Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 1: Donald J.
Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
Speaker 1: I'm Christy nom the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the
Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal
Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your
Speaker 1: next you will be fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned,
Speaker 1: and deported.
Speaker 2: You will never return.
Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
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Speaker 1: what's right.
Speaker 2: Leave now.
Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.
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Speaker 4: All right, guys, welcome back, Episode thirty thirty. We turned thirty.
Speaker 3: Yes Steph Curry with the shot.
Speaker 4: Thirty thirty thirty thirty, So thank you guys. Last week
Speaker 4: was a big week for us. We put out two episodes.
Speaker 4: We put out an episode on crypto and investment banking,
Speaker 4: and we also put out the episode on Africa.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Fritz Charles.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was Those were both tremendous episodes, done
Speaker 4: tremendously well for us. So thank you, Thank you guys.
Speaker 4: We appreciate it and we appreciate you all your support
Speaker 4: for rocking with us. Before we start, I want to
Speaker 4: break some news. So if you follow the podcast, you
Speaker 4: know that we are traveling.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 4: We did network we're doing these networking events meeting greets,
Speaker 4: and we went to La. That's when the first one
Speaker 4: was in LA, and then we went to Brooklyn, and
Speaker 4: we recently went to Atlanta. So the fourth stop is Houston, Texas.
Speaker 4: Get ready, Houston, were on our way. We will be
Speaker 4: releasing dates very very but within the next couple of weeks,
Speaker 4: within the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: With your help, with hopefully everybody that we've been saying
Speaker 3: that gets on that we wanted on the podcast, we'll
Speaker 3: make it on the podcast. We don't need a little
Speaker 3: bit of help from Houston.
Speaker 4: We need we need some help from Houston. But more importantly,
Speaker 4: we just need to support, so make sure you come out.
Speaker 4: It's all of our first times in Texas. So we're
Speaker 4: looking forward to that here. There's gonna be a good energy,
Speaker 4: good vibe out there for sure, for sure, So I'm
Speaker 4: excited about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But more importantly, we have a very special guest with
Speaker 4: us today, Nicole Russell.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 4: So, Nicole does a lot of different things, but she
Speaker 4: is the co founder and executive director of Precious Dreams Foundation,
Speaker 4: which is a nonprofit organization. We're going to talk about it.
Speaker 4: So this episode we're going to talk about a lot
Speaker 4: of different things. But we haven't covered the nonprofit organization
Speaker 4: industry yet, and a lot of people want to start
Speaker 4: nonprofits or they work for nonprofits. They want to understand
Speaker 4: how nonprofits work. It's interesting that the name is nonprofit,
Speaker 4: but everything makes a profit in some level, right, But
Speaker 4: we're gonna talk about the how to set up a
Speaker 4: nonprofit and all of that stuff. But also we're going
Speaker 4: to talk about her journey to get his It's very
Speaker 4: very interesting. Yeah, true true hustler. So she was glamorous
Speaker 4: Everyday Hero of the Year. She was Observer's top twenty
Speaker 4: Heroes on the forty and also Walmart's Community Playmaker Awards.
Speaker 5: She won that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots of lots of awards that did not apply
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 4: So all right, before we go into your work, now,
Speaker 4: I think it's important to tell your backstory. So you
Speaker 4: was telling us off camera, but I think it's interesting.
Speaker 4: So how you got here as far as you went
Speaker 4: to you want you took an untraditional route, right, Because
Speaker 4: a lot of times we've had episodes we talked about
Speaker 4: college and everybody has different views on college, right, And
Speaker 4: we had Chris Gotti, right, and he was saying that
Speaker 4: he wished that he would have gone to college because
Speaker 4: he thought that it would have helped him, but he
Speaker 4: didn't actually never went to college. But you did the
Speaker 4: Kanye thing where you went but you didn't finish, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, solid drop out.
Speaker 5: So do you have that? So can you talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So before I do, I will say that my
Speaker 2: one year, because I did one, My one year in
Speaker 2: college was one of the best years of my life.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't because of the education that I received.
Speaker 2: It was because of the experiences and relationships that I developed.
Speaker 2: So I do think there's so many valuable things that
Speaker 2: can come out of going to school. However, I don't
Speaker 2: have any regrets on not finishing. The one thing that
Speaker 2: I will say is when you don't have that degree
Speaker 2: and you walk into any space, you have to, you know,
Speaker 2: prove your worth and you have to work five times
Speaker 2: as hard in everything that you do when you don't
Speaker 2: have a degree. So it's it's been tough. It's really
Speaker 2: been tough. And even you see that that meme on
Speaker 2: Instagram where it's like that success is not that straight
Speaker 2: narrow path, but it's really like a crazy ze exactly.
Speaker 2: That's what my life has looked like.
Speaker 4: Well, so what made you since you had such a
Speaker 4: good freshman Yeah, what made you drop out after.
Speaker 5: Your first year?
Speaker 2: Because I had other plans, you know, were there were
Speaker 2: things that I wanted to do that I couldn't do. Also, financially,
Speaker 2: my parents could not afford it. It's crazy. I'm actually
Speaker 2: still paying off my debt from college for the one year. Yes,
Speaker 2: because my parents didn't give me a dime to go
Speaker 2: to school. But I really wanted to move to California,
Speaker 2: so I took out a private loan, which was not
Speaker 2: the smartest thing. To do, and I covered my full tuition,
Speaker 2: my travel expenses, everything that I needed to go to school.
Speaker 2: I just took it out. So I am still paying
Speaker 2: that off. But I realized very quickly going into my
Speaker 2: second year that I could not afford to do that again.
Speaker 4: No, that's dope, and it's dope that you took the
Speaker 4: initiative and just said you didn't let fear ruin it, right,
Speaker 4: because a lot of times people move out of fear.
Speaker 4: And I think I'm a little Jada when it comes
Speaker 4: to college because I never I never did a job application.
Speaker 4: So like even when you're saying, you know, as far
Speaker 4: as on the job applications, they look at you funny
Speaker 4: if you don't have a college degree. And I'm just
Speaker 4: thinking to myself, like I feeled not a job application before,
Speaker 4: so that's not normal. So I think I'm my perspective
Speaker 4: on things is a little different because I never had
Speaker 4: a job. So but for most people, you know, it
Speaker 4: is something that can hold you back, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: For sure.
Speaker 3: I mean I couldn't have had a career in education
Speaker 3: without it, Like, so you need it. Yeah, it's absolutely
Speaker 3: mandatory that I go to school for four years and
Speaker 3: didn't have a master's degree and pass all these certifications,
Speaker 3: so it was needed for me. It wasn't even an option.
Speaker 3: Like I truly feel like I could have done what
Speaker 3: I'm doing now without all the school But like I said,
Speaker 3: New York State mandated that I have to do these things,
Speaker 3: so I had to do them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it really just depends on what you want
Speaker 2: to do, right, because now I'm teaching in schools and
Speaker 2: I do trainings for educators without a degree. But it's
Speaker 2: because I'm teaching social and emotional stuff, which is not
Speaker 2: which are the things that you can learn in school.
Speaker 2: But also I've been able to learn it through experience
Speaker 2: and working with the target audience. So last year they
Speaker 2: passed a law in New York and Virginia to require
Speaker 2: mental health education in public schools. You know, before that,
Speaker 2: and there's no way I could have walked into a
Speaker 2: school and said I want to host an assembly and
Speaker 2: teach your educators how to how to teach mental health.
Speaker 2: You know, they would have looked at me crazy if
Speaker 2: I was just like, well, you know, this is what
Speaker 2: I bring to the table by having this experience at
Speaker 2: a nonprofit. But because it became mandatory, a lot of
Speaker 2: schools were scrambling looking for content. There aren't that many
Speaker 2: books out there that do you know this type of
Speaker 2: work mental health or like self help for minorities, for
Speaker 2: people that live in underserved areas. So they were happy
Speaker 2: to start using the book to have me come in.
Speaker 3: So social emotional health is something that is just like
Speaker 3: completely overlooked in our community. Completely and more so over
Speaker 3: the past i'd say five to ten years. It's become
Speaker 3: more of the forefront for adults, but the kids in
Speaker 3: our community, it is not even a thing. Like I've
Speaker 3: had some experiences it was just like, wait, how are
Speaker 3: we to just ignore this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think that's changing too, honestly, Like in
Speaker 2: a few years, it's going to be just as popular
Speaker 2: to talk about self care for teens as it is
Speaker 2: for adults.
Speaker 5: So all right, So gme me back up a little bit.
Speaker 4: Because you worked at a restaurant, right, Well, you worked
Speaker 4: in a restaurant industry, and then you've worked your way
Speaker 4: up and then you got to a point where you
Speaker 4: ask for equity partnership, right, Can you explain that? Because
Speaker 4: we talked about equity partnership a lot, and so this.
Speaker 3: Is after you came back from California.
Speaker 2: Yes, So as soon as I got back, I had
Speaker 2: to get a job. I started waitressing in New York City,
Speaker 2: one of the most popular things you know, that anybody
Speaker 2: can do. And I was always very ambitious and wanted
Speaker 2: to do more, and I wanted to make the most money.
Speaker 2: In every space that I've gone to, I've always wanted
Speaker 2: to figure out, how do I get into the position
Speaker 2: to make the big money, how do I learn what's
Speaker 2: needed to make the big money. So I started waitressing.
Speaker 2: I very quickly asked if I could be trained to bartend.
Speaker 2: I didn't even drink. I didn't even know, like I
Speaker 2: didn't know the difference between beers and like dark liquor
Speaker 2: light liquor. I learned that very quickly started bar attending,
Speaker 2: I learned that I didn't like those hours, so I
Speaker 2: asked if I could start managing, and the general manager
Speaker 2: at the time looked at me like I was crazy
Speaker 2: and said, you know, well, you don't have any experience managing.
Speaker 2: I said, I know, I don't, but I know how
Speaker 2: to do all of the positions that you need to manage,
Speaker 2: and I do them very well. I'm bringing in the
Speaker 2: most money here, so it would make sense to have
Speaker 2: someone like me lead. And then it was a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks after I had that conversation that our manager
Speaker 2: at the time got fired, and then I ended up
Speaker 2: moving my way up into that position, then moving my
Speaker 2: way up into the general manager position, and at some
Speaker 2: point I was learning the book keeping and running the
Speaker 2: entire place. And at that point, as a twenty four
Speaker 2: year old young African American girl working in Times Square,
Speaker 2: I was like, well, then I should be partly owning
Speaker 2: this place. And I asked very ambitious, and I asked
Speaker 2: for a very small percent, like under ten percent, and
Speaker 2: they said they would consider it, and they gave me
Speaker 2: the run around for too long, and I just decided
Speaker 2: I would take my value somewhere else.
Speaker 4: So at twenty four years old and one year of college, right,
Speaker 4: how did you develop enough courage to act un established
Speaker 4: you in Times Square that's an established restaurant? How do
Speaker 4: you get enough courage to act established restaurant owners where
Speaker 4: I'm assuming that much older than you and don't look
Speaker 4: like you for ownership in their business? Like, how did
Speaker 4: how did that conversation develop in your brain?
Speaker 2: So in everything that I do, because I'm an introverted person,
Speaker 2: and some people can walk into a room and verbally
Speaker 2: share you know what they're going to do and how
Speaker 2: people need them, and I just I've never known how
Speaker 2: to do that. So I've always quietly and very humbly
Speaker 2: worked my butt off, knowing that I can be the
Speaker 2: best at everything as long as I work very hard.
Speaker 2: And so I was very aware of my worth, very
Speaker 2: aware of what I can bring to the table, and
Speaker 2: I knew that they needed me. So in my mind,
Speaker 2: if someone needs you, they're going to do everything they
Speaker 2: can to keep you. But I had put myself in
Speaker 2: that position before I jumped out the window and made
Speaker 2: that ass So.
Speaker 4: Because that's important what you just said, as far as
Speaker 4: you realize that they needed your worth, you have to
Speaker 4: know your worth, right, and that's true with anything in business, relationships,
Speaker 4: person relationships, whatever.
Speaker 5: But it's so hard.
Speaker 4: People struggle with that all the time, right, people struggle
Speaker 4: with that all the time where they don't know their work,
Speaker 4: they don't realize that how valuable they are.
Speaker 5: Right, So.
Speaker 4: As far as like what would be your advice, as
Speaker 4: far as for people to say, okay, look, this is
Speaker 4: something that I think I'm worth, This is I need
Speaker 4: to ask for a raise I need to ask for
Speaker 4: a partnership, because it's not easy to do that. It's
Speaker 4: very difficult, especially especially like if you as you get
Speaker 4: older and you have a family, and you know a
Speaker 4: lot of times we just you just kind of become
Speaker 4: set and it's say, okay, I just know.
Speaker 3: The risk becomes a lot higher when it's allowed on
Speaker 3: the lunch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you develop less courage as you get older. I feel, so, Yeah, like,
Speaker 4: what's the advice for people to go out there and
Speaker 4: just really take charge of their destiny?
Speaker 2: For that, I would say prove your why, because you know,
Speaker 2: in the corporate world, there are people who complain about
Speaker 2: doing things that are outside of their roles and responsibilities.
Speaker 2: And if you ask someone to do something that they're
Speaker 2: not supposed to do, they'll give up and say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not supposed to do that. And then there are
Speaker 2: those who will do it and complain probably internally, but
Speaker 2: not say anything. They'll do it, and they'll show you
Speaker 2: that they can do more than you've hired them for.
Speaker 2: And then they'll go in and have a conversation and say, well,
Speaker 2: while we're doing this review over the last year, here's
Speaker 2: my contract. This is what I was supposed to do
Speaker 2: and this is everything else that I took on. And
Speaker 2: usually that's a surprise to the person who's been continuously
Speaker 2: asking more for you. Then they realized you were supposed
Speaker 2: to be doing because you always say yes. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying that you should, you know, take on more
Speaker 2: than you can chew. But at the same time, if
Speaker 2: you want to grow in your position, you should always
Speaker 2: be ready and willing to go above and beyond.
Speaker 4: I think communication is important too, because even in like relationships,
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times people don't communicate properly.
Speaker 4: And that's a problem, right. It happens in business all
Speaker 4: the time. Where you don't say what you want, people
Speaker 4: can't reach your mind, and people are never gonna go
Speaker 4: out their way to give you something extra. A closed
Speaker 4: mouth doesn't get fit.
Speaker 3: It's like I'm gonna keep poling on till you finally
Speaker 3: say something, and when you do, I'll say, all right, well,
Speaker 3: good job. Right, It's like the know you're worth it's key,
Speaker 3: like we I like to think of it as like
Speaker 3: it'll take something happened happen for people to learn, Like
Speaker 3: as you're getting these tasks, they don't realize that you're
Speaker 3: learning more and more, like now I feel like I
Speaker 3: can do these jobs. Like when you prove it to them,
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, I've been doing it. Now pay us
Speaker 3: like you always.
Speaker 4: Now it's like me and you more. Have this conversation
Speaker 4: a lot. I'll show you jam a soon. I referenced
Speaker 4: him last episode in this episode as well. But he's coming,
Speaker 4: don't worry. But you gotta have uncomfortable conversations. Yes, nobody
Speaker 4: wants to have the uncomfortable conversations, right, nobody. It's human nature.
Speaker 4: Nobody really nobody wants to have an uncomfortable conversation. But
Speaker 4: sometimes you have to have uncomfortable conversations. And I've had
Speaker 4: uncomfortable conversations in business, and you know what the crazy
Speaker 4: thing about it is, most of the time they're not
Speaker 4: really that uncomfortable because you you've already cited yourself mentally
Speaker 4: for so long, Like you've walked past the person's office
Speaker 4: ten times already, You've had the conversation in your head like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's too early, I'm gonna wait till the afternoon. Then
Speaker 4: you go in the afternoon and it's like he's out
Speaker 4: for lunch. The day is almost over, and then it's like, okay,
Speaker 4: let me wait ten minutes. It's like you make up
Speaker 4: like all kinds of excuses, you delay it for so long,
Speaker 4: double dutch in the whole time, and then by the
Speaker 4: time you actually do it, it's like because at the
Speaker 4: end of the day you could just say yes to no,
Speaker 4: that's only then that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more uncomfortable, be unhappy. So you might as
Speaker 2: well ask.
Speaker 5: I said, Jim, So all right, can we jump to
Speaker 5: Masive Square Garden.
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 4: So you you you realized that they wasn't going to
Speaker 4: give you equity in the restaurant business, and you you've.
Speaker 5: Reached the level where you felt that you.
Speaker 4: You couldn't do any more and not get compensated as
Speaker 4: you should get compensated. So you you took a leap
Speaker 4: of faith and you quit, right yep. Okay, so then
Speaker 4: you then you start VIP services in Masters Square.
Speaker 5: Guarden, right.
Speaker 2: So no, I didn't start it. H So I quit
Speaker 2: my job without having a backup plan, which everyone tells
Speaker 2: you not to do. They always say, never leave a
Speaker 2: position until you get another one. But I, you know,
Speaker 2: leaned on faith and I just felt very confident that
Speaker 2: well one was Like I said, earlier. If you're it's
Speaker 2: it's more uncomfortable to be unhappy. So I had become
Speaker 2: unhappy in that position. And yes, I had to take
Speaker 2: care of my financial needs, but I need to take
Speaker 2: care of my mental needs too, so I knew that
Speaker 2: I needed to leave regard. I did that, and then
Speaker 2: the very next day, after my last day of work,
Speaker 2: I got a phone call from one of my old
Speaker 2: clients at the restaurant who happened to work at Madison
Speaker 2: Square Garden, and they said that they were expanding their
Speaker 2: VIP services department, doing renovations and opening up these VIP
Speaker 2: spaces and they needed a manager, and they actually asked
Speaker 2: if I could refer someone because they didn't know that
Speaker 2: I had quit. I had never told any of my
Speaker 2: clients that I was unhappier that I was leaving, and
Speaker 2: I always made sure that up until the last day,
Speaker 2: I worked hard, so I was able to utilize so
Speaker 2: many relationships that I gained through my last position to
Speaker 2: help me and not just eventually getting that role at
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden, but with everything else that I decided
Speaker 2: to do after I started a nonprofit.
Speaker 5: And how long were you got as Square.
Speaker 2: Garden seven years?
Speaker 5: So then you leave Madison Square Garden, right, m hm.
Speaker 4: So we're going to talk about that in the next
Speaker 4: segment as far as starting the nonprofit. But before you
Speaker 4: talk about that, what made you decide to even want
Speaker 4: to start a nonprofit?
Speaker 2: So it's deep. I always wanted to help children, and
Speaker 2: I always wanted to live in service of others.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: So that's when you're working in the hospitality industry, that
Speaker 2: is to serve people, period. It doesn't matter if it's
Speaker 2: in a hotel setting, if you're a cashier at a
Speaker 2: sneaker store, You're in service of others at all times.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do that and I wanted to help children.
Speaker 2: I just didn't know how. My mother actually took in
Speaker 2: a foster child and she suffered from nightmare seven nights
Speaker 2: a week because of her traumatic experiences. Yeah, and my
Speaker 2: mother had to introduce comfort items to her for the
Speaker 2: very first time at age four to help her get
Speaker 2: back to sleep. She was waking my mother up every
Speaker 2: single night and Teddy Bears pajamas, blanket. Yeah. And my
Speaker 2: mom told me about it and said, you know, I
Speaker 2: wonder how foster kids sleep when they have nightmares? What
Speaker 2: do they do in the middle of the night, and
Speaker 2: it's not a thought that had ever crossed my mind.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, my mother's idea was for us
Speaker 2: to start donating comfort items, a very simple thing to
Speaker 2: do because of a cause that was now important to her.
Speaker 2: And my job was just to look online and figure
Speaker 2: out places where she could make these donations. And in
Speaker 2: doing research, I realized that there were no organizations that
Speaker 2: focused solely on packages of bedtime items comfort items. And
Speaker 2: so my simple fix to that was, let me just
Speaker 2: figure out how to incorporate an organization so that we
Speaker 2: can do it on a very small scale, but at
Speaker 2: least we'll have a place to kind of funnel everything through.
Speaker 2: And Precious Dreams started with the concept of putting together
Speaker 2: care packages for foster kids, and then six months after
Speaker 2: that everything.
Speaker 4: Changed, all right, all right, So in the next siven,
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about the business and nonprofit, how
Speaker 4: to start one and how to get off the ground.
Speaker 4: All right, So now we're going to go into the
Speaker 4: business of nonprofit. I'm setting up nonprofits because we haven't
Speaker 4: spoke about that. We spoke a little bit about charities
Speaker 4: with Derk Ferguson, but not really in depth about how
Speaker 4: to start one because he's he's the head of a charity,
Speaker 4: but he didn't start that charity. Where this is you
Speaker 4: started a charity, right, Yeah, So okay, what are the steps?
Speaker 4: Can you walk us through the steps of how to
Speaker 4: start a nonprofit? Five to oh one seed three yep?
Speaker 2: Okay, So the first thing is you don't have to
Speaker 2: have a five oh one C three.
Speaker 5: Can you just explain what a five oh one C
Speaker 5: three is?
Speaker 2: So a five on one C three allows you, according
Speaker 2: to the IRS, to be tax exempt, which then allows
Speaker 2: all donors to write off anything that they contribute to
Speaker 2: your organization. It's very important if you need large amounts
Speaker 2: of funding. If you don't and what you're trying to
Speaker 2: do can get by on like a fifteen hundred dollars
Speaker 2: budget or a two thousand dollar budget, you don't need
Speaker 2: the five on one C three.
Speaker 5: That budget be monthly or annually.
Speaker 2: Annually, there's you know, it just depends on what you're
Speaker 2: budgeting for. You know, some people have a plant project
Speaker 2: and they just want to plant things a couple of
Speaker 2: times a year. You know, it just depends on what
Speaker 2: you're doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was told something like that. The process is
Speaker 3: very long, like and dependent on how much you need.
Speaker 3: So like, you can apply for the five one C
Speaker 3: three if you're making if you're anticipating having ten thousand
Speaker 3: dollars or less, yeah, that's the initial one. But if
Speaker 3: you're planning more that that process takes a lot longer.
Speaker 2: It does, and I actually so we incorporated the organization
Speaker 2: and then we filed for the five on one C
Speaker 2: three at the same time, and it was about three
Speaker 2: or four months later I planned our first annual fundraiser
Speaker 2: because we needed the funding to really get started on
Speaker 2: what we were trying to accomplish. And in my mind,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, if you look online, it tells you you
Speaker 2: can get approved for a five O one C three
Speaker 2: between two to twelve months. So of course I'm always thinking,
Speaker 2: I'm always being optimistic, and I'm like, well, three to
Speaker 2: four we might make it. We didn't, so we did
Speaker 2: the first fundraiser, and of course people are going to
Speaker 2: get very minimal amounts because they can't write it off,
Speaker 2: and it's a it's a huge incentive for any donor
Speaker 2: to know that not only am I helping this cause,
Speaker 2: but I can also it'll help me with my taxes.
Speaker 2: So we didn't get it approved in time, but we
Speaker 2: ended up getting it a year later.
Speaker 4: So, all right, what's the process to get a five
Speaker 4: oh one C three?
Speaker 5: Like, what do you have to do together?
Speaker 2: There's a long application. There's a long application, and you
Speaker 2: have to be organized and have everything you have to
Speaker 2: You have to answer with as many details as possible
Speaker 2: if you want to get approved without questions first from
Speaker 2: the IRS. A right, So, mission statement. You need a
Speaker 2: mission statement. You need the name everything that you would
Speaker 2: need to do to start a business. You have to
Speaker 2: be very clear about what you're doing. And when I
Speaker 2: say mission statement, it's funny I'm remembering this now. We
Speaker 2: the IRS actually came back and said that our mission
Speaker 2: statement was too broad and that's why we didn't get
Speaker 2: approved the first time around. I think the initial mission
Speaker 2: statement was to help foster and homeless youth self comfort.
Speaker 2: That could mean anything. So then we had to go
Speaker 2: in and revise the mission, apply with the state to
Speaker 2: change that and then resubmit the application for the five
Speaker 2: on one C three.
Speaker 3: Is it something that you did yourself or did you
Speaker 3: have lawyers involved?
Speaker 2: I hired help, Yeah, definitely hired help. And I would
Speaker 2: recommend if anybody doesn't already have that experience in the
Speaker 2: nonprofit sector. Hire where you need, especially when it comes
Speaker 2: to accounting, get the support so that the first time
Speaker 2: around you're not making those mistakes.
Speaker 4: So when you had the narrow dal your mission statement,
Speaker 4: like what was your revised mission statement?
Speaker 2: So now the mission statement is helping foster and homeless
Speaker 2: youth self comfort by providing comfort items for bedtime and
Speaker 2: programs that inspires them to self soothe.
Speaker 4: And that was okay, all right, So you have that,
Speaker 4: you have to set it up as a business like
Speaker 4: you have like an.
Speaker 2: LLC setup, not an LLC, but it's the same steps
Speaker 2: of like having to You don't have to trademark, but
Speaker 2: I highly recommend it because the work of a nonprofit
Speaker 2: easily inspires someone else to want to do similar work,
Speaker 2: and they can. They can take your name and do
Speaker 2: it in another state if they want to, So trademarking,
Speaker 2: I highly recommend filing for the setup for the nonprofit
Speaker 2: the same way you would with the LLC for your state,
Speaker 2: and then applying for that five on one C three early.
Speaker 2: If you expect or if you want to receive large funds.
Speaker 5: It's a fee for that.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a fee. There's a fee for every application,
Speaker 2: so you have to have some funds to get started.
Speaker 2: When I applied in twenty twelve, I think that the
Speaker 2: five on one S three application was like eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's increased since then, but yes,
Speaker 2: you definitely need something in order to get started.
Speaker 4: Okay, So you do the application, you get well as
Speaker 4: the five oh one C three is going through the process,
Speaker 4: because it could take up to a year. What what
Speaker 4: else do you need to get off the ground to
Speaker 4: start the actual charity everything?
Speaker 2: So you need a website, you need a marketing plan,
Speaker 2: you need a business plan.
Speaker 5: Marketing plan. Can can we talk about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Because all right, how do you.
Speaker 3: Before you even go into that, like, this is you
Speaker 3: and someone else? Like the like who else is doing this?
Speaker 2: So the co founder was my mother, but no she
Speaker 2: she was living her best life in Florida. So my
Speaker 2: mom was not involved in, you know, actually getting the
Speaker 2: organization started. I was doing this on my own with
Speaker 2: the help of friends who believed in me and the organization.
Speaker 2: So that's the next step in like, and I'll get
Speaker 2: back to marketing. But you need you need a marketing plan,
Speaker 2: you need a business plan. You need a board of directors.
Speaker 2: You need people that are going to hold you accountable,
Speaker 2: which most people don't know. So when you're applying for
Speaker 2: this paperwork, you can't just put your name on it.
Speaker 2: If people are giving donations, the I r S wants
Speaker 2: to know who else is tracking these dollars to make
Speaker 2: sure that you're not out here spending these these funds
Speaker 2: in the wrong way. So when I first started, and
Speaker 2: I think most people when they start nonprofits, it's usually
Speaker 2: people that are very connected to you as well as
Speaker 2: the mission, and so they'll sign on to support you,
Speaker 2: and that's usually how the board starts, and then eventually
Speaker 2: it grows.
Speaker 5: You have to have a boarder director, Yes, how many people?
Speaker 2: Three?
Speaker 4: Non negotiable, You have to you have to they have
Speaker 4: to have titles or they just boarded director.
Speaker 2: Yes, and they need titles. So you need a president,
Speaker 2: you need a treasurer. You need a secretary.
Speaker 3: That's New York State's stand it a federal New York state.
Speaker 5: Okay, so all right, you have those three people. Those
Speaker 5: people have to actually be active.
Speaker 2: They should be actors. So here's the thing. It's like
Speaker 2: it kindly recommended because they're putting themselves on the line
Speaker 2: by signing that paperwork. Right, So if you have someone
Speaker 2: signed as a secretary and it's your cousin, but they're
Speaker 2: not actually doing the work work. If you get audited
Speaker 2: or there is an issue, they're going to come looking
Speaker 2: for you and your cousin. So everybody should understand how
Speaker 2: serious it is when they are signing that paperwork.
Speaker 4: Okay, can we talk about marketing? Yeah, so how do
Speaker 4: you put together marketing plan for a nonprofit organization? Because
Speaker 4: it's different, right, Like we're marketing let's say we want
Speaker 4: to market our podcast, right, or you're marketing a product. Right,
Speaker 4: it's a little different than marketing for a nonprofit because.
Speaker 5: It's it's charity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's like you got to it's kind of
Speaker 4: in my opinion, it's it's a little delicate walk because
Speaker 4: you don't want to make it seem like you're selling something.
Speaker 4: But obviously you need funds. We're gonna talk about fundraising,
Speaker 4: but you need funds. So how do you how do
Speaker 4: you how do you do that?
Speaker 5: Like, how do you market for a charity?
Speaker 2: I think the two most important things to consider when
Speaker 2: marketing is who is your target audience? And then also
Speaker 2: what do your donors need to see and understand in
Speaker 2: order to give, So the more your donors know, the
Speaker 2: more they will give. Period making sure that in everything
Speaker 2: that you do, whether it's just utilizing social media, that
Speaker 2: every image, every caption, every meme, everything that you're sharing
Speaker 2: explains the mission clearly. Transparency is the number one thing
Speaker 2: and trying to solicit donors. The second thing is making
Speaker 2: sure that you are marketing towards the people that you
Speaker 2: need to do the service right. So when I started
Speaker 2: this organization, I wanted to market this towards people who
Speaker 2: run the foster care agencies in New York City as
Speaker 2: well as the homeless shelters, So figuring out what do
Speaker 2: they need to see in order to understand what our
Speaker 2: services are, and that's sometimes it's simply putting together a
Speaker 2: kit that explains and breaks everything down. Here's the mission,
Speaker 2: here's our values, here's our logo, here's our one year plan,
Speaker 2: here's the program that we can provide or the curriculum,
Speaker 2: just depending on what you want to do, and ironing
Speaker 2: all of that out so that they can understand and
Speaker 2: then they choose whether or not they want to work
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 3: So you're pretty much now I mean, you're not selling
Speaker 3: in the sense of an item, but you're selling your
Speaker 3: vision and your passion in the sense right yeah.
Speaker 2: And making it clear. I mean, there's another nonprofit friend
Speaker 2: of mine runs an organization called Kicks for the City.
Speaker 2: It's a very simple mission. They give shoes to the homeless.
Speaker 2: So when all of their packaging, they're showing photos, images
Speaker 2: of sneakers, images of homeless. So people can just simply
Speaker 2: connect the dots. Here's the mission, there's the value, and
Speaker 2: here's what it looks like if you give.
Speaker 5: It's easy.
Speaker 4: So all right, So the biggest part of charity nonprofit
Speaker 4: organization is that you have to have money.
Speaker 5: Right. It's actually a business. Right.
Speaker 4: That's something that people need to understand too. If you
Speaker 4: think about running a nonprofit successful NOLA is that you
Speaker 4: have to run it like a business because it is
Speaker 4: a business.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: So we're going to talk about funding. So nonprofits get
Speaker 4: majority of their funding from donors. Right, how do you really.
Speaker 2: Spend what way? Yeah? It depends. You can get a
Speaker 2: majority through individual donors, through state funding, through federal funding.
Speaker 2: Those are the three main ways.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's let's talk about donors.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how does how would some what's the one on
Speaker 4: one blueprint to attract individual donors, real the.
Speaker 2: Men so that they understand the cause and make sure
Speaker 2: that you are speaking to people who care about that mission,
Speaker 2: that specific mission. So with Precious Dreams, I had to
Speaker 2: find a way how do I connect the issues of
Speaker 2: foster and homeless youth and make it relatable to someone
Speaker 2: who's never been in those shoes. So the first thing
Speaker 2: that we did was target parents, because parents understand the
Speaker 2: importance of comfort items. So I remember my first year,
Speaker 2: I would have meetings and one of the first questions
Speaker 2: I asked was, do you have kids, what's their bedtime routine?
Speaker 2: Do you read to them? What do they do? They
Speaker 2: sleep in pajamas, And it immediately brings them to this
Speaker 2: happy place of thinking of like what that looks like
Speaker 2: for their kids and how important it is to them.
Speaker 2: And then I would help them vision what a typical
Speaker 2: night looks like in a homeless shelter, or what a
Speaker 2: night looks like for a foster kid who's sleeping in
Speaker 2: a room with five other families on a mattress that's
Speaker 2: on the floor, And immediately they feel connected, you know,
Speaker 2: and then they want to give, They want to save
Speaker 2: someone because they can't understand how someone else could be
Speaker 2: lacking what their child has or what they have that
Speaker 2: they were taking for granted because they just did never
Speaker 2: thought about the person who lacks.
Speaker 3: It's a commonality, like we were all children at some point, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we probably all have going through some experience as
Speaker 3: a child, whether it was like somebody putting you to
Speaker 3: bed or the time routine. I want to go to
Speaker 3: the fact of state funding and federal funding, so like
Speaker 3: how does that work and are there acts or initiatives
Speaker 3: that the state provides that just like you know what
Speaker 3: I should target them or how do you go about it?
Speaker 2: It depends on what you're doing. Again with the nonprofit,
Speaker 2: so if you're providing a service for schools or for educators,
Speaker 2: it's very easy to go after state funding. If you
Speaker 2: are providing sneakers to the homeless, it's a little harder
Speaker 2: to get those grants approved because they might not see
Speaker 2: the importance in that work. So yeah, it just depends
Speaker 2: on what you're doing. But those applications are available online.
Speaker 2: There's a full list of the state money that's available,
Speaker 2: federal money that's available, and you just have to see
Speaker 2: whether or not you fall along.
Speaker 4: So how important is grant writers?
Speaker 2: Grant writers are very important. They're very very important, especially
Speaker 2: if you don't have relationships with a lot of individual
Speaker 2: donors because you need one or the other. Grant writers
Speaker 2: and also researchers are another a whole nother animal because
Speaker 2: a lot of times, and we learned this the hard way,
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, let's find a grant writer. You
Speaker 2: find the grant writer and they're like, okay, so who's
Speaker 2: doing the grant research? Because that's a whole nother job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not even heard of that side. What's their
Speaker 3: job to.
Speaker 2: Do to research? Yes, and it takes hours because there
Speaker 2: are so many grants available, but there could be one
Speaker 2: small thing in that grant, one requirement, and your organization
Speaker 2: just doesn't fall under it. So making sure before you
Speaker 2: waste anybody's time and they're writing this full proposal that
Speaker 2: you fall in on all of the requirements that are
Speaker 2: listed for that one specific grant.
Speaker 4: And most of these grants government or private or like
Speaker 4: a mixture of a mix.
Speaker 2: Yeah, private, public, state, federal.
Speaker 4: And it's you could just google and probably find a
Speaker 4: lot as far as different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of them are very public. Some are
Speaker 2: invite only, which are harder to apply for. But so
Speaker 2: there's a lot of private especially like family foundations, where
Speaker 2: they've set up to give finances annually to different organizations,
Speaker 2: but they don't want to have thousands of applications coming in.
Speaker 2: They are over one point five million nonprofits in the
Speaker 2: United States. So if you are a very small, like
Speaker 2: three or four person run organization where you're trying to
Speaker 2: just simply give out twenty thousand dollars a year, you
Speaker 2: don't want one point five million people applying. And so
Speaker 2: what they'll do is they'll restrict it to a certain
Speaker 2: county or a certain state, and people will have to
Speaker 2: know someone in order to get in. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like like I don't want to say mafia, but like
Speaker 2: you have to know somebody in order to even figure
Speaker 2: out what their application process is to get in the door.
Speaker 5: So where where does your funding come from?
Speaker 2: Most of a majority of our funding comes from individual donors,
Speaker 2: and that is a gift that I've been able to
Speaker 2: receive because of the work that I've done. So in
Speaker 2: having that history, that job history at places like Madison
Speaker 2: Square Garden, where I've been able to develop relationships with
Speaker 2: the one percent in New York City, or you know
Speaker 2: the athletes and artists that come through and they're invited
Speaker 2: to sit courtside at our game. The gary Ves of
Speaker 2: the Internet, like all of those people I developed great
Speaker 2: relationships with by them seeing my work ethic but then
Speaker 2: also my character, seeing that I am someone who is
Speaker 2: responsible but kind. And so when I approach those people
Speaker 2: about giving to my nonprofit, the answer is yes more
Speaker 2: than no.
Speaker 4: So do you have because I like, I think Derek
Speaker 4: ferguson Robinhood Dinner is like five thousand dollars minimum, It's
Speaker 4: like five thousand dollars per plate to end. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: it sold out. You can't get in and that's crazy.
Speaker 4: But like how do you price? How do you ask
Speaker 4: for money? And like do you do it in galas?
Speaker 4: How do you know how much to ask for?
Speaker 2: There's so many ways to fundraise, so many ways. So
Speaker 2: one thing that's very important we talk. We go back
Speaker 2: and talk about boards. Right, your board of directors should
Speaker 2: be very diverse, and they should have a network far
Speaker 2: beyond your reach so that they can go out as
Speaker 2: ambassadors and promote your organization to receive funding from anyone
Speaker 2: that they're connected to. Then you can utilize social media.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of ways that you can raise money
Speaker 2: on social media. There's a lot of platforms like give
Speaker 2: smart dot com is a platform that you can pay
Speaker 2: for where you can set up fundraising pages. But then
Speaker 2: it also gives you text numbers, so like the Text
Speaker 2: to give where you can send out a number and say,
Speaker 2: if you text this number, you can donate twenty five
Speaker 2: dollars instantly. That's a platform that allows you to do it.
Speaker 2: Galas are very important. Selling a ticket to provide an
Speaker 2: experience for somebody is the easiest way to fundraise. Who
Speaker 2: doesn't want to come to an open bar experience or
Speaker 2: to see a performer, to go out to have a
Speaker 2: good time. So galas are honestly probably one of the biggest,
Speaker 2: the biggest ways that nonprofits are able to generate funds,
Speaker 2: especially for precious streams as. Definitely our go to every
Speaker 2: year of an annual gala, yes, every fall.
Speaker 4: So on the business side, how do you know? All right,
Speaker 4: you run an organization, not you, but just anybody, right,
Speaker 4: and that's your job. So you have to make a living,
Speaker 4: You have to you know, provide for yourself, right, So
Speaker 4: how do you know or what's the rule of thumb,
Speaker 4: like how much money should you be taking for your
Speaker 4: own personal It never really seems like it's right because
Speaker 4: it's like a charity you don't want to take, but
Speaker 4: it's still a job. But you're doing something, you know,
Speaker 4: and you've got to get compensated for that obviously. So yeah,
Speaker 4: especially like when you're the owner of it, because it's
Speaker 4: up to you, like how do you determine, like how
Speaker 4: much money you take from that as your personal salary?
Speaker 2: So I think the most important word when it comes
Speaker 2: to thriving in the nonprofit space is transparency, and annual
Speaker 2: reports are important. An annual report is more than just
Speaker 2: the nine to ninety which you need to fill out
Speaker 2: every year so that the government knows how you're spending
Speaker 2: your money. But an annual report will break down exactly
Speaker 2: how much money went to operational costs, to programming, to
Speaker 2: office supplies, to everything. And a lot of times big
Speaker 2: donors want to see where every dollar went last year,
Speaker 2: and if you can show that, then they will give more.
Speaker 2: Like I said earlier, the more the more that a
Speaker 2: donor knows, the more they will give. So we always
Speaker 2: make sure that we're very transparent about what we give,
Speaker 2: but then also making sure that they see the numbers
Speaker 2: that they that they that they'd want to see, right, So, like,
Speaker 2: if I'm giving a dollar, I want to know that
Speaker 2: at least seventy five cents of my dollar is going
Speaker 2: to go to the wards the children and the images
Speaker 2: that you're showing me in this deck to that program
Speaker 2: and so a precious dreams. It's interesting because I kind
Speaker 2: of mimic an idea that I saw from Usher's foundation.
Speaker 2: So Usher has the New Look Foundation, and I don't
Speaker 2: know if they still do this, but years ago their
Speaker 2: board was covering one hundred percent of the operational cost,
Speaker 2: and so they marketed on the website that one hundred
Speaker 2: percent of your donation goes to the programming, and that
Speaker 2: will reel anybody in. So I went to my board.
Speaker 2: This is actually how I was able to get approved
Speaker 2: for a salary. I went to my board and said,
Speaker 2: this is what I saw, and I think that this
Speaker 2: is a great approach. And because we're only still at
Speaker 2: like the sixty thousand dollars annual level, would you guys
Speaker 2: be willing to put together.
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Speaker 2: A cost so that this is this is how much
Speaker 2: would go towards operational costs, and then this is how
Speaker 2: much that you give to the organization every year. And
Speaker 2: they voted, because voting is another thing that must happen
Speaker 2: on your board. They voted, it was approved, and they
Speaker 2: actually cover my salary. So when people donate to Precious Dreams,
Speaker 2: none of that money goes to operational costs my board,
Speaker 2: my boarder directors pocket out of their pocket. Yeah, which
Speaker 2: says so much. Right, So, like the highest level, the
Speaker 2: highest level of leadership at my organization believes in this
Speaker 2: mission so much that out of pocket they pay for
Speaker 2: my salary.
Speaker 3: So if rule it THEMB, like if we're starting a nonprofit,
Speaker 3: what would you say that percentage would be for a
Speaker 3: nonprofit to have an operational course.
Speaker 2: They're recommended accorded to according to like Charity Navigator, would
Speaker 2: be forty percent should go towards operational costs and anything
Speaker 2: outside of programming, everything else should go towards programming. And
Speaker 2: then if it doesn't, they would they judge you. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of like grading systems online for nonprofits, so
Speaker 2: you you will get graded on a lower scale if
Speaker 2: you are taking that money and putting it.
Speaker 4: So we have if like a million dollars comes in,
Speaker 4: four hundred thousand should go to operational costs, six hundred
Speaker 4: dollars should go to the proper.
Speaker 3: Ye, right, and that the operational cost always if you
Speaker 3: have staff, which you obviously just a Plaska fall on
Speaker 3: that list too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also it's like just accountability and being smart
Speaker 2: about how you spend that money because there's no rule
Speaker 2: that says that you have to. But if you get
Speaker 2: an audit from the I r S and they look
Speaker 2: at how you're spending, they can pull that five on
Speaker 2: one C three at any time.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, that was good. That was a lot
Speaker 5: of good information.
Speaker 3: Obviously some stuff that we're going to take advantage of
Speaker 3: us hopefully.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean that's that's the thing with our podcast.
Speaker 4: We try to provide information for people. It's like how
Speaker 4: to manual and then from NAR hopefully they'll be inspired
Speaker 4: if they want to, you know, be inspired to you know,
Speaker 4: seek more information.
Speaker 5: But you know, it's like a It's like.
Speaker 4: When your kid first rides a bike and you push them,
Speaker 4: then they got to start riding on their own. But
Speaker 4: sometimes what we lack, especially in our community, is the
Speaker 4: first push. So we just get on a bike and
Speaker 4: try to ride it, and then we just keep falling
Speaker 4: off because we never had momentum.
Speaker 5: Right, So knowledge is momentum.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so if you have the right knowledge, then that
Speaker 4: can propel you to heights unseen.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. But even if your viewers don't want to start nonprofits,
Speaker 2: I'm sure a lot of people who tune in make donations, right, So,
Speaker 2: like there are certain things that you don't even know
Speaker 2: about giving just because it's not out there, like the FML,
Speaker 2: like the fair market no, the FMV the fair market
Speaker 2: value of your donation. I recently produced this collaboration where
Speaker 2: Champion and Complex created this sweatshirt, this limited edition sweatshirt
Speaker 2: where one hundred percent of the proceeds went to Social works.
Speaker 2: The sweatshirt was one hundred dollars. One hundred dollars went
Speaker 2: to Social Works. However, a donor, anybody who purchased that
Speaker 2: sweatshirt could not write off a one hundred dollars donation
Speaker 2: because they received a sweatshirt that had a value of
Speaker 2: seventy five dollars. So really you can only write off
Speaker 2: the difference. Even when you go to a fundraiser, it's
Speaker 2: a ticket is two hundred dollars. Somewhere on that invitational
Speaker 2: on the website where you're purchasing the ticket, it'll say
Speaker 2: FMV and very small letters. It's always small because most
Speaker 2: people don't want the donor to know. It'll say the
Speaker 2: level of the experience. So if you're going to an
Speaker 2: open bar experience, it'll say your FMV is one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty five dollars. So if you're buying a t
Speaker 2: get at two hundred dollars, you're only able to write
Speaker 2: off some fis.
Speaker 3: Depending on who's at that event, that FMV will go
Speaker 3: up obviously.
Speaker 2: Right, No, who's in attendance doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking like, if I know, right, if I
Speaker 3: have Kanye there right, then.
Speaker 2: If he's performing, yes, that's what I'm saying. So if
Speaker 2: there's a performance, there's a value to that. If there's food,
Speaker 2: there's a value to that, And then go.
Speaker 3: Up to the sales that they're doing from their shows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the nonprofits job is to be transparent and
Speaker 2: let their donors know ahead of time what they're going
Speaker 2: to get out of that experience, and then what is
Speaker 2: the difference of what they can write off educational.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that. I'm a financial vise. I never
Speaker 4: knew that. My understanding, I thought, whatever you get the charity,
Speaker 4: you just write off and it's one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: A lot of people do that, and a lot of
Speaker 2: people also don't even realize that they're not right. You know,
Speaker 2: you're filling it out that you're writing off that much money.
Speaker 2: But the I r S does a lot of checks,
Speaker 2: so if you.
Speaker 4: Ever get ordered at the I r S, they can
Speaker 4: come back and say.
Speaker 5: You absolutely wrote off one hundred.
Speaker 4: For the dinner, but really you only get twenty five
Speaker 4: dollars because the dinner was worth seventy five dollars. But
Speaker 4: it's up to the charity to tell you to inform
Speaker 4: you on that. If the charity doesn't inform you on that,
Speaker 4: can that fall back on them?
Speaker 2: It can. But the thing is most people don't know
Speaker 2: that they're being informed by the small print. It's the
Speaker 2: same way as you look at a website. I mean
Speaker 2: on a commercial, you see that fine print on the
Speaker 2: bottom that is not their responsibility if you don't read it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the back of a ticket, like nobody
Speaker 3: ever looks at it. Well, nobody nobody reads well, nobody
Speaker 3: looks at the back of either it's it's like I'm here,
Speaker 3: here's my things.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Facebook, when you sign up, there's like a whole thing.
Speaker 4: We'll take it information will salt it?
Speaker 3: Or the Apple update is like eleven pages wrong, nobody
Speaker 3: is going to read it. Learn page.
Speaker 5: But what are you're not going to do it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, you quit the altern your charity.
Speaker 5: You can have Apple. What are you gonna say, No,
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna have an iPhone?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I hope I'm not discouraging people to give,
Speaker 2: but definitely pay attention to that's good information.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that because, like I said, that's one of thing
Speaker 4: think of the podcast is that you know, even I
Speaker 4: learned every single podcast, I learned something from the podcast,
Speaker 4: so that something that I was.
Speaker 5: Not aware of and I've learned something. So yeah.
Speaker 4: But but any other form of like charity in the
Speaker 4: in the regular form that's one hundred percent write off, right,
Speaker 4: as long.
Speaker 2: As there's nothing received in exchange. And that's why every
Speaker 2: receipt usually says that at the bottom of the letter.
Speaker 5: What about if you give close? If you give close,
Speaker 5: it's like the value of the closes.
Speaker 2: Right, It's not the value of when you purchase it
Speaker 2: unless it's still brand new and it has a tag
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 4: It's the value of what it is now because like
Speaker 4: Salvation Army, like they give you like a ticket.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like what's it worth. That's all self taught, right,
Speaker 3: you have to go through experience learning, yes.
Speaker 5: And that plays in attack.
Speaker 4: It's all all this stuff intertwined, so that plays into
Speaker 4: taxes as well as a tax play. And that's why
Speaker 4: a lot of wealthy people, you know, start foundations also.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, can you talk about that briefly? We wasn't.
Speaker 5: I wasn't really playing on talking about that. I just
Speaker 5: thought about that.
Speaker 4: A lot of athletes specifically, and entertainers and stuff, they
Speaker 4: start foundations because it's a it's a.
Speaker 5: Way for them to lower the taxable coming. It's attack shelter, right, M.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's also a way for them to
Speaker 2: This sounds terrible It's also a way for athletes to
Speaker 2: have their name on something that someone else's funding. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of there's a lot of basketball clinics
Speaker 2: that happen, and just because you see that particular celebrities
Speaker 2: name on the clinic doesn't mean that there's not ten
Speaker 2: other sponsors that are coming in and actually paying for it.
Speaker 2: So of course you're going to get more support when
Speaker 2: you have that big name. That's why a lot of
Speaker 2: smaller organizations, grassroots like like my own, will look after
Speaker 2: We'll seek ambassadors and celebrities to get behind our stuff
Speaker 2: because we know when people see that name, they give more.
Speaker 5: So how does that.
Speaker 4: Help them personally as far as they start a charity?
Speaker 4: How does that help.
Speaker 2: Them write offs?
Speaker 5: It's a rite offs for them personally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a right offs. But so there's two parts
Speaker 2: to it. They get the rite offs by giving financially
Speaker 2: on their own, but then also it's a great marketing tool.
Speaker 2: You know, like I not only do this, but I
Speaker 2: also care and you don't have to be there to
Speaker 2: do it. So Usher, I'm just gonna throw that one
Speaker 2: out there again. Usher's New Luck. I've worked with that
Speaker 2: organization about three times. Now we've partnered on different things.
Speaker 2: I've never worked with Usher, but every time that we
Speaker 2: do anything and they post anything and it goes on
Speaker 2: the website, it's just Usher's new luck.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, that was very good information. In the
Speaker 4: next segment, we're going to talk about mental health, something
Speaker 4: that is very important in our community. We're also going
Speaker 4: to talk about your book and some of the things
Speaker 4: you got going on as well. All right, So in
Speaker 4: the last segment we are going to talk about a
Speaker 4: few different things, but I want to start the conversation
Speaker 4: with mental health. Mental health is something that is in
Speaker 4: season right now, and it's good. You see a lot
Speaker 4: of people Charlottemagne just just wrote a book about anxiety,
Speaker 4: and it's a conversation that is a long time coming, right,
Speaker 4: but it's something that is happening and it's encouraging because
Speaker 4: mental health is real. Mental illness is real, Mental illness
Speaker 4: is real, and all of these different things that come
Speaker 4: along with it.
Speaker 5: So you wrote a book.
Speaker 4: And it's about correct me if I'm wrong, but socially
Speaker 4: emotional disorder.
Speaker 2: Yes, So it's actually a book for teens and it's
Speaker 2: a guide to all of the support both mental, physical,
Speaker 2: challenges that they might be facing in school every day
Speaker 2: things where they need support, and they might not feel
Speaker 2: comfortable talking to an adult about all of that content.
Speaker 4: So working in charity, in the charity feld, especially with
Speaker 4: your foundation, where you're working with homeless youth and children
Speaker 4: and forth to care, right, obviously they have a lot
Speaker 4: of issues, right, So like the mental health effects, Like
Speaker 4: can you break that down?
Speaker 5: Because it's difficult, right, even if you're.
Speaker 4: From an environment that might not be the best namehood,
Speaker 4: it's still different if you have a family. It's hard
Speaker 4: for people to relate to somebody that doesn't have a family,
Speaker 4: Like that's one of the biggest things in life's family.
Speaker 4: Like every family is everything, right, So it's difficult for
Speaker 4: somebody to relate to somebody that doesn't have a family, right,
Speaker 4: Like can you talk about like what you've seen as
Speaker 4: far as the mental effects of children that they don't
Speaker 4: have family, they have like really broken families.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's interesting because I wasn't taught that growing
Speaker 2: up that family is everything. There's actually a line in
Speaker 2: my book, which for me personally is the most important
Speaker 2: line because it helps people understand why I am walking
Speaker 2: in this lane of purpose and it is most days
Speaker 2: I felt invisible, and that forced me to see myself.
Speaker 2: And so before I even started Precious Streams Foundation in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, I understood that I needed to self comfort
Speaker 2: when I was dealing with adversity, that nobody was going
Speaker 2: to come and save me. And those were early lessons
Speaker 2: that I had learned.
Speaker 3: I think I liked the phrase that you used emotional independence,
Speaker 3: like that is so powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I think that I could relate to
Speaker 2: the youth that I'm serving, not because I've ever been
Speaker 2: homeless or in foster care, but I had similar experiences
Speaker 2: with some of the adversity that they've faced. And I
Speaker 2: felt abandoned at times and I felt alone at times.
Speaker 2: And so a lot of people start that discovery of
Speaker 2: self care and understanding why they need it in their
Speaker 2: mid twenties or their late thirties, and that's usually when
Speaker 2: like the parents start to let go and you realize
Speaker 2: that you are on your own. But I was working
Speaker 2: with a population of people who needed to figure that
Speaker 2: out at twelve and thirteen, and they didn't have the answers,
Speaker 2: and they had a whole bunch of people around them
Speaker 2: who were being paid to ask questions and being paid
Speaker 2: to care and so that doesn't make it very easy
Speaker 2: for you to trust. Now. While yes, they're around some
Speaker 2: amazing people, there's some soul workers out here with the
Speaker 2: biggest hearts in the world. But for a youth who
Speaker 2: has trust issues and doesn't feel comfortable opening up, who
Speaker 2: are they going to talk to? And so I understood
Speaker 2: how important that work was in twenty twelve, when people
Speaker 2: weren't really talking about self care and mental health. We
Speaker 2: were trying to teach these children how do you deal
Speaker 2: with bad days?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: So we started early.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean just working in the inner cities. It's tough,
Speaker 3: right like that there's not a lot of funding for
Speaker 3: social workers or school counselors, and you have populations of
Speaker 3: you know, school populations five thousand kids, right, and you
Speaker 3: have two social workers, like they can't personally touch every kid,
Speaker 3: and so it's really tough. And it makes me think
Speaker 3: of like last year when Meek put out that song Trauma,
Speaker 3: and he kind of said something during I think one
Speaker 3: of his interviews. He was like, our trauma gets overlooked.
Speaker 3: Like the inner city kids, their trauma is completely overlooked.
Speaker 3: There's plenty of kids who were probably suffering from PTSD,
Speaker 3: and it's looked differently like somebody that comes home from
Speaker 3: war and it lost you know, their friend and war
Speaker 3: tragically they get diagnosed. Whereas kids who might lose their
Speaker 3: best friend right the day before, or lose their sister
Speaker 3: or their cousin, it's just like go back to school
Speaker 3: and maybe you know, somebody will memorialize them with a
Speaker 3: T shirt or candles, and it's just like, wait, this
Speaker 3: is really happening, and that's happening every single day. It's
Speaker 3: like with the work that you're doing, is like, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's beyond overdue. Yeah, but like the vision for it,
Speaker 3: it started with you obviously having a relationship and having
Speaker 3: some trauma going on with your own personal life. You
Speaker 3: want to go into that a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I had a very unique upbringing. I grew
Speaker 2: up in a single parent home with my father and
Speaker 2: my older brother. My mom left when I was about six,
Speaker 2: and there's a situation that I talk about in the
Speaker 2: book where there was a domestic violence that I had witnessed,
Speaker 2: and then shortly after that, my mom was forced out
Speaker 2: of the home. In most instances, you know, kids would
Speaker 2: typically be with their with their mothers. I was raised
Speaker 2: by my father, who suffered from depression for at least
Speaker 2: twelve years, and so my house was silent at all
Speaker 2: times unless there was music on. There was no like hellos,
Speaker 2: how was your days? And we just we didn't talk
Speaker 2: about feelings. It was. It was difficult, especially for me
Speaker 2: as someone who's like super optimistic and I was all
Speaker 2: excited about life. So no, and I don't think that
Speaker 2: he was very aware of it until he actually read
Speaker 2: my book, because and that's a whole nother issue, so
Speaker 2: you know, and I don't want to jump around, but
Speaker 2: for me, I lived in a very dark space for
Speaker 2: a long time, and and I would spend time looking
Speaker 2: in the mirror and not seeing myself physically, but trying
Speaker 2: to figure out who I was and why I was
Speaker 2: so different and what I needed in order to hold
Speaker 2: on to that happiness, paying attention to what was going
Speaker 2: on around me and how I could be different so
Speaker 2: that I could have a better outcome. But I think
Speaker 2: in not understanding what your needs are or how other
Speaker 2: people are experiencing you is because of our own cultural
Speaker 2: generations of trauma and us feeling like we have to
Speaker 2: be suppressed and we cannot share what we're feeling. You
Speaker 2: have to just keep those emotions to yourself and carrying on.
Speaker 2: You know, in a lot of households, there's two rules.
Speaker 2: It's what happens in this house stays in this house.
Speaker 2: So nobody's actually going to get the professional help that
Speaker 2: they need. And children are not opening up to their
Speaker 2: teachers and their social workers about what's happening. But then
Speaker 2: also for parents, you know, you just have to put
Speaker 2: on a face and keep it moving, and things happen
Speaker 2: and you just don't talk about it. And now we're
Speaker 2: in a beautiful space where our people are seeing that
Speaker 2: there are these challenges that need to be dressed, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to start doing the work on me so
Speaker 2: that I can break this generational trauma and then help
Speaker 2: my children heal.
Speaker 3: It was a colleague of mindset, something brilliant. I never
Speaker 3: even thought of it till he actually said it. He
Speaker 3: was like, when a kid enters school at kindergarten, we
Speaker 3: know they're upset because they cry, right, We know that
Speaker 3: you know they missed their mom because they'll cry or
Speaker 3: they'll tell us. Right, that kid, when he gets to
Speaker 3: fifth grade, we'll have no idea how he feels or
Speaker 3: how she feels, and when we ask, they'll say I'm
Speaker 3: okay because they've never been trained or they've never had
Speaker 3: to experience it express themselves like, hey, I'm not having
Speaker 3: the greatest days. It's just not something that happens. So
Speaker 3: that same kid who came in at kindergarten was crying
Speaker 3: by the time that in eighth grade. It's like if
Speaker 3: they've never had any dialogue about how they feel or
Speaker 3: had an avenue to express it, you can see where
Speaker 3: the social emotional piece can just be completely off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's from not having the experience of knowing
Speaker 2: that when you share, things can get better. I think
Speaker 2: that's what the fear is, you know, Like the fear
Speaker 2: is how will this information be received by others? But
Speaker 2: now we're seeing that when you speak and when you release,
Speaker 2: it's good for you and sometimes it can help you
Speaker 2: get out of the situation that you're in if it's necessary.
Speaker 4: So you said something else interesting, so that you learned
Speaker 4: how to self comfort?
Speaker 5: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Self comfort is so I say in my book, one
Speaker 2: example of that is we're taught to cry on the
Speaker 2: shoulder of someone else, but my tears, all of our
Speaker 2: tears fall where on you, they fall on us. And
Speaker 2: so the first person that you need to speak to
Speaker 2: is yourself, because that is the person you're going to
Speaker 2: have the most honest conversation with. Before you call someone
Speaker 2: else and tell your side of the story. You actually
Speaker 2: know the whole side, and there's no getting around that.
Speaker 2: So talking to yourself about what you're experiencing, listening to
Speaker 2: how you're feeling, and then figuring out positive ways to react.
Speaker 2: So in self comforting, what we teach to the youth
Speaker 2: is when you're having a bad day, what do you do?
Speaker 2: What are your options? And the responses that we'll get
Speaker 2: is I'll punch a wall. Some kids will honestly say
Speaker 2: they bully others, or they'll fight with their sibling. And
Speaker 2: then some kids will say, I read a book all write,
Speaker 2: I'll go walk, or I'll take a nap. And so
Speaker 2: our job at Precious Dreams Foundation is helping them understand
Speaker 2: that those are the things that you need to hold
Speaker 2: on to now and carry them with you for the
Speaker 2: rest of your life, because if I am the person
Speaker 2: that you rely on for comfort and something happens to me,
Speaker 2: you'll be lost.
Speaker 3: That's like one of one of the phrases that Shady
Speaker 3: always says to me. He was like, you're always gonna
Speaker 3: need other people, but you have yourself. Like, so start
Speaker 3: with yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, start with yourself first. Love yourself first, and it
Speaker 2: makes everything else easier.
Speaker 4: You always need somebody, but all you got is yourself.
Speaker 4: That's the phrase, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: the soul you really have, because it's not even like you,
Speaker 4: it's just respect to your friends and family. But you
Speaker 4: can't fully rely on another person.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: I might really need Troy and he might have every
Speaker 4: full intention to help me, but he might just not
Speaker 4: be able to do it, yeah, for whatever reason. Right,
Speaker 4: So it's like at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 4: at the very least, you're gonna be there. Everybody might
Speaker 4: not be there geographically, they just it just might be
Speaker 4: a situation where they might have all the great intentions
Speaker 4: in the world to be there, but they just can't
Speaker 4: do it for you. So I think that that's as
Speaker 4: powerful to It's like Michael Jackson said, man in the mirror, right,
Speaker 4: Like you gotta look at the man in the mirror,
Speaker 4: the woman in the mirror first. So like when did
Speaker 4: you become into that realization as far as to say, okay,
Speaker 4: I want to well, not even what we wanted to
Speaker 4: help kids, because obviously, you know, you you realized, you know,
Speaker 4: as far as your upbringing and stuff like that, like did.
Speaker 5: You do that in your teenage years? You do that?
Speaker 4: Like as you graduated, well, as you left college, like,
Speaker 4: at what point did you start to realize, like maybe
Speaker 4: my upbringing wasn't the most beneficial and I, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of have to look at some things.
Speaker 2: I actually didn't really think about it until I started
Speaker 2: the nonprofit. Unless you're comparing your situation to others, you
Speaker 2: don't really understand as a child what you should or
Speaker 2: shouldn't have, and so you know, yeah, there were days
Speaker 2: where I was hungry. But I didn't realize that that
Speaker 2: wasn't normal until I got older and started having conversations
Speaker 2: with other people, you know, like and it's crazy because
Speaker 2: when I started the organization, in listening closely to the
Speaker 2: youth tell their stories, I started thinking to myself and
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, I didn't have ac or he either,
Speaker 2: like you know, and I was like, that wasn't that
Speaker 2: wasn't normal.
Speaker 5: You know, it's crazy.
Speaker 4: It's crazy act you say that because I was telling somebody,
Speaker 4: like a few months ago, like I went to one
Speaker 4: of my good friends Indian and he had a wedding,
Speaker 4: and anybody's familiar with Indian wedding, it's like a whole
Speaker 4: week thing, Like it's like four days celebration, and it
Speaker 4: was like a whole thing. And they did a more
Speaker 4: movie and it was it was really dope, right, But
Speaker 4: seeing that, seeing the tradition that they had as as
Speaker 4: as a people and just seeing the love that they
Speaker 4: have for each other, it was like it really made
Speaker 4: me think, like growing up, a lot of times, you see,
Speaker 4: we're so used to like relationships being dysfunctional. You don't
Speaker 4: realize that it's dysfunctional because you just think that that's normal.
Speaker 5: Exactly. You might be in it yourself.
Speaker 4: And it's like after a few bad relationships and you
Speaker 4: see all your friends in that type of relationship, you're thinking,
Speaker 4: you know, a curse out here, and fight are not
Speaker 4: that bad, you get cheated on it, it's normal, Like
Speaker 4: that's not really nothing really bad, And I at and
Speaker 4: then you see something from a totally different perspective and
Speaker 4: you're like, wait, this is not.
Speaker 2: Normal, Like this is the same reason why you know
Speaker 2: people like you and I provide opportunities for you because
Speaker 2: a lot of people will never leave the neighborhood that
Speaker 2: they're comfortable in because they haven't experienced anything else. So
Speaker 2: they don't know that they should be traveling, or they
Speaker 2: don't know what can be offered if they leave this
Speaker 2: job and you know, try something new.
Speaker 3: It's like I call it, We're like the real exposure programs,
Speaker 3: Like we are exposing them to things they've never seen.
Speaker 3: We just took some kids to the Wells Fargo trading desk,
Speaker 3: like I've never been there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So like a kid at fourteen, I can imagine what
Speaker 3: that's going to do for his future. Or when we
Speaker 3: took him down to Morgan Stanley trading desk, it's like
Speaker 3: I actually knew the guy who was there. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't even know you worked here, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. And like a kid at fourteen again seeing that,
Speaker 3: who knows what that'll lead to him in the well
Speaker 3: of Finance or just in any career that he pursues,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So that exposure is so important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like like we said the other day, like we
Speaker 3: did an episode, the last episode in Africa, but it
Speaker 3: was important that I took the kids to the Brooklyn
Speaker 3: Museum to see that Ancient and Jesus Ancient Egypt exhibit
Speaker 3: because it was like, they need to know this history, right.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is going to be covered
Speaker 3: in social studies. I can't risk the fact that it
Speaker 3: might not be. So let's give it to him. Now
Speaker 3: what they'll do with it, who knows. Yeah, but the
Speaker 3: exposure is a key pieest h.
Speaker 5: Yeah for sure. So all right, we'll talk about the book.
Speaker 4: But you said something interesting as far as how you
Speaker 4: promoted your book and you want on a book tour,
Speaker 4: and you went to Barnes and Nobles and I think
Speaker 4: in LA and New York. And I asked you, I'm like,
Speaker 4: how did you Barnes and Noble. That's a big deal,
Speaker 4: Like how did you get a book to on Barnes
Speaker 4: and Nobles? So can you talk about how you did that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I will say with New York pride this city.
Speaker 2: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Speaker 2: And I learned how to hustle at such a young
Speaker 2: age that when this book was coming out, I remember
Speaker 2: seeing a photo of the author Cleo Wade. I saw
Speaker 2: a photo of her online. She had her book release
Speaker 2: at Barnes and Noble, and there was an image of
Speaker 2: her with the Barnes and Noble Lobo logo in the back,
Speaker 2: and I was like, that's what I want when I
Speaker 2: released this book, I want to do it at Barnes
Speaker 2: and Noble. I never written a book before. I had
Speaker 2: about like ten thousand followers. I'm running a grassroots organization.
Speaker 2: I put together a KI for the book, and I
Speaker 2: reached out to all of the Barnes and Nobles in
Speaker 2: New York, but I started with like the other boroughs
Speaker 2: outside of Manhattans. I started with Brooklyn, just trying to
Speaker 2: see if they would give me a shot. And I
Speaker 2: kept getting turned down. And then every time I got
Speaker 2: turned down from a manager, because I would email and
Speaker 2: then I would call, I would add something new to
Speaker 2: the next email, and so in conversations they would ask,
Speaker 2: what is the value that you would bring to the store,
Speaker 2: what is your following? Like, how many people would you
Speaker 2: expect to come out for you? Now, if you're from
Speaker 2: New York and you have a big family, and you
Speaker 2: know you can get seventy five to one hundred people
Speaker 2: to come out to your book signing. You can get
Speaker 2: a book signing at Barnes and Noble because in that
Speaker 2: particular city you have a big following, and most people
Speaker 2: don't understand that. They think that you have to be
Speaker 2: with this big publishing house. So I ended up that's
Speaker 2: a lot of a thousand people.
Speaker 3: Concert.
Speaker 2: Yeah you don't. You know, Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue,
Speaker 2: which is the place where I actually hosted my book release,
Speaker 2: they can only hold one hundred and twenty five people upstairs.
Speaker 2: So they want to know that if they purchase one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five books that you will sell them
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 5: Day for your really what they purchase it.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so if you don't have one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five people, you actually have to buy back the books.
Speaker 2: You have to pay the differs like the bar garan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like they're buying them, you're signing them, and
Speaker 3: they're like, all right, whatever, it's leftovers.
Speaker 5: It's just like a bar guarantee.
Speaker 2: Same thing, yeah, which most people don't know about. You know,
Speaker 2: like just get one hundred and twenty five people in
Speaker 2: the room and you can do a book signing at
Speaker 2: Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 3: Another gym good to know another gym.
Speaker 4: All right, So the book, you got some you got
Speaker 4: some some big names in the book that contributed to
Speaker 4: In particular, I want to talk about Asap Ferd. Shout
Speaker 4: out to Asap Ferd, Asap Rocky. I believe they just
Speaker 4: released them. Yeah, so thankfully, Yeah, hopefully, I guess result.
Speaker 4: So Asaph ferk, he that was an interesting story. Can
Speaker 4: you talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So in the book, at the beginning of every chapter,
Speaker 2: there's a small excerpt from not just celebrities, but people
Speaker 2: who have been guest speakers for the Precious Dreams Foundation,
Speaker 2: and they tell a small part of the adversity that
Speaker 2: they experienced in their teens, and then I just elaborate
Speaker 2: on that. And so I was talking to ferg about
Speaker 2: this book and explaining, you know, some of the different
Speaker 2: people that share, like Miguel and Gary Vee, and he
Speaker 2: was like, well, you know, is there still space in
Speaker 2: the book to share because I would love to talk
Speaker 2: about things that I've gone through, and at him being
Speaker 2: a friend of mine, we never spoke about, Yes, how
Speaker 2: did how did we meet? Madison Square Garden? We met? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's crazy, like probably seventy five percent of my context
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden. Yeah, which is crazy, but you you
Speaker 2: don't talk about your teen years with people that you're
Speaker 2: not very close to. You know, usually talk about business,
Speaker 2: you know, present present things that are important, and so
Speaker 2: we didn't dive into it. But he ended up texting it,
Speaker 2: which is probably the form of communication that he felt
Speaker 2: most comfortable with, and he sent me the piece that's
Speaker 2: exactly in the book. It's written about the loss that
Speaker 2: he that he had as a child, losing his father,
Speaker 2: losing his grandmother, losing his cousin, losing all of these
Speaker 2: people in a very short amount of time, and how
Speaker 2: it led to him suffering from depression.
Speaker 3: That's what I said, like another inner city kid, that
Speaker 3: these things are happening every day and it's just like
Speaker 3: all right, well, move on, go back to school tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's just completely overlooking shout.
Speaker 5: And then Gary Vee, you think about Garvey?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gary Vee is one of my favorite people in
Speaker 2: this world. A lot of times people ask is he
Speaker 2: really liked that in person? And he is. He came
Speaker 2: to do a talk for fifty homeless youth in New
Speaker 2: York City. He didn't get paid for it. He had
Speaker 2: a meeting after, so we were working with a short deadline.
Speaker 2: He'd do one hour appearance, and he ended up canceling
Speaker 2: his dinner that he was supposed to do after the
Speaker 2: stay because so many kids had questions and they wanted
Speaker 2: to take pictures.
Speaker 5: And who he was.
Speaker 2: Some of them did and some of them didn't. But
Speaker 2: I will say and this caught me off guard. Gary
Speaker 2: talked to those kids the same way he talks to
Speaker 2: adults on his social media. He was cursing at them.
Speaker 2: He was like, your problems don't matter. It was I
Speaker 2: was in the back of the room just shaking my
Speaker 2: head like I was so afraid. I'm like, we're going
Speaker 2: to lose this with We're going to lose our partnership
Speaker 2: with DHS after this. Luckily, the kids loved him, so
Speaker 2: it went really well.
Speaker 4: And then I've read I've seen something on your Instagram.
Speaker 4: I think it was on your Instagram where you emailed him,
Speaker 4: and he said, emailed me. Originally when you met him
Speaker 4: and you emailed him, he never responded. Then you emailed
Speaker 4: him again.
Speaker 2: So I DMed Gary Vee and I asked him to
Speaker 2: come out and speak to the homeless youth at Precious
Speaker 2: streams and he didn't respond right away. So I DMed
Speaker 2: him again and he said, yeah, send of the information
Speaker 2: via email. So he gave me his email. I emailed,
Speaker 2: didn't reply. I emailed again, he didn't reply, So I
Speaker 2: went back to the first form of communication. I DMed
Speaker 2: him and said, hey, I've been sending those emails. Are
Speaker 2: you still interested? And he said, send another email, we'll
Speaker 2: get back to you. I sent a third email and
Speaker 2: his assistant replied and we ended up setting it up
Speaker 2: and he came out and spoke for free.
Speaker 4: So yeah, So when he said that, and what he
Speaker 4: said was he said that most people would have stoped them
Speaker 4: through the first email.
Speaker 5: The fact that you sent.
Speaker 4: Three emails like because you know, he's just busy in
Speaker 4: a lot going on, so he didn't see it. And
Speaker 4: you know, he tries to answer as many emails as
Speaker 4: he can, but it's difficult. But the fact that you
Speaker 4: actually were persistent, Yeah, And that's one of the keys
Speaker 4: with any level of success in businesses, you have to
Speaker 4: be persistent.
Speaker 2: So especially with running a nonprofit, you have to be
Speaker 2: persistent because that is the only way to thrive. And
Speaker 2: I am serving a population of youth who are often
Speaker 2: unnoticed and unheard because they don't have the platforms to
Speaker 2: tell their stories, and so they're counting on me to
Speaker 2: go out there into the world and share why it's
Speaker 2: so important for us to pay attention and to give
Speaker 2: to them. You know, like these kids would never have
Speaker 2: access to Gary v if I didn't go so hard.
Speaker 2: So I'm never doing it for me. I'm just always
Speaker 2: thinking of the impact. Like a person like Gary Vee,
Speaker 2: if he can get all these people to retweet and
Speaker 2: to share his videos, imagine if how the imagine how
Speaker 2: those words would inspire our city's most vulnerable youth.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we're involved in, I know
Speaker 3: you're involved in too, is homos outreach, and we were
Speaker 3: supposed to do something, but you're doing it. You're working
Speaker 3: with complex to do something and that avenue.
Speaker 2: So Pressure Streams actually serves foster and homeless youth. So
Speaker 2: we're partnered with DHS in New York City. We have
Speaker 2: local chapters in South Florida, Baltimore, and Los Angeles. If
Speaker 2: anybody wants to volunteer or give in those cities. Pressure
Speaker 2: Streams Foundation dot com. But yeah, so we've been working
Speaker 2: with homeless youth for a very long time, and through
Speaker 2: the programming that I've developed for Pressure Streams Foundation, It's
Speaker 2: been noticed by other corporations who have brought me in
Speaker 2: to do consulting to help them develop similar programming to
Speaker 2: reach their target audience and help them create philanthropic divisions.
Speaker 2: And Complex is one of those companies.
Speaker 4: That's powerful. That's powerful. We want to thank you for
Speaker 4: coming on. Shout out to Complex. We need to be
Speaker 4: on that.
Speaker 2: Complex Complex Community, which is the new initiative that we
Speaker 2: created out the.
Speaker 3: Complex Community about you need to be on that.
Speaker 5: Gary V. We need Gary you on the.
Speaker 3: Podcast putting it out cod Welcome to alumni.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm an alumni. Now I get a sticker.
Speaker 5: That's a fact.
Speaker 4: So Troy some housekeeping items.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Patreon dot com, Backslash and your Leisure. That's our
Speaker 3: Proud to Pay program. Thank you for everybody who's supporting that.
Speaker 3: We got some new members this week, John Jake and
Speaker 3: Shadia thank you. Like we said, we have five tears
Speaker 3: for you to join at feel free to enter any level.
Speaker 3: I want to give a shout out to Crystal. We spoke.
Speaker 3: She DMed us from Japan, but we actually spoke when
Speaker 3: she was in South Korea. So shout out to how
Speaker 3: we had a great conversation, and shout out to Brenda
Speaker 3: and Crystal from the Bay Area. We're trying to work
Speaker 3: out some things in the Bay Area to to do
Speaker 3: something out there real soon. So shout out to Crystal
Speaker 3: who's trying to connect some dots. And again Brenda, who's
Speaker 3: she's been putting us in contact with a number of people,
Speaker 3: So shout out to her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, shout out to shout out to Oakland. Hopefully we'll
Speaker 4: be out there very soon. But as I said earlier, Houston,
Speaker 4: tex that's next. We We was in l l A.
Speaker 4: Every we're picking up momentum. L A was dope. Brooklyn
Speaker 4: was tremendous. It was like a rappers in store, Like
Speaker 4: there was too many people in the venue, so we
Speaker 4: had the whole street flooded. Likes like what's going on
Speaker 4: like an NBA's playing head And then Atlanta, judge, they
Speaker 4: have five hundred people in Atlanta. Atlanta was crazy. So Houston,
Speaker 4: you got a lot of pressure on you. But we're
Speaker 4: looking forward to touch in Houston and and Eyo University.
Speaker 4: We're not gonna talk about everything you started secret right now,
Speaker 4: we're rolling out. We just remember that, remember e yol University,
Speaker 4: because that's something that we're very excited about. YouTube. Don't
Speaker 4: forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Subscribed like guys
Speaker 4: listen A lot of you guys listen on audio, which
Speaker 4: is great. We need to get number one on the
Speaker 4: iTunes charts, but YouTube as well for sure, and we're
Speaker 4: gonna have bonus content on YouTube too.
Speaker 5: So YouTube was.
Speaker 4: Another way to consume the content, but we're gonna have
Speaker 4: actually more content on YouTube. My book tip of this
Speaker 4: this week is Nicole's book. So you're the author. Every
Speaker 4: week I give a book tip, so I'm gonna let
Speaker 4: you give the book tip and explain your book, talk
Speaker 4: about your book, and yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Was actually just listening to you speak and I was
Speaker 2: going to follow that up with a tip for you guys.
Speaker 2: And it's incredible seeing how this podcast is growing. But
Speaker 2: it's a reflection of what you're doing for others, and
Speaker 2: it's showing you that people are hungry for this information.
Speaker 2: So my tip, which is not necessarily a book tip,
Speaker 2: but I'm an author giving the tip, is legacy. Legacy
Speaker 2: is never about you. It is about how people experience
Speaker 2: you and what you can provide to others, And as
Speaker 2: you guys grow with the podcast, I want you to
Speaker 2: remember that all of the information that you're sharing, if
Speaker 2: it's growing, it's because it's helping people. And so I
Speaker 2: think in starting a nonprofit and starting any business and
Speaker 2: thinking about legacy, just think about how you can serve
Speaker 2: this world and what you can provide.
Speaker 3: We actually put that on our merch legacy, legacy legacy.
Speaker 4: Because that's what choice all the time. He was like,
Speaker 4: you can't what do you say?
Speaker 3: I was because when people look at students, I always
Speaker 3: tell him from a population, right, like the principal, Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's in charge of the school, but the students are
Speaker 3: the real bosses, right, Like those are the legacy writers.
Speaker 3: When I'm going, they'll be able to tell how it
Speaker 3: made them feel, you know what I mean. They won't
Speaker 3: remember the things I'll say, but they remember how it
Speaker 3: made them feel. So like those are our legacy writers.
Speaker 3: Like the people we encounter, they write our legacy. They
Speaker 3: will be able to tell everything about us when we're going,
Speaker 3: and each person will have a different perspective, which makes
Speaker 3: it its own novel, its own book. Like they are
Speaker 3: writing our book for us. We can't write it for ourselves,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: So that's a fact that somebody asked me.
Speaker 4: I did an interview one time, they like, how do
Speaker 4: you want to be remembered, or like, what do you
Speaker 4: want your legacy to be?
Speaker 5: Like, it's not up to me.
Speaker 4: My job is just to do the work on earth.
Speaker 4: How I'm viewed is not up to me. That's up
Speaker 4: to the public, to the people that know me, my friends,
Speaker 4: my family. Hopefully I'm viewed in a good manner, but
Speaker 4: that's not up to me. You can't worry about that.
Speaker 4: You just got to do the best job that you
Speaker 4: possibly can. And then other people, like you said, is
Speaker 4: gonna write your story. Even if you write your own story,
Speaker 4: your story is gonna be written by other people that
Speaker 4: more than you write your.
Speaker 3: Own sactly, So everybody's gonna have one right. So like
Speaker 3: every student that we encounter, every person we encounter, that's
Speaker 3: ten thousand chapters.
Speaker 2: You you know what I'm saying, their own experience.
Speaker 3: Everybody has their.
Speaker 4: Owne But speaking of the book, ten thousand chapters, so
Speaker 4: we can we talk about your book?
Speaker 2: Yes, seventeen chapters, twenty three chapters. Keep saying seventeen twenty
Speaker 2: three chapters.
Speaker 4: Okay, everything a bandaid can't fix? Right, Yes, and what's
Speaker 4: it about?
Speaker 2: It is a self help book for teens. It is
Speaker 2: touching on all of the social and emotional issues that
Speaker 2: they are dealing with on a daily basis, from bullying
Speaker 2: to peer pressure to family issues. Because parents aren't perfect.
Speaker 2: They are people.
Speaker 3: And it takes a lot to discover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does. And just how to use their
Speaker 2: voice and how to stand out in this world?
Speaker 5: Dope?
Speaker 4: How can people contact you? How can they get information
Speaker 4: on your charity? How can they what's your social media handle?
Speaker 2: All at Instagram? Is at Nicole Russell. You can find
Speaker 2: the book at Target, Walmart or Nicole Russell dot com
Speaker 2: and Pressure Streams Foundation dot com. If anybody here is
Speaker 2: not considering starting a nonprofit but is in the in
Speaker 2: the in the mood to give, please lock online and
Speaker 2: make a donation. It only cost twenty five dollars to
Speaker 2: sponsor a foster or homeless child with the experience of
Speaker 2: a comfort drop and a comfort bag full of brand
Speaker 2: new comfort items for bedtime.
Speaker 5: Come on it, there you have it, there you have it.
Speaker 4: So yes, once again, thank you for joining us, Thank
Speaker 4: you guys for listening and we will be back next week.
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