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Speaker 4: Like nonprofit, the lifeline is fundraising. Right, you have to
Speaker 4: be able to get money, and you said government is
Speaker 4: not the best sauce to get money, so it's private donors.
Speaker 4: It's also very challenging right to kind of like always,
Speaker 4: it's not not guaranteed either that you're gonna get extream.
Speaker 4: So how has it been for you as far as fundraising?
Speaker 4: What are some challenges and what are some best practices
Speaker 4: that you.
Speaker 5: Learn for sure? For sure? So right now we have
Speaker 5: a strategy.
Speaker 1: So I started implementing strategic planning right The strategic plan,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, is based on your needs assessment, right,
Speaker 1: so we look at what do we need in the
Speaker 1: organization and then okay, we need this and how we're
Speaker 1: going to get it right. So what we did was
Speaker 1: this year we have three approaches. So we have a
Speaker 1: grant writer that we contract. So this grant writer spends
Speaker 1: time in the library because they have a source called
Speaker 1: Foundational Directory and it's a free database that tells you
Speaker 1: all the grants are that companies pay for that, but
Speaker 1: at the library is for free, right, So he'll spend
Speaker 1: hours there and research and finding grants that align with
Speaker 1: our mission. He'll present it to me and say, yo,
Speaker 1: this is a good grant to go after. We'll have
Speaker 1: several meetings on it talking about budgets, how'sing aligned with
Speaker 1: my current mission and budget, and then he's going after them.
Speaker 5: Right. So that's one approach.
Speaker 1: The other approach is more like a traditional model corporate outreach.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: So I was fortunately through one of my donors, so
Speaker 1: we have some secure donuts from last year that gave
Speaker 1: us a lot of money.
Speaker 5: He gave me a list.
Speaker 1: Of like over five hundred companies throughout the US worth
Speaker 1: up to seven billion dollars.
Speaker 5: Right. His company is based on cold calling. That's what
Speaker 5: we're doing. Right. We have a team.
Speaker 1: My team is dedicated some of their hours a week
Speaker 1: to co calling those companies to introduce us, share our
Speaker 1: mission and hopefully build relationships. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: money and outreach, it's about relationship building, as y'all know. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's what that's one approach that we want to
Speaker 1: measure too to see if it's even effective.
Speaker 5: Is the waste of time? Is it working?
Speaker 1: So we're doing that to raise money. And then crowdfunding,
Speaker 1: right is another thing through online campaigns, social media right,
Speaker 1: go fundme and things like that for specific things.
Speaker 5: And then on what.
Speaker 1: We did last year, which was really really interesting. It
Speaker 1: was our first one, which was our first fundraiser gala,
Speaker 1: right the goal with fifty thousand, We walked away with
Speaker 1: sixty eight thousand dollars. First night, you know, shout out
Speaker 1: to styles ped came as a guest speaker. We had
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty two people in the building. First fundraiser, right.
Speaker 1: And that's how you raise money. You sell tickets, you
Speaker 1: get you get a venue space, right, you market the tickets,
Speaker 1: you use the money for non profit, but to invest
Speaker 1: back into the company the money that we raised for
Speaker 1: that fundraiser.
Speaker 5: The goal was our first office.
Speaker 1: And we just you know, signed the commercial lease in
Speaker 1: February and we finally moved in and up and running.
Speaker 1: So those are the ways in which now you have
Speaker 1: to think about getting money for the nonprofit.
Speaker 5: Because if you the.
Speaker 1: Goal for every nonprofit is to try to secure consistent donors.
Speaker 1: Even if one person give me five hundred a week,
Speaker 1: I mean a year, one puss giving fifty thousand a years,
Speaker 1: you got to count all of that money, right, while
Speaker 1: still going after grants, you still need government funding, right,
Speaker 1: and then what kind of put me in position? Was
Speaker 1: a unique opportunity. So Executive Order two eleven by Governor Hoku.
Speaker 1: You know it was announced in twenty twenty two as
Speaker 1: a result of gun violence, so a lot of money.
Speaker 5: GVP is a buzzword.
Speaker 1: Right now, gun violence prevention, right, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people going after it. That money was a lot
Speaker 1: of money. About twenty million dollars was pulled into an
Speaker 1: initiative called Project RIDS. So Project RIDSE was a new
Speaker 1: approach to funding nonprofits from the state. It was never
Speaker 1: done this way, right where they was giving you the
Speaker 1: money up front, right, So we applied, we got accepted.
Speaker 1: We were like one of like five nonprofits in Yonkers
Speaker 1: that got it, and we got a nice chunk, which
Speaker 1: played a major role in Meague going full time. Right,
Speaker 1: so now we got part time staff members. I got
Speaker 1: I'm a full time staff member. I got volunteers, and
Speaker 1: I got paid per DM. So that's as I need them. Right,
Speaker 1: you go into a per contract. So we've diversified our
Speaker 1: money by using the state money, the contract money, the crowdfunding,
Speaker 1: the fundraiser to now paid all the stuff that we need.
Speaker 5: For the company.
Speaker 4: Let me ask your question. So it's like, is there
Speaker 4: like a test or like a limit, Like is it
Speaker 4: a rule, because let's say everythink they have a nonprofit.
Speaker 4: I raised five million dollars, right, I have to use
Speaker 4: because like somebody could just depositive in their bank account.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: So it's like, is there a rule to be like, Okay,
Speaker 4: if eighty percent of the money that you raise, you
Speaker 4: have to deploy in the course of eighteen months, Like
Speaker 4: how did they track that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, So when you do your own fundraiser, you
Speaker 1: determine that, right unless a donor that's given you x
Speaker 1: amount of money says this money's for this, So the
Speaker 1: donor could determine like this is for your rent only
Speaker 1: you can't spend this on program expenses, for example, you
Speaker 1: can't spend it on.
Speaker 5: Food for the office. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's how one stipulation comes in with the project.
Speaker 1: Like when it comes to state funding, is reavery controlling, Right,
Speaker 1: you have a budget, a proposed budget that you have
Speaker 1: to actually adhere to, right, so that money is controlled
Speaker 1: in the timeline that you said you're going to spend
Speaker 1: this money. They monitoring, like whatever the case is. When
Speaker 1: you do your own fundraiser, like, you know, you got
Speaker 1: to be authentic to your you know, your supporters.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Our goal was an office space, right, so when we
Speaker 1: got the money, right, we didn't have no stipulations like
Speaker 1: you got to spend this money on the but we
Speaker 1: like now y'all helped us raise money for the location,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get the location because we actually needed
Speaker 1: the location.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: So the stipulation varied depending on the grant that you're
Speaker 1: going after. Right, Some grants are unrestricted. So shout out
Speaker 1: to Jay Jeff Bezel's wife.
Speaker 5: Hopefully she sees this man.
Speaker 1: She's been running around dumping millions of dollars into nonprofits
Speaker 1: unrestrictedly though, Like unrestricted is like, yo, do what you
Speaker 1: need to do with it. There's no police reporting on it, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's a nonprofits dream, you know.
Speaker 5: So just announced that like six billion she's yeah, she's
Speaker 5: putting on right now.
Speaker 2: She's I think New York State was the first place
Speaker 2: she looked first, and it was I think she's looking
Speaker 2: for like some crazy number of nonprofits.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, and her process is hard to even find
Speaker 5: she did.
Speaker 1: They have to find you, so hopefully they find out
Speaker 1: one for United but no for sure for sure. But
Speaker 1: the unrestricted comes from you know, noble individuals with a
Speaker 1: lot of money. That's like, y'all love what you're doing,
Speaker 1: We trust your work. But this is something good for
Speaker 1: all business owners. Right, Your finances have to be in order, right,
Speaker 1: like part of what got us the location or thiss
Speaker 1: what got us into these A lot of these deals.
Speaker 1: Grant writers, I mean grant providers, they want to see
Speaker 1: your finances sometimes.
Speaker 5: Right, there's something called god Star.
Speaker 1: They have the IRS website that they go look at
Speaker 1: and check how much went to program and how much
Speaker 1: went to salaries. Right, Some of them care about those
Speaker 1: like little details, but your books, your financial story is
Speaker 1: your engine for the organization, specifically for a nonprofit because
Speaker 1: people are giving you money. Right, So, like what we've
Speaker 1: been working on, which is a financial project, is getting
Speaker 1: audit ready. That's what we call it, right, getting audited ready,
Speaker 1: making sure that when any funder, hopefully real wealthy fund
Speaker 1: that wants to see our financial story, it aligns right,
Speaker 1: there's no disconnect.
Speaker 4: So that's what I'm getting at. So, all right, you
Speaker 4: audit ready, So if somebody wants to pull your records,
Speaker 4: they can see, okay, this amount of money when here
Speaker 4: this amount of money exactly, So if you're doing due diligence,
Speaker 4: even for the public to know, like if they want
Speaker 4: to give money to a nonprofit but they're not sure
Speaker 4: about if the money's actually going to go to help people,
Speaker 4: like they can actually look to see financial records.
Speaker 5: Yeah the irs, if not the irs.
Speaker 1: There's something called god Star. So Godstar has like certain
Speaker 1: seals like Platinum, gold, Bronze.
Speaker 5: The more transparent you are on god Star, the higher
Speaker 5: the seal you get.
Speaker 1: So if you show them like your breakdown of your board,
Speaker 1: the ethnical breakdown, who you serve your team.
Speaker 5: Your finances.
Speaker 1: You gotta publish your tenety, I mean your nine nineties
Speaker 1: every year. You have to publish that, right, so they
Speaker 1: can see your finances, so that you know, and if
Speaker 1: they don't, Like I had a funder who in the
Speaker 1: shout out to Bronz with Rotary Club, you know, they
Speaker 1: was on it like like it was your finance.
Speaker 5: Let me see with this why you don't.
Speaker 1: Have this on god Star It was some like steps
Speaker 1: that we overlooked and he was like intentional and he's like, yo,
Speaker 1: you guys are doing the right thing. So once you
Speaker 1: build that trust with your finances, everything else is like
Speaker 1: just you know.
Speaker 2: What are some of the biggest challenges obviously the money
Speaker 2: raising the money figuring out how to get it, But
Speaker 2: what are some of those challenges that people who are
Speaker 2: not familiar with the space. What are the things that
Speaker 2: that you face, right, Like that is something that somebody
Speaker 2: puts you on. What are some other challenges if we're
Speaker 2: getting into the space.
Speaker 1: Put the politics right? The politics is tough, right, And
Speaker 1: I just want to touch on something. You're action and
Speaker 1: answers to the challenging part. Right, So me being a
Speaker 1: full time CEO, right, just to talk about the executive
Speaker 1: to eleven. They're talking about taking that off the table. Right,
Speaker 1: So imagine a fund is like here for three years,
Speaker 1: you good and your first shit, They're like, oh hold on,
Speaker 1: some political things are going on.
Speaker 5: Gotta take it off the table. Now.
Speaker 1: I gotta think about HOWMA cover my salary. Now I
Speaker 1: gotta like pivot and I gotta work over time because
Speaker 1: you know, June come, I might not have a salary.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: So those challenges are about having a strategy in place
Speaker 1: to pivot the things that you don't see, and that's
Speaker 1: always hard, right, But there's many challenges with this work.
Speaker 1: When they come to fundraising, it's about how you build
Speaker 1: relationships and with who. So that's the political part of it, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know this campaign season, so even like some
Speaker 1: partners of mine that I really job with, you know, politically,
Speaker 1: I can't take open answers with you because the five
Speaker 1: oh one C three guidelines is that if I endorse
Speaker 1: a politician, we get dissolved.
Speaker 5: Right, And what does endorsement look like?
Speaker 1: It could be them taking your swag and posting on
Speaker 1: their page that they was actually an event. It could
Speaker 1: be you taking a picture with them and it's you know,
Speaker 1: framed a certain.
Speaker 5: Way, so you have to be real careful, right.
Speaker 1: So and then it's like a lot of the challenge
Speaker 1: you see is that you cannot separate community service from
Speaker 1: the political fere they go.
Speaker 5: Hand in hand.
Speaker 1: So now you gotta deal with politicians who really don't
Speaker 1: believe in what you believe in, right, And that's some
Speaker 1: of the things I'm working on, like emotional intelligence, right,
Speaker 1: like how to navigate these spaces, you know, because I
Speaker 1: got that rebel in me, but I'm also going through refinement.
Speaker 5: I ain't got a little figured out.
Speaker 1: And it's times that I'm in a space and it's
Speaker 1: like I really want to talk how I feel, but
Speaker 1: I can't. And leadership is about your brand ambassadorship, right,
Speaker 1: like what are you representing online and offline because people.
Speaker 5: Are watching, you know, And so those challenges about.
Speaker 1: Policing yourself, you know, being careful where you're hanging out at,
Speaker 1: how you moving offline and online, but who you really
Speaker 1: deal with because your brand can be separate from who
Speaker 1: you are, you know what I'm saying. So if again
Speaker 1: have to navigate those Even now I'm doing my grand
Speaker 1: opening for the novel for Space and I'm.
Speaker 5: Like, who do I invite? Right?
Speaker 1: Like, it gets tricky because you don't want to feel
Speaker 1: like your favorite time. You know you're showing favoritism to
Speaker 1: one politician or another, you know, because that might just
Speaker 1: be you got a closer relationship with this person, but
Speaker 1: they don't understand that because they run against each other.
Speaker 1: So now if he gets here, she gets a position,
Speaker 1: they like, yeah, we ection you out of this money
Speaker 1: that we you know you could have had had you
Speaker 1: voted for us, or you show to support, So like
Speaker 1: being intentional with who you support and how you support,
Speaker 1: which leads to another problem and challenge is how do
Speaker 1: you focus on internally and externally the internal part of
Speaker 1: the organization learning finance, management, learning how to manage a
Speaker 1: team as you grow, learning how to manage new systems
Speaker 1: that you need, HR consultants, learning all of that, and
Speaker 1: then the external pressures of yo, we have this event,
Speaker 1: can you come support, Oh hey, can you do this?
Speaker 1: Or we want to do a collaboration or can you
Speaker 1: come to this, Like it's a lot of like just
Speaker 1: being pulled tuggle wall from two different directions until you know,
Speaker 1: and those challenges are ready exhausting. But I think if
Speaker 1: you stay true to your needs, right and your mission.
Speaker 1: Everything else is going to follow.
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