of their identity. It's something that proud of.
And it keeps on that momentum, but for others, it's going to be much, much longer than that. And I think it's really important to each individual to be on their own journey and supported and empowered to understand what they need. Rather than programs, which are right. Okay.
You, off that substance back into a job, and you often see a kind of merry-go-round effect where people are just not ready and not supported enough. And they come background into treatment again having lapsed. But having, probably being put into a position which they just were not ready.
Adam: [00:10:41] What are some of the things that can help prepare people for going back into the workforce?
Grace: [00:10:47] Where we start when we work with someone is yeah, How do you know where to start when you don't know where to start? What do you do? You've you've got to this point and it can feel a bit overwhelming. You've got all these opportunities. You've also got no opportunities, like literally, where do you start?
Kind of just breaking it down, looking at what are you good at? What do you enjoy? What kind of excites you? And that might have been at school. If someone has not really explored that since then, or it could be just like trying new things now and finding out what is it that you like?
We also do like harder skills, like CVs and interviews and applying for jobs and that's all great, but really what is about finding out what someone wants to do, what makes them tick, what's going to work for them. In their life and what's going to be sustainable. And Jodie has mentioned managing your mental health in the workplace.
So how, when you get back into work, how are you going to keep yourself safe? How'd, you know, what your rights are at work? What can you ask for? Can you feel empowered to have those conversations as well?
Adam: [00:11:47] That's interesting. What you say about knowing about your rights at work? Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Jodie: [00:11:52] Here if you have a recognized disability , you have the right to have, things put in place so that you can do that job. And that includes mental health as well as people's physical health.
Things like we call the reasonable adjustments over here. So if people, people need things put into place adjusted start times or a different way that the manager might communicate with them to not make them feel overwhelmed. So many different things actually employers can do to make people feel more supported.
Over here, it's that workplaces are getting better. They are recognizing that they need to support people in these ways, but it's still got a really long way to go. Managers are slowly in certain companies and things to getting up to speed with these things because ultimately, keeping employees and safe at work is, It also in their interest you have a huge number of people who leave jobs because of that mental health.
When, if it was a physical health problem would have been given the right support to manage in their job and give it appropriate time off. Whereas we just don't see that with people just as much stigma around mental health in particular substance use that people often will quit or leave a job rather than seek for support within the workplace that that they need.
And actually, the more conversations people have around the stigma can hopefully, make things better for employees and employers. as well.
Adam: [00:13:26] That makes a lot of sense. I've always noticed that mental health is one of those. Things that's difficult to talk about. Because it's awkward for people or people really don't understand it. So it's easier to avoid things that you don't understand than to actually have those conversations.
When at the end of the day, it's sometimes like just that curiosity and being able to talk about it can change how somebody recovers, just if they're in a place that feels welcoming where they can be themselves and it's okay.
Jodie: [00:13:58] Yeah, absolutely. We spend the majority of our working life as adults in a workplace. And, you've got more time than probably anywhere else. It just feels it should be the place that it's like safe and supportive and that you can actually like thrive in and grow in and have employers that, can enable that for you.
Adam: [00:14:18] How have the customers of Paws and Pause reacted towards your mission in your social enterprise?
Grace: [00:14:25] Yeah they love it. There's not really any other dog daycares or dog businesses that have a social mission as well. So I think they like the fact that their dog is going off to a place that's also doing good. And by default, they are also doing good by supporting Paws and Pause.
It means also the dogs get like loads of extra cuddles, loads of extra attention. So I think our dog parents love that as well. Yeah, and I think they just liked the idea of investing in their community as well. And giving back in some way .
We've had really positive feedback. Initially, we didn't know what was going to happen. So when we first started Paws and Pause, we toned down the marketing of the social element a little bit, because we thought from some of our initial research that people would be a bit wary, a bit hesitant.
The words, addiction and mental illness still have a huge amount of stigma. Actually, since we started, we found that hasn't been the case and that our customers have chosen us because of what we do. And so we've been able to share a lot more about that kind of make that the forefront of the way that we talk about Paws and Pause which is really great.
And it was a kind of breaks down stigma, twofold because people can see that our trainees are just like you and me, they just let themselves, they've just had a different journey recently. And that, they're a really important part of it is breaking down that stigma as well as thinking like actually people there's no visible difference to people.
And people have so much to give and so many skills and so much talent and it just this just the lack of opportunities. Yeah. People have been really supportive. It's just been great.
Adam: [00:16:08] That's awesome. Was this the first business that you started?
Grace: [00:16:14] We have not run a business before, so it's been a lot of learning, a lot of DIY. A lot of DIY in the building, a lot of DIY in every aspect of the business which has been a lot of fun, sometimes a bit stressful, but yeah, it's been quite a journey if it feels like it's been a really long time that we've been running Paws and Pause I think just because of all of the new skills that we've learned.
When we first died, we did a lot of like courses to do with starting a business, any workshop that was going, we signed up for it, which was really helpful. And we also signed up for like loads and loads of mentors, which has helped us massively as well, just to have someone to like soundboard with.
And then also just having the support of each other has been huge I kind of reassuring each other along the way about always doing the right thing. So yeah, it's been a huge learning journey.
Adam: [00:17:11] Oh, that's cool. I love it when people are able to just dive right in and build something up and learn as you go. What are some of the big things that you had to learn in order to be successful?
Jodie: [00:17:21] I guess just that. Recently that recently things like, now we've got paid staff. So being HR, also being the accounts person and marketing whilst running all the day-to-day stuff. Yeah. Just suddenly realize all the other things that you need to do.
Which I guess we always knew, but actually then doing it, everything's progressed so quickly since we came back off the first lockdown, but it's just been a constant, like learning a new thing, learning a new thing. Like, It's just the stuff that we do, like how to make decisions better and more quickly and, stuff like that. I think that without having a business partner. It would be really lonely and really quite difficult to take a lot of the steps that you've had to take. It'd be, yeah, actually, we've got someone else to give you that confidence to go.
Yeah, no, we're great. We're going to do this and we're going to have confidence in it.
Adam: [00:18:17] It sounds like there's just so many different parts to running a business and it gets a lot more complicated when you start hiring employees and building that up.
Grace: [00:18:26] I think we've if we're ever getting a bit overwhelmed or a bit stressed, we do try and focus on why we started Paws and Pause. Cause it can be easy to get distracted in the day-to-day running of things and just doing all of that and then actually remembering why we're doing it.
Speaking to the people that are benefiting from it and all of that really rejuvenates us, which has been, like a real motivator, I think without that, I don't think we have started the daycare without that element. So yeah, that's been really important.
Adam: [00:18:56] Cool. Do you have any advice for other social entrepreneurs who are just getting off the ground and just launching?
Grace: [00:19:04] A real misconception is when people think that they can't talk about their idea. One of the best pieces of advice we got really early on is to tell everybody you meet about what you're doing. Because the more times you say out loud and the more people that you speak to, the more you confirm the idea, and it will change massively along the way.
And that's absolutely fine. But if you're the best person to do it, you will do it. And nobody's going to steal your idea or anything like that. I think it's just really good to just get as much input from as many people as you can. Whilst also sticking to what you want to do. The other thing is, you can't be an expert at everything, so be good at what you're really good at and get help with the stuff that you're not good at.
And normally like for us, that was accounts, but
Adam: [00:19:48] You can't have the dogs do the accounting?
Grace: [00:19:52] Not, yeah. Hopefully, soon we'll have them trained up.
Jodie: [00:19:56] I think the other thing, that's what it's like Grace said, we got so much support and help from we're based in London. So the like programs in London and the help and the people that we've met along the way was incredible.
What I've given us a huge amount of support like just reach out to people and reach out to networks. And actually, it was to lots of the support we got. Wasn't like advertised support. It just came from a person away we're talking to in this organization somewhere else. And yeah, it just really kept us focused and really helps us.
Adam: [00:20:31] I love that. I love how much they, the community helps each other out in London. It's a really cool city for that. And it sounds like you're growing. What are your plans for 2021?
Grace: [00:20:43] So two of our most exciting plans are one of them is we're working with an organization called Black Thrive which are a London based organization that support black people with health conditions who are unemployed. So we have received funding from them to deliver 10 traineeships for black people within Lamberth, which is our burro, which we're super excited about because there is a massive lack of diversity in the pet industry in the UK is pretty much all white. So we've launched this program this year and we're starting to recruit our trainees now, which is really exciting. And we're really proud to be involved in that and hopefully, start building up more diversity within the industry.
So that's one of the main projects that we're focusing on. And then from another side, we are also looking for our second premises. So we've got a very long waiting list at the moment of about five months for the dogs. So we are hoping to open up a second venue in London and therefore be able to increase the opportunities that we're providing as well for people which will be really good.
And we're super, super excited about that.
Adam: [00:21:51] That's great. Especially as you expand in, you're able to work with more people. I think that's fantastic. My next question, what drew you to this work initially?
Jodie: [00:22:00] So I studied assess development, politics, uni and then worked in a few different organizations in London and a refugee organization. And I've always wanted to like to do development base work, and then ended up working for a different homelessness organization.
An opportunity came up. Actually really, I enjoyed supporting people with employment and goal settings to move forward. Just met people from every kind of walk of life and backgrounds.
Adam: [00:22:33] Grace, what about you?
Grace: [00:22:35] Yeah, I think for me, very similar story to Jodie in the, I didn't expect, that I would be where I'm at now. And I didn't expect it, so I would love working with people as much as I do. I think I have struggled with my own mental health and been on a real journey with that. And I think only when I was in working, supporting people, did I really understand more about me and this through the people that I was working with and who were kind and so understanding and had so much insight into themselves and into other people that I really learnt so much. And I think from then, I couldn't really imagine doing anything else.
We are providing these opportunities for people and we are offering support, but these people are the most incredible people who have the most incredible skills and, amazing insight into things. And it's just about providing those opportunities. So yeah.
Adam: [00:23:33] Always am curious about that. I feel like I've spent 20 years trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. And one thing that you mentioned at the beginning was that you're helping the people that you employ to figure out what they want to do with their life. And I'm thinking that's really hard to do.
That's always just curious to see how people land up, where they do finding work that they enjoy.
Jodie: [00:23:55] Also both of us really have. Love the jobs do lights and things. That should be the part of working for ourselves, and being our own bosses in this process was a huge driver as well. And that we can grow the projects we wanted with it and develop our own skills in that and grow a business was really exciting.
Adam: [00:24:15] Do you have any stories of those that you've employed that have gone through your program that you could share?
Jodie: [00:24:21] One of the first trainings we had we actually took on as an employee in September. She came to us thinking that she really loved animals and once she was with Us, Really started to think about actually, what I really liked doing is supporting other people and supporting kind of trainee programs, volunteer programs. So we took her on as paid staff actually to help us develop the training side of the program which has been amazing to have her insight after going through the program when it started.
So now managing that program. Yeah, she's incredible. She is absolutely just thrived in this role and is doing an amazing job and not afraid to challenge us with our ideas and her ideas. And we hope for her that she can go from just part type of thing, but she's here.
Full-time and actually can have the opportunity to see if this is something that she really wants to move forward with. It's a really good example of, like you're saying, people, are not sure what they want to do. And trying different things out is really the way to see if it's something you want to do.
Yeah. All day, every day. I feel super proud and lucky actually she's our colleague and yeah, that's amazing.
Grace: [00:25:35] We also heard, one of our recent trainees, who's just been with us a few weeks. They really touched us the other day because she came to us and she said that she feels like she's achieved more in the last couple of weeks coming to Paws and Pause than she has in the last five years. And that she actually feels really happy.
And then she takes photos of the dogs and she looks at them throughout the week to cheer her up before she comes back again. And it just really touched us because I think it was just reassurance for us as well that we actually are delivering what we hoped we would deliver.
And yeah, just makes all the kind of late nights, no holidays. And like working incredibly hard, worth it. When you get that kind of feedback.
Adam: [00:26:16] And it sounds like you have a lot of experience from everybody who's there of having gone through issues in your own life that, that you can share and understand what people are experiencing at a much deeper level. We're always growing and figuring out our own life but when we can share that with others, I think there's this powerful effect of everybody growing from that.
And learning from that. So that's super cool.
Grace: [00:26:38] The learning and the growing like works both ways. And if you realize that, then how can you not like, love your job because every day is like I exciting you're learning.
Adam: [00:26:49] So what's your vision for a Paws and Pause?
Grace: [00:26:56] want to expand across London. And if we were to like dream big, we would love to franchise across the UK. We really believe in what we're doing and we think it combines loads, of great stuff. So yeah, at the moment we're aiming big.
Adam: [00:27:13] I think world domination would be perfect because if dogs were running this planet, I think would be just so much better off, we'd be much happier, more at peace if we all know how to sit down and just be quiet. That's super exciting that you've got a second location that's coming up in 2021. And I just love all the things that you're doing. What's the best way for people to find out about you?
Grace: [00:27:36] Follow us on Instagram. At Paws and Pause so Paws as in dog Paws and Pause as in still. So that is on our Instagram. There was loads of cute dog content and the kind of social stuff we're doing as well.
Adam: [00:27:51] Yeah. I should have spelt that out earlier because it's PAWS and PAUSE if anyone has been confused who is just listening to it or not reading it but. Just a fantastic organization. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's fun to hear your story. I lived in London for nine years and so I just always love new things that are happening and going on especially where they involve dogs.
Grace: [00:28:14] Thank you so much for having us.
Jodie: [00:28:15] Yeah.
Adam: [00:28:21] Fantastic.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute Shares How to Wield the Power of Community Conversation
Apr 16, 2021
Rich Harwood shared insights into sparking change that evolves over time. He founded the Harwood Institute in 1988 with work centered around developing community change-centered conversations. A philosophy of civic faith and community driven solutions fueled this initiative’s efforts for the more than 30 years.
Society became increasingly polarized in the experiences and opportunities people encounter based on their backgrounds. Rich explains that most of the initiative’s work focuses on building communities of shared responsibility and common enterprise. Overall, the institute is teaching people “…how to create change in their local communities that reflects what matters to people in those communities, that reflects the local context of that community, and that develops strategies that have a real shot at producing impact in people’s lives.” Rich also mentioned the equally important intention of communities solving problems together and sustaining longevity.
One approach being used to accomplish this effort is the initiative’s Public Innovator Lab. The Harwood Institute hosts programs to engage people in what it means to adopt a mindset of being “turned outward” toward your community. In the case of being “turned outward”, individuals use the community as a reference point. Rich spoke about the Public Innovators Lab that is active in Jackson, Mississippi, after starting the virtual version during the pandemic. Participants are mainly coached for guidance, but given room to personally develop their capabilities. Rich expressed how this approach translates from community to community.
Moving an idea between different communities builds on practices being adapted, and a mindset spreading. Rich brought our attention to the commonality of any great idea or culture shift spreading, which is “a small group of people”. Most of history’s enlightened periods or trends started from a dedicated group of small people coming together. As the idea grows stronger, the small group recruits more people over time. Having a very clear understanding of the idea helps each person share the idea to bring more people, and keep that movement growing and multiplying.
Rich spoke more deeply on the topic of not only articulating an idea but understanding the components of bringing the idea into action through collaborative effort. His perspective on “action” gives an alternative feeling to the saying “actions speak louder than words”. He explained the collaborative mindset and the realizations contained in the creation process needed between community members, or anyone, working to solve an issue. Rich illustrates this point with an example of two women proactively learning to address drug concerns within their community, which later led to the initiative Achieving Recovery Together.
Working towards a solution includes making mistakes, and Rich expressed his own thoughts on trial and error when building a worthwhile initiative. Talking about “trial and error” led us to discuss how change can overlap and the reasons why questions are a great tool for getting started.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. Today, I am so honored to have Rich Harwood join us. He founded that Harwood Institute over 30 years ago, back in 1988. Their work is centered around developing community conversations that create change and have worked with groups in all 50 States and 40 countries, with a philosophy of civic, faith, and community-driven solutions, basically they're who you call when your community is stuck and doesn't know what to do. His new book "Unleashed, a proven ways communities can spread change and make hope real for all", is available for pre-order now and illustrates how to develop change in a community. Rich is also leading a redesign of the virtual public innovation lab centered on helping you unleash that impact.
So Rich, welcome on the podcast.
Rich: [00:00:53] Good to be with you, Adam. Thanks so much for having me.
Adam: [00:00:56] Can we start off, could you share just a little bit about what the Harwood Institute is?
Rich: [00:01:00] I started back when I was 27. And what we're interested in is how do we bridge divides in communities? How do we build a culture of shared responsibility and how do we make community a real common enterprise? So that communities for all of us, not just for some of us.
Particularly in these times when we're polarized, when things are acrimonious, when we've lost faith in one another and in our institutions, how do we make communities work for everyone, regardless of the color of your skin, regardless of your creed, regardless of what God you pray to, if you pray to any God, regardless of who you love, regardless of your zip code.
I happen to believe that our work really is about how do we ensure that every individual can fulfill their human potential, and how do we make sure that every individual has an opportunity to fulfill America's promise. We know that's not true today. But how do we make it true? And how do we make it real in people's lives. And the Institute, last thing I'll say, and then maybe we can get into this more in a really practical sense is that we, we teach people a practice about how to turn outward. And how to create change in their local communities that reflects what matters to people in those communities, that reflects the local context of that community. And that develops strategies that have a real shot at producing impact in people's lives.
And importantly, just as importantly, for us helps build the civic culture of the community so that we can actually solve problems together over a long period of time.
Adam: [00:02:28] What does that actually look like when you go into a community to help facilitate this change?
Rich: [00:02:33] We're launching in three new communities right now as we speak. But let me tell you about Jackson, Mississippi, which we launched during COVID of all times. We thought we'd have to delay the initiative, but we didn't. So in Jackson, like in many of the communities where we work, we start with what we call a public innovators lab.
As you mentioned in the intro, we have a virtual version of that. We also have one that's place-based that actually happens in person. The one that's place-based is two-and-a-half days. The one that's virtual is five sessions over every week, over a five week period. In that lab we engage people in what it means to adopt a mindset of being turned outward toward your community.
Most of us are turned inward toward ourselves. We're turned inward toward our own organizations, our own strategies, our own metrics, our own fundraising, unfortunately, our own survival, organizationally, many times. And we're not turned outward toward the community where the community is our reference point for what we do, not ourselves on our own strategies. And then we teach people a series of practices, not techniques, but practices about how to bring themselves into the world and work with other people in a turned outward way. And then from there, Adam, what we do typically like in Jackson is there are about 50 people who went through that lab from all walks of life.
And then we have coaches who walk beside people. They're not consultants. They literally are coaches to help people learn. And there's a huge difference, right? A consultant tells you what to do, and they provide all the answers. They write memos, they lead meetings for you. We don't do any of that.
Adam: [00:04:03] This seems like a cornerstone of the Harwood Institute, right? That, that you're not imposing solutions on a community.
Rich: [00:04:10] We believe that people have innate capacities. That we have the ability to create change ourselves and what Americans, and I think, in working around the world now, but what Americans want more than anything as a sense that they can shape their own futures, that they have a sense of control over their futures.
That we have a sense of agency, we have the ability to do things not only alone, but to come together and do them together and be co-creators of our communities, partners and code builders in our communities. And so our philosophy and our practice is to honor that and to help people develop the capabilities to do that and the conditions within their communities.
So these coaches if they were coaching you, or in the case of Jackson, the five teams that were coaching in Jackson, they walk beside folks and help them adopt and adapt our practice and make it their own. So people can call their own shots in their own communities. These aren't our communities.
I don't live in Columbus where you are. I don't live in Jackson, Mississippi. These are their communities. And what we want to do is enable people in their own communities to shape their own futures in ways that make sense for themselves, their families, their neighbors, their fellow, community members.
And and we've had great luck in doing that so far.
Adam: [00:05:28] If you're listening to this podcast, you can go to the Harwood Institute.org, and there are stories on there of all these different places where you've gone in and, and facilitated that change. Typically, like what does that look like?
Rich: [00:05:42] So in this case we were doing place-based work. Not all our work is this way, but in this case, in, in many communities, the three communities we're launching in Redding, Pennsylvania, Clarksville, Tennessee, and Lexington, Kentucky about educational equity issues. Those initiatives are going to be 18 months long.
And so our coaches who walked beside people for 18 months in Clark County, Kentucky, which started as an 18 month initiative where I've seen the most rapid change of any place that I've worked in my over 30 years now of doing work, that then morphed into 24 months, that morphed into a few years.
And we're still walking beside them in smaller and smaller ways. And they're doing actually as we pull back in this book on Unleashed that you mentioned when you started we went and looked at communities like Clark County and other communities that we've worked in over the last 30 years. And what we studied was not what happened when we were there.
What I was most interested in is what happened in after the 18 months when we left. And what we saw Adam was that's when most of the change occurred. That's when things really got Unleashed. That's when things started to spread, we're living through this negative contagion of called COVID right now. Our working communities acts like a positive contagion.
This practice that we teach people, this mindset that they adopt. It's built in such a way so that people share it with others. We want them to share it with others. It's not a closed system. It's an open system to be shared. And so in this book, Unleashed what we have are illustrations of how the works spread like a contagion through the community, into different places, into different networks.
And that's where you begin to see real change start to take place. It's where you begin to see the change. Start to spread. It's where you begin to see the civic culture of the community start to transform. And so going back to Clark County, where we started with them when they were stuck during COVID two and a half, three years later, they brought together 60 representatives from different organizations, who two and a half years ago never would have worked together.
Many of whom didn't know each other. Many of them, if they had been brought together would have been protecting their turf and fighting over resources. Now during COVID, they came together to make sure that there were mental health services that kids didn't fall through the cracks during distance, remote learning.
That people that I know you deal with homelessness, that they could begin to address the systemic issues around homelessness and make sure people weren't going to get evicted from their homes or from their rental apartments. And so now they've created this collective response to COVID that two and a half years ago never would have happened.
That all happened after we left. And that's the beauty of this work.
Adam: [00:08:35] I love that. Now, when this work starts, like how many people really need to come together to kick this off the ground?
Rich: [00:08:43] Yeah, that's a really great question. I used to think you know, as much younger and we were doing this work, I used to think it was hundreds of people. And in fact, in some communities, we did bring hundreds of people together to take them through our lab and everything. And then I thought it was 125 people.
And then I thought it was, and in some communities, depending on the size, it's like a hundred people. In Jackson, Mississippi. We just brought together. As I mentioned, about 50 people in these three educational equity communities that we're launching that I mentioned initially, I think it's going to be 25 people.
And what we've learned, essentially the lesson here is that small groups of people. If they come together and can adopt a different mindset and can start to use different practices and how they're going to engage people in these conversations you mentioned, and also spark change beyond the conversations that small groups of people can catalyze that.
And as they catalyze that they can begin to spread these ideas and practices to others. And ultimately over time, you have hundreds of people in a community doing this, but it doesn't have to start with hundreds of people. That's the beauty of it. And and that's actually the power of it. And I think last thing I'll say about this is, I discovered this in our work over time, but if you read about how ideas have spread throughout civilization, if you read about how religion has spread, if you read about how the American revolution started. If you read about how the civil rights movement started, it always started with small groups of people that ultimately spread out over time and enlisted more and more allies as they were going. And our work is no different.
Adam: [00:10:27] And it seems like they need to have something very clear that they can share in order to bring more people into that. And keep that effect growing and multiplying.
Rich: [00:10:36] I think what they have to have is an ability to first understand what really matters to people and an ability to understand that everyone, regardless of their station, life is trying to create a better life for themselves and for others. And so the work is not rooted in simply articulating the problems in society.
Although we need to recognize what those are, the reality that we live in. It's articulating a possibility for the future that's actionable, doable, and achievable. And engaging people in that work and enabling people to be co-creators of that work and sharing the stories of that work over time. I think if you look at all chains, they always seem to have those ingredients.
And this is where I get off the boat with some folks in this work, because some folks believe that, if we simply get together and talk enough, we'll be able to solve our problems. And I happen not to ascribe to that point of view.
I actually think that we do need to articulate what we share in common, because we need to work on things that we share in common in order to come together and do something. But, I also believe that we need to be doers. We need to actually take steps forward and start to create things together. And it's in that creating process that we see and hear one another it's in that creating process that we recognize each other's dignity it's in that creating process that we recognize that you and I and others have innate capabilities.
It's in that creating process that we recognize our shared humanity. It's in that creating process that we recognize that we have agency, we have the ability to change things. And so I think doing things becomes really important. We have a, one of our mantras. We have four mantras in our work. One of our mantras is get in motion and the idea is that we can spend all our time talking and planning and never go anywhere and still feel stuck.
Or we can get emotion and recognize that as we're in motion, we realized that we actually can create something. And when we're creating something, we discover new partners. And when we discover new partners, we discover new pathways. And when we discover those pathways that we may be intended to go down, all sorts of serendipitous things, start to occur that we never could have imagined before.
And other partners start to emerge and appear that we never could have thought we might've worked together with before. And all of a sudden now we're creating things that were never in the cards before, but now we're able to produce together. This is all what we document in this book Unleashed. And it's by simply taking that first step in getting in motion that these things get triggered.
What I call a chain reaction starts to unfold and it's that chain reaction. We really need to concentrate on more in our country.
Adam: [00:13:48] What do some of these steps of creating look like in a community?
Rich: [00:13:52] In Clark County which one of the things that they have suffered from like many communities, it's an opioid and meth crisis. And what they were finding was that when people, widespread opioid meth crisis, and what they found was when people would overdose they would go to the emergency room.
The emergency room would treat people, they would release them and then individuals inevitably would return back to their addiction. They would detox for the moment and then sent off. No directions, no coach, no network to support them, maybe not even a treatment program. So these two women who went through our lab were at church one day and they were learning about this conference.
I think it was in Lexington or Louisville down the road about addiction and substance abuse. And they went to it and they learned that there are alternative ways to engage people who have overdosed from drugs and to support them. And out of that, that gave them the idea that they could create this coaching program in their community in Winchester, Kentucky, where they would take people who were addicts and train them to become coaches so that when someone overdosed and went to the ER, these coaches would meet them at the ER.
And the reason why that was so important is because folks who had overdosed felt judged by people at the ER and didn't feel supported. So they left feeling worse than when they went in. But now when they were met by these coaches could empathize with them because they themselves had been through this.
And not only could they empathize with them, but they then followed them out of the emergency room and got them into treatment. And not only did they do that Adam, they followed them through treatment. And not only did they do that, but they began to help them build networks of support so that they could actually successfully get through treatment.
This works so well, that doctors and the nurses and the clinicians turn to these coaches, the only credential they had, where they were former substance abusers and now coaches. And the other credential they had is they're good, decent people. So these doctors and nurses and clinicians turned to them and said, will you train us in how you do what you do? Think about this total role reversal. Not only did they do this, but women who started this it's called Achieving Recovery Together, created a storefront downtown Winchester. I've been to it, I've seen it. And in the storefront you can walk in and they will hook you up with treatment. They will connect you with networks to support you, they will connect you with job training.
They will, it's a place where you can go and feel like you're at home and you belong. And there's people who support you. People who love you . And so all of a sudden, these two women who went to church one morning and heard this idea who went to a conference who then created this coaching program, who then started training other professionals who then created this storefront.
They're making a real dent in the opioid and meth problem in this community. One last part about this, the kids who we talk to in this community who are going to a blue ribbon school, told us they felt abandoned, not with standing, that they were going to a blue ribbon school because their parents were spending more time finding the resources to get opioid and meth than fixing dinner for them at night and supporting them and loving them. And so now addressing some of that problem as well. This is one example of maybe 50 in that report that got unleashed in that community that got that community moving in a new direction. That's just one small example.
Adam: [00:17:22] What I love about this example is that they didn't start with building the storefront, trying to train doctors. What they started with was finding somebody who would be a suitable coach, who could meet the people at that level and empathize with them. And it sounds like they started with just one coach and going in and meeting, a patient in the hospital.
Rich: [00:17:43] Yeah. And they also started by actually going back, soemthing you, you mentioned really early on is they actually held conversations with folks who were suffering from drug addiction. So they took our community conversation guides and they held those conversations with people who are suffering from addiction or who had come through addiction.
And what those folks in those conversations told them was that. We feel judged in this community. We feel like we're criminals we feel as though no one believes in us. We feel as though no one wants to believe in us. We don't feel supported. We know that we made some bad choices in our lives, but we want to make better choices in our lives.
And in order to do that, We need to feel supported. There needs to be some empathy. We can't keep feeling judged because if you feel those things, you're never going to step forward and say, I want to change. You're never going to show up in a different kind of way. And so those conversations helped inform their work as they were moving forward to, they could meet people where they are and be effective.
And your point about not starting with the storefront, it's such a great point. As Americans, we are conditioned to start with the big ideas, to start with comprehensive plans, to believe that the only thing that holds value and worth are those things that sound sophisticated and complex and complicated.
And one of our mantras I said, we have four mantras. Another one of our mantras is start small to go big and, I'm tired of all these things, these messages, where the folks we work with, they're getting from other people that says the only thing that's valuable or worthwhile is something big and comprehensive and sophisticated and shiny.
And I say to them, that's a bunch of BS, let's start small and eventually you can grow this to go bigger. It'll be more durable. It will be more meaningful or it'll have greater purpose. And by the way, it'll work. And that's what we're really Will this idea work?
Adam: [00:19:45] And when you're starting small, then you're getting that feedback. And so you're adapting something to be the correct solution, as opposed to trying to develop something that it's not going to fit.
Rich: [00:19:54] Exactly. And we think we're supposed to have the answer. And what I've come to learn is that the answer is small T the answer. Only emerges over time through trial and error by starting something and falling down and realizing you made a mistake and getting back up and dusting yourself off and trying it again and iterating through and listening to different people and getting advice.
And that only happens over time.
Adam: [00:20:23] Taking a look at what's happened over time. COVID happened a year ago and the feedback that I've gotten from other people in the community and myself is that we're much more disconnected now. Because we haven't been doing the work in person of going out and talking to our communities. It sounds like you've adapted your approach with your Innovation lab.
And I'm just curious to hear what you've learned and what you've seen happen over this last year.
Rich: [00:20:48] Yeah. I guess there were a couple of different answers to that. One is in terms of what's happened. I think it's worth just taking that first if that's okay. I think two different things have happened. I think on the one hand we, as individuals, feel adrift. I think we feel increasingly lonely and alone and on our own.
I think there is no question that there's been a rise in mental health issues in addiction in divorces and other types of things. I think there's been an enormously difficult period. I wrote a piece not too long ago about hitting the wall. And how do you deal with that?
And so I think there's no question that we're all suffering myself included from going through this. On the other hand, I think what we are witnessing is American ingenuity at its best. I think we have seen in some places people come together and form networks to make sure that seniors and other people who are shut in, are getting food or getting their prescriptions or getting a phone call every day. So they don't feel so lonely and alone. I think we're seeing communities come together for kids who are learning remotely. This happened in Clark County as well as other communities. To form pods and make sure that kids can learn.
We've marshaled our mental health resources in some communities in ways that we didn't before, because the stigma of mental health still prevented people from being able to get the services they needed. I think we've come together and made sure that, as much as hunger has been on the rise that we've responded and marshaled our collective resources around that in ways that we hadn't before.
And I think when I talked to educators that for instance, that this has loosened us up to think more innovatively about when we do return about how we can do things. So one of the things I'm really excited about in terms of education is that we've come to recognize something we've always known, but refuse to do, which is so many of the resources for learning exists outside of schools, in our communities.
Where so much knowledge exists. So much expertise, so much love, so much capability. And so when we go back, I'm sure I'm hoping that we don't think of education as being the school simply supported by some parents. We think of education as being the community supported by the school. So I do think that this period has enabled us to see that we have more innate capabilities. We have more agency. We have more wherewithal that I think we had gotten amnesia about over many years because we expected someone else to do the work for us. So that's been a positive
Adam: [00:23:27] Yeah. So how has this like taking shape with a innovation lab?
Rich: [00:23:31] We had this initiative in Jackson that we wanted to launch, COVID hit, we delayed it for, I don't know, four or five months. And then we looked at ourselves and our partner down in Jackson and we said things aren't getting any better. The community needs this work.
So let's figure out how to launch this during the middle of COVID, post the murder of George Floyd and the economic upheaval that's occurred in the country and the political crisis that we've been engaged in. And so we had a virtual lab for years, but it really it wasn't good enough, honestly.
It wasn't deep enough. It was good for people who had been part of organizations where folks had already been through our in-person lab and these folks were going through it to become part of the group and push things forward. But it wasn't deep enough. It wasn't rigorous enough. It wasn't interactive enough.
I just didn't like it to be honest with you. But we kept doing it and. COVID shook us out of that. I was like if we're going to launch in Jackson, a town that's fraught with all sorts of challenges and lots of good people who want to make a difference, we're going to have to come up with something a hell of a lot better than what we've been doing virtually.
So in something that might have taken us a year, we revamped, we redesigned literally our lab to go virtual. But a totally different product. And the virtual lab that we just launched two weeks ago, nationally is even more revamped than the one we did in Jackson because of what we learned in Jackson, what worked and what didn't work.
And this lab is much better. We didn't add content. We stripped out content. We didn't add things. We made things clear. We realized people needed more to do in between sessions asynchronistic so we added more stuff, a synchronistically. So the whole thing has been redesigned and it's changed the way we think about not only our virtual lab, but now when we start to do it in person, we're actually going to base it on our virtual lab as opposed to the reverse.
The second thing is I was on a speaking tour. About my first book stepping forward, which came out about a year ago, year and a half ago mid 2019. And I went to maybe 20 or 30 communities in three months. Each community had multiple events. So this was, it was really intense. And then COVID hit everything stopped.
And so we asked ourselves. Does that mean that we stop engaging people around these messages and stop bringing people together in communities. And so we decided to launch these virtual round tables across the country, and we didn't know if they would work. We didn't know if anyone would attend. We knew they couldn't be the same types of events we did before.
So we had a totally revamped them, which we did, and they were wildly successful. But that led us to think about that means we could be doing virtual events like this all the time, which has led to different types of things that we're going to be doing, even when we go back to in-person work.
So I could keep going.
Adam: [00:26:37] What did these virtual round tables look like?
Rich: [00:26:40] They had about 50 people in them and they, what we realized was they could only be for 90 minutes. And they began with a question about how in this case, because it was just the height of COVID. How are you feeling coming into this space and what gives you hope? Because we knew to your point about being disconnected, we knew that A, we needed to start people were with where they were, which was how you feeling coming into this space.
But we also knew Adam that we had to pivot really quickly to people feeling a sense of hope about what can happen and a sense of connection to one another. And so we quickly pivoted to the question, what gives you hope today? What are you seeing? And people, all of a sudden would start articulating things that they'd never said before about the things that they were seeing in their communities and their lives among their neighbors that give them hope.
And then we started talking about What are you wrestling with in terms of stepping forward to work with other people now, and people would start to articulate that not simply as obstacles, but as challenges, they wanted to be able to address together to overcome which we did in these 90 minutes.
And then here's the best at the end. So this is what I love about our work so much, because we want to take ourselves out of it. We don't want to be in the middle of it. So I remember in Albuquerque, this guy, Joaquin, but this happened in lots of places said as this round table was ending, he said, thank you Rich for bringing us together, but , no offense, but we don't need you to bring us together. We've gotta be doing this ourselves. And so in different places where we've done these round tables and other events like them, People are finding that they can come together and do this without us. And that's what brings me joy. That's what makes me believe that we can actually create a different kind of society together because we can catalyze people to do things.
We can keep supporting them in different kinds of ways, but they can take the lead. And I think that's, what's really important.
Adam: [00:28:49] So if you can show people how to come together as a community, in a new and effective way, they know that, and they can continue to grow that in their own way that's suitable for them.
Rich: [00:29:01] In Las Vegas where we work, this is part of the book. On least we started. And honestly, a lot of the work that we did in the first 18 to 24 months that we worked there, some of it was highly successful. We work with the public radio station. KMPR. They did amazing things that was in part because they had an amazing leader named Flo Rogers and some other amazing people in the station that we were working with.
We worked with the community foundation that did some good things but a fair amount of our work stalled while we were there, the community wasn't ready, there was resistance to the work. Not everyone loved the idea that we were there which often happens. But here's what happened when we left.
When we left, people used our work to change foster care. When we left people used our work to change how they dealt with homelessness. When we left people use the work to change how they dealt with food security and bringing different groups together. When we left KMPR expanded their work. When we left a guy named Guard Jamison, I started something called the Jamison fellows based on our work.
I just spoke to their fellows. 200 of them. This is 15 years later. I don't know how many years later, something like 15 years later. When we left, I was on someone's podcast who said to me on the podcast, but for your work, I would never even have this podcast and be doing the work that I'm doing in the community today.
I said, come on. His name was Will come on we'll you don't have to be polite to me. He said, no, I'm really serious. And this is all on tape. And all of the things I just mentioned, every single one of them that I just mentioned happened after we left. And that's what you want to see.
That's what you want to see.
Adam: [00:30:38] So you're like the Boulder that gets dropped in the Lake and all the ripples are what create the change afterwards.
Rich: [00:30:45] Yeah. We're like dropping pebbles. Actually. We often say, if you drop a Boulder, you, it splashes and concentric circles and those concentric circles never touch. And then it fades. But if you drop pebbles if your listeners can imagine this, as we're talking together, just get this in your mind, this image, as you drop pebbles, the pebbles drop in different places and think about it. Like when you see pebbles going into a pond, what happens to the ripples? First of all, they ripple out when they ripple out, they begin to touch. And what happens when those ripples touch?
They actually don't overlap one on top of the other. They actually. Envelop one another and create something new. And that creates this effect across the entire pond. If you drop enough of those pebbles in. And so we're pebble droppers in a sense, but the folks who are doing the work are the folks in the community and they're creating these ripples.
And as these ripples ripple out, That's where both actions occur. So you're addressing what we would call fault lines in society like homelessness or the opioid meth crisis or education issues. But the other thing Adam, that you're doing is you're creating a new civic culture. That's where we're creating shared norms, a shared sense of purpose, a shared story, a more productive ways to engage with one another. Leaders who are actually listening and engaged with the community and are trusted by the community.
And that's equally important.
Adam: [00:32:17] Neat. So I have a question for somebody who shows up and they say, Hey, I want to make an impact in my community, but I don't know where to start. They come up and they're like, Hey, I want to do something, but where do I begin? Where can they best jump into create change?
Rich: [00:32:31] Yeah obviously I'd love for them to go to our virtual lab or to go to one of the things that we're doing, but let's suppose they can't, or let's suppose you're in your listeners in Columbus. Just want to get started on their own. And, one thing I might say to them is go to our website.
There's a small tool called Ask. That's just has four questions. Now we have many more questions, but this is like the smartphone version of our engagement process. This is like the easiest thing you can do. And I might take those questions. And if you wanted to do something in your neighborhood, or if you wanted to do something where you go to church or synagogue or mosque, or if you're a part of a book club or you're part of some group.
Or if you have some friends. Use these questions and find out what really matters to people and the types of lives by going through these questions, they will tell you the types of lives you're trying to create. And they'll tell you what they hold in common. And they'll tell you through these questions where you might be able to get started.
And then I would turn to them and say, okay, so this is what we come up with. What do you make of it? And what I can almost guarantee you is someone in the group will say we could do something about X together. We could do something about why this is how these two women in Clark County got started with this opioid meth thing.
It wasn't more complicated than this, and that's how I would get started. And also on our website, we have these four mantras turn outward, which is a disposition, get emotion. Start small to go big and create a new trajectory of hope. Download those mantras they're free. Just print them out, bring them with you with these four questions.
And if you just started with those two things, I can almost guarantee that you can get started. The challenges we face are often more complicated than that, but if you just want to know where you can get started, that's where I would get started. If you're in an organization and you want to get started, but United Way I've worked with Goodwill in Columbus before.
If you're in a church, if you're in a small nonprofit, you can still take these questions and go talk to people you serve and work with in the community. You can still take these four mantras and use them and talk about them at your staff meeting and figure out how you can get in motion. And I guarantee you, you can start, you can create something good.
Adam: [00:34:52] People are already for the next level. How do they find out about the public innovation lab?
Rich: [00:34:56] Go to our website, the Harwood institute.org. We're redesigning it right now. So in a month, there's going to be a lot more resources, even more resources on it than there are now, but there are a ton of resources on it now, so you can get ahold of them.
Most of them are free. We're very low cost. So that's one thing. 2. You can go to our virtual innovators lab from your home or office and just plug into that. 3. We do work with organizations and groups in communities like we're doing in Jackson. We do work with individual organizations and groups.
So we're working with thousands of public libraries across the country. Or United Ways. And so there are lots of different ways to connect with us. Shoot us an email. And we'd love to talk to you.
Adam: [00:35:39] That's fantastic.
Rich: [00:35:40] If I could just say this, my goal is that people could ultimately in the next few years can get more and more access to our ideas and our practices for no or little cost. I want to democratize our work as much as possible. This is not a business for me. Yes, we need to raise money but this is about how do we change society and that's why I'm in this.
I want to make this work, why we're publishing books. That's why we have podcasts ourselves. It's why we have other resources on our website. I want to make these things as available to people as possible, because I want everyone to be able to have access to this.
Adam: [00:36:19] And if you're listening to this podcast, there are some great talks on YouTube and you can just type in Rich Harwood and a ton of stuff comes up. So a great way to find out more. So I'm curious, like Unleashed is available for pre-order now. When does it set to be published?
Rich: [00:36:35] We're hoping that I think the safest bet is that it'll be published by the end of May, it will be on Amazon. You'll be able to get it on our in Barnes and noble.com. You'll be able to get it on our website. So the lots of different places to order from. The first book stepping forward, lays out the argument and a way to think about these things. That you can get from Amazon right now or off our website.
This new book Unleashed is rooted in these stories that we collected from these nine communities. They're long stories. So they tell you a lot about what happened. They're illustrations that go with, and that we got an artist to do about how you could see the change spreading throughout the community.
And and then , there are these 10 characteristics that we lay out. About how this change, what we call, how change happens how does change spreads that has really practical implications for people who want to spread change, whether you're using our work or not.
Adam: [00:37:31] fantastic. I always think that those types of stories are super powerful. Because it just gives us a starting point to understand here's what's possible and here's how something can unfold. So even if you can't imagine the entire picture, if you can say, Hey, this is how I start. Here's how somebody else started.
Then that can set you off on a path that will grow over time and create change.
Rich: [00:37:52] It's interesting that you say that. So I was teaching our virtual lab yesterday. We were going over this story from Oak Park, Illinois, about this library. It had a new executive director guy named David Sela and he came in and realized he was new. He came in and realized he needed to create a new strategic plan.
So his work just simply began Adam with this idea that my strategic plan is inward looking. I want an outward looking strategic plan. So he'd go to he thought about that before ever hearing about us. He went to our lab. So his first step was simply to create a new strategic plan. He did that by listening to the community, which made him realize that actually they needed to engage with the community in fundamentally different ways.
That triggered a whole set of actions around dealing with the homeless who were coming into the library. So instead of hiring more librarians, you hired a social worker. That then led them to do trauma informed work that then led them to to do a whole slew of other things, which ultimately led them to create a continuum of care in the community for people who needed support. Which then triggered a whole bunch of other things in the community.
This is one of these stories that you're talking about. But as I was saying to folks yesterday, which you just said yourself, all he knew when he started. This is all he knew. All he knew was that he needed a different strategic plan that was outward looking. That was it. He couldn't have imagined that they were going to create a continuum of care or that ultimately three different organizations were going to team up to create this new summer school inside his library for kids during the summer, or that they were going to create new pop-up libraries throughout the community.
Or that because of the continuum of care, one of the groups was called housing forward, the practice spread to them. They started to use the practice in their own organization. That changed how they were dealing with housing issues in the community. No one knew any of these things, but they all unfolded and it wasn't a grand plan.
It was just a chain reaction.
Adam: [00:40:01] And then it sounds like one of the catalyst for that was really this shift from, this inward looking strategic plan to an outward looking strategic plan where, they were going out and engaging people in the community to actually learn about who they were and what their needs were.
Rich: [00:40:17] Exactly. And what, we route our work in people's aspirations, not a utopian vision, but your aspirations, which typically come from your gut. If I had asked you, what's your aspiration for your community or for your life, you'd tell me something again, that's usually actionable, doable and achievable, right?
Because it's something meaningful to you. And what they heard from people, park was, we want a more inclusive community. Too many people are getting left behind. We want a community where everyone has an opportunity to learn. We want a community where people don't have to move because it's gotten so expensive to live here.
We want a community that's more fair and equitable and treats people with dignity. So these were people's aspirations for a community that thought that they had all these things, but what they, when they actually engage, people said, no, that's a community that we once created 20 or 30 years ago. But as we have grown and change, that's no longer who we are.
That's who we were, it's who we want to become, but it's not who we are. So let's work on who we want to become now. Based on who we are right now, not who we were 20, 30 years ago. And those shared aspirations became the basis for this chain reaction
Adam: [00:41:35] So you start by finding those shared aspirations by pulling people together from different places in the community and having those conversations.
Rich: [00:41:44] Yes. And recognizing. That we actually do have real differences. We do hold different beliefs. The goal here is not to reach consensus nor is it to make us all agree on everything, nor is it to make our society homogeneous. It's with a rich diversity of our society that we can come to understand that there are enough things that we share in common.
That let's focus on those things. Not those things that divide us, let's focus on the things that we do share in common that we can work on together so that we can get in motion and catalyze this chain reaction. And then what we realize is that as that chain reaction starts to occur and we gain greater momentum and greater civic confidence that we can begin to take on some of those larger fault lines and divisions in our community that we thought before we couldn't. And we can begin to tackle those and make greater progress on those deeper, more underlying issues.
Adam: [00:42:48] It's almost like you're building up some teamwork around the shared ground that you have so that you've got those bonds and that connection to, to take on these bigger divisions that exist.
Rich: [00:43:01] Yeah. What I like to think is that we're recreating a sense that community is a common enterprise and that we need a culture of shared responsibility. And we need to see and hear one another and we need to afford each other dignity amid our differences and that when we begin to relay that foundation in our society, we can begin to build on it more and more over time.
Adam: [00:43:23] Thank you so much for sharing that and all the work that you've done to build that up.
Rich: [00:43:28] Yeah, it's been fun. It's been hard. It's been hard and much like you described before when I started this, I was a kid, I was 27 years old. What did I really know and idea. I had eight questions that I put up on a whiteboard that I wanted to answer, which is what propelled our work forward. We didn't have any answers.
We had these questions and our work really has been about how do we innovate over time with people to find answers to these questions and new questions that we've discovered along the way. And so our work has just kept building and kept unfolding and kept changing and evolving. And our conversation about our virtual lab is another example of even after 30 years, we're flipping stuff on its head because we're realizing that the world has changed around us.
And technology has changed and people are facing different challenges. And so our work needs to change as well. And how we approach it.
Adam: [00:44:24] I love what you're doing. Just personally, it's what propelled me into this work of just the simple question of how do we actually. Connect with each other as a community and create a better society, a place that's just not as separating or not as focused on going to work, earning money and leaving whoever else behind, but something that we can do together to just have a better life overall. I'm very inspired by what you've done.
Rich: [00:44:55] Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be on with you.
Adam: [00:44:59] Thanks so much for joining on the podcast today. It has been a real honor to have you on as a guest to hear your story. I'm so glad to share what the Howard Institute is about and how you're creating change in communities around the world. So it's just at the heart of everything we're about on the People Helping People Podcast.
So thank you.
Rich: [00:45:18] Thank you. And thanks for having this podcast and sharing lots of peoples stories, not just the institutes. So thanks.
Adam: [00:45:25] If you're listening visit the Harwood institute.org you can order a copy of the Unleashed. You can find additional resources. You can get the answer to the question on. How we go about intentionally unleashing the innate potential of people and groups and communities to address our common challenges and at the same time, create a civic culture in which people come together to shape their own lives and gain real hope about their future. That is what the book Unleashed is going to teach you. So check that out. And as always, there'll be more resources in the show notes on peoplehelpingpeople.world.
So thank you so much for tuning in and Rich, thank you so much for joining us.
3 Tree Shares Easy Habits to Save the Planet
Apr 10, 2021
Kaiti Burkhammer from 3 Tree joined the podcast today to share the story of how they are helping people create sustainable habits that save the planet and help the environment.
A new company started during the GiveBackHack Global event last fall, they shared their strategy for developing a product that will help individuals create environmentally friendly habits. They started by getting feedback from friends and family and then reached out to the local changemaker community to understand what drives people to adopt new sustainable habits.
They shared how they learned that the younger respondents often had concerns about not being able to make any significant impact, where older respondents were more price sensitive. They tested different ways of encouraging these habits and discovered how powerful and important an element of community and sharing your progress with others can be in creating a ripple effect.
Kaiti Burkhammer shared her own initiatives, and how she recently took up composting, through a local company the Compost Exchange that picks up compost so you can reduce what you put in the landfill. Kaiti also shared some of her favorite local companies – Reuse Revolution and Koko the Shop. 3 Tree believes in sharing and uplifting local companies doing good to help spread their awareness and the impact that buying local can make.
Kaiti shared that 3 Tree is holding their first annual CBUS Clean Crawl on Saturday, April 24th at 11 am, in celebration of Earth Day. Find out more on their website, Instagram or Facebook.
GoodFind’s Nohelia Rambal Talks About the Ripple Effect of Small Commitments
Apr 02, 2021
Nohelia Rambal spoke on her experience of quitting a corporate job to become a marketing consultant for impact organizations. She now runs the social enterprise GoodFind, a directory of sustainable brands that helps consumers easily find an ethical alternative to everything. Ideally, the directory was created so that anyone could find an alternative for anything. Items in the directory range from clothing, home goods, sports, health, and more.
Before she dove deep into the social enterprise space, Nohelia completed volunteer work, and a few gigs, for companies dealing with social impact. Once she finally decided to start consultant work, she felt the first action she needed to take was to put up a website and casually shared her content with friends and family. Surprisingly, she shared that she didn’t imagine the site would grow into business. Doing work through volunteering and gigs led to her work being more recognizable in the space.
Beyond building her portfolio, Nohelia shared how social content boosted her business amidst the pandemic. She explained what happened with her business, social content, and the Black Lives Matter movement that opened a new gate in the way she supports social impact causes. Reflecting this, the GoodFind directory had filters that help consumers see who they are supporting. Learning if a brand is minority-owned or focuses on plastic reduction became easier with GoodFind.
Nohelia took time to explain why making things easier for consumers is important for any social enterprise. Originally, larger companies with larger budgets can afford to spend more on marketing and technology that create tighter funnels for their consumers. She expressed how this poses a problem for companies focused more on impact that can get lost in algorithms. Nohelia gives examples of different consumers engaging with sustainability based on her own interactions. Ultimately, Nohelia believes that a sustainable life starts from small commitments: “… we believe ‘one thing, one swap’ is enough, and surely enough, you will come back for more.”
Talking about friends and small commitments led our conversation to discuss the “ripple effect”. Everyday conversations with peers in our circle hold influence. Nohelia explained how our behaviors can be contagious. Minimal steps we take to find alternatives or recommend a new brand to friends build up the new trends normalized in society, and allow social impact companies to create more positive impact.
People may not realize how much influence accepted ideas have in the way the world operates. Nohelia Rambal expressed her thoughts on how society created and accepted the idea of “waste” and the world’s view of consumption. People developed habits of fast consumption and cheaper methods of production, but the beauty of quality production can be appreciated through more mindful purchasing. Thinking alongside how people habits are related to the world’s view, we briefly spoke about messaging used by brands, and why it knowing how the economy works can help us make different choices. GoodFind’s directory can be used to be one swap closer to a sustainable lifestyle.
Sheila Fuentes from SI’LO Shares Why Social Enterprise Issues Are Best Handled as One Problem at a Time
Mar 26, 2021
Sheila Fuentes spoke on the mindset lessons she learned while building her sustainable retail brand, SI’LO. Sheila is based in the Philippines, and pivoted her career from banking with an economics background to the fashion industry. One of the leading concerns for SI’LO is sustainability, but Sheila also mentioned the issue of unethical labors. Adopting new mindsets would help her in situations like the pandemic, when the business model needed to be revised.
Overthinking a problem can lead to overcomplicated solutions. Sustainable fashion contains a lot of moving parts, such as supply chain partners, which leads to unexpected problems scattering an entrepreneur’s attention. Shiela expressed her approach as specifying the problem and having clarity of the main goal. She explained that it’s okay to start without having a perfect process set in place. Attention should be placed on finding a clear goal for a set issue. Sheila gave it a simple order:
“One problem to solve, and then clarity of your vision.”
One common issue for social entrepreneurs comes from initiatives that work directly with communities. Connecting with people that are participants or receivers in an issue supported by the initiative is essential, but a system for these interactions can get lost. Sheila spoke from the perspective of what she observes happening between communities and social entrepreneurs in the Philippines. She shared an example of what it means to build a better relationship and build rapport with a community.
Shiela then goes into her own personal stories of building her mindset and the confidence of her journey. Three years were spent being afraid of what would happen if she quit her full-time job. She transparently shared her thoughts around balancing her full-time job and the business in the beginning. Until one day, she bluntly realized her business was not progressing, and finally said “I need to challenge myself, and go out of this comfort zone”. Sheila goes on to discuss the relationship between decisions and circumstances in overcoming what entrepreneurs may think is holding them back.
Before wrapping up, Sheila directed the conversation further into the topic of mindset. She has a business coach and has experience as a business coach, but she warns that the real block to mindset is ourself. Once moving past self-sabotage, entrepreneurs can grab hold of concepts such as a growth mindset, “selling is serving”, and self-awareness. Having a new mindset around the business opens the door to new approaches. Sheila then explained how these new mindsets start with first assessing your mind, and getting to know what narratives are stored in the subconscious mind.
We finished up with how attached people are to being “validated”. We managed to put a positive spin on the topic by speaking about switching “validation” into acknowledging others for their work. We can really help inspire other people simply by noticing what they’re accomplishing in a genuine way. Acknowledging each other helps lift up the world around us.
If you would like to earn more, you can connect with Sheila over Instagram.
Cameron Cooper is Stopping Plastic Waste at the Source with Circular Economy and Cooper’s Refillery
Mar 19, 2021
Cameron Cooper talks about her sustainability work through Cooper’s Refillery. Society has tried numerous ways to reduce plastic use and promote recycling, but the amount of waste is still largely unaccounted for. Cooper’s Refillery is working to reduce plastic waste by focusing on the circular economy of plastics and rethinking sustainable production and consumption. In their work, the initiative is developing refill stations for reductions of single use plastics to redirect the future of our environment.
Experience as a field researcher for marine mammal conservation led to Cooper Refillery being created. During her time in field research, Cameron could see how even a limited amount of human interaction could alter the wild homes of marine mammals. Reducing plastic became the automatic driver of the initiative. Cameron gave a detailed explanation of the plastic issue in our environment, businesses, and community. Cameron summed up how this impacted the initiative:
“We decided that instead of trying to manage the plastic waste, we wanted to stop it at the source.”
Cooper’s Refillery aims to change the perception of plastic’s value. The main point of the initiative is to positively impact the environment, but Cooper has an interesting take on plastic’s value. She explained that plastic is seen as disposal in a linear economy where the products are produced and trashed. The common thought is that “Plastic is cheap, and made to be used once.” Copper’s Refillery is placing more value into plastics by bringing the products back into the economy and encouraging the standard of using plastic more than once. Convincingly, that’s a great point when you realize plastic bottles can last for more than four centuries.
After she gave context around the plastic concerns, Cameron began to explain circular economy; starting with the three principles of the circular economy. She goes on to discuss why this approach to plastic waste is related to both economists and environmentalists. Cameron spoke on how the circular economy approach shifts the focus of business and explained Cooper Refillery’s strategy to measure the actual impact in a way that can be presented.
Cameron gave a ton of value as we wrapped up the conversation. We talked about Cooper’s Refillery being in the user testing stage, and Cameron listed the prep that came before this point. A lot of this preparation is built with reading, researching, personal accounts, ambitions, and financial planning. She emphasized that financial planning is one aspect most people starting social enterprises overlook. While that preparation helps, Cameron also gave tips of building relationships with communities and mentors.
Cooper’s Refillery is currently based in the Netherlands with hopes to expand throughout Europe and the US soon. Cameron expressed his hopes for the future plans of the initiative. Both the long-term and short-term goals give more clarity on building impact.
“I think short-term goals are equally as important as long-term goals to keep yourself on track, and really building towards something.”
–Cameron Cooper
If you would like to learn more, you can explore their website, or connect with them on instagram and linked-in.
Prowess Project’s Ashley Connell Shares The Three Key Relationships For Women Professionals Reentering the Workforce
Mar 11, 2021
Ashley Connell reveals how reentering the workforce can be better understood with her work from The Prowess Project. Women looking to get back into the workforce can engage with this initiative that acts as an employment agency. While with the agency, women can also build relationships, and learn skill development in EQ to mesh the right opportunities for better employment.
Among women who take two to three years off to raise children, 43% of those women will lose 37% of her compensation power for the remainder of her professional career. Ashley, who was wondering about having a family one day, explained how shocked she was at this statistic as she did research on what the future might hold. In talking to professional women that were living examples of this statistic Ashley found patterns to the workforce reentry barriers for women. She shared the number one barrier of reentry for women, and continued on how curious conversations led to the initiative looking at parts of the hiring process from a more inclusive lens.
Contrary to common thinking, hiring managers care less about the hard skills on a resume than the soft skills that are more nuanced. Ashley explained how looking through thousands of resumes listing hard skills and experience doesn’t translate to how a possible employee would fit culture-wise. Behavior and emotional intelligence are two indicators for the fit of an employee to a company. Ashley shared the observations backing the need for emotional intelligence, empathy, and understanding the needs from both sides of the employee-employer relationship.
Alongside the employee-employer relationship, Ashley emphasized the impacts of peer support. The Prowess Project incorporates organic relationship building between the women engaged with the initiative. Providing a space to connect allows women to bounce ideas off each other, learn what different versions of success look like, and even give them a chance to bond over hobbies. Ashley shared how it’s not unusual that they’ll see groups where one woman might want a 10hr work-week, while another wants to go into full-time.
“It’s all these different ways that these women can choose their own adventure when it comes to getting back in.”
— Ashley Connell
For women in the workforce, especially relating to leadership, there are three key relationships of support. Ashley expressed that you need three different types of people in order to be “successful”: your manager, your mentor, and a sponsor. She went further on explaining what each role brings to an individual, and clarifying that the relationships go two-ways. She shared her own story of realizing she was bringing value to her mentor, despite feeling nervous about how she was perceived. Through relationships and community initiatives can really take shape. Ashley gave examples from her own journey, including the community support that helped fuel and pivot her business.
Ashley talked more about the resources available to women through the initiative and invites people who support women professionals to participate in conversations.
Maxime Dücker’s Our Good Brands Connecting You with Impact
Mar 05, 2021
When Maxime Dücker arrived in Melbourne, Australia, she found inspiration in the thriving world of social & eco-focused enterprises seeking to change the world. So, she set out to wield her marketing and branding expertise to create change and launched Our Good Brands as an entertainment hub for brands and worldwide consumers to make better decisions.
Our Good Brands
With topics around sustainability, ethical living, ethical consumption, and eco-friendly trends – Our Good Brands is a platform that raises awareness and shares stories of many amazing brands and the people behind them. With so much news focused on the negative, Maxime took the approach of providing uplifting habits and insights into how we can incorporate sustainability into our everyday lives, keeping in mind that we all live busy lives.
To be honest, I used to be slightly skeptical about the impact a single individual can make. The effect from a single individual appears insignificant against the sheer volume of people and the magnitude of damage caused through massive consumption.
But Maxime shared her own experience on how people genuinely want to leave the world a better place, and how the conversation changed from being non-existent when she started to be commonplace today. She ran an eco-friendly air-BnB, complete with information about what she was doing. The biggest surprise was how often people would share all the things they were doing in their life to make an impact. And they would be excited to learn what else they can do.
As you grow, you incorporate uplifting practices into your own life – others see this, and get inspired. So, as you work on yourself, you connect with communities that are doing this same work, and together you lift each other up – this change that you’re doing ripples out and touches many others, and it magnifies to the point that significant change occurs.
And this change can start small. (And even better when it does, because small changes that are easy to make part of your life will pave the way for further, more impactful changes. You climb a mountain one step at a time.)
Maxime points out that it makes such clear sense to solve social and environmental problems by using the mechanism of business because a solid business can not only magnify the impact but displace other business which is causing harm… and in the process give consumers an easy means to create change by choosing where they spend their dollars.
Not sure where to start? Listen to the podcast, packed full with great insight. Check out Our Good Brands and the eco-guides, or follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. Need even more help with branding your social enterprise? Reach out to Maxime through her branding agency Four PPineapples.
Dalia Kamar’s Global Interactions Bring Perspective for Developing a Purpose-Driven Enterprise Community in the Middle East
Feb 18, 2021
Dalia Kamar established her work in Egypt as she develops entrepreneurs to maneuver barriers. No matter if the barrier is geographic or linguistic, Dalia worked to empower entrepreneurs of the Middle East to flourish in their own communities. She is not opposed to global interactions and details her own global experience. Being open to finding serendipitous opportunities helped Dalia connect with diverse entrepreneurs.
She started off with her experience attending an American University in Cairo, Egypt. At this place she involved herself head first into engaging the rising trend entrepreneurs during that time. Eventually, Dalia found herself interning with RiseUp, which led to larger roles in different initiatives. Throughout her early work, Dalia focused on helping the initiative’s gain exposure and bringing resources to accelerate growth.
Beyond growth, Dalia noticed the absence of the Arab voice in the entrepreneurship discussion of a region that is predominantly Arab. She commented on the lack of content on business topics, such as funding, provided in the Arabic language. Working around this particular barrier exposed the limits and gaps of content delivery not catering to the region. Dalia shared her thoughts on an important result of connecting people, especially role models and mentors, in the region: “…being part of a community that’s trying to accomplish the same thing and being able to get feedback in ways that you really relate to.”
Dalia spoke about her involvement with Rustic Pathways during an immersive summit geared towards youth. She explained that the summit gives an atmosphere of learning, messing up, and learning from your mess-ups. She shared her surprise at being invited; she attended the summit years ago as a participant. Dalia reflects on the lessons of creativity, developing ideas, and how we gain from every interaction in our life.
Turning to entrepreneur trends, Dalia emphasized the process of tangible, measurable, and actionable impact. She expressed her thoughts of being able to manage that impact while scaling the business. Trends can create guidance, but knowing how to apply what you need to yourself is powerful. Learning to adapt is even more powerful. Dalia explained the lesson in being agile:
“I think your constant state of being should be just being agile and adaptable, because I think if you’re too set in your ways, not even in a business setting, just in a life setting, if you were too set in your ways, and you’re not really able to absorb the changes around you, then you’ll be a really unhappy person.”
Dali is trying new things herself as she works with Equitie, an advisory and an investment firm. The initiative guides strategic decision-making, including product market fit, financial modeling, and raising finance for the companies around the Middle East. Equitie has a global network of investors for their diverse entrepreneurs to unlock market opportunities. Dalia explained details related to funding in capital from her experiences in the entrepreneur space considering the strategy and structures working today.
Anna Alaman from the Open Eyes Project Shares Lessons on Adapting and Community
Feb 13, 2021
Anna Alaman spoke with us about her work in responsible and sustainable tourism through the Open Eyes Project. Anna was determined to build a social enterprise in India and focused on tourism. She shared the experiences that led her to establish the project, including lessons on “learning while doing” and the differences between “having the academic point of view and also the practitioner point of view”. From her experiences, she was able to help change tourism in India for the last 11 years.
Tours are usually disconnected from the heart of the local people. Open Eyes Project relies on the authentic connection with the communities to create holistic experiences of the country and culture. Anna explained how the initiative integrates new aspects to reflect the social enterprise’s values; like bringing in more female tour guides and being inclusive of people with disabilities.
Finding an alternative to “normal” business is a strength for the Open Eyes Project. Tourism is usually held in-person, but COVID-19 placed a stop to in-person gatherings. Anna shared how the team could not believe the pandemic lasted for over a year and added that dealing with the pandemic felt like starting from scratch again. I felt it was a great example of the way clarity about your purpose can foster the flexibility to adapt to what life throws. Being rooted in purpose, and understanding what you’re about, allows you to adapt to create your impact in a different way and shift.
Open Eyes Project took years to refine the businesses methods used in their initiative today, and are still refining. Anna explained that it took many years to fully understand the balance involved with creating impact and having sustainable revenue to maintain a sustainable business model. In social enterprise, both the impact and profit are hugely important factors that indicate whether a social enterprise is truly fulfilling the intended purpose. Anna also shared that figuring out the correct way to communicate with the target audience developed over the course of three to four websites.
Anna reflected on the community being part of the business model and emphasized that they cannot be outside of the business model. Initiatives would not exist without communities. From this idea, the conversation bloomed into the real-life story of why Open Eyes Project’s consumers trust the initiative. Tourists see the impact of spending their money with the Open Eyes Project by the interactions with the communities that are part of the tours. This is intentional and has been woven into the fabric of the experience so that the impact is clearly felt.
Towards the end, we discussed pushing past the hurdle of getting something up and running. Anna’s take is an insightful mix of personas and life experiences. A world beyond the hurdle may include recreating around older narratives your mind lived with. Anna acknowledged a common thread in going past limits: “I can see there is more success for those who are open to really learn by doing.”
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. And this month we are focused on providing you with tools to sharpen your creativity, gain insight, to developing great ideas for businesses that can create a social impact.
So I'm very excited to have Anna Alaman on the podcast today. She founded the Open Eyes Project over 10 years ago in India and has become an icon for responsible and sustainable tourism. Open eyes, organizes tours in India, around culture, mindfulness and education with a focus on the impact people are making through travel.
Anna is also an international professor teaching sustainable travel at Ostella and a partner in sheintourism.com. So Anna, welcome on the podcast.
Anna: [00:00:45] Thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure.
Adam: [00:00:48] Can we start off, can you tell us a little bit about the open eyes project?
Anna: [00:00:51] Open eyes. It started like 11 years ago when I realized the concept of social enterprises in the book. That day changed my life. That was 2010. Open eyes came with an idea to implement a social enterprise in tourism in India. With that idea, with that curiosity, how we can say to have that mission to start something I thought I could do.
I was believing in myself, I moved to India and then I started connecting with communities from different areas to really share my idea of hope, tourism. We could use tourism as a tool for development in the country. Yeah, and then I was for three, four months on the ground for the meeting communities and then sharing that idea.
And after four months I went back to Spain, to Barcelona. I started doing the promotion and the first two groups started, and this is whole open eyes, really was launched.
Adam: [00:01:48] That's cool. So had you been in India before you went over to start this?
Anna: [00:01:53] It's interesting because everyone thinks that I went to India fall in love with India, and then it's when I realized I wanted to live there. And it's not my history at all. My history is that I came to India when I was 21 because my background is in marketing and business. And I used to do import and export projects. So I came with the company and I remember still very well that impact on my mind that I could never live in this country. So you can never say no. I think life sometimes brings you different, projects if you really want to manifest as well if you really want to believe in that.
And yeah, so after 10 years is when I went to India again, I didn't have any contact. I wasn't sure that I wanted to live there. My initial goal was to really start a social enterprise for me was a new part of the map. I really wanted to implement it, to make that a tangible thing.
Adam: [00:02:48] Now with sustainable tourism, what are some of the things you focus on in Open Eyes to make an impact?
Anna: [00:02:55] So it has been also a very interesting journey because I didn't come from the background of tourism. So I was learning by doing, yeah. And I realized after three years that what we were doing, this was called sustainable tourism. And then our first idea was how tourism could be more as a force for sharing economy in the destination with the communities, with vulnerable communities. So we have been always a bridge between communities and the tourism industry. We have been providing capacity building and designing experiences, and then promoting them.
So we were that bridge between both sides. And then yes, I realize, okay, this is called sustainable tourism because it's a very holistic approach. We were targeting also addressing problems on women's rights, gender equality, economy, plastic. So we were really focusing on that in a very holistic, we can say worldview of the tourism impacting destination.
So when I realized it was called sustainable tourism. I decided, okay, I'm going to do a master. At research master project so I can really learn more and do research and implementation in the company at the same time. That was, I was doing that for 4 years and a half. And I can feel now the difference of, having the academic point of view and also the practitioner point of view at the same time.
Adam: [00:04:14] Can you explain some of the things that happen with regular tourism?
Anna: [00:04:19] The convention of tourism. Yes. I'm going to give you an example, very clear about what's happening in India, for example, the conventional tours that is seven days is called the triangle of India that they do Dehli, Japiur, Agra and these that are really bad habits with the drivers, bad habits with the local economy where they don't really stop in local markets in cooperative.
Maybe run by a woman in offbeat places. It's usually at the same place sharing the same history from the same monument. That is not really a real interaction with the people with the destination, with the locals, with the host, we can say all of the places. So for us has been that we are designers of experiences.
This is what we call Open Eyes. We are a tour operator. Yes. But definitely, we are a designer of experiences. Why? Because we are always up the ground and trying to design those experiences with the communities. What is the essence? What is the vision of the community about the place and how we can under the ancestral we can seek traditions and how we can create that experience design and then, make the bridge with the traveler who wants to go to the country scene either different nights, something more pragmatic and going to share 99.9% of drivers transport drivers in India are male. So we have been also very focused on gender in the last five years.
So we worked with that, that 0.1% of the population. Yeah. So we work with women drivers, female drivers. With us, for example, when you reach the airport, there is a woman who will go and pick you up at the airport. And then that woman will be driving you to the hotel.
And also we'll be showing you around Dehli. That makes a difference as well. We have been also training them to become a guide. So it's that, that different work home you can see, for example, that at the same place and women's rights, we don't promote any elephant rides since 2012, 2013, we were one of the first two operators, really not promoting elephant rights in none of our tours.
So that is another aspect, a very holistic approach to how we can really be more. I always say that it's like, you can have a normal t-shirt and you can have an organic handmade t-shirt . So we try to be the most organic and handmade traveled to the mediator.
Adam: [00:06:43] I love that. That's awesome. What are some of the other experiences that you designed into your tours?
Anna: [00:06:50] Oh, we have a load of experiences after 11 years. One of the most difficult, but the most meaningful as well, it's been working with blind women in our tours. Yeah. So we, one of our, what. Impact that we wanted to address this whole week would integrate more people with disabilities in our tours as a part of the team, as a community providers, we can say , suppliers.
And then we connect us what we always with work with community partners. And then we realize that well, blind woman, they have a really good sense on their hands and some of the blind woman in, in Dehli, in organizations, in what train as a therapist. So we thought, okay, why not design something where we can bring the therapies in tourism and they can really earn money because the problem is that sometimes NGOs, they have the capacity for training, but not for marketplace.
And then it's when Open Eyes acts. How we can really make that connection between that training, that skill that the community has with the market. Of course, in the tourism industry, that isn't our focus yet as a tool for development. Yeah, we design a welness retreats in the North of India and the Himalaya as what is a pretty holistic approach as well.
Where blind woman work, our team members, they come from Delhi. They are in very, a big trouble with the group and they are as well in the retreat and they have a therapy. They treat all of our travelers every day with a therapy with a massage. And this is fantastic.
I remember these are Japanese medical massage. They have to be trained for two years. So it's a proper, they can be working even in the hospitals. So yeah, it's giving them the opportunity as well to really have the same opportunities as we have whole vulnerable communities, how we call it tourism can help vulnerable communities to have the same opportunities.
Adam: [00:08:50] Now I'm assuming with the COVID in the past year that's probably impacted open eyes, quite a lot.
Anna: [00:08:57] I think, yes, that he's the before and after. I think it was middle of March and it was one group that we had from United States. It was with us. And then I remember saying, bye bye today. And all these, this COVID was going on. And I remember the were a couple of travelers.
Would it be afraid what to do? What coming back to you, going back to the United States or not. And that moment was the second week of March, in that moment, that period I remember I had that feeling that something strong was coming. I had that feeling.
I remember they were seeing my, or what guests, because I like, it's always, that someone who says welcome. And also we say farewell on the last day, and I remember that day, it was me. And I remember there's something was a feeling of the sadness of as well, a feeling of an intuition that there is something big is coming.
Yeah. So at that time I remember the frontiers or the airport were closed in India after the week or two, and yes, in this event came and all the airports were close and that is when we realize that whole week it was four, four emails inbound to the visitors. Yeah. So since April, definitely we had not had any guests.
In the, in it's been, it's going to be almost a year now. I cannot even believe it. We always thought no. In three months he would pass in six months. it would pass, maybe nine months it would past, but it's gotta be more than one year now. So what's happened. we are very resilient and think because we are a company with a very strong purpose a very strong mission behind the company the organization is not only about the commercial factor that we are looking for . So when that stopped, we realize all the team okay. What we can do in order to really continue with our mission. Yeah. So we, weren't doing some things related to tourism, but after six months we realized tourism not the same is not going to open and no matter what you do it for educational tours, et cetera, et cetera. , I felt sometime that I was going back 11 years ago when I started, so that, that process, that transition.
And I realized that for me, and I believe I'm a stronger believer that social enterprises, conscious company that are meant terminology terminologies. Now for me, social enterprises companies who, because companies focused on people, profit and planet companies who have the same value and they. They are because he wanted to solve a planet problem. . So they are born because of that mission. They see a problem and then they create a solution through a business model . That for me has been the why always I went to India because I am a strong believer of social enterprise that we can create a much better world. I can have the dream that imagine with all the companies were social enterprise is we really have that drive and mission of really solving a society, problem or planet need. And we created a business model behind, so the economy the impact has to be always at the same level. So I thought, okay, so let's continue with that mission. And then because I'm also happy educating and working in the university for five years.
Helping entrepreneurs to really understand this paradigm of social enterprises in tourism and also in different areas. To start, I did a big transition to move online because I felt that online is that it's the, now that they want it now, online is the new market? So it's okay. We need to make the transition to online.
We will do it. So I invest in myself again. Even when there is a lot of uncertain, period, time and we don't know what it's going to happen about the incomes, et cetera, et cetera. I want to invest myself because they wanted to do this transition faster.
So invest and then to make the transition online and to create programs for women who have been working in the corporate world, but they know that they want to really make that shift. They have an idea. They want to make a contribution to the world through their work. They have an idea, but they don't know where to start.
Yeah. So that is where I can help step a step. From the scratch hold to really make that structure, that clarity, that vision alignment and yeah, and really make it easier, to really make that transition.
Adam: [00:13:23] That's wonderful. We speak to a lot of aspiring social entrepreneurs. And that's, the thing that they face it's where do I actually get started? It's also just a really great example when you have a lot of clarity about your purpose tben you can adapt to what the, what life throws. Things are always changing. Usually not as much as COVID but just being rooted in that purpose and understanding of what you're about allows you to adapt to create that impact in a different way and shift.
Anna: [00:13:57] Yeah, I see it now that really aligning also even the team from Open Eyes the team with their why. And they're why aligned with the why of Open Eyes of the company, which is again aligned with the why of the planet, what the planet needs. It's, that alignment with, I think it's so important right now, alignment, the oneself with the alignment with your organization with is aligned with what the planet needs that truly true alignment which is connected to the nature again.
And crazies. This, pandiama them, yes. Yes. One of. More that will come. I hope it not that strong, but there is transition, nature and evolves. So organization needs to evolve as well, and people needs to evolve. Of course, this transition has been quite for tourism industry has been really abrupt.
You really like an earthquake, but yes, make us, it made us more resilient and flexible and it's really interesting and also beautiful and also very interesting how we still after one year, my team, we still have every week, one meeting, we still speak to each other, they have there, they are probably now working in part-time jobs because they, that is not work in Open Eyes since October, yeah. We had to stop eating those salaries. And unfortunately in India, there are not social benefits, no government help. I told her to forget about the luxury that we have in some countries, so this is not happening in India. So we were trying to help until October from April to October in October may decide. Okay. Let's try to find other ways. And it's beautiful to still to see how we stick. And we still are there every week, since a year ago to have the meetings to see how it is too, to see each other to say, okay, this is called, this is a goal. This is because there is a connect, a connection with their wide, with the company and also with they believe what the company do, and they want to be aligned with that mission in their lives.
So I think that is part of resilience that is really be flexible and understanding your life. Yeah, I'm definitely it's a guidance. So when you really connect with your life, it's I think it's difficult to find some time the why for some people, for other, not for me, it took me 30 years, but I think that one could get that GPS, I think it's easier to navigate in these times in time to where It's unknown what would happen in three months?
That's really important. Yeah.
Adam: [00:16:24] So in addition to Open Eyes you're a professor in sustainable tourism and helping people learn about social entrepreneurship. What kind of questions do students come to your courses with?
Anna: [00:16:36] I have two classes that are the Spanish and the English. Yeah. So in the English classes they come from very. Different than different parts of the world from United States, from Latino America, from from Bangladesh, from Pakistan, from India anywhere.
Yeah. It's very international. So still there are some of them they, I can say 70%, they don't know what is a social enterprise. So the other big map, the part of it of, I always say that a social enterprise is an hybrid between an NGO and a for-profit company. To make it easier to understand for everyone because it's okay, but social impact, it's an NGO. Yeah. But we are not an NGO. Our strategies are the same as any company. Yeah. We need to really get incomes from a product or service in the market. Yeah. NGO's, they get the income from the, from sponsorships, from charity model . Social enterprises is a business more than behind that.
So that's business model is what makes an enterprise, but because we have also our thriving, we can see value is the impact that we want to create is the same as an NGO. So we have that 50, 50% from a company convention, a company we can say as an NGO. So that to really explain I make an entire model about social enterprises about these sporadic model.
How it's changing really the way of markets and the industries and unguided needs in all the supply chains, the circlular economy. How, really, you have to be content about that. Our consumers who are consumers of social enterprises, our products, our services, and I am going to relate it to tourism in that way.
But now with the program, I have women from different backgrounds, health. Or fashion or tourism as well. These, I think this is the question as well. One big question is about structure, how you can make a business model integrating the impact as well. So they sometimes they see that conflict about how I can make money.
If I'm going to make an impact, it's have that mindset that we can not leave. We cannot really make money. Even when we are creating the best impact in the world, we still don't know how to integrate that. And when I do that, I really create a sustainable business model. It took me four years for me to understand from the scratch, how important it was to integrate both, because otherwise, if you don't do it, there is a lot of risk because there is a lot of expenses to really create impact as well. So if you're going to put integrated that from the business more than from the beginning, it can really affect the company as well to hope to communicate that. It took me also, I think three or four different websites to realize what to communicate with my market.
I didn't know what to communicate that myself so later Id realize how to do that. And that changed completely Open Eyes. And we have been growing the last years, to reach the six figure numbers and we have a consolidate team and to international awards because of our impact.
So I that is when really everything has started having that coherence, that I understood the commercial money that we want to give has to be really integrated piece by piece, on any single day of our commercial or entrepreneur activity.
Adam: [00:20:02] Very good point of just being very intentional about how you weave those two together, because it is true. It's if you get lost in one, you can miss out and your business can fall apart. If you don't have your revenues in place or if you know your revenues takeover and you lose sight of your impact.
Then you can veer off course and the impact you're making goes away.
Anna: [00:20:24] You are right. And also when there are challenges and difficult moments, when you have to take a decision, I decide because of the impact, why decide because of the commercial aspect. And then you really need to take decisions in that way. And if you don't really integrate that from the beginning, it's more difficult.
There are moments when you can have as well complaint from customer side. Yeah. Because reaching the level of expectations from, training those communities who have never been part of the industry to the level, to read the expectations of travelers who are paying, for the service.
So that requires time, energy, and money. So there are times when you can put that stress of. Who I chose the commercial value or the impact. I believe for us has been successful. If we really integrate both, it's easier. It's much easier. You don't really need those students. You don't have to take that.
Those decisions at that level, it's easier to really communicate with the communities, easier to solve. And it's easier to communicate with with the consumers, with the partners. I have to solve those problems at the same time, because actually the communities, these are your suppliers. They are community partners.
They are part of the business model. They can not be outside. So there is another answer that they are in our business model. They cannot be out because without them, there is no company. So when you see it in that perspective it makes easier for the entrepreneur, for the management, to really take decisions where, of course, when there are challenges.
Adam: [00:22:03] You mentioned, one aspect is for example, customers have certain expectations since you're a for-profit business and they're purchasing something. And so if that goes against your impact mission, it sounds like there's some things that you need to do to communicate that.
Do you have some good examples of what that looked like in open eyes?
Anna: [00:22:23] So for this, the, how it looks like is communication. It's like our mantra about communicating with our partners, with our travelers when they arrive. Before they book. I remember that at the beginning because the social enterprise concept was still very new.
People wanted to know. Okay. But I want to know how much of my trip is going to every single community that I'm visiting. And I say, okay, all right, let's do that. So we calculate and then we and then we really start. Be transparent. Okay. They want to know it. We will do it.
We will show it. And then we make all these calculations later. It's interesting that people stop asking for it. People really saw the impact that we're creating on the ground. They didn't need any extra file with numbers. They really felt it. And I think when you reached that moment, when you felt that impact and the customer felt the impact on the ground without really explaining it, I think for us, it was like, Yes, because the locals really are our ambassadors, our community, that they're the communities that we are creating the impact.
They are really communicating again. A lot of training. For us, it's been a lot of training capacity building it's been in sustainability. So we have been training our guides about sustainability all the time as well. Our community whole, they really need to inform about Open Eyes collaboration about what they do, what we spent.
So they shared as well the collaboration. So it comes from the bottom up. Yeah. So then they see them and then the traveler, they are not that worried about the profit because they know that they are investing. They are putting their money in the company that they are doing good. And they are seeing it from their own eyes through the 15 days.
Yeah. So then they feel good. They feel part of a change while they having a vacation? Because I never forget that the other holidays, it's not a, they are not. In a voluntary program, they are not doing this at proper holidays where they can relax. They can enjoy the meat, they just need, they need to just enjoy the country.
That's it. And be open-minded. The rest is our job. But yeah, I think communication and training is really the key for travelers our consumers to understand what the social enterprise, what means that money and impact .
Adam: [00:24:47] When you started, was there something that really helped get past that hurdle of getting something up and running to the point that you could carry forth and develop?
Anna: [00:24:56] I really feel that one aspect that makes one person to really start and not others, it's when you really. Has had experience enough, in your life what you don't want to do in your life? And that spent that's painful enough when you really see that you are working for other values other companies, organizations with other values that maybe have not aligned with yours and year after year, you realize this is not, this is enough.
I don't want to. Give these this way. I can see also more people who are ready to take action, and really take action because they have felt that pain of being eight hours a day, you're working for something which is not aligned with themselves.
Another one I can see that they can be more successful. Are those that they just start. They don't over think too much. A business model, a sustainable business model is needed. We need the structure, we need all this, ideas and we need the vision.
We need a structure. We need to put clarity before starting we need a strategy that is really important. But we need to start and we need to move that strategy along the way. And I think that not many people understand that some people are very strict with that. The business model has to be like there is, and it will be like this for a year.
And now more than ever, we know that , the sustainable business model. Probably you need to have a look every three, six months because the market also is changing. So that other ability of the person to change. I think those who are more adaptable to make those changes are the ones who are faster and more successful.
The ones who are more like resistant to any change of the, because they don't know who they are going to manage. They are the ones who. Take more time to think, and sometimes they are not sure. And it's painful at the same time because they don't understand that it's not that some people have more skills than another one.
We can learn those skills . I learned being an entrepreneur. I never thought I could be an entrepreneur, never in my life. I was a type of person. Woman would used to be the first in the company and being the last being the good girl, the good employee, never talking, never being.
entreprneur or giving a lot of initiatives in the meeting. Very quiet. And I think that you learn by doing and need to learn by doing, and until that the person don't understand that methodology it's difficult. And I can see there is more success for those who are open to really learn by doing.
Adam: [00:27:47] That makes a lot of sense. And what you mentioned about adaptability really strikes a chord. I've noticed that we have a very strong social entrepreneurship community here in Columbus, Ohio. But there's this kind of this three-year life cycle for a lot of people where they come in with an idea and they, the first year they're very excited and they get their strategy together and they.
Get something off the ground, the second year they're just like running really fast, trying to make it work. And then quite often in the third year they just it's like, they run out of steam and they get burnt out. But it almost feels a little bit like they, they figure out their strategy at the beginning and try to make that work for a few years.
So this point of really constantly adapting and learning and changing and always noticing what the community needs and trying out different things.
Anna: [00:28:38] And I think it's important when there is that time. After three years with the social entrepreneurs really is stuck. maybe has lost efficient with worn out, or maybe it's not creating the incomes. She, or he needs to create or the impact that she or he wants to create. It's good to move out a little bit.
To look from outside even take a week in silence in the Mountains yourself. It's the best way to really connect again really reconnect and really have time for yourself. Really? Yeah. Understand why you start that and how I began the energy back and that motivation because Yeah, it's very easy to go to these endless work.
We, and then when these we're really literally forget about our why and our motivation. Yeah. And then I'd always waste too. To be creative enough to really find for solutions to any single problem. So that's my point is not that at the three year, this company know the business model didn't work.
No, just make it work, let's brainstorm. So let's be creative. Maybe we have to move to a different way, but maybe we need, maybe we didn't think in that way, maybe. It's just sometimes it's just the energy of the entrepreneur who made it slower and has lost motivation. But that's why I have done that.
I have been in that point of, I live Open Eyes. It's enough.
Adam: [00:30:10] It sounds like even from the beginning, what you mentioned is you spent four months just in the community, talking with people there. So really understanding the needs of the people in the community that you're trying to serve before you even started.
Anna: [00:30:24] I was new. I was scared, so I didn't know how to do it in another way. So I thought that Maybe speaking with them. And also I was coming from a different country going to India, a white woman who is doing that girl here. Yeah. So they needed to, and we need to build trust. So for me, I think that building that trust really help.
Between the community and our project it's about partnerships. So that also helped us to, in fact, we have the same, mostly the same partners, community partners, since the beginning, since 10 years ago, I think that's been really important for us.
Adam: [00:30:59] Fantastic. I noticed you're also part of a group called She In Tourism. And can you tell me just a little bit about that?
Anna: [00:31:08] Yes. Yes. Very short. So last year as well with epidemia we realize the ethics of them to think what's happening yet. Because we have been working in gender equality in India, basically in tourism. We are three more partners, we decide to really start shifting towards us. And it's the first platform we can say in Asia to really help support women to be.
To give more visibility towards them . So we really believe that this pandemic is gonna really be very difficult for a woman to keep working in tourism. So we want to keep them through mentoring, capacity building, entrepreneurial and the skills to continue at that level. So we start that in, in April or May and at the same time as well, because we weren't in evolution.
We start as well. A project is called the regial laugh for travel with is about whole sustainability can all be on how we can bring to a generation and integrate nature in our organizations in tourism. And that is how we have been the last year implementing and setting down. We can see building up the concept of the legend love for travel, how we can help.
The tourism industry, tourism organizations, tourism intrepreneurs to move the transition to regenerative development with NGOs who goes beyond sustainability. And this is what we have seen. That is the one of the piece it's missing in sustainability. Yeah, which is about the harmony, the balance between three dimensions, the economy, the social cultural environment.
I believe that is one area which is missing, which is the world view that dimension of the worldview of the person in the planet. Yeah. And the nature there that degeneration, really put it in the as a base.
Adam: [00:32:56] Can you tell me a little bit more about that? I'd like that kind of a additional dimension
Anna: [00:33:00] What we are living right now it teaches us that we are living systems and companies. They need to be, we need to be also living organizations. We can not be those who are leading organization thing would be the one who will be living this transition in a more easy creative, resilient, and transformative way.
And we see that in a year. Yeah. Those who are not understanding that they are a living being as well. They will be gone. They wouldn't be gone. This is one we, as a commented before as well, another part of regenerative development. That's how we see ourself oneself. The person itself, the worldview of the person, which is aligned with the organization and the organization has to be aligned with the values of the planet, what the planet needs.
It needs to be integrated with nature. So that alignment is also one of the principals, we can say often patients off regenerative development with sustainability doesn't integrate at that level. Yeah. So we are seeing that deep level it's required to really align the person in nature at the same, at the same member that such a cultural, environmental and economic impacts that we can create
Adam: [00:34:20] wonderful. Thank you for that. Great explanation. So what do you have on the kind of coming up in the future for Open Eyes and the work that you're doing?
Anna: [00:34:32] So right now I'm focus of supporting and helping women to make that transition that they want to Spanish speaking woman at the moment. I hope to do it in this later, but I wanted to start with one language. So a Spanish speaking woman who from all over the world they have an idea of a company of a project.
They want to start an impact. I didn't know how to start it. So I want to give them the clarity, the focus, the processes, the structure, the business model and the support they need. So I create 10 weeks program in September when he was finished sorry, in November. And it was finished in January and now in February, I'm going to launch four weeks free online.
To give more maybe busier and tools to more women that they are in that transition.
Adam: [00:35:21] Fantastic. And now how can people find out about that?
Anna: [00:35:25] I think the easiest way at the moment is to connect with my email address, which is Annopen eyes, project.com. And then they will send that information over email in the next few weeks. And I can share with them all the details. So the first best thing is Anna at open eyes, project.com.
Adam: [00:35:48] Fantastic. And we'll plus that information to the show notes as well. Once that comes across, so you can find that there
Anna: [00:35:55] Thank you so much. That would be really helpful. Yeah.
Adam: [00:35:58] I've really enjoyed speaking with you today. It's just, it's great to hear a little bit about your story and how you got started and what you've seen with other people learning eabout social entrepreneurship.
Anna: [00:36:07] Thank you. I love this conversation, so I really appreicate it and I really hope that the message goes out and maybe the resonate with any person who really wants to make that transition. And they don't know how so they can not feel alone.
Yeah.
Adam: [00:36:24] I'm just curious at the beginning, you mentioned there was a book that you read that kick-started your interest? What was that book?
Anna: [00:36:31] The book is about Muhammad Yunus. It's about building social enterprises concept companies. And you can find that needs about it's more about explanations and case studies about the concept of whether it's social enterprises. So I can also text you the exactly and everything. So the person that any person can also find the book.
Adam: [00:36:52] Yeah, I'd love to add that to the show notes. I think there is still a lot of awareness that people are just not realizing what the potential is with social entrepreneurship or that it exists.
Anna: [00:37:02] Exactly, but it is growing. So we are going in the right way.
Adam: [00:37:06] Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Anna: [00:37:07] Thank you, Adam.
Adam: [00:37:09] If you're listening, please take a look at open eyes, project.com. Hopefully we'll be traveling again soon, but in the meantime, I hope this provides some insight and clarity for whatever social impact you're making in your community. Once again, you can find out more at open eyes, project.com or on our show notes at people helping people.wOrld.
So thank you so much for listening until next time. Cheers.
Anna: [00:37:32] Bye!
GiveBackHack’s Emily Stuhldreher Suggests Social Enterprises Focus on Small Prototypes Followed by Feedback
Feb 04, 2021
Emily Stuhldreher shared insights into getting social enterprises up and running after years of work with GiveBackHack. There’s an entire community of social enterprises in Ohio that connect to GiveBackHack, including previous guests and myself. Emily talked through a lot of what it takes to build and validate the ideas we start with when embarking on the road of social enterprise.
Our conversation started with updates on how the initiative is operating. Emily shared the transition of connecting with the community virtually. Last year, GiveBackHack held the event virtually for the first time. Participants were still able to build together and feel a team harmony. I also attended, so we discussed some ideas that we saw at the virtual GiveBackHack.
When beginning a social enterprise, understanding the issue as an experience builds a foundation for the idea. Emily reflected on GiveBackHack over the years, noting the most successful ideas have experience or know someone with experience related to the issue. Emily called for social entrepreneurs to understand and challenge assumptions about the problem they are approaching. Sometimes, idea development requires learning about more lived experiences, then, circling back to your idea to integrate perspectives of the people with the experiences.
Emily gave a lesson of the importance of feedback, the MVP (minimum viable product), and the design thinking process. She cautioned about the effort and losses associated with not confirming the needs of the community you engage with. This shifted into a discussion on social enterprise being a model where teams need to validate ideas and validate impact. Emily explained an approach to actively validating ideas by sharing the journey of previous GiveBackHack participant Renter Mentor. The initiative connects residents needing low-income housing with the landlords that will rent to them.
Most of the impact social enterprises create by forming scalable small impacts. Emily expressed her thoughts on individual commitment to impact. She is a system change advocate but also emphasized her belief in the “… one-to-one impact you can have as a person by living your life as a person who’s passionate about impact and cares about helping others.” Emily then gave insight on ways engaging with the impact community can help develop our scalable shared impact.
In fact, scalable shared impact can lead to recognizing gaps in problems. There may be an angle or perspective of the problem that is not being fully addressed. That gap becomes an excellent opportunity to assist the community. Emily spoke about Upchieve, a 24/7 high school tutoring initiative, to illustrate the point of identifying issue gaps.
Winding down, we discussed finding volunteer opportunities to stay in touch with communities. People living in Columbus may want to start with Point app, Columbus Gives Back, and BESA as resources for volunteering. You can start by engaging with people, then developing small prototypes to get feedback from stakeholders of the problems. Repeat this process to continue optimizing the impact you bring.
Social Psychologist Lynnette Cook Reveals How to Move From Hopeless to Fearless
Jan 26, 2021
Lynnette Cook spends this episode discussing the Rootstrike program Hopeless to Fearless. We have a history with the initiative from our previous episode with Rootstrike’s Dave Parker. Through the program, frontline and mid-level professionals can use practical tools and resources to navigate challenging circumstances. We discussed the Nova membership looping informative experts, impact, and policy. Then, we returned to the origin story of Hopeless to Fearless developing into its current state.
Lynnette and Dave crossed paths as being part of the local community. The collaborative work really began when Dave participated in the psychology of creativity speaking series hosted by Lynnette at Ohio State University. The speaking series was meant to help students get in touch with the use of creativity in ventures. Lynette explained thoughts on creativity being in the nonprofit space:
“Creativity is about new and unique and seeing solutions where nobody’s seen that before, and I can’t think of a better definition for what nonprofits do.”
From the speaking series collaboration, Hopeless to Fearless emerged. Lynnette continued by sharing the interactive approach to communicate the core characteristics of the program. She told us about how creativity goes beyond arts and sports. Creativity is tied to the way people maneuver life; like finding an alternate route for your commute when a road is blocked.
People can begin to cultivate change even when roadblocks and limits may seem to fill a life. Lynnette explained that people can be innovative and get around feeling restricted while in supporting roles at work or in teams. Part of empowering yourself to be innovative is exercising mindfulness. Engaging in mindfulness focuses on being aware rather than controlling. Recalling a personal story, Lynnette shared a conversation with a colleague reflecting on Washington D.C. experiencing the storming of the Capitol.
Following her recollection, we expanded the conversation into priorities and self-care. Taking care of yourself contributes to you being in the best place to create change. Besides mindfulness, Lynnette also recommended for people to become familiar with Carol Dweck’s concept of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Lynnette explains that people can shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. She emphasized that “…conceptually, your brain changes all the time; with every experience that you have, your brain changes.”
Building these new changes takes time, which taps into the paradox of refining skills. Strengthening skills is a combination of innovation and grit. Lynnette gave her thoughts on the paradox existing; the place where you weigh whether to try something new or persist. With finding that balance, peer support can be a way for people to stay grounded. Lynnette shared the impact the peer-to-peer component in Hopeless and Fearless brings as fellow members bond through watching each other navigate their experiences.
A majority of our entire discussion dealt with mindset. I asked Lynnette to share more about positive psychology, and then we followed up with three examples of gaining clarity in your journey.
Bestowed Essentials’ Callee Ackland Knows Making a Choice Brings Entrepreneurs Closer to Clarity
Jan 19, 2021
Callee Ackland discussed how her commitment to a zero-waste lifestyle developed into Bestowed Essentials and Hippie Haven. Interest in sustainable products came to Callee in 2016 after a purchase of hand-made soap. From then on, Callee stayed mindful of the ingredients and sources of the skincare she used in her daily life. She gave herself one year to develop her soap-making business full time, which is now Bestowed Essentials.
A sustainable lifestyle was a standard to Callee who grew up in places that gave her a different relationship to sustainability than people growing up in other parts of the country. Once she watched Netflix’s A Plastic Ocean, her approach towards her business and life shifted. We briefly discussed why audiences should be aware of companies and sustainability, such as the marketing tactics trying to transfer responsibility away from larger brands. Consumers have power in how and where they consistently spend their money.
Callee brought attention to the fact that everyone can participate in change. She reassured that everyone’s best effort can look different. If you decided to bring your own bags for groceries, and your neighbor switched to more sustainable brands, both impacts compound. Callee shared that “…every one of these different actions does add up.” Continuing on, Callee explained her observations on why recycling is part of the pollution problem, the purpose of mutual aid, and knowing how to make a change in your own community.
South Dakota’s community is one of the main influences of Hippie Haven, a retail store & community space with seemingly endless opportunities for social impact. One of the opportunities is a donation drop-off for the indigenous-led organization Camp Mniluzahan. Callee shared insight around the organization’s efforts in the community being an example of mutual aid.
Callee’s community connections are also the reason she went from selling her products in the back of her van to being stocked in 200 stores. Even more so, she reminisced on the lesson that entrepreneurs don’t need to do everything alone, and shouldn’t try to. She explained how the business eventually scaled enough to require a second level of management, and how she deals with managing people while being a visionary.
During the pandemic, Callee’s ventures experienced disruption, but found ways to pull through. Callee shared what it’s like being the recipient of grants from Stacy’s Rise Project and the Spanx by Sara Blakely Foundation. Besides assistance, Callee found discipline and adapting useful in her journey, and we both spoke on the grit that comes with a lack of resources.
Hippie Haven is also the name of Callee’s podcast. A major part of the podcast is to speak about sustainability topics in plain English that is accessible for the general public. Soon the podcast grew into much more, but it’s all part of Callee’s approach to impact. She gave advice about her approach and shared she’ll be adding the nonprofit Zero Waste Business Alliance as part of her impact.
Galicia Gordon of Leading Learners Shows that the First Step is to Engage
Jan 12, 2021
Galicia Gordon discussed her work with Leading Learners, and gave her thoughts on how she was able to start building the initiative at 16 years old. Galicia Gordon’s experience with launching and developing Leading Learners became an amazing conversation to kick off this month’s theme of clarity and new possibilities for creating change.
The initiative, based in Vancouver, CA, works to connect students with free resources, scholarships, and tools to empower ownership over their education journey. Galicia felt a one-stop platform for students and all freely accessible resources would serve students well during their academic years. She shared about “being able to build bridges for people when you do see a problem.”
Deciding what to do after completing high school is a concern for a majority of youth, especially with the current education system. Galicia explained how she found a trend of young people not knowing what they would do to connect their interest to the real world after high school. In fact, she discovered that many students were not sure of their own real interests, and they described schooling as a “constant loop of just completing assignments”. From here, Galicia began talking to more and more people, including educators, which led to launching a website with free resources.
Sharing the initiative’s mission, and creating dialogue among the community created a great boost in awareness around this concern. Once the awareness of the concern was uncovered, the initiative grew into one of empowerment. Leading Learners typically includes tips to help drive personal education forward. Galicia recalled that “… [Leading Learners] also thought about making student focused programs and events.” The initiative hosts opportunities for students to learn about each other, learn about other students who successfully improved, and speak with professionals with experiences of starting an initiative at a younger age.
Galicia talked on what can help students that are more shy about creating change. Leading Learners is a great example that people don’t need years of experience to make a new change, or to start making a change. Galicia tapped into a point of having students that have made an impact in Leading Learners conversations. Seeing someone similar, and living boldly, can be the source of inspiration that pushes students aspiring to create impact towards gaining self-confidence and higher self-efficacy.
During the past year, with the pandemic, checking-in with students became a priority. Galicia shared how she dealt with the Leading Learners team, as well as insight into viewing the time as “isolation” or “downtime” changes the way people approach the moment. Galicia emphasized that she enjoys how Leading Learners is capable of helping students as they explore, even if the students live in a different country.
Wrapping up, Galicia shared that patience and market research are two lessons she suggests to anyone thinking of starting an initiative. Her thoughts uncover a balance of being committed, having preparation, and taking a leap.
Business for Good’s Nicole Crone Explains Building Community Connections
Dec 23, 2020
Today we’re rounding out 2020 with our 80th episode, and we couldn’t be happier hosting our special guest, Nicole Crone. I first met Nicole though Wild Tiger Tees. Since then, she pops up everywhere!
The seed of Nicole Crone’s Inspiration
Nicole’s catapult into social enterprise began in high school when assigned to write a 10-page paper. Luckily, students could choose the topic, and Nicole’s topic search led her to businesses with a social impact. She really immersed herself in social enterprise after a member from a social impact coffee shop gave a talk to one of her classes. She went directly to the person after class to join and made her first connection.
Impact Through University Organizations
In college, mentors encouraged Nicole to join the Students Consulting for Nonprofit Organizations (SCNO). There she consulted local non-profit projects. She learned the difference in balancing suggestions and integrating actions. When taking a step back, she realized the social enterprises were able to have profit and do good, while the nonprofit model showed that social impact could sometimes be capped based on revenue.
Nicole started at the University of Cincinnati, but she later transferred schools to Ohio State University (OSU). Here she found herself joining Business For Good (formerly Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship – APTE). Nicole took on a leadership position and shared her experience of successfully organizing a summit for the initiative with an 8-person team. She realized work ethic and passion are huge players in what gets accomplished. She reflected on how the success of the team really shows “…it’s not always about numbers. It’s just about dedication and willingness to dive in, and put yourself out there, and try to make a big impact.”
Connecting with the Community
Being genuine also plays a role in these connections. Nicole discussed networking tips she received on expanding her opportunities. She shares advice specifically for fellow college students on what to do to develop connections. Nicole continued by giving a rundown on her roles in management and strategy throughout different initiatives, including how she landed a job involving my dog’s favorite treats. Like most college students, Nicole thinks about how social impact is going to unfold in her career, but she is not placing too much pressure on herself.
We talk about GiveBackHack 2020, where Nicole participated in the initiative 3-tree for their environment-focused project. She enjoyed the event and spoke about what impact the Columbus area had on her epic journey. Nicole also interacts with initiatives such as Third Way Cafe and Social Ventures. She shared thoughts on what it means to connect with individuals, and how she will personally continue participating:
“I still feel like there are so many other people that I could meet and could talk to. I’m looking forward to trying to set aside some time to just reach out to additional individuals, and knowing that I’ve learned a lot, but the learning never stops…”
If you would like to learn more, you can visit Business For Good on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can connect with Nicole Crone on Linked-in.
Third Way Cafe Gives Deeper Meaning to “A Chat Over Coffee”
Dec 01, 2020
Tim Rush spoke about creating a space for conversations through the Third Way Cafe — a coffee house that helps the community come together for social good, entertainment, discussions, and of course, coffee! Tim mentioned “conversations” as a top priority in the atmosphere at the coffee house. Dialogue becomes more productive in a safe space, especially around social issues. Third Way Cafe is a place where you can order your coffee, and “talk to someone who’s not just your barista, but also your friend”, Tim expressed.
Conversational meetings are held at the cafe, but events such as poetry nights are also popular. Events give initiatives the chance to raise awareness or raise money for their cause. This is the case for the poetry night, which supports Think Make Live. Think Make Live is a community non-profit opening leadership and civic engagement programs to teens. The initiative raises money for their operations through poetry nights at the cafe.
Tim then gave another example that is more focused on discussions. At one point, the cafe hosted an interactive event for Aunt Flow centered on what society considers “embarrassing” topics for women, like menstrual cycles. Tim recalled a scene from the event of four men trying to demonstrate how to use a tampon. With this atmosphere, the audience questioned why topics are “embarrassing” when they are natural in reality. Tim paraphrased the theme with this question: “Why do we make people feel bad about this?”
From my eyes, one of the greatest barriers to solving issues is the discomfort of talking about it. Having a place to guide the conversations, or having a safe space for the conversations to unfold, allows for change to take place sooner. As a social enterprise, Third Way Cafe helps facilitate the conversations as casual and honest dialogue.
We discussed Third Way Cafe’s future plans, including a second location in partnership with All People Art Gallery. The location operates within an assisting living complex. Tim spoke about how the space can be a great way to give retirees access to a social place. Retirees can feel heard, and remain active in their lives. Thinking further into the purpose of Third Way Cafe, Tim said:
“I think the most important thing for us is that in each place that we open, we provide a safe space for people; a place where the culture is to pursue something greater than coffee, to pursue something greater than ourselves.”
— Tim Rush, Third Way Cafe
Tim discussed his passion for prison reform. He discussed his views on the journey beyond jail while he reminisced on work he personally did with incarcerated individuals. Our conversation turned into our own dialogue of second chances, skepticisms, and what getting to the “root” of an issue looks like. Tim expressed that people could be off to a good start if everyone is willing to learn and willing to face some discomfort in these conversations for the larger picture.
Cova Cowork Proves Working Together is One of the Greatest Resources for Social Enterprise | with Josh Boone
Nov 16, 2020
Josh Boone of Cova Cowork shared his experience building support around social enterprises. Cova is a workspace providing tools and resources for entrepreneurship. While working as a freelance lawyer, Josh went on a global trip with a group of 50 others. He started an entrepreneurship mastermind with people who were interested. Oddly, a trend of social good came from out of the mastermind.
Those first steps gained momentum, and eventually became the coworking space. Despite how smooth the transition may appear, Josh was candid about the learning process. One of the first lessons he gained was about execution. While reflecting, Josh said:
“A lot of people have really great ideas and they can have a lot of energy in the beginning; and even getting down a business model, getting a few, few dollars of funding. But when it comes to taking that idea and making it real, it’s hard.”
— Josh Boone
Once a space was secured, the real test of execution began. A factor many social enterprises have trouble with is their business model. Securing funding, operations, and logistics can take a toll in the ongoing process of refining. Josh shared what the process looked like for Cova. He mentioned a very intentional feature included with the workspace. Cova has childcare available on-site. This feature is geared towards parents that typically work from home. Josh explained the extra weight of commute time, parental managing, and expenses parents bare while trying to figure everything out. Cova relieves a lot of what could become anxiety, by addressing those concerns through the on-site childcare.
Another program at Cova is their Changemakers program where space and resources are provided to help aid development. In the words of Josh, the program is “a long term incubator for businesses who have some traction, but basically needs space and resources to grow.” Most social enterprises in the program have a few paying customers and a tangible product, but Josh encourages all levels to engage with the space. For example, one of the social enterprises at Cova started without any customers. That social enterprise was deep into a research phase for building a program around helping kids deal with therapy. Josh praised the development of the idea related to behavioral therapy in two years of witnessing the project.
Cova symbolizes a support system in more ways than one. From the business support to colleague support, the workspace creates an atmosphere of community. We discussed how tiresome ventures can be for solo entrepreneurs, and understanding the encouragement of interactions play into growing entrepreneurship.
Speaking of support, Josh returned to the lesson of execution when asked for his advice to budding social entrepreneurs. Execution is not simply following through. Execution goes along with collaboration, and not doing everything by yourself. While giving compliments to amazing partnerships he values, including his wife, Josh explained having support means you see multiple scenarios and can make better decisions.
Furniture Bank of COH Transforms 10,000 Acts of Kindness | with Steve Votaw
Oct 27, 2020
Steve Votaw from Furniture Bank of Central Ohio discussed the depth in their mission to “turn empty houses into homes of hope”. A phrase of “empty houses” referring to the barren conditions of a household pushing through poverty. A lack of material resources, such as furniture and appliances, can eat away at the warmth of a home. Furniture Bank of Central Ohio noticed the resources are available, yet oftentimes wasted by fortunate families wishing to trash items. At the core, the initiative is redirecting items from becoming waste to finding renewed purpose in a new home.
Each tale has its own twist. Origins for this initiative start with being a nonprofit. Steve talked through how the service and businesses model was not sustainable solely through philanthropic giving. The team decided to bring social enterprise into their nonprofit. In fact, there was urgency for a pivot. A partner who regularly gave the initiative $1 million could no longer support at that capacity. With no time to spare, the team was pivoting and experimenting with their external and internal operations.
Ultimately, the shifts led toward two main approaches. The initiative now earns funds through owning thrift stores and operating a downsizing company. Funds can be secured by sales and received for the value of service. Conveniently, furniture can be gained through both options, which adds to the furniture the initiative supplies to families.
Steve indulged in finding a good rhythm and the topic alludes to the compound of effort. While discussing the journey of their first thrift store, he expressed the growth from $40,000 in surplus the first year to $250,000 surplus the second year. The thrift store was more for maintaining operations, so any surplus was a gift. Discovering a fitting business model did more than expected.
“It takes away the pressure on philanthropy because if we can raise our own resources through these efforts, it reduces our dependence on philanthropic support.”
–Steve Votaw
Focusing more on numbers and impact, Steve explained the evolution of impact within Furniture Bank of Central Ohio. He first observed the growing need created by poverty being amplified by the disproportionately smaller presence of government assistance. Impact driven by the initiative comes from earning funds, volunteers, donations, and adjustments to the business model personalized for the mission. Steve broke down a few numbers to the core operations making everything function.
In the near future, the initiative will be tested again by another residual issue of the pandemic. Steve expressed his thoughts on what role evictions will play in the initiative’s operations moving forward. Recognizing a shift reminds the team that the work is not over. Sharing a personal story, Steve recalled a “moving” moment he witnessed as one family was being helped. The moment is proof of simple things holding tremendous meaning. Steve summed up the experience saying that even the smallest moment “helps make a house, a home”.
Lasheyl Stroud Maintains Deep Rooted Advocacy While Serving Within the Social Justice Ecosystem
Oct 19, 2020
Trigger Warning: Content in this episode involves conversations on human trafficking and trauma-based family dynamics.
Lasheyl Stroud brought her expertise and authentic understating to share the work being done in and around the juvenile court system. At the time of recording, Lasheyl is growing past her role as Lead Magistrate, and running for judge of the Franklin County Court. She prepped the discussion by first explaining the difference between a judge and a magistrate. Lasheyl handled cases in Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court, which typically involve family-based issues. She also handled cases in Empowerment Court, where cases relate to human trafficking.
Going across the state, and working with a sense of urgency, Lasheyl participated in every part of the court. The urgency comes not from a lack of time, but is sustained by clarity and passion. In her experience, she represented parents and children. From full time commitments at the Attorney General’s Office to volunteering as a Guardian Ad Litem, her focus on social justice impact exposed her to a wide range of experiences. Her passion and focus come from a profound sense of care, which explains the actions she upholds when children, children she considers as if they’re her own, are involved directly in court cases.
Moving to a topic the public is less educated on, Lasheyl described the system of human trafficking from the perspective of her role in court. Unlike movies, human trafficking often begins with familiar figures in an individual’s life. Family and romantic partners are predators more often than people imagine. She revealed the name “Empowerment Court” is meant as a message to empower the victims within the court cases.
Youth are showered in a love that is pure and genuine for the duration of the transition through court. Court staff, child services, and related stakeholders tend to be the first healthier examples of adults for some youth in court. Lasheyl unpacks the careful and attentive approach used to build true relationships with the youth. Lasheyl also dives into the delicate details of family dynamics. For example, removing youth from environments where the a parent is allowing the child to be trafficked by a significant other.
If urged to add to the love being given to the youth, Lasheyl shared that people can donate gift cards, clothing, or other forms of service. As a step further, she also mentioned training conferences and mentoring programs can help people become more educated towards the social issue.
Our discussion changed direction towards juvenile delinquency. Based on Lasheyl’s explanation, the harshest issue becomes the lingering consequence felt by youth after being engaged in the court system. Court personnel and volunteers aim to resolve this issue, with one hopeful option being restorative justice circles.
In closing, Lasheyl took a deep dive into her journey through the social justice sphere that led to running for judge during COVID-19. (So, go out and vote, and vote all the way down your ticket!)
Aspire Hosting their First Virtual Social Enterprise Award Ceremony | with Susan Post
Sep 29, 2020
Susan Post introduced Aspire, the Columbus-cultivated award ceremony honoring social entrepreneurs. The annual award show began in 2013, and continues to celebrate social enterprise in Columbus today. Similar to many events in 2020, Aspire will be held virtually. Now the event has a larger capacity for more people to share this celebratory experience sponsored by Social Ventures.
Three awards exist, which include Social Enterprise of the Year, Emerging Social Enterprise of the Year, and Nonprofit Sustainability. To give context to the awards, Susan gave examples of previous winners which included Freedom A La Cart, Honest Jobs, and Clean Turn. For this year, the award show has two awards: Social Enterprise of the Year award and the new Social Enterprise Coronavirus Pivot. Susan explained the importance of paying attention to recognizing the “social enterprises that were faced with huge challenges in their operational models because of the situation and found really great ways to pivot and find new ways to serve the community and carry out their mission.”
Aspire establishes recognition, and provides a platform for social enterprises to tell their stories. Susan personally feels the value of awareness around social enterprise. People should see the link of engaging with social good initiatives to the impact born from the participation. The power of impact at scale becomes a more tangible topic to the general public.
In this year’s awards, the public will be able to feel more acquainted with the award nominees. Susan shared her delight about the one-on-one interviews Aspire had with finalists. Unlike previous years, the interviews are a way to hear directly from the nominees. Susan suggested anyone in the general public can start by browsing listings from Social Ventures. She encourage everyone to actively discover social enterprises, whether local or non-local.
From my experience, one thing I observed is that people in Columbus are supportive of each other. Spaces built for opening doors and connecting names with faces are at the core of the organic web of genuine effort in Columbus. Speaking of Columbus, we dived into Susan’s origin story. As of now, Susan worked with Metroprenuer for over seven years, but of course there is a journey prior to joining the initiative. She grew up in Ohio, and attended Ohio State University (OSU). Susan briefly explained how she ended up in her career path.
Circling back to the awards, Susan informed everyone that tickets are a give-what-you-want donation this year. If you donate more than $15, you’ll be eligible to win a social impact box from Social Ventures.
Susan further expressed interactions she had in Ohio. She explained her thoughts on writing articles to convey the excitement companies have around their impact and missions. Susan speaks on the future complications Columbus could face, including evictions. The issues began before the evictions.l, and we dove into the topics layering social issues in Columbus. We had the type of conversation where you need more time.
Cuddles Foundation Brings Nutrition to Kids with Cancer | with Purnota Bahl
Sep 25, 2020
Purnota Dutta Bahl of Cuddles Foundation provides nutrition to children undergoing cancer treatment. Being based in India, Purnota explained the barriers of cancer treatment for children within the country. Malnourishment is one of those barriers slimming the odds of proper treatment. Malnourished children can experience disruptive side effects during chemotherapy, and drop out of treatment. The organization believes “every child deserves a chance at cure”, and is determined to protect the probability of recovery.
Cuddles Foundation does not focus solely on giving food to children. Purnota explained the initiative educated parents/ guardians, wrote nutrition prescriptions, sent nutritional baskets worth one month of nutrition, and educated nutritionists across the country in the science of pediatric oncology nutrition. Everything is done to ensure a better condition for undergoing cancer treatment.
From the start, the initiative was intentional in purpose, and “let’s see how this goes” in actions. She has an instinct of treating the initiative like a startup. For example, Purnota recounted how she found herself at an opportunity with only ten days to register proper paperwork for Cuddles Foundation. The social enterprise benefited from her tendency to not waste a chance, and her skill of recognizing when to “push the panel harder”.
As the organization developed, there was a need to create awareness around the specific cause of the initiative. In this case, the cause is “how important nutrition is in cancer treatment”. Rallying support produced a challenge at times, but Purnota made a point of succinct advocacy and meeting the right people at the right time. Following this lesson came a lesson many social enterprises face, which is forming a qualified team.
Purnota expressed the gap between not having funds to pay the same rates corporations offer and a hiring qualified, cutting edge team. Her solution was to build a small core team. The core team of qualified individuals led to high performance and exponential results. Of course, we imagine this outcome not developing linearly, but unfolding ultimately. She summed up the key combination of securing a strong core team that has better potential to scale:
“… bring the people in, then you make sure that they feel fulfilled, that the work is such good quality, that they themselves will bring in money and they themselves will bring in people.”
— Purnota Bahl
Purnota dug further into this topic on which individuals to engage if you want to produce these kinds of cooperative relationships. Most of the interaction is helping people know that they have a stake in the action, empowerment, and value.
Cuddles Foundation approaches their operations by providing value from multiple sides and embraces mindset shifts. Purnota explained the future projects and goals the Cuddles Foundation is pursuing, including technology. She then explained past mindsets, even mentioning the beneficial e-commerce habit the Cuddles Foundation adopted. The organization is showing everyone how nutrition is an undeniable root cause in health treatment and needs an all-around approach.
Columbus Works is Breaking Generational Poverty with Employment Retention Coaching
Aug 31, 2020
Beth Gifford, President & CEO of Columbus Works, described the initiative perfectly, saying Columbus Works is a “nonprofit organization providing job readiness training and longterm wraparound support for any individual in central Ohio who desires to move out of poverty through full-time employment.” During COVID-19, assistance in employment matters is extremely relevant. Beth explained the pivoting challenges and adapting to the new atmosphere once stay-at-home orders began. For example, their coaching switching from physical locations to virtual sessions unknowingly led to other issues being exposed. A major one being their members did not have access to WiFi or access to a stable learning environment.
Each new pivot became a defining moment to the decisions faced. Beth expressed the scenarios of chronically unemployed members, parent members with children, and the tough decisions where Columbus Works tried to provide guidance. People who make progress to come out of poverty are the most fragile and are understandably hit the hardest. It may take years to regain the momentum lost to the turmoil of the pandemic.
According to plans by Columbus Works, it takes three to five years to earn your way out of poverty. After that, it takes an additional five to seven years to learn how to stay out of poverty. Beth emphasized their approach being reasonably predictable in how they walk alongside their members to achieve life improvements. We explore these different stages in the podcast, from the beginning with the very first steps of engaging with Columbus Works.
Work through the initiative transforms the lives of members. Beth told a particular story of a man who went from living in a shelter owning a three-bedroom ranch in the course of a year. Not only did his life change, but the lives of the people he is connected to. The man was able to move his mother into his home and is able to take care of child support. At the time of the episode, the man is saving for a car, and Beth pointed out one threshold Columbus Works aims to have their members reach:
“You want to be able to get to a place where you can choose.”
— Beth Gifford
She expanded on this thought using the car scenario. The financial ability to choose how and what to pursue gives a different sense of freedom.
Another heavy area of impact within Columbus Works related to members learning through their trauma. For Beth, there came a realization that not being able to sustain employment could be connected to the fight or flight instinct of trauma. She delved into patterns she identified with Columbus Works members and their significance.
Beth wrapped the conversation through an explanation of what it takes to be part of Columbus Works. She explained the main characteristics for roles, such as a member or a partnering employer, that are necessary for a thriving Columbus Works journey.
Urban Accelerator X Creates A Better Business Map by Expanding the Horizons
Aug 17, 2020
George “Ski” Zarebski and Lolo Smith of Urban Accelerator X came to help everyone get on track around building up entrepreneurship. Urban Accelerator X works as an urban entrepreneur support organization much like their name would suggest. Usually, the initiative interacts with smaller businesses that are 5 years or younger in their business journey. The duo points out that they work with all levels of business, but the level closer to the ideation stage of business is where they currently have the most organic connection. To increase impact, they honor support for poc-owned and women-owned businesses against added barriers these entrepreneurs face. They also deliberately made their entrepreneur center accessible to the inner city. Clearly, Urban Accelerator X is adamant about supporting and expanding horizons of people growing through entrepreneurship.
Ski and LoLo explain the three huge barriers in business: management, money, and markets. Lolo specifically addressed the additional factors of emotional trauma and generational curses. Barriers with lingering effects tend to create a gap that widens over time. These are barriers that we seem to address on the surface, only to realize there is more depth needing discussion. Ski and Lolo touched on the limits seen in these lingering barriers, such as difficulty in building wealth.
A step toward minimizing these lingering barriers is to combat them from the beginning. One way is to focus on expanding the level of exposure to the possibilities of life. Ski gave an excellent analogy using an age-old question:
“When you’re a kid, you almost inevitably get the question: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ It’s a horrible question because the only possible answers you can give are things that you’ve been exposed to. That’s exactly what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about a group of people that have not had the same level of exposure as another group of people, and so what we’re trying to do is broaden that awareness, broaden that exposure.” – Ski
Feeding off this topic, we started sharing our own experiences of broadening our horizons. At times the shift was on purpose, and other times it was through shock. Each person is raised in different environments, and there comes a day when you realize what is the “normal” basic to you is not the same for everyone else. In a great illustration of this point, Lolo shared a personal college preparation experience that switched the entire perspective around family expectation and finance.
We dive more into real life stories of entrepreneurs overcoming limiting beliefs and the value of changing the lens we perceive the business world through. Both Ski and Lolo have accounts on touching stories they witnessed develop as entrepreneurs found their place. Luckily, Urban Accelerator X is continuing their work of helping entrepreneurs find their place. Ski and Lolo announce exciting news about upcoming work that will further entrepreneurs in their business journeys.
Jennifer Sconyers Uncovers the Real Work Behind Diversity and Inclusion
Aug 10, 2020
Jennifer Sconyers came to discuss her extensive work in diversity and inclusion, alongside commentary on what lessons she learned. Being the president and founder of Abundance Leadership Consulting, Jennifer continuously worked with numerous companies and observed a lack of diverse talent. Absence of diversity only intensified as the conditions did not allow diverse backgrounds to thrive and be successful. For diversity and inclusion, companies and organizations will benefit from viewing their environment from all sides.
Examining both the internal and external relationships of a company reveal culture being upheld in the operations. Jennifer touched on what it looks like for a company where diversity has no longevity and added that the external affairs are important. The relationships with customers, clients, or any part of the external operation can also hold clues to how a company is choosing to interact with diversity. She explained how this can be experienced on different levels of a company, and the significance of tradition. A company that opened 100 years ago is more likely to have a set culture and be part of a larger system, which could make the issues of diversity a more tangled topic than a company first expects. Anything you change must be changed at the root, but reaching the root is not always easy.
A portion of the work is discovering what it means to be anti-racist. Uncovering the systems constructing racism give space for individuals to dismantle, and create something new. Jennifer emphasizes this work is not to be done as a badge of honor, but to “fundamentally” change people’s outcomes for the better. The work is a long term commitment.
At times the work appears in direct relationships, such as connections between co-workers or between relatives. Jennifer spoke on ways to approach the task of difficult discussion with relatives. We then switched into discussing relationships as building professional partnerships. I mentioned to Jennifer ways GiveBackHack is encouraging a more diverse environment. She took this moment to bring attention to the need for both sides to receive value. She expressed that people are willing to recruit for “diversity” as a metric. There needs to be value for the company, and for the individuals, the company is recruiting.
“If you’re doing it because you need to increase diversity numbers, I would say rethink that. Cause there’s gotta be something in it for both of you.”
–Jennifer Sconyers
Jennifer explained how diversity is not only race but thought and experience. Diversity work is around including diverse backgrounds and making the environment welcoming. Involvement in the work is the follow up to actually acknowledging the work needs to be done. Jennifer gave a creative example on how oppressive structural systems are like a default wallpaper, which really speaks to the proactive nature and awareness we need. Recognizing the first steps in diversity and inclusion helps us find workable, impact-filled solutions in how we move forward.
DC Design Involves the Community to Solve the Right Problem
Jul 28, 2020
Durell Coleman speaks on DC Design’s work as a social impact strategy and design consulting firm. The firm works on the pressing issues such as the criminal justice system, healthcare, foster care, and education. Through their efforts, DC Design helps organizations nurture relationships with their communities in addition to developing strong strategies and resources. In the end, the firm provides an overall structure to empower the organization and the community.
“Our work is powered by the belief that in order to truly create the type of change the communities need, you need to be in community with those communities. You need to be working hand in hand with the people that you want to benefit.”
— Durell Coleman
Durell discussed DC Design’s multi-stakeholder human-centred design, starting with an example of work done on criminal justice in Santa Clara. The multi-stakeholder approach searches for the different narratives taking place within one scenario. For Santa Clara, Durell explained the choice to speak with people who worked with incarcerated individuals, people who had been incarcerated, mentors of incarcerated individuals, family members of incarcerated individuals, and victims of crime. DC Design’s process goes even further as the firm sat down with power roles, such as the sheriff and public defender, to include those narratives. All of the experiences are gathered to work towards a solution.
Collaborative effort plays a huge role in the vision towards a better solution in DC Design’s playbook. Letting the community take the lead, the firm focuses on listening. Durell expressed thoughts behind the importance of listening deeply to people in direct contact with the issues. We continued our discussion into the topic of longevity coming to the most fitting solution. The goal is to find a solution that will still have a positive impact years later. Identifying the different needs surrounding the issue, and discovering the overlap, provides a way to create such a solution.
“I think you need to make sure that you define the problem correctly to make sure that what you create actually solves the right problem.”
— Durell Coleman
Beyond helping organizations and governments, the firm opened DC Design University for people set on creating social impact. Courses explore topics that reach into overall achievement. DC Design is currently launching a self-paced course, Design Thinking Fundamentals for Social Change, giving the fundamentals of community change while using real stories of pivotal community initiatives.
We then discussed the untapped potential high schoolers have in our world. The podcast discussed this a while back, but to summarize, there is a sort of natural innovation in the limitless mind of youth. Durell shared his own story of this realization, bringing a new depth to why empowering youth is insanely beneficial. Durell then reminisced on major moments and questions that pushed his journey leading up to DC Design. He expressed his commitment to continuing the work changing communities and systems.
Also – they extended the discount of their innovative DC Design University program through August 3rd – check it out!
Omar Elhagmusa and Paul Bryson Answer the Question “Why Choose Non-Profit?”
Jul 03, 2020
In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with past guest Omar Elhagmusa and bringing in new guest Paul Bryson. Omar was a past guest when I spoke with his non-profit lending company Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF). Paul is working for the Legal Aid Society (LAS) as a non-profit lawyer. We dive into the benefits of incorporating as a non-profit, and navigate a conversation of whether to start as an LLC or non-profit. Quite often we hear the benefits of starting an LLC, so these two guests together help fill out the story on the other side.
Omar explained his work with the largest Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in the Midwest. He gave more information on similar community finance institutions, such as micro lenders. Paul followed up with his perspective on the strong points and barriers of each side. Paul mainly expressed the initial goal is simply to determine capacity and what ways to move forward.
Our conversation evolved into something like a brief consultation. We discussed the impact of timely advice on the operation of initiatives, whether for-profit or non-profit. Business models play an incredible role in sustaining and developing community initiatives. Soon we discussed our takes on business model examples in the social good space, such as Foundry. Paul provides his expertise in carefully explaining L3C (low-profit limited liability company), which is the closest to a cross-over of for-profit and non-profit. He described the common approaches of what a social entrepreneur might experience; speaking from both a bank’s perspective and the community perspective.
“I think the final thing is sometimes people go ‘Well, if I’m a nonprofit, then I can’t earn money’. That’s a huge myth that I think we’re going to dispel as we go forward. ‘Nonprofit’ doesn’t mean you can’t earn money.”
— – Paul Bryson
We dug a little further into nonprofit operations, such as relations with the IRS or choosing a board of directors. Omar suggested an untapped source for finding board members, and discussed the benefits of incorporating board culture into social enterprises. Keeping social good at the forefront becomes key.
“The temptation of doing the easy, fast thing at the beginning may not translate to helping you achieve your mission, which is why you start a social enterprise in the first place; because you believe in the mission and you’re trying to find a way to unlock capitalism in order to achieve that social good.”
— Omar Elhagmusa
In a full circle moment, I asked for a verdict on switching from an LLC to a nonprofit. Suggestions on how you transition were given, but overall, switching is not to be done casually. During our conversation we also discussed topics like subsidies and common myths around non-profits, alongside examples to properly illustrate which social entrepreneur interactions to expect.
If you would like to learn more you can check out the IFF official site or the LAS official site to find more information.
Marvetta Rutherford Shows People How Empowerment Can Come From Learning More About Society’s Systems
Jun 25, 2020
Marvetta Rutherford discussed with us her take on transportation, food access, ownership, and empowering people. Marvetta gave her observations on the evolution of her hometown, Cleveland, Ohio. Her life experience spans enough eras to remember the Hough riots and Glenville riots during the sixties.
Through the eyes of a “lifelong Clevelander”, she talked about noticing change in her community, like the small businesses she once knew being replaced. Her journey in life also allowed her to recognize the differences of the East side and West side of her town.
Access to transportation is a vital part in life security, such as commuting to work or going out for groceries. Vulnerable neighborhoods can face unexpected challenges with a change in access; such as changing bus routes away from vulnerable neighborhoods.
Disparity in the town is being fueled by a system failing the people of the town. Marvetta spoke on the combination of lacking knowledge and contradictions that plague numerous systems across America. She mentioned a great example of prison labor being extensively used, including to combat fires that break out in California. Despite the hands-on experience, having a felony record will stop formerly incarcerated individuals from securing a firefighter position after their prison release. Following this tone, Marvetta also described phenomena of people working for years within the same company or completing college education to end up underpaid, or at a minimum wage job.
Marvetta made a strong point of giving people the opportunity to learn skills, and that not everyone needs the same skills. Instead, she said to “… at least live your purpose and do it with enthusiasm and empower other people to do that too.” Showing people how to care for themselves is a huge part of Marvetta’s work. She goes through each day excited about who she can help next. In her work, she helps educate people on living, in hopes of people having a better quality of life.
“It’s all about freeing up money, showing you how to save money and showing you how to look at it from the lens of a business owner.”
— Marvetta Rutherford
Marvetta spoke with her heart on the instances Americans live through while trying to attain some form of the American Dream. She expressed her take on what is given to communities, what is sold to communities, and how communities respond. From financial freedom, to culture, to food tendencies, she shared her observations without being afraid to express and dissect the situations ongoing in community.
Our conversation eventually came to an important change-making vehicle: voting. Marvetta emphasized the direct impact any decision local elections will have on a community. People undervalue local elections at times, not understanding how each vote counts. She even has behind-the-scenes experience; recalling one mayoral election with a 20 vote difference for the winner. Marvetta encourages everyone to really take accountability of their voting rights and community.
If you would like to learn more, you can check out Marvetta on Instagram to keep up with her latest activities.
SocialVentures’ Allen Proctor is Connecting the Ecosystem of Social Impact
Jun 19, 2020
Allen Proctor from SocialVentures balances optimism with an extremely realistic outlook on the development of social enterprises and community relations. He builds the ecosystem of social entrepreneurship. We talked through what is working well for social entrepreneurs and what they need to know.
Starting off strong, his first two points revolved around what some of the best social enterprises are doing right now. One part is social media, and the other relates to business models. Lingering on the topic of business models, Allen gave his take on a gap in business awareness within social enterprise.
Many people start from a similar viewpoint of the business world, but it is a viewpoint of tattered pieces. Allen explained the scenarios often found in the aftermath. Being aware of your business model and having a sustainable plan becomes crucial in longevity and scaling impact. While speaking through the decisions social enterprises should be aware of, he managed to bring our attention back to an old saying, “Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.” Soon after, he reassures that there are social enterprises doing well, but realistically points out where improvements could be made.
Along with laying out the business model, there are times of pivoting and boundaries. In business, you’ll make decisions about where and what to change, including when letting go to make more room for change. Concerning boundaries, Allen gave an excellent example using catering. He explained that if the business is equipped to order 10 to 25 lunch boxes, they shouldn’t agree to every delivery request significantly beyond that range. A fluctuating expectation is understandably unsustainable.
Our discussion shifted to the contrasting relation of funds available compared to impact on communities. Smaller companies more tied to the community are receiving less funding than larger corporations that have no focus on helping communities. In housing, for example, Allen shared his opinion on what’s been happening in opportunity zones around Columbus, and how it is not transformational for the communities.
Speaking of transformation, Allen has a strong take on entrepreneurship being the start to community wealth, and it’s not the take you may think. He shared observations and conversations on what actually occurs when trying to build wealth in community. One dilemma centers on placement and market exposure for the entrepreneurs. Chances are not in favor of the business owners, and lead to an opposite effect if business does not go well.
We also had a chance to discuss Allen’s work in initiatives, such as Impact Boxes. This particular venture is driven in response to the pandemic. Impact Boxes lessens the burden of delivery management small businesses suddenly faced amidst the pandemic. Allen talked about pivoting while staying connected with social impact and listening to the community. Fittingly, Allen then expressed the mission behind work with SocialVentures:
“SocialVentures’ mission is to empower mission-driven businesses to eliminate the social and economic divide in our community.”
Social Impact Business Coach Trudi Lebron Discovered Power in Changing Narratives
May 21, 2020
Trudi Lebron is a business coach for social impact-driven entrepreneurs. She also works as a diversity equity and inclusion strategist.
She reflects on how she first began her venture into the coaching space. Trudi said school loan payment helped fuel her natural side hustle tendency. She briefly describes what gave the first push of momentum behind her coaching. As one learning point, she notes: “Swim towards the people who are swimming towards you.”
From there, it’s all about taking small steps. Interestingly, for Trudi, small steps are more about the questions. She’ll ask herself “How can I replace my electric bill?” rather than only saying “I’m going to save money.” Trudi is specific in finding a bare minimum to move her progress forward.
Among the ways she concentrated her dedication, Trudi invested in her progress by hiring a coach. A professional coach was a huge investment at the time; “… it was more than my car payment” Trudi recalls.
While in the coaching program, Trudi needed to unpack lingering narratives about the nonprofit sector with money. She gave an example of where the narrative is birthed from and said nonprofits can attest to this honest scenario. After acknowledging the narrative, Trudi explains what brought her to realize that money can function differently.
Deeper than the money narrative, Trudi commented on efficiency needing to be a larger focus for nonprofits. Many nonprofits, if they were to calculate their efforts, have a negatively disproportionate amount of money compared to the hours and services they provide. Her first suggestion towards improving efficiency is developing protocols. She explained that the protocols should hone the process, not necessarily the humans performing the process.
“I tell people that they shouldn’t be managing people. They should be managing outcomes, and if they stop managing people and start managing outcomes, you actually get to your outcomes way faster.”
– Trudi Lebron
Building a framework benefits the company’s ability to naturally thrive. Trudi expressed how nonprofits and for-profits can exchange knowledge to better their operations. How companies organize their operations don’t always match their values. Trudi discussed her approach to addressing disconnect by having her clients realize their own behavior in comparison to their values.
OPPORTUNITY became the topic of discussion once Trudi talked more on the differences behind access and what people are exposed to while in their own surroundings. She did not let the lack of anything disrupt her from starting her ventures. Trudi navigated her space with questioning, seeking where she could find the resources. Through this, she goes back to discussing coaching, and also the importance of collaboration.
During the end of our conversation, Trudi really expressed how her passion for coaching is linked with diversity and inclusion. Trudi’s passion is the driving force behind her ventures, which continues through work such as coaching, Script Flip, and her new podcast, Business Remixed – a different kind of business podcast around social impact.
Share My Journey Combines First-Hand Experience and Meaningful Conversations | with Rebecca Cohen
Apr 30, 2020
Rebecca Cohen explained how Share My Journey “connects caring people to share knowledge and experience during challenging life circumstances.” She created a way for people who lived through a certain experience to give support to people currently living that experience. Whether the experience deals with family, career, or any of life’s endless enigmas, Share My Journey is filled with insights built from first-hand experience.
Rebecca recalled the countless times she had no one in her immediate circle to discuss a problem with. She wanted to speak with someone who navigated the problem before her, and could understand what it’s like to go through similar circumstances. After eight years of sitting on the idea, Rebecca decided to launch Share My Journey after participating in a 48 hour social venture launch camp called Seed Spot.
A lot can be learned from Rebecca’s “just start” process. She would focus on diving into the next simple step, rather than overthinking the next five steps. When first starting, she sent a message out on a neighborhood app to find participants, and 12 strangers responded right away. She said in that moment, “I knew I was onto something.”
Needs for connection and conversation unmasked itself to Rebecca through Share My Journey. She expressed the realization of how much impact a meaningful conversation can have on the giver and receiver. Share My Journey received positive feedback not only from the surveys taken by participants, but Rebecca shared that she receives unsolicited emails complimenting the initiative.
“…an authentic connection or a conversation that’s meaningful; it’s such powerful medicine, and this is a tool that’s available to us now to add to our toolbox of things that can reduce our anxiety, or at least provide a way to acknowledge the anxiety that we feel with what’s going on.”
–Rebecca Cohen
For connection, Rebecca asked people about their memories of receiving help. She found that each person she interviewed mentioned a time when they were offered help without asking. She expressed the power behind offering help and explained the ways she integrates this principle into her own life.
Rebecca then talked about her pitching to mentors, and the feedback given to her ideas. The task of pushing her idea out for people to evaluate brought Rebecca lessons in pivoting the execution of her ideas. From this, Rebecca outlined general, simple steps in starting with what you have.
Social venture projects seem to start very naturally and internally for Rebecca. She gave the background story on how she became an author, and the real life events that led her to write specific topics that relate to her own experiences.
The growth of Rebecca’s projects also comes naturally. She explained what I like to think of as community support developing a project compared to the strings of investor funding. Then, she dove into what she envisions for Share My Journey as the initiative progresses.
Can’t Stop Columbus Combats COVID-19 from the Couch | with Vincenzo Landino
Apr 23, 2020
Vincenzo Landino speaks on how Can’t Stop Columbus emerged during this time of social distancing for COVID-19. He recalls how the grassroots initiative began from a tweet on Twitter. Someone asked a holding a virtual hack-a-thon to combat COVID-19, and the response was overwhelming… three days later, over 300 people were involved.
Seeing the huge amount of engagement, a Slack account was created to further organize everyone. One week later, Can’t Stop Columbus would find more and more people wanted to get involved with the initiative.
There are multiple pitches, projects, and collaborations happening within Can’t Stop Columbus. Most projects focus on connecting communities to life-sustaining initiatives in Columbus and Ohio. Vincenzo mentioned Columbus Eats, Columbus Helper, and Columbus Day Active to give an idea of the current ongoing projects.
Columbus eats was a particular focal point of Vincenzo’s efforts. After restaurants closed down, he really began questioning how he could form a resource around this situation. Following his gut, he launched a site to become the centralized spot to organize restaurant information. Within the first two weeks, the site had 30,000 unique visitors and 425 self-submitted restaurants.
From there, ideas continue to build upon each other. Vincenzo goes into the story of the server inspired feature being added to Columbus eats, after an idea to extend help to servers came into discussion. Can’t Stop Columbus reached the point where entire committees are dedicated to brainstorming more ideas for community resources. For clarity, Vincenzo explained that the ideas are looked at from different angles to ensure the projects are effective.
Can’t Stop Columbus is innovative, almost fearless, in using strategies to get the word out to communities. Marketing communications create graphics and videos for major social media outlets, like Instagram, for their roll out.
Beyond resources, Can’t Stop Columbus is bringing joy to people. Vincenzo reflected on his amazement towards small acts bringing huge joy. He talked about really considering what brings people together. Then, he discussed knowing to play a person’s strengths to achieve the optimal performance in the initiative.
“…who can motivate people, who is good at design, who can talk to developers, and putting all those people together, and then saying, okay, now that we’ve got all of this diverse understanding of potential solutions, let’s attack problems.”
–Vincenzo Landino
We shared the feeling of Columbus being extremely proactive in giving support to one another. Initiatives filled with leadership and camaraderie created this momentum found within Columbus. The natural pull towards finding solutions could be used even after COVID-19 passes. Vincenzo touched on showing people that they can be part of a bigger community effort.
Vincenzo goes into more detail when discussing the ongoing projects happening in Columbus. He lists multiple resources for people to stay updated on news, finding free meals, fitness, mental health, and more. All the resources can be found on the Can’t Stop Columbus official website.
“…coming together for the greater good, coming together as a team is really important.”
Madison Mikhail Shares How Point Is Your First Step For Doing Good
Apr 16, 2020
* Left to right: myself, Emily of GiveBackHack, Madison of Point, Mico, and Nicole of APTE.
Madison Mikhail Bush from the Point app is creating an easier way to volunteer and connect so that causes can have the necessary support. In her own words, she describes Point as “your starting point for doing good”. Regular volunteers may be familiar with the tiring task of learning about organizations and how to get involved. Discovering a nonprofit to support can also be its own task. Volunteering and donating should be much more seamless for people who want to be active.
Madison discussed making the volunteering process smoother for volunteers and nonprofits. She recalls her first failed venture of an online giving site during her college days. After failing, she raised $20k on Indiegogo and hired San Francisco based help to develop the point app. Unfortunately, those developers from San Fran took most of the money without giving Madison a product, but she didn’t give up and persevered to develop a solution.
Not only perseverance but her resourcefulness. Madison’s journey is an excellent example of reaching major players through seemingly minor connections. One instance is Madison randomly calling an old friend about an old offer. The friend casually offered to build an app for Madison two years ago. She hadn’t spoken to that friend since then. To her surprise, the friend agreed to honor that offer. More surprising, that friend happened to be working for Google when she called.
Point app still experienced hurdles. Madison shares her stories of the challenges raising funds. She expressed how grateful she is to Point’s early supporters; including the Columbus Foundation who gave Point a boost to get more done.
Now, Point is focused more than ever on supporting good in the midst of COVID-19. Harnessing more passion and drive, Madison talks briefly about her approach to remaining active at this time. She mentioned the virtual hack-a-thon, Can’t Stop Columbus, being one way.
Madison did mention how people react to the word “volunteering”. She admits it’s not associated with a cool or exciting image. Through Point, she hopes to re-brand the word. In her work, she sees many exciting things take place. Madison found that volunteering brings very different backgrounds together, like varied socioeconomic class.
“Your time matters. How you spend your time matters.”
– Madison
She explained the stories that can be shared during these interactions can really bring more creativity to someone’s life. Almost widening a lens, or enlarging a canvas. Madison thinks everyone has “value to give”.
I can understand the value Point has to give. Point becomes this lens of focus saying, “Hey. Here’s where help is needed most, and here’s how you can jump in and get involved in a productive way without wasting your time. ”
*Note: Madison is center in the photo. This is what I love about Columbus – this was a chance encounter with local change-makers at the Roosevelt Coffeehouse (a social enterprise), with Emily (left, organizer GiveBackHack Columbus), Madison (Point), Mico, (a local restaurateur), and Nicole (President of Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship over at OSU.) As a bonus, Emily is wearing a Jeni’s t-shirt, a great B-Corp ice cream company that started in Columbus.
PAST Foundation Allows Students to Use Their Creativity as Education | with Annalies Corbin
Apr 09, 2020
Annalies Corbin, Ph.D., from PAST Foundation speaks on transforming education through the PAST Innovation Lab. Programs in the organization change how students interact with learning environments.
From Annalies’ view, today’s education systems do not properly equip students as the structure of those education systems is obsolete. She brought our attention to how we’re using the same education approaches we used over 100 years ago. Back then, education prepared students for specific industry skills based on career needs of that age, like blue-collar jobs. That was a time when people spent decades doing the same job in a rapidly developing United States.
After all these years, that structure was never re-engineered to fit our current times. Now, we are called to rethink a huge question: “What are we preparing kids for?”
The PAST Foundation became Annalies’ way to prepare students living in this age of society. A large part of preparing students for today’s world is reestablishing “problem solving”. PAST made a warehouse into a lab space for this purpose. Programs at the PAST Innovation Lab feature varied projects, from tech to fashion, with hands-on approaches in a transdisciplinary problem-based learning (TPBL) format.
“…watch your kid play. They are amazing, and yet we get them into school, and we squish that out of them, right? We structure them to the point that they’ve lost the ability to think and be creative on their own without any adult’s interjection.”
– Annalies Corbin
These learning spaces take inspiration from Annalies’ experience in Honda R&D (Research & Development). She explains the typical R&D process, then relates that process to the collaborative environment PAST creates. Everything is based around creativity and collaboration.
Annalies believes everyone is capable of participating and solving problems in the labs. PAST will give the basic tools and instruction needed, and step back to let students work through the projects. She expressed that the kids love the process of figuring things out, being hands-on, and building belief in their capability. Students become immersed to the point that she must remind them they need to go home for the day.
These projects can be useful to R&D experts since kids can think in ways experts do not. Annalies explains that kids approach problems without some of the constraints adults do, like knowing the laws of physics. Even if a kid’s solution cannot be exactly replicated, their ideas can be the missing link to a different solution.
With 20 years of experience, Annalies discussed what she believes keeps students coming back, nurturing leadership, and near-peer mentoring. She later gives a real example of dealing with less-than collaborative people in a very collaborative environment. We both admit that taking initiative comes more naturally to some people, and Annalies views participation as a huge step. The PAST Foundation is fostering natural participation by encouraging students to take more ownership in their learning process.
Cre8ive Craig Shares His Adventures of International Entrepreneurship
Apr 02, 2020
Craig Chavis of Cre8ive Craig is a serial entrepreneur and a coach on how you can fulfill your creative dreams. He launched his book, Burdens of a Dream, on the topic a few days ago. Craig shares his story and the lessons he learned in his creative pursuits.
Craig went from his home state, Ohio, to play collegiate football in Alabama. After two years, he experienced a season-ending injury that led him to study abroad in Costa Rica instead. Fast forward all the way to Craig finishing up his MBA, he was not sure where he would see himself next. He ended up joining the Peace Corps in January 2014 for Peru.
Then, Craig goes on to explain examining the location, using a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and other ways of becoming familiar with the community structure. The first thing Craig did was to connect with youth about entrepreneurship, which turned into a huge success.
“Mesh their needs with your actual abilities.”
– Craig Chavez
He is realistic about committing to and addressing community needs. The community may have numerous issues, demands, and ideas that might not be possible for the resources available. Craig added that he had to balance those aspects with his own ideas since he also had his own agenda for what could be done to help the community. Craig calls the overlap of these two sides the “sweet spot”.
Finding a sweet spot is how he managed to secure a $15,000 grant to help farmers come together as a mango association for negotiating fair prices.
Craig continued to observe and have conversations with the community in Peru. He came to realize that the real approach to use is simply being mindful of different perspectives.
“I couldn’t impose my Western ideologies and mentalities on people in this part of the world. It really caused me to be more empathetic…”
– Craig Chavez
Following success in his own community, Craig partnered with another volunteer to help in another community. Craig discussed his involvement with an Indiegogo Campaign for a distillery. He shared preparations, such as being familiar with flavors of Peru and continuing to involve the community to validate the idea. It’s amazing how he managed to raise capital just as his campaign was coming to a close with the campaign only halfway funded.
In his advice to budding entrepreneurs, Craig gave thoughtful answers on generating income, burn out, time management, product development, and simply what it means to start. He keeps a practical outlook on balancing entrepreneurship with everyday life. He provided great depth for explaining the mindset of finding where to begin.
Coming full circle, we ended on his involvement with work happening in Columbus. Craig spoke on the purposeful culture that is alive and well in Columbus. We rounded up the conversation discussing business models, and strategically developing better entrepreneurship. If you would like to learn more and connect with Craig more, check out his Instagram, official website.
Level D&I Solutions Explains Why Diversity and Inclusion Is Critical | with Kristine Snow and Chelsea Akers
Mar 25, 2020
Kristine Snow and Chelsea Akers amplify true diversity and inclusion through Level D&I Solutions. From WITI (Women in Technology International) to a partnership with Revel IT, these two social entrepreneurs are molding a new experience for “women in tech”. Kristine and Chelsea imagine Level reaching more narratives to widen their involvement with diversity and inclusion.
The duo identified a “disconnect” between the corporate environment and advocacy groups. Hosting networking or up-skilling events became a response to “disconnect”. Kristine and Chelsea spoke about seeing a great turnout of women for these events, including minorities. Strong attendance is all that’s needed to prove “no women are interested” is only a tech myth.
“… at the end of the day, we try to look at diversity and inclusion as a strategic business initiative, not just something to ‘check a box’ or to ‘look good’ in the community.”
–Kristine Snow
For Level, ensuring impact meant narrowing how Level provides impact, and hone their methods. Level operates within three tiers of business: recruiting, consulting and training, and community outreach. Within recruiting, Level is heavily involved in executive search, pipelining, and diversity recruitment. The major focus falls on full-time placements and top-down change.
Within consulting and training, a process of evaluating and improving a company’s diversity and inclusion is scored by Level. The major goals are creating tangible change and combating an unconscious bias. Level’s approach includes education, such as presentations to help establish awareness for what diversity and inclusion really mean.
Kristine and Chelsea described their consulting and training process as “productive discomfort”. The women gave strong talking points about what dialogue and reflections are needed to see real results. Through productive discomfort, companies can experience favorable outcomes, like making more money or higher retention rates.
Within community outreach, Level actively engages through events, podcasts, social media, and more. Level considers working on the ground and at the top level the way to “highlight both sides” in their quest for all-around diversity and inclusion.
Our conversation took an interesting turn at this point. We discussed viewing privilege not as what you have, but what you lack. The women shared stories of what lack of experience and lacking awareness of that experience looks like. Effortlessly, we found ourselves soon discussing how representation is a huge factor alongside diversity, equity, and inclusion. Without representation, you’re alienating a ton of valuable narratives.
The duo uncovers a topic of diversity not always visible. Diversity lives in our experiences and our thought patterns.
“There’s importance in everyone participating and sharing. If you only have like-minded people working on one project and people who think differently work on another project, the interaction is still missing.”
–Chelsea Akers
Our conversation then dives into Level’s first step for any company, describing disadvantages in context, and future plans. I can say Kristine and Chelsea earnestly insist on pushing diversity and inclusion forward.
We recorded this just days before COVID-19 shut everything down. I’ve seen Chelsea as an active participant on Can’t Stop Columbus, a virtual hack-a-thon bringing together people to create solutions to help those (i.e. all of us) effected by COVID-19. It’s been inspiring to see leaders in Columbus along with 700 technologists, creatives and all others come together to do something about our situation, from the isolation of our home.
Compelling Analytics Founder Abel Koury Helps Organizations Craft Effective Surveys with the Right Questions
Mar 12, 2020
Asking the right questions is essential for accessing insightful information. Abel Koury from Compelling Analytics helps refine questions that drive your social enterprise forward.
After multiple interactions with nonprofits, Abel was inspired to combine his experience in research design and data analytics with social justice. Non-profits and smaller organizations don’t always have the capacity to create great surveys that will collect and analyze the proper data to further develop the organization’s services. Abel says organizations might be doing a wonderful job, but their data does not reflect the scope of their work.
Growing up in an “underprivileged town” with “economically disadvantaged immigrant parents” also shaped Abel’s perspective.
“I know firsthand how it is to grow up in poverty. I take that with me where I go, and I try to use that as a lens in my work.”
–Abel Koury
Abel explained his thoughts on a rule of thumb for organizations. He started by creating an example of an organization with the goal of eliminating food insecurity. Focus first on articulating what you’re trying to achieve, and then sum up that end goal as a headline for a reporter. In this example, Abel said using “36% of kids are now able to eat three meals a day”. By focusing on the way you expect to present the story, and where you want the program to be when you get to the stage of sharing with reporters, you get clarity. Organizations can work backwards from that imagined headline.
“Before you even start the program, you’ve got to think about what do you want the data to look like? What do you want to collect? How are you going to show your impact?”
–Abel Koury
Going deeper, Abel talked more about deciding what to ask and what information should be presented. Questions can limit results when the research design is lacking from the beginning. This led to Abel discussing how surveys should be created with the most diverse participant in mind. Questions inclusive to the variety of perspectives within your audience are an attentive and conscious effort.
Defining a question’s context is equally significant. Abel gave a great example where people need to choose between 1-5, with 1 = not very fit and 5 = very fit. These choices too much room for personal interpretation, miscommunication of the question and flawed survey answers. Unless fitness is defined through context. For example, 1 = not very fit (eg. I couldn’t run a mile) and 5 = very fit (eg. I can run a mile with no problem.)
As we continued, Abel got more into the rules of thumb organizations can consider to craft more effective surveys. He gave three solid rules any organization can utilize. I could really connect, since at Wild Tiger Tees, is also still learning to craft data collection, defining measures, and amplifying impact. Abel’s work with Compelling Analytics is building the future of proven impact.
Adam: [00:00:00] Welcome to the People Helping People podcast, the podcast to inspire greater social change in the business world and give you ideas on how to take action.
I'm your host, Adam Morris. And today I am here with Dr Abel Koury a personal trainer and founder of Compelling Analytics. A company which really helps you to ask the right questions to get the answers you need to drive your nonprofit or social enterprise forward. So I'm very excited to hear today. We have a treat. We're going to talk about something which has alluded me for a very long time, which is how do you write a good survey.
And how do you get good information that you can actually use? We're going to get some really interesting practical information here, so I'm excited to dive in. So, Abel, welcome on the podcast.
Abel: [00:00:48] Thanks so much for having me.
Adam: [00:00:49] I'd love to hear a little bit about the journey that led up to compelling analytics.
Abel: [00:00:54] Yeah, that'd be a, a long story, but I will try to shorten it for you. So compelling analytics was really born out of the idea that I could take my knowledge of good research design and my background in data analytics and combine that with my social justice, you know, sort of bleeding heart.
And it really helped nonprofits who have this sort of content knowledge or smaller organizations that don't necessarily have the capacity or maybe necessarily the expertise on how to create, you know, good surveys collect good data and analyze it effectively in order to continue to, you know, win grants and do really good evidence based research.
So it was just kind of a long process of seeing that at different organizations. I had worked at a, there seems to be this need for taking data, collecting good data, and then telling really good stories it.
Adam: [00:01:43] Wonderful. So you started off and you got your doctorate in psychology,
Abel: [00:01:48] developmental psychology,
Adam: [00:01:49] cool And then you worked as a professor for a number of years.
This is, so you've got to ask some really good questions and do some research into this.
Abel: [00:01:57] I did. I taught research methods for psychology undergraduate students, which was not their favorite course.
But we did talk about how to be a good consumer of research. So it's spent many years honing the sort of craft of what, what does really good research look like, and how do you collect really good data.
Adam: [00:02:12] very
Abel: [00:02:13] cool.
Adam: [00:02:14] How did you shift from that to looking at companies that are making a social impact?
Abel: [00:02:18] Oh, that's that's a great question.
I always say that I, I can't really separate the person that I am from the work that I do. So as a person who grew up in a rural, you know, small underprivileged town economically disadvantaged with immigrant parents, in, in like the worst possible schools. I truly understand what it means to feel like you have to climb the social ladder or the educational ladder without much help at all.
And so because I know, you know, firsthand how it is to grow up in poverty, I really, I take that with me where I go and I try to use that as a lens in my work and also to, you know, to look at organizations that are trying to make things better for folks like me. And you know, like I feel drawn to that cause
Adam: [00:02:59] Very cool. Sounds like a very interesting story growing up and just kind of experiencing what it's like firsthand.
Abel: [00:03:07] Yeah, I you know, I mean, if there is a silver lining, I will say that I, I feel very much like I can help give a voice to folks who would not necessarily have a voice or a place at the table. And I, and because I can do that, I feel like I, you know, I try to use my privilege for good.
Adam: [00:03:21] Very cool. Awesome. And so now tell me a little bit, when did a compelling analytic start?
Abel: [00:03:26] Well, it started in my mind like 10 years ago, but it started as an actual you know, something that you could site or a search online in November of 2019. My website actually is going live today after many painstaking hours figuring out Squarespace.
Thank you, Squarespace. For, you know, allowing me to learn how to make it, a website by myself.
Adam: [00:03:44] That's a great plug for Squarespace,
Abel: [00:03:45] Yeah, I know. I actually, I don't get paid from Squarespace with Squarespace. If you would like to pay me that would be wonderful.
Adam: [00:03:50] Great. Cool. And tell me a little bit, so you, you mentioned that the difficulties that, that you see nonprofits are facing, but let's talk about that a little bit more specifically. So can you describe a typical scenario that like a nonprofit would struggle with?
Abel: [00:04:06] Absolutely. So I've worked across a variety of different sectors either at the nonprofit in particular or small organizations without like a bunch of capacity or even for. Profit enterprises where we were partnering with nonprofits.
And it seems like there are some core things that happen in nonprofits because the, the hearts are huge and folks are trying to do so many things. Many times they're trying to do them under budget or under staffed. So you know, without the big sort of capacity or like a dedicated, for instance, data person, like a person who actually has spent some time thinking about.
You know, survey design and how to collect data. So thinking about the end in mind, a lot of times I'm, I would be either with nonprofits or working with them, and they had gotten kind of far down the line of this wonderful program that was I, that they knew was working. Like the children knew, everybody knew it was working.
But. The data, couldn't speak to it because at the very four, you know, front where you have to start thinking about like at the very beginning, before you even start the program, you've got to think about what do you want the data to look like? What do you want to collect? Like how are you going to show your impact?
Oftentimes, you know, without this sort of capacity or you know, you're sort of under the gun, are you being asked to do something you don't necessarily know how to do? You know, you get kind of far down the path. And that's what I kept seeing time and again, and I realized that's where I can make my impact.
Adam: [00:05:24] Very cool. And that seems like that's something that's not really a core expertise. Like people generally jump in with a passion for what they're trying to solve and they don't really think about how am I going to tell this story to the world so that I can get the help and support and resources and grants that I need.
Abel: [00:05:38] That's exactly right.
Adam: [00:05:39] Very cool. I'm now looking at a UN looking at a nonprofit. What are.
Some of the things that they really need to look at when they, they're trying to figure out how to click this data.
Abel: [00:05:55] Well, I, I usually I tell folks to do this one thing. I say, when you are done with your with your study, your program, whatever you know, whatever you're doing, let's say that you're, you put together a program to eliminate something like food insecurity, right?
So like, that's your end goal. I asked them to think if there's a reporter who's asking you, tell me. What you did here, what, what's your main finding? I asked them for that headline. If you can think about what you want your headline to be like, this very pithy, one sentence thing, like, you know, 30, 30, 6% of kids now are able to eat three meals a day.
That's your headline. If that's your headline, we know where we're going, right? So that's generally my first rule of thumb. I think ask them to think about, don't think about where we are right now. Think about where you want to be in the story that you're going to tell the reporter.
Adam: [00:06:41] Great. And so then you start with that headline and you kind of work back from there of what data you need to collect.
Abel: [00:06:47] Exactly. Yep. Because then that informs me in terms of thinking about how are they thinking about their impact? Cause like, you know, when you're so close to the problem you know, whenever you're trying to solve, you have so much knowledge that it actually gets in your way. And I I, I use this analogy all the time, but it's like when you learn to read.
You can never look at letters on a page again and not read them right? You, the automaticity of it gets in your way and it's a beautiful thing, right? As you become an expert, you actually become more of a problem for yourself. So. By taking that like that, you know, here's the headline approach. Here's that big aerial view.
You can, you can have a person who's like, you know, like me or someone who was like me and say, okay, that's awesome. I understand now how you're quantifying impact. Let's go further. Right? And then, yeah, we just kind of, we just keep on tracing all the way back to the very beginning. That's our, that's my strategy.
Adam: [00:07:36] Okay, cool. Now when you, when you're looking at this and breaking it down, what are different components that you use to actually measure the impact.
Abel: [00:07:45] Hmm. Do you mean like a survey, instruments, things like that?
Adam: [00:07:48] Like do you surveys? Like, do you, do you have people put new systems in place for collecting data?
Like what's the, what's, what's this kind of realm look like in terms of how do I measure impact?
Abel: [00:07:59] Gotcha. Ah, that's a really good question. So it really, it should be driven in large part by the questions that you want to answer. So if you know that you want to say something about, you know, the number of children who are able to get, just to continue with the food insecurity measure, you know, the number of kids or families that you want to reach.
And you want to see if your, your, your program has actually eliminated hunger. There's a couple of ways you can do that, right? You can say something like, I'm going to collect how many meals these kids ate, right? And you could do that with a survey that would be pretty simple. Or you can say, what does hunger mean.
I'm going to do targeted interviews and focus groups, you know what I mean? Like there's a richness there. I mean, ideally, you know, you would have multiple ways of collecting data, but if you have to choose just a few should really be driven by your research question and you know, what you really want to be able to say.
Adam: [00:08:47] And now you also do work with helping people craft surveys, which are a lot more effective.
Abel: [00:08:53] Yes. I actually came up with some rules of thumb that are based on some examples that I've seen. We're folks are just me. They're doing their best job at creating surveys and it seems like it would be really easy to just be like, I'm going to create a survey.
I'm going to put like, you know, ten questions there and it should be great. And the, the problem is that. Data is a powerful thing, but it is only as powerful as the research design. Like if your research design is flawed initially, even if you have the best intentions, what you can say from that data is going to be off the bat, is going to be limited.
Adam: [00:09:26] Now, I've found this time, time, and again, you know, I, I have no background in running surveys and you know, I'll attend to give back hack where you're kind of pushed up. Put a survey out and get some feedback. And you know, even with our social enterprise, while tiger T's, like we're, we're getting feedback on things and sometimes I look at the questions, I'm like, what are we actually asking?
And I have no idea how to structure that. So I totally relate to this of a topic, which is like, okay, where do I even start?
Abel: [00:09:52] Yes. And, and I, it, I think it like really can be overwhelming. My sort of like general rule of thumb, like the very big, biggest one is to write the survey from the point of view of the most diverse person who's going to take it.
Like, so if I'm. You know? Okay. So a lot of the research, especially in psychology, will be done by a cisgender, straight, white males. That's just how it has historically been, right? So, if that's your vantage point, you want to write the survey, not for folks who are just like you, but for the most diverse example of, you know, of who you could represent.
Right? I think that always allows you to capture a more, a richer portrait of your audience. It's like the first kind of rule of thumb
Adam: [00:10:36] That's really cool.
Abel: [00:10:37] Well. So for a few different reasons for me personally, and there's a, there's a psychological concept called priming.
And so priming is basically like, if you and I talk today about food insecurity in this podcast, later on, you're going to be primed to, if something, if anything has to do with food insecurity, you're going to be more likely to like, see that. So a priming effect also occurs when you're taking a survey.
So if right off the bat, I'm taking a survey. And the first question, a lot of folks will start with demographics, right? So they're like, okay, rate your race. If as soon as I get to that question, I see that there's only like, you know, white, African American, Hispanic, and then like other, I already am, I'm viewing this survey with a different lens, which is that the person who created this.
A survey is not really thinking about the richness of the participants, right? You should allow folks to be able to have multiple options for, in terms of race and ethnicity, to select all kinds, whichever one speaks to them, and also have a write in response. So I'm. Like when you sort of think about like why you're writing to the most diverse person.
Because when you, when they take that survey, you want them to feel like you're valued. Right. If right off the bat, you know, they're already seeing this person hasn't even considered me. You know what I mean? Like, then I myself, I know that I answered differently than I would normally answer
Adam: [00:11:52] So to get people to answer with their heart and feel like they're part of the survey, you have to make them feel like they're included.
Abel: [00:11:59] Exactly. Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Adam: [00:12:01] is really cool. I never thought of that. This is great. This is why we're here.
Abel: [00:12:06] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, I and you could see, I'm geeking out on this, like, so hardcore, like, I think it's, I mean, it's really important and it, you know it's a passion for me. It really is.
Adam: [00:12:15] That's very cool. Now, you said you had some rule, other rules of thumb in terms of running a survey.
Abel: [00:12:21] I do. So, this one actually is a really simple one, and I've seen it on, I actually just saw it this week, so it was really fresh in my mind. So one thing that folks will do is they'll say here, Mark your age.
And they'll give, you know 18 to 2121 to 22, which would actually be problematic anyway because of the 21 being in two spots. But let's put that aside. When you give folks in age range, you're already collapsing those categories before you even you know, start taking the data. And what I mean by that is it's better.
Instead of giving someone a range of ages to select to ask them to state their birthday. When you do that, you get you could, you know, do the calculation so that whatever today's date was minus their birthday and get their actual age, you know, in number, like days wise. Right. That allows you to see if there is a real difference between folks who are 18 those who are closer to 20 you know what I mean?
Like there's not this arbitrary collapsing of ages and it doesn't save you very much time like in terms of data clean and Greeley, to not allow someone to just tell you their birthday.
Adam: [00:13:23] That is very cool.
Abel: [00:13:24] So it's small things.
Adam: [00:13:26] Now, when you're asking these questions that are about the person, is it usually better to ask it at the beginning or at the end? Does it matter where in the survey you actually put these questions that are more about who you are as opposed to the the survey of what, what you're trying to get to.
Abel: [00:13:41] Yes. Thank you for saying that. That is so important. Ordering of the questions is incredibly important and something that's often overlooked. Generally speaking, it is best practice to put demographic stuff at the very end of your survey.
There's also work by these researchers, I think they're at Stanford, but is Claude and Aronson. They had this idea. And it, it has turned out to be true time. And again in terms of the research, which is a stereotype bias. So if you are stereotype threat, so you know, if you think about some of your demographic characteristics and you know that there are certain stereotypes that are associated with your group, you're more likely to answer.
For instance, like an academic achievement has potentially a worse than you would've if you hadn't been thinking about your demographic characteristics. So good practice to just put those at the end.
Adam: [00:14:21] Cool. Very cool.
Abel: [00:14:24] Thanks.
Adam: [00:14:28] So continuing on. So how many rules, like I didn't ask this at the beginning, how many rules of thumb do you have for
Abel: [00:14:35] I just have one left. And that is Oh, this one actually again came up this week and so I drafted it down. Actually, is it okay if I give two more examples?
Adam: [00:14:42] Of course just ask.
Abel: [00:14:44] This this one is really just giving someone an anchor. And what I mean by that is I was reading a survey and it said something like, rate your level of fitness, and then it was one, not fit, you know, not very fit. Five very fit. That office, you know, on the, on the face, it seems like a fine question.
However, I don't know if I'm the participant, like what does it mean to be very unfit? So I would I would. Encourage you to say something like one very unfit and then in parentheses, something like EG, I couldn't run a mile. You know, right now if my life depended on it, you know what I mean? Something like that.
Right? Five, I can run a mile without any difficulty and just give folks something to understand it. Otherwise, you have people who are selecting one who might actually be. You know, more towards a three, and then people who are selecting a three that are probably, you know, more towards the two. And so, you know, you help people make good choice, you know what I mean?
Like you help them reflect their truest, truest
Adam: [00:15:38] Someone was coming up with a rubric of sorts that says, here's, here's what one means, here's what five means. So it's not just something that's applying scowl.
Abel: [00:15:48] Yeah. You don't want folks to be answering your questions blind for sure. You know what I mean? Like without any sort of like a understanding of what you have, what you mean, right.
And then it forces you to think about what do I mean, you know,
Adam: [00:15:59] Now, but, so this is a question we've been having it our wild tiger tease. At the end of each work session, we give the youth feedback on a scale from one to five on kind of four dimensions, a, their communication, their teamwork, their effort.
And. I forget the last time we did this every week. And so anyways, at the end of, at the end of each session, we get, give the youth feedback on you know, things like their communication, their teamwork, their effort.
And what we found is. Each of us running the sessions rates everyone differently, right?
And so we have no way of saying, here's, here's when you get a five, or when you get a a four, or when you get a one. How do you overcome that in a survey?
Abel: [00:16:47] So so folks help me understand that a little bit better. I'm sorry.
Adam: [00:16:51] Okay. So. This big, still a little bit about what you said about, about giving that context for it. I guess in the sense we have different people who are, are surveying the youth that we work with. And it's like, how do we make sure that we give consistent.
A rating among, among all of us.
Abel: [00:17:08] Gotcha. Okay. So this is a super common in research for sure. In terms of, we call it interrater reliability, right? So you want to make sure that your five and my five are the same. Right? So generally speaking you would basically practice you would, you know, each look at a person's behavior.
Maybe you would do 10, something like that. And you know, you would. Basically have all of you rate this person, rate why you did it, and come up together with like, this is what five behavior looks like, and be very specific about it. And basically you would just continue to do that over and over again until your percent of agreement.
Like, yes, you and I both rated this person and you know, or 10 people the exact same way. You know, you, you want to get as close to 100% as you can. But generally speaking, like, you know, it's acceptable in research 80%. Of agreement. I think even some people will say 70% but obviously, you know, you want your numbers and my numbers, like you said, you know, you want fives to mean the same thing across Raiders.
Yeah. And that's something that, I mean, it's tricky, but it's, I mean, it's everything, right. You know what I mean? Right. Like it's everything.
Adam: [00:18:11] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I suffer from being very optimistic, so I tend to be like, yeah, five for everybody. And somebody else comes in and they're like, well, four is kind of my standard. And then five, if you're exceptional, and it's like, okay, so that makes a lot of sense. That actually just coming up with some case studies and collectively going over them and seeing where we fall and then kind of revising that so that we're all on the same page.
Abel: [00:18:35] Exactly. Yup. Yup. I think that that is a good exercise, you know, for you to really put this stuff into practice.
Adam: [00:18:40] No, I love it. Thank you. That's something that we've been talking about a lot of time for you to figure that out. So
Abel: [00:18:46] I think you're miles ahead that you're thinking about that.
I think that's great.
Adam: [00:18:49] Cool. Now you said good. Well, one more rule of thumb that you, you have for writing good surveys.
Abel: [00:18:56] This is the very last one. It's another example. And it's about being specific. So if I can leave you with, you know, sort of like the overall three. One is just thinking about the order of the questions, thinking about your audience.
And then the third one is being specific. So. I was working on a really massive project and I was reading through the surveys. I was the analyst, so I didn't actually get to design the survey. So I just had the data, you know, towards the end. And I noticed that they asked participants, how much did you spend of your stipend on groceries, on car payments, on whatever.
Right? But think about this. How much did you spend? Now do we mean percentage. Or do we mean dollars? So when I was looking at the data, it looked like some folks had thought about it as how much of my siphoned do I spend on this? This is a percentage. And it was like somebody would put one or five and I'm like, is that $5?
Is that 5% you know what I mean? So being really specific in terms of like what are you really wanting folks to do? You know, how often do you do X? Or how many hours do you work? How many hours or work in a day? In a week. And you know what I mean? Like really, you want to be as specific as possible. So that's what I will leave you with.
Adam: [00:20:05] That is really cool. And that makes sense. It's something that you just don't think about when you're writing a survey question and you're like, but being able to pay that down now, how do you balance that with, being able to write a question that captures everything in is not too narrow. Right? So like if I'm writing a question, I think in my head, well, there's option a and there's option B, but I'm not even considering CD and E. like, how do you get out of that to really you know, capture things which might not fall into that specific.
Abel: [00:20:37] That's an awesome, you're asking all the right questions. So I feel like that's a two pronged answer. The first one is, I always tell folks, pilot your questions first. Pilot your, you know, ask the most open ended question.
And see what answer choices folks will give you. So if I want to know about you know, again, like food insecurity just to, can continue on with that one. I want to, you know, pilot all the questions on the survey that I think I want to ask and I want to give it to, you know, maybe I can give it to 10 or 20 people and then I will let them write in their answer choices to see what are the possible sort of scenarios that I haven't thought of.
Now there's always a chance that you will not. Capture it in just your thinking. And so you always leave, in my opinion, you always leave a spot for folks to write in their responses. Now, yes, this becomes hard to clean if there's a lot of if there's like thousands of participants, but there is a richness there and there's a reason to allow them to be able to give you a very full and complete answer.
Adam: [00:21:32] Great That is really cool. Always thinking of the, the background side.
Abel: [00:21:36] Of course.
Adam: [00:21:37] okay, so, so great. Now, now that we've kind of gone over these tips can we just review them one more time?
Abel: [00:21:44] Sure. the very first one is writing a survey,
as for your most diverse person that you think will be taking your survey. So that's the sort of consider your audience viewpoint.
The second is considering the order of your questions. So remember thinking about not priming your, participant in a certain way by just, you know. Putting demographics first or something like that, or asking them in a way that doesn't feel authentic to them. And then the third is be specific.
So whatever you think that you're asking, you know, really make sure that you are asking it in the way that will give you the most specific data.
Adam: [00:22:16] Cool. Now another question for you is like, how do you find a diverse set of people to survey? So if you're in a crunch, you know, it's like, okay, I know my friends and my family and my network.
Are there ways to actually reach out and capture a broader population when you're doing a survey?
Abel: [00:22:32] Yeah, definitely. There is an approach called like the snowball method where you really can just like, let's say I wanted, it didn't matter if I had the complication with this is that your, your sample that the sample that you select is going to be.
The the only one that you can really generalize to unless it's a random sample. That's, you know, so it's, it's becomes challenging. But if you, you know, you could do something if it didn't matter that you had sort of like what's called a convenient sample you could stick something on Facebook and say, Hey, look, I have a survey.
This is the link to it. Oh, wait, maybe not, maybe not Facebook, depending on what your views on it, on it are, maybe just good old fashioned email. But however, you know, you do it, you can actually do that and say, can you also send it to five more people? So that's called the snowball method. It can give you at least a glimpse into you know, or some insights into your data.
If it doesn't matter that it's, you know you know, highly diverse population. The, the problem with that obviously is that, you know, there is some bias there, right? Like, if you only happen to know, you know, people who are in the same age or, you know education level, things like that, then of course, that might skew your data a little bit.
But that's one method that you can actually employ.
Adam: [00:23:34] Got it. And now when you're doing this research at a university level, like how do you get a random sample to actually survey?
Abel: [00:23:44] Again, this is a complicated stuff here. It is, it is certainly not easy. I mean, a truly random sample is almost, it's not impossible, certainly, but it's, it's very hard to find because you would literally have to say, if I'm going to survey, I'm going to take a random survey of of OSU.
Let's just say, even, let's just say OSU is a big one, right? You would literally have to have it so that every single person who, okay. Let's see. We have to even make it smaller now, right? If our universe is OSU and we want to look at students there you know, so we've already kind of cut our universe down into the smaller population, but it would have to literally be, every single student at OSU was like basically put into like, imagine like drawing a number out of a hat.
So everyone has assigned a number. They're all put into a hat, and you would have to select, you know, from the hat a number. Like, let's say there's a student, a, okay student a is now selected for our study, but we have to actually for it to be truly random, put student a back into the hat so you have the, you know, there is the probability of drawing them again, but because every single person is supposed to have an equal.
Chance of being drawn each time, like probability wise to get a truly random sample. I'm sorry, this is like so much. This is like so detailed that like, so you can imagine how that would become really hard in as the, you know, sample kind of gets larger. So a truly random sample was very hard. A lot of the data that I that I'm analyzed, that I analyze and have expertise in are these large scale nationally representative data sets that have been conducted by like the Institute for education statistics, department of education.
You know these folks who have lots of people on the ground who are, you know. I'm able to collect that sort of random stuff. The average person is probably not going to have
a truly random sample, and it's, it's actually, it's okay if you kind of know going into that. I mean, you, of course, you want, you want your sample to best represent the people you want to speak to.
And so I think that is the more that, you know, that's a really important thing.
Adam: [00:25:32] not it. So I guess that goes back to just keeping your mind on what you're trying to achieve with the survey.
If you're trying to pull in information from a community that you're working in, then getting some sample from there, it's going to give you a starting point.
Abel: [00:25:47] Yeah. That's such a nice way of saying that without all the jargon. Yes, exactly. Yes.
Adam: [00:25:53] Cool. Now I'm just curious if you have any, things that you've seen people do in surveys, which is
really bad for them or lead to really bad data.
Abel: [00:26:01] You know, one right off the bat, honestly, is I was analyzing this data once for, you know, for this job that I had.
And I was looking on the surveys and I was like, you know, I can't find the date anywhere. Which, you know. If you're creating a survey, you might not think like, Oh, it's important to put the date on there, but if I'm looking for like, how much did this person change in six months? And I don't actually know, like exactly when this was collected, that is a problem, right?
Or you have no way of matching up the survey with the person who took it. So, you know, it's good practice to not have the name like a name attached on a survey. You know, if the data is sensitive but at least giving them a number or something like that to, you know, to correspond to. So it's those little things.
That, you know, you might not think about, you know, putting the date, putting a place for the participants number that really in the long run, you know, in particular, not knowing how long, you know, if something was like, that is like a pretty bad one. Yeah.
I mean, cause there's no way to correct it after the fact.
Right? Yep.
Adam: [00:26:57] And then a question on length. So is there any guideline on like how long it should take somebody to do a survey and you know, if I, if it's a really long survey, does that degrade the quality of answers over time? Like, are there issues with just how, how much data you're trying to collect at once
Abel: [00:27:16] Oh, you are asking. This is, I'm so glad you asked about this. This is actually on my website. And it's something that I really care a lot about. So when you create a survey space, especially when you are sort of taking the advance the vantage point of just a researcher, right? In your, in your S you're just creating the survey, you want to ask as many questions as possible, right?
Because you have the sample and there is a real danger in that. Not only do you fatigue your participants, but if I may. A lot of, you know, the research that I've done has been with, you know folks who are living in poverty or economically disadvantaged. And you know, we're studying, like we are using them and our, our our studies because we care.
Right? But I always caution researchers in particular when you're working with folks, and you know, you have them in your, in your study because they are academically disadvantaged. Giving them a 15 page survey and saying, you know, we'll give you a $10 gift card. I find personally to be offensive. I think that, you know, if you are asking folks to take of their time and they're already, you know, like they're giving time that, you know, lots of them don't have really, you know, freely to give.
And then, you know, asking them. You know, all of these questions that you probably don't necessarily need even for that study. I always encourage research researchers again to look at the end, say, where do you want to go? And then just ask those questions. I think it really shows your participants and the people that you care about them as individuals and not just data points, right?
Like they're not just, they're not just averages for you. They're like people, real people filling out your survey. And so I think best practice is the fewer questions that you can ask to meet your needs, the better.
Adam: [00:28:51] Right. Okay. So I'm just going to just take a quick break here. So we covered talking about the surveys and things like that.
I would like to ask a little bit just about like the vision for where compelling analytics is going to go just to kind of get, kind of draw it back. So I'll ask the question there. So great. Thank you so much for sharing all this.
All right. Maybe we can move a little closer. All right.
All right. So great. Thank you so much for sharing all this information about how to create a good survey. It's always been very top of mind bringing this back to compelling analytics. Like where do you see your company going?
Abel: [00:29:23] Well. I am really optimistic and hopeful.
The, the first order of business for me is really making connections with folks who are doing really important work in Columbus. I've already had, you know, really awesome conversations with people who are in the nonprofit. Field who are doing things with folks who are LGBTQ IAA who are, you know, trying to solve huge problems of, you know, issues around childcare, availability and accessibility food insecurity.
So I'm already sort of partnering with folks and we're, you know, thinking about how I can best help them reach their needs. And for me, that's, you know, that's my very next step. I think longterm. I'd love to be able to you know, bring in folks to help me do this, you know, good work. In particular, you know, I'd love to be able to have compelling analytics be a spot where you know, folks who are either formerly incarcerated could come and, you know, learn data you know, data mining skills or a good survey design.
You know youth who are homeless, anyone who's in the LGBTQ, IAA population folks of color. You know, I really want, I want compelling analytics to be something that obviously grows into something much larger than me. And also, you know, really does the things that speak to my heart, you know,
Adam: [00:30:28] fantastic. Thank you very much for coming out and talking to me today. It's been really informative and very interesting.
Abel: [00:30:36] Thank you very much for having me. It is a true pleasure.
Adam: [00:30:39] Thank you very much.
An Interlude on the Sustainable Development Goals
Mar 05, 2020
Today we’re going to talk about measuring social impact. We’re going to start by diving into the Sustainable Development Goals, and then wrap it up looking at some ways to measure social impact.
In 2015, the United Nations came up with 17 Sustainable Development Goals as part of their 2030 Agenda. At one level, the sustainable development goals are designed to be measured against these metrics set for 2030, but to do this, they created a set of goals which are broad and easy to understand.
What I’ve found is that they’re a great tool for thinking about social impact, and useful framework for discussing the impact that you’re making. Actually, a lot of have people have found this, and they’ve become the gold standard for categorizing the impact you’re making.
The SDG’s are something I take into consideration when finding interesting stories for this podcast… partly because social entrepreneurship on its own has no governing definition. And by that, I mean, any company can call itself a social enterprise without any oversight – or any metric of qualifying what their social impact actually is.
If you think about a non-profit for example, that is well defined and has specific requirements baked into its legal structure. The term 501(c)(3) relates to the specific section of the US tax code, and the 3 is one of 29 types of tax-exempt organizations. Another example is the b-corp designation which is a certification provided by the organization B-Labs. A social enterprise has no such legal definition or body certifying its validity.
So, the Sustainable Development Goals become a useful tool for qualifying the impact that a social enterprise is making. They are certainly not the only system, but they are the most commonly used.
At a high level, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are:
1 – No Poverty 2 – Zero Hunger 3 – Good Health and Well-Being 4 – Quality Education 5 – Gender Equality 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure 10 – Reduced Inequalities 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production 13 – Climate Action 14 – Life Below Water 15 – Life on Land 16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions 17 – Partnerships for the Goals
So, those are the 17 goals. I actually, want to dive into these goals in a bit more detail to give you a better picture of what they mean. This information is coming directly from the United Nations’s website at un.org/sustainabledevelopment
In more detail, the Sustainable Development Goals are:
No Poverty. To end poverty in all its forms everywhere, because more than 700 million people, or 10% of the world population, still live in extreme poverty. Personally, one thing you can do to help end poverty is to donate what you don’t use. It’s huge, and there is a reason it’s number one on the list.
Zero Hunger. To end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. Our food sources such as soil, freshwater, oceans, forests and other biodiversity are being rapidly degraded – and an estimated 821 million people were undernourished in 2017. Agriculture is the world’s largest employer, providing a livelihood for 40% of the world’s population. So, Zero Hunger means focusing on sustainability and nutrition. Also, 840 million people have no access to electricity worldwide, so energy poverty is also a barrier to reducing hunger. One thing you can do is to waste less food and support local farmers.
Good Health and Well-being. To ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. 17,000 fewer children die each day than in 1990, but more than five million children still die before their fifth birthday each year. People will generally try to fit their impact into this category, but a large part of this goal is actually about reducing infant mortality. It also encompasses things like substance abuse, to death and injuries from road accidents, to access to healthcare. If you have children, one thing you can do is make sure you’re up to date on your vaccines. Since 2000, measles vaccines have averted nearly 15.6 million deaths.
Quality Education. To ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Over 265 million children are currently out of school and 22% of them are of primary school age. 617 million youth worldwide lack basic mathematics and literacy skills. The goal is about ensuring access to education and providing a safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environment. In most communities, there are opportunities for you to reach out and help educate or mentor others.
Gender Equality. To achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Globally, 750 million women and girls were married before the age of 18 and at least 200 million women and girls in 30 countries have undergone female genital mutilation. Rights for women are still severely limited in many parts of the world, and the goals are geared towards ending all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere, including violence, fair wages, and providing equal opportunities for leadership at all levels in political, economic and public life. 1 in 3 women have experienced physical and or sexual violence, so do what you can to empower women and support equal rights.
Clean Water and Sanitation. To ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. 1 in 4 health care facilities lacks basic water services, 3 in 10 people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and 6 in 10 people lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities. That’s 2.4 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services, such as toilets or latrines. Each day, nearly 1,000 children die due to preventable water and sanitation-related diarrheal diseases. This goal is about access to safe and affordable drinking water, as well as access to adequate sanitation and hygiene, and looking to improve water quality by reducing pollution and managing important ecosystems. Since water scarcity affects more than 40% of the world’s population, we can all take part in wasting less water.
Affordable and Clean Energy. To ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. 13% of the global population still lacks access to modern electricity and 3 billion people rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating. Energy is also the dominate contributor to climate change, and responsible for about 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. The goals here are about increasing access to affordable energy, as well as improving energy from sustainable sources and energy efficiency. This means investing in energy infrastructure and clean energy technology. Personally, using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs can go a long way.
Decent Work and Economic Growth. To promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. The global unemployment rate in 2017 was 5.6%, down from 6.4% in 2000. The global gender pay gap stands at 23 per cent. This goal is about improving economic growth and productivity – and really develop activities that create jobs, improve access to financial services and encourage entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. It’s also about reducing human trafficking and providing safe and secure working environments. With 1/5 of young people not in education, employment or training – the more you can help create job opportunities for youth, the more we’ll tackle this goal.
Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. To promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. Basic infrastructure like roads, information and communication technologies, sanitation, electrical power and water remains scarce in many developing countries, and 16% of the global population does not have access to mobile broadband networks. This goal is all about developing infrastructure. It’s about developing the research and sustainability and access to information so that people have the environment they need to succeed. Here’s where you can help by funding projects that provide basic infrastructure – as well as investing with micro-loan platforms such as Kiva.
Reducing Inequality. To reduce income inequality within and among countries. The poorest 40% of the population earns less than 25% of the global income. As seen in other goals such as 1 No Poverty, 5 Gender Equality, and 8 decent work and economic growth – inequalities and discrimination create barriers to opportunities. The goals here are about income growth from the bottom 40% of the population at a rate higher than the national average that promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status. It’s very broad, but basically adopting policies and regulations that help make the world more balanced. If you see an opportunity to support those who are marginalized or disadvantaged, then do something!
Sustainable Cities and Communities. To make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Half of all people… 3.5 billion of us… live in cities, and that will increase to 5 billion by 2030. 883 million people live in slums. The world’s cities occupy just 3 per cent of the Earth’s land but account for 60-80 per cent of energy consumption and 75 per cent of carbon emissions. As of 2016, 90% of urban dwellers have been breathing unsafe air, resulting in 4.2 million deaths due to ambient air pollution. These goals are about adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services… as well as sustainable transportation and road safety. If you live in a city, what can you do to bike, walk or use public transportation?
Responsible Consumption and Production. To ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. At our current growth rate, we’ll reach a global population of 9.6 billion by 2050… and we’ll need about 3 times as many planets like the one we have to maintain our current lifestyles. The un.org website has some really cool stats for this one – such as “Less than 3 per cent of the world’s water is fresh (drinkable), of which 2.5 per cent is frozen in the Antarctica, Arctic and glaciers. Humanity must, therefore, rely on 0.5 per cent for all of man’s ecosystem’s and fresh water needs.” Or… If people worldwide switched to energy-efficient lightbulbs, the world would save US$120 billion annually. And the food sector accounts for around 30 per cent of the world’s total energy consumption and accounts for around 22 per cent of total Greenhouse Gas emissions. The goals have to do with sustainable consumption and production, as well as sustainable management of our natural resources. There are a lot of companies doing interesting work in this area, but quite often you need to dig a bit to find them. A quick shoutout to Heidi over at ConsciousCBUS… she’s got great tips on ConsciousCBUS on Instagram. If you’re not sure what you can do here, start with recycling. After that, the possibilities are endless.
Climate Action. To take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy. This gets lots of attention, and rightly so. Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased by almost 50 per cent since 1990. The New York Times had a fascinating piece in October, “Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows” , showing new projections for cities being underwater in the next 30 years. Basically Vietnam is toast, Bangkok, much of Shanghai, Mumbai. Even New Zealand is hit pretty hard. Many costal states in the US are impacted, including San Francisco and the Bay Area, and don’t have good measures in place for rising sea levels. The goals here are really to strengthen our ability to adapt to the coming natural disasters, and work hard to improve climate change measures to reduce the severity of the impact. We should be acting now as if our life depended on it. It might.
Life with Water. To conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. 3 billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods, and pollution is threatening. Runoff from pollutants is creating massive dead zones in the ocean, killing the life that we need for our sustainability. Plus, the world’s largest collection of ocean garbage just keeps growing. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of plastic, floating trash halfway between Hawaii and California, has grown to more than 600,000 square miles, a study found. That’s twice the size of Texas. The goals here are to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution. One thing you can do is to avoid plastic bags to help keep the oceans clean. That’s in part why you’re seeing more initiatives to move away from them.
Life On Land. To Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. Just as our oceans are being impacted, so is our land. Between 2010 and 2015, the world lost 3.3 million hectares of forest areas. Due to drought and desertification, 12 million hectares are lost each year (23 hectares per minute). Within one year, 20 million tons of grain could have been grown. Entire species are going extinct faster than ever. The goals here are about conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands. Go plant a tree and help protect the environment.
Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. To promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. In 2018, the number of people fleeing war, persecution and conflict exceeded 70 million. Corruption, bribery, theft and tax evasion cost some US $1.26 trillion for developing countries per year; this amount of money could be used to lift those who are living on less than $1.25 a day above $1.25 for at least six years. Violence against children affects more than 1 billion children around the world and costs societies up to US$ 7 trillion a year. The goals here are to significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere, as well as to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children. Reduce corruption, bribery, illicit financial and arms trade, and develop more transparent accountable institutions. Basically stand up for human rights.
Partnerships for the Goals. To strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. Working together we can not just share ideas, but also provide financial resources and investments for coordinated sustainable business practices. On an individual level, you can lobe your government to boost development financing. If together we achieve the UN’s SDG’s, we could create $12 trillion dollars worth of market opportunities and create 380 million new jobs by 2030.
And… that’s the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. That’s a ton of information, but hopefully also a good overview of how the UN is thinking about social change on a global level. I’ve been seeing the SDG’s more and more when people talk about measuring impact – they’re a common language, which is useful, but not the only way to categorize change out there. It may be the most popular, but keep in mind it was designed from the perspective of the UN and their ability to impact the most critical areas of development.
Another framework is the Inclusive Economy Metric Set, a collection of about 25 metrics from the B Impact Assessment, as developed by B Labs – the organization that certifies B-Corps. The one thing I really like about the B-Lab Metrics is that they have one for the US and one for global. Also, they’re more geared towards measuring and improving what your company does, in terms of how your company works.
For example, their Living Wage metric asks What % above living wage did your lowest-paid worker (excluding interns) receive during the last fiscal year?
And the Wage Equity Multiple questions is What is the multiple of your company’s highest compensated individual (including bonus) compared to the lowest-paid full-time worker?
The questions by their assessment give you direction on exactly how to measure where you’re at. Again, B-Labs certifies companies as B-Corps, and this is one of the ways they measure and qualify your business to give you that certification.
One more framework I’d like to toss into the mix is the one used by https://donegood.co – the company referred to as the Amazon of social good. They qualify products listed on their website, with one of 10 impacts. These are:
Eco-Friendly
Empowers Workers
Vegan
Women/Person of Color Owned
Toxin-Free
Gives Back
Recycled/Upcycled
Organic/GMO-Free
Cruelty-Free
Made in the USA
So again, a very different list, but one geared towards answering the question, what impact is achieved through the development of a product that you’re purchasing.
Bringing this all together, when you’re building a social enterprise, it’s very useful to familiarize yourself with these frameworks. Perhaps there is something you’re missing or something that you could do to improve your impact. It’s also helpful to know where you make your impact so that you can effectively communicate this to others.
The Happysmarts Project is Teaching You to Manage Your Happiness Level | with Dr. Raj Raghunathan
Feb 27, 2020
Raj Raghunathan of Happy Smarts teaches others to nurture well being and happiness. His recent courses, A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment and HEROIC (Happier Employees and Return-On-Investment Course), guide people in measuring happiness levels in the determinants of happiness.
His story first began in 2007. In his seventh year as a marketing professor at the University of Texas, Raj had a chance to go to India, where he is from, and meet with old friends from way back. Questions about life and purpose came to his attention.
“I noticed that career success does not translate into life success. So, you could be really doing well in your career, earning a lot of money, you may be famous, you may be powerful, you may be at the top of the ladder, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to have a great life.”
–Raj Raghunathan
One question Raj asked himself: “What is the purpose of education?” He suggests that education is meant to give students the skill sets and tools to “enhance the well being” of themselves and people around them, including society as a whole. From there, he moved towards teaching about happiness.
Attaining happiness is a goal most people think of at least once. Raj discussed how happiness, or the lack of emotion, feeds a person’s experience of life. Happier people are healthier, make better decisions, and tend to lead better lives overall. He used an example of how an employee being happier results in that employee being more productive, which can also help the employee secure higher payment. Then, Raj expressed how he found it as no surprise that things affecting happiness in life also affect happiness in the workplace.
Raj breaks down his learning through a model called BAMBA, what he describes as the five determinants of happiness: Basic Needs, Autonomy, Mastery, Belongingness and Abundance Orientation. “It takes two to BAMBA”, Raj says, and he emphasizes that “you” are the lead dancer. Happiness level maintenance, much like communication, is a two-way interaction both sides have ownership in. People should not shy away from their ownership, but take the initiative to engage.
You are responsible for your happiness, and so it doesn’t make sense to pin your happiness on other people, then blame them when you’re not happy. Your happiness is your responsibility.
“You can’t shirk your responsibility.”
— Raj Raghunathan
There’s no doubt of Raj being knowledgeable about happiness. He mentioned a few philosophy and science aspects around the human condition. Such as non-energetic joy, mood congruence, and the power behind meditation.
I asked Raj on his perspective of society in the next ten years. He talked through a great list naming protecting the environment and more of what he thinks are the basic essential aims of the world. Then, he went a step further. Almost as if having a spontaneous epiphany. Raj suggested a “prioritization of well being at an individual level by a critical mass of people” He predicts doing so would be the better, faster way of addressing all other problems. Raj shared that if the individual is not well, they can’t really help others.
Wild Tiger Tees Special [Part 2]: What We Learned About Social Enterprise | with Adam Morris
Feb 21, 2020
Continuing our discussion from episode 55, Suzy of GiveBackHack hosted an episode exploring my experience building Wild Tiger Tees, and what it’s like to engage with the social enterprise community.
Reflecting on the journey so far, Suzy and I agree two major parts are finding what impact to make and discovering how to sustain what you are creating. I find myself navigating how to efficiently grow and sustain the projects I’m currently focused on. Honestly, there are barriers to get over.
Our discussion transformed into conversations that need to happen to help grow passion projects. Along with growth, alterations may occur. For Wild Tiger Tees, we became more involved with giving youth exposure to technology and training to help explore their talents, such as art. Suzy and I expressed the value of having conversations to make sure what we do is helpful and useful. Identifying the population you work with and their specialities are crucial.
Being the innovative thinker she is, Suzy gathered questions and commentary from community leaders to bring new topics to our discussion. First up was a shoutout to my time management skills. Undoubtedly, that credit goes to my wife, Anu, who keeps our projects on track. She is a natural project manager, and everything runs smoother with her attentiveness. (To put it nicely, delegation and time management are key skills I continue to develop.) In order to continue growing, I need to make sure my focus can be driven towards growth, and not preoccupied with only the maintenance of the projects.
We then explained our thoughts on what people should know if they would like to participate in the field of social enterprise. A major thought-piece for myself is “understanding your personal motivations”. These are the origin of anything you do afterwards. Suzy asked if I could give a couple of tips, so I listed a few everyone may find helpful with their own journey.
Some of the GiveBackHack crew who’ve helped us launch!
Suzy was curious about the background for the team I work with. I can say that having an interdisciplinary team is an undeniable asset. Both the project and the team benefit. We are able to deepen the project’s impact, and our team members are exposed to all the possibilities their efforts create. I couldn’t stop myself from mentioning our Wild Tiger Tees art teacher, Catherine. Around six months after we started, Catherine said she never imagined she would be an entrepreneur. She, and every entrepreneur, shows that you don’t know what you could do until you start.
“If you have a passion to solve a problem, you can learn whatever you need to do along the way.”
–Suzy Bureau
We close our discussion on the near future of Wild Tiger Tees and the People Helping People podcast. I list ways I’ll expand these projects, like the Social Good Blueprint. I also talk about what I want to hear from you! If you want to learn more about Wild Tiger Tees, check out Instagram, Facebook, or the official site.
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