Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,
Speaker 1: and sure they definitely can be, but understanding a professionals
Speaker 1: routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,
Speaker 1: day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.
Speaker 1: It might seem boring to safe plan and make calculated
Speaker 1: decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is
Speaker 1: what helps you live or more happily fulfilled life. P
Speaker 1: and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly
Speaker 1: Boring since eighteen sixty five is a service mark of
Speaker 1: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank
Speaker 1: National Association Member FDIC erness What's Up? You ever walk
Speaker 1: into a small business and everything just works like the
Speaker 1: checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping is a breeze,
Speaker 1: and you're out the door before the line even builds.
Speaker 1: Odds are they're using Square? We love supporting business that
Speaker 1: run on Square because it just feels seamless. Whether it's
Speaker 1: a local coffee shop, a vendor at a pop up market,
Speaker 1: or even one of our merch partners. Square makes it
Speaker 1: easy for them to take payments, manage inventory, and run
Speaker 1: their business with confidence, all from one simple system. If
Speaker 1: you're a business owner or even just thinking about launching
Speaker 1: something soon, Square is hands down one of the best
Speaker 1: tools out there to help you start, run and grow.
Speaker 1: It's not just about payments, it's about giving you time
Speaker 1: back so you can focus on what matters most ready.
Speaker 1: To see how Square can transform your business, visit Square
Speaker 1: dot com, backslash, go backslash eyl to learn more that
Speaker 1: Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait, don't hesitate.
Speaker 1: Let's Square handle the back end so you can keep
Speaker 1: pushing your vision forward.
Speaker 2: As far as a nonprofit, the business model behind nonprofit,
Speaker 2: you still get to make money though, right to live,
Speaker 2: right of course, So how does that work? Because people
Speaker 2: here to work nonprofit and it's like, okay, everything it's
Speaker 2: like it's just a charity. Everything that comes in goes out,
Speaker 2: but it's still a business. Yeah, yeah, explain that as
Speaker 2: like it's easy to explain a for profit organization. Everybody
Speaker 2: knows that, But the nonprofit, I think it's interesting. It
Speaker 2: like it's a nonprofit but it's still a business at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. For sure. So the business part of
Speaker 3: it just for the viewers.
Speaker 4: Right, it's about like the way it's broken up in
Speaker 4: its taxes, right, like the entities is about. The taxes
Speaker 4: is different. Right, the way it's broken up. The structure
Speaker 4: is the same, just a different market.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So the foot profit, I have to say that you're
Speaker 4: selling a good to make a profit.
Speaker 3: Right. I sell you this candyball. I make money off
Speaker 3: that candy ball.
Speaker 4: The nonprofit is about providing a service that's not being sold.
Speaker 4: I'm not selling you my financial literacy program. I'm not
Speaker 4: selling you my mentorship.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: You're in the program for free, but it's funded by
Speaker 4: that could be a diverse pool. Right, So we have
Speaker 4: government funding right primary with a lot of nonprofits are
Speaker 4: funded by government. And interestingly enough, you don't want to
Speaker 4: be funded by government, right because it's not guaranteed. Political
Speaker 4: shift happened, you lose that money.
Speaker 3: Private.
Speaker 4: You have private donors, people who own companies, people are
Speaker 4: well wealthy that love the cause you're doing. They want
Speaker 4: to donate, contribute. There's a diverse corporate right, fundraisers, crowdfunding,
Speaker 4: so all of that money really goes towards your budget.
Speaker 3: The same way of foot profits just set up.
Speaker 4: Right. Everyone has expenses, right, you got rent, you got utilities.
Speaker 3: You got galery salary.
Speaker 4: That's where the money comes in. So I'm salaried as
Speaker 4: a CEO of my company.
Speaker 3: Right. I started off unpaid.
Speaker 4: Right, And that's the part with the nonprofit like some
Speaker 4: businesses too, that you have to start unpaid build it.
Speaker 3: And the way we grew was uniquely.
Speaker 4: Because we started like as contractors, Me and my team, right.
Speaker 4: Because once I got two or three brothers that join
Speaker 4: the movement that came home. Right, half my team that
Speaker 4: over one hundred team is in prison.
Speaker 3: FYI.
Speaker 4: Like we all came from the same fed state and county.
Speaker 4: So they all love them noble movement. They jump on board.
Speaker 4: So what happened was people starting to see us and
Speaker 4: they're like, Yo, can you run this program?
Speaker 3: Our first program was manhuch uh? What was it called
Speaker 3: the Manhood Training? Right?
Speaker 4: It was an eight week program and it was focused
Speaker 4: on adulthood and life skills and communications. And we went
Speaker 4: into the Youth Shelter of Mount Vernon. You know, shout
Speaker 4: out to the youth shelter. They gave us one of
Speaker 4: our first contracts to run program. That's how we started, right,
Speaker 4: what they're paying for the program X amount of money
Speaker 4: or right you come when you do two workshops, I
Speaker 4: pay for those two workshops. And we just started like
Speaker 4: building financial systems based on contracts. Then it got a
Speaker 4: little deeper when grants come in. So she had a
Speaker 4: grant from a government and they're like, hey, you get
Speaker 4: this X amount of money. In this particular first experience,
Speaker 4: it was a reimbursement grant, so you have to spend
Speaker 4: the money in order to.
Speaker 3: Get it back, right. So all of that taught me
Speaker 3: how to do.
Speaker 4: Budgets spreadsheets right like from the very beginning, and it
Speaker 4: kind of worked out because it wasn't. I turned down
Speaker 4: a lot of money, by the way, right in the
Speaker 4: early parts of my career because I didn't want to
Speaker 4: do too much and then not be able to have
Speaker 4: the infrastructure to maintain it, your collapse like that. So
Speaker 4: I took each opportunity intentionally if it was aligned with
Speaker 4: my values and my mission, which is very important with the.
Speaker 3: Business and nonprofit.
Speaker 4: Can't chase the money, you got to chase the mission
Speaker 4: because sometimes the dollar is tied to somebody who's not
Speaker 4: aligned with your mission on your values and a lot
Speaker 4: of nonprofits go wrong with that. They're looking at the
Speaker 4: dollars they needed for expenses and then they you know,
Speaker 4: wrap themselves up and they can't produce in all cases.
Speaker 4: Was like we kind of like started to not put
Speaker 4: the car before the host started walking.
Speaker 3: You know, we crawled. Now we're walking, and then we
Speaker 3: started slowly running.
Speaker 4: And with the nonprofit game was just understanding how to
Speaker 4: diversify your income right, diversify your portfolio right, how to
Speaker 4: get corporate funds, how to get foundation money, how to
Speaker 4: get you know, crowdfunding, fundraisers money, how to get government money,
Speaker 4: and then looking at that money that the money's coming
Speaker 4: and tying it to the budget. And that's where salaries,
Speaker 4: insurance build, I mean, your utilities, anything that you have
Speaker 4: as an expense for your nonprofit.
Speaker 3: Hope. I kind of answered that you said you had
Speaker 3: to as a CEO. Did you built the border directors?
Speaker 3: How did you go about choosing that?
Speaker 1: And then you said that obviously the team has been incarcerated.
Speaker 3: How you go about so that then?
Speaker 2: Who's going to be a good sit town mission?
Speaker 4: I know for sure for sure for the board of directors.
Speaker 4: It started with Lamont Withdrew right, he was off because
Speaker 4: he was our first fiscal sponsor, So that check that
Speaker 4: we got for five thousand, we couldn't take it because
Speaker 4: we wasn't a five O one C three yet. So fiscal
Speaker 4: sponsors are like other more established nonprofits that'll take that
Speaker 4: money pass it through their bank account to you. Because
Speaker 4: then that check the person who wrote the check to
Speaker 4: that it went to a nonprofit, right, it had to
Speaker 4: be a five on C three. So him being our
Speaker 4: physical sponsor and being somebody that was, you know, helping
Speaker 4: us build the business. He was our first board member, right,
Speaker 4: and then we you know, at the time, we were
Speaker 4: selecting people who was helping us on the ground. But
Speaker 4: it was like I try to get people who are
Speaker 4: are an expert in different spaces, whether in education, whether
Speaker 4: in fundraising right, whether it's marketing right, operations to contribute
Speaker 4: and put back down into the organization. But it never
Speaker 4: works like that. You find people that's dedicated it, then
Speaker 4: they're too busy, they got too many kids over the
Speaker 4: family level, so they can't contribute. So we re ramped
Speaker 4: the board in twenty twenty two going into twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: and one person who's still we have actually five, there's
Speaker 4: five board members right now, me I'm the president, the
Speaker 4: co founder is the board treasurer. Then we have an
Speaker 4: advisor and two secretaries and the other two besides Lamont,
Speaker 4: we met them through just networking and they had the
Speaker 4: skill set that we needed, which is understanding nonprofit business,
Speaker 4: understanding operations right. Other ones worked in correction facilities to
Speaker 4: understand program and leadership development. So we started to select
Speaker 4: people based on how are they tied to the mission
Speaker 4: and what do they bring to the table. And right
Speaker 4: now with that small team, we're starting over because we're
Speaker 4: literally formalizing the board process on what recruitment strategy looks like.
Speaker 3: Right, we have to enhance.
Speaker 4: Our by laws, right the by laws is the governance
Speaker 4: structure of the nonprofit. We're literally working with three different
Speaker 4: law firms to tighten up some of the back end
Speaker 4: documentation such as the by laws, and that by laws
Speaker 4: is going to dictate how we recruit new board members.
Speaker 4: So while that's being developed by a legal consultant firm,
Speaker 4: where we're with the board to make sure our strategy
Speaker 4: is in line with the by laws, and it's really
Speaker 4: you want to target people who's going to bring to
Speaker 4: the organization. They're volunteering their time, but you want people
Speaker 4: who's going to bring in money, bringing resources, bringing connections
Speaker 4: and also information. Right, So we're still in that development phase.
Speaker 4: When it came to the team, it happened through me
Speaker 4: knowing individuals from serving time with them and them returning
Speaker 4: home and reaching out asking for the opportunity, and then
Speaker 4: it just kind of working out at the right time.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: That was like an unstructured way that we recruited of
Speaker 4: course with intention, right, like you know. Now, so now
Speaker 4: the whole team is forming costs for only half the team.
Speaker 4: We have women on our team that's been impacted by
Speaker 4: the system indirectly that got you know, different careers that
Speaker 4: contribute to the movement. But now we have a actually
Speaker 4: HR department is in Now we're developing an HR system
Speaker 4: where we're doing onboarding more for more and more corporate.
Speaker 4: But there's a caveat that we are keeping with the organization,
Speaker 4: and that's the voting process. I like member led organizations,
Speaker 4: right where my team has to say so on how
Speaker 4: certain things process.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So one of the last two excuse me, the last
Speaker 4: two members we had we did a panel discussion, right, So,
Speaker 4: and it's somebody I was up North Fork, master grad bilingual,
Speaker 4: solid brother, well intellectual. He brought so much to the table,
Speaker 4: but I knew he just came home. We got to
Speaker 4: kind of groom him. And that's how we start to
Speaker 4: do it. We like, he's take an opportunity at Woodfield.
Speaker 4: They'll build their like kind of experiences working with the population.
Speaker 4: We kind of observe them, We put them in spaces
Speaker 4: to kind of get them a job of the team,
Speaker 4: and then we like, Yo, this person's dedicated. This person
Speaker 4: actually brings a lot to the table, and they bring diversity.
Speaker 4: That's the other key, diversity.
Speaker 3: Right. So then from there, if we feel like, yea, we.
Speaker 4: Want to vote them in, we'll do a panel meeting
Speaker 4: with the person and I'll have the whole team. Could
Speaker 4: be a little intimid dating, but it's more like just
Speaker 4: really interviewing you about your interests in this movement, right
Speaker 4: because we don't call it a nonprofit or a.
Speaker 3: Company or job. We a movement.
Speaker 4: So there's you know, company values and cultures that we
Speaker 4: have to talk about and how do you like assimilate
Speaker 4: into That is what we try to figure out. And fortunately,
Speaker 4: you know, we have a team of thirteen right now.
Speaker 4: You know again I said half my team did a
Speaker 4: lot of time. Five of them have former gang experience
Speaker 4: from Cribs, Bloodslain and Kingston and th Adios to you
Speaker 4: know No Blood, So like they all were gang leaders
Speaker 4: in their own way. So now they use that to
Speaker 4: go back into the institutions working with the young kids
Speaker 4: who are gang banging. So the diversity kind of worked out,
Speaker 4: but the cherry picking comes in with who were bringing
Speaker 4: in and why And now we're just going to implement
Speaker 4: the more like formal.
Speaker 3: Process of it because you need a HR.
Speaker 4: I have to remove myself from also the interviewing process
Speaker 4: just to some degree to offset any liabilities, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. So it's more member led, but now
Speaker 4: we're bringing in more corporate structure.
Speaker 5: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
Speaker 5: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
Speaker 5: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 5: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 5: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 5: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
Speaker 5: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
Speaker 5: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
Speaker 5: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
Speaker 5: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
Speaker 5: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
Speaker 5: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
Speaker 5: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
Speaker 5: Do what's right, leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
Speaker 5: border and families will be protected. Sponsored by the United
Speaker 5: States Department of Homeland Security,