People Helping People: Recent Episodes
Adam Morris
How can your nonprofit embrace design thinking and experimentation to maximize your impact?
Leah Kral, shares insights from her book, "Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Successful Nonprofits Inspire and Deliver Results". She shares how she turned 20 years worth of PowerPoints from workshops and convert them into book form. She discusses strategies nonprofits can implement to become more innovative and achieve their goals. Leah covered topics such as design thinking, workplace culture, nonprofit theory of change, and experimentation. Leah shares inspiring examples of nonprofits embracing innovation at all levels, from Alcoholics Anonymous discovering their 12-step model through trial-and-error to Mayo Clinic training staff to empower patient-first solutions.
Episode in a glance
- The Genesis of Leah's book 'Innovation for Social Change'
- Challenges and Barriers to Innovation in Nonprofits
- Embracing Design Thinking for Nonprofit Innovation
- Organizational Design for Fostering Innovation
- Personal Innovation and Persuasion in Nonprofits
- Theory of Change in Nonprofits Explained
- The Power of Experimentation and Learning from Failure
About Leah Kral
Leah Kral is the senior director of strategy and innovation at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She provides tailored workshops and consulting to internal teams and to a network of nonprofit partners across the United States. For decades, she has been helping teams to break out of the busy daily routine and draw out their best creative thinking. She helps teams to design pilots, program strategies and meaningful evaluation approaches, leading to better outcomes and more compelling stories for supporters. She is the author of “Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Successful Nonprofits Inspire and Deliver Results”
Connect with Leah Kral and get her book!
Website → https://leahkral.com/
LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahkral/
X/Twitter → https://twitter.com/LeahKral
Get her book here → https://a.co/d/aLvQfLS
What if you could support local coffee shops and be sustainable with your coffee habit at the same time?
Aleksandra Brankov shares the story of Cafilia - a sustainable local coffee club that's transforming the coffee scene in Cleveland and soon launching in Columbus, Ohio. Cafilia's unique subscription model allows coffee lovers to connect with their community in local cafes while reducing waste through a reusable cup system. Aleksandra shares her inspiring journey, from conceiving the idea pre-pandemic to navigating challenges and becoming an entrepreneur and a mom at the same time.
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Fikret Zendeli shares the vision of Social Friday - an innovative global CSR initiative aimed at transforming unproductive Friday afternoons into opportunities for community service and team building. Fikret shares his journey repurposing Friday afternoons at his company into a movement that bridges the gap between businesses and their communities. Through engaging stories and insights, Fikret describes the impact of Social Friday on corporate culture, employee satisfaction, and societal well-being, highlighting the initiative's potential to redefine corporate social responsibility and foster a sense of togetherness and purpose within the workplace and beyond.
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Tara Barauskas shares the work at Community Corp of Santa Monica, and their transformative approach to creating affordable housing and fostering community resilience. She takes us on a journey of how their initiatives not only provide homes but also build sustainable and inclusive communities, illustrating the profound social impact of their mission in one of America's most expensive regions.
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Emily Kane Miller shares the journey of the Saas platform, Ethos Tracking, highlighting their mission to transform social impact through data-driven insights. This podcast shares how Ethos Tracking is redefining philanthropy and corporate social responsibility by providing actionable metrics to measure, manage, and magnify the real-world impact of social initiatives.
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Pocholo Espina, founder of SIP PH, shares his transformative journey from a diver witnessing the impacts of plastic pollution to becoming a sustainability pioneer. He delves into the challenges and triumphs of introducing eco-friendly alternatives like metal straws in the Philippines and building a product based company aiming to inspire a broader societal shift towards environmental responsibility.
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The inspiring journey of Emmanuel Trinity Nsaabanye, founder of era92 Creative, highlighting how his enterprise is combatting youth unemployment in Africa through creativity and technology. It explores era92's innovative approach to empowering young people with skills in design and digital technology, transforming their lives and communities -- and is a powerful testament to how adversity can fuel social change and innovation.
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Lachandra B. Baker, founder of LBB Edutainment, delves into the transformative power of empathy and inclusion in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Sharing her personal journey and professional insights, Lachandra illustrates how empathy can break down barriers and foster authentic, inclusive environments.
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Neil Mehta, CEO of Givey, discusses how the platform is revolutionizing charitable giving by supporting small charities through digital innovation. He shares his journey from the tech industry to social entrepreneurship, and how Givey makes giving a seamless part of daily life, empowering local communities and driving grassroots change.
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Aaron Westbrook, founder of Form5 Prosthetics, shares his journey from a teenager with a limb difference to an innovator revolutionizing the prosthetic industry. Aaron shares the journey and evolution of Form5, showcasing how 3D printing technology and community collaboration are creating bespoke, functional prosthetics - but most importantly how they're empowering lives.
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Levis Nderitu shares the importance of ethical storytelling, shedding light on the newly launched "Ethical Storytelling Toolkit." This resource, rooted in community voices and values, seeks to promote dignified, honest narratives while also touching upon Levis's work in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at PATH. It's a journey into redefining narratives and ensuring representation.
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Guide To Better Conversations About Ethical Storytelling
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Dive into Tahlayah's unique journey of using street fashion as a vehicle for mental health advocacy through her brand Carry A Mood. Through workshops and community engagement, the brand aims to shatter stigmas and empower individuals to express themselves. Listen as Tahlayah discusses the transformative power of fashion, the importance of individualized self-expression, and her vision for the future
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Sheri Cheney Jones, the founder of SureImpact and Measurement Resources, offers her unique insights into measuring social impact. She emphasizes the importance of impact measurement for social enterprises, explaining its role in justifying investments and distinguishing organizations from competitors. Sheri introduces listeners to the logic model and shares the inspiring journey of her platform, SureImpact, which has helped numerous nonprofits, social enterprises, and government entities. And along the way she shares valuable insights on solving social issues with data, leveraging technology for impact assessment, and driving meaningful change in the world.
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Sean Mayberry, the founder and CEO of StrongMinds, shares about the challenges of providing mental health services in Africa and how StrongMinds has managed to overcome them. The organization's mission is to democratize mental health by making it simple and accessible to everyone who needs it. StrongMinds uses a unique approach to communicate the value of its work to donors, resulting in substantial success over the years. The conversation concludes with Sean reflecting on his personal transformation over the last decade and the importance of teamwork and community in achieving the mission of StrongMinds.
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Nicole discusses her entrepreneurial journey, detailing how the Upcycle Part Shop has evolved into a beacon of sustainability, collaboration, and creative resourcefulness. A key aspect of the organization's success has been building strong relationships within the local community, fostering a sense of mutual trust and support. The conversation also spotlights the various individuals and stories that have contributed to the success of Upcycle Part Shop throughout its decade-long existence.
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Dive into the remarkable work of the Muravah Foundation and its founder, Bob. Dedicated to eradicating poverty in rural regions of the Philippines, Bob takes us on his journey from sponsoring a child in Manila to realizing the need for a comprehensive approach. Through their holistic strategy encompassing education, healthcare, and job creation, the foundation has transformed communities. One standout success has been cacao cultivation, providing farmers with income opportunities and benefiting single moms and grandparents. By focusing on education, healthcare, and sustainable job creation, the Muravah Foundation is creating lasting change and empowering individuals to break free from the cycle of poverty.
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Buy Muravah Mayon Gold Chocolate on Amazon: 60%, 76% or 100%
Jump into a riveting chat with the vibrant Annie Tran, a social entrepreneurship consultant all the way from Vietnam! We journey across the world, uncovering the unique landscape of social entrepreneurship in Vietnam and Columbus, Ohio. Discover how legal recognition shapes these enterprises and get inspired by the heart-led entrepreneurs in Columbus, who are all about compassion, collaboration, and community upliftment. Annie also shares her exciting vision for the future of social enterprise in Vietnam.
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Franklinton Cycle Works, founded by Jonathan Youngman, is a non-profit organization in Columbus, Ohio, dedicated to providing affordable transportation and promoting transportation equity. They offer a bike co-op, educational programs, and workshops to teach bike maintenance and repair, while also connecting with the community through social events and partnerships. The organization has expanded over the years, reflecting its positive impact on the community and its commitment to making transportation accessible for all.
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Check out their events
Become a member!
Kristen Brown speaks of her social venture, Rela, aimed at revolutionizing the way people connect with art. Rela offers a subscription service for both commercial and residential spaces, making it easy for anyone to engage with local art and support artists. Kristen shares her entrepreneurial journey, the challenges she overcame, and her vision for Rela's future.
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Enter the Special Giveaway for Listeners in Columbus, Ohio
Fiber52 is a new and sustainable way to bleach and dye cotton, replacing heavy chemicals with a bioprocess, saving water, time, and energy. Graham Stewart, the founder, talks about the environmental issues in traditional textile production and the benefits of Fiber52.
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Connect with Teresa Chahine
Koko is a refillery and a sustainable living shop based in Columbus, Ohio. Aidra Hall founded the shop because she wanted to make an individual's journey into sustainability easy and accessible. (And beautiful!)
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Dominique Hadad started Green Scope Consulting, after winning the President's Prize at OSU, to fulfill her dream of making Columbus a city that has no collective footprint. She shares her story, her love for the environment, and her insight into how businesses can fulfill their sustainability goals.
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Alina Boyte shares her experience from developing social enterprises at the Changemaker Institute, and insight into intellectual property law for social entrepreneurs.
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Alexander Clemeston shares his experience launching his social enterprise, Together We Compost, a community-focused compost collection service. Launching in 2021, he built this service to make it easy for people to start composting while engaging marginalized communities and building a fair wage company.
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Donna Sikyta, founder of The Sustainery, discusses a solution for diverting material waste from landfills and incinerators. The Sustainery is a B2B marketplace offering solutions that support a circular economy by connecting fashion designers with sustainable and unused materials. Environmentally conscious designers can rely on the Sustainery as a new way to handle materials in the manufacturing process. Donna’s work through the Sustainery creates a more effective system for unwanted and wasted deadstock textiles.
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An introduction to season two of People Helping People, as we journey into sustainable innovation and a deep dive into sustainable product design. In this episode, we explore a broad overview of what this means, and some of the avenues that we’re going to explore in season two.
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David White IV is the Mill Run Campus Pastor for UALC and founded the O2 Conference to give middle school and high school students a platform to share their ideas to create social impact in Columbus, along with the funding and support they need to realize their ideas. Their conference for 2022 is coming up, and for me personally, it's a source of inspiration hearing the ideas of young people to create change.
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Karl Sona is the founder of the Kas Company, which connects black-owned businesses to corporate brands, and hosts the Dear BLK CEO podcast. He is a strong advocate of representation that provides a way for people to see themselves in various roles, particularly minorities. Through working together, companies can create a new atmosphere of funding, mentorship, and infrastructure that helps diverse teams thrive. More importantly, Karl works to see a future where these approaches can scale.
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Katherine Ann Byam brings people to think about sustainability, the after-effects connected to small choices, and reimagining capitalism. Katherine is the founder and CEO of Dieple, a data-driven consultancy firm that helps companies with their triple bottom line to thrive with purposeful, sustainable work. The initiative values creating the capacity for people to transition and come up with ideas. She is also the host of the podcast Where Ideas Launch, a podcast for sustainable innovators. As an innovator herself, Katherine uses her work to actively participate in shifting the culture of entrepreneurial sustainability.
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Rachel Whitworth leads the House of Eden Studio, a marketing and consulting agency supporting non-profits and social impact businesses.
She speaks about measuring, communicating, and showcasing impact cultivated through the good business of social entrepreneurship. Rachel is also a catalyst behind Hello Good World, a way for social enterprises to efficiently measure their impact, to magnify the social impact created by these social enterprises. Based in Australia, the initiative provides marketing services to purpose-led, impact-led organizations, mainly small businesses, so that their business and message can thrive.
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Dr. Lynda Ulrich of Ever Widening Circles share insight into this emerging gratitude economy and how we can transform our world with how we direct our attention.
Dr. Lynda gives her observation on how we're scanning the world at all times now for who can help us survive and thrive. That search and leaning into goodness combined to spark the emerging gratitude economy. Moving into the world of gratitude economy includes actions such as celebrating the people you do business with in your life that you're super grateful towards. In other words, the emphasis is on reflecting back your gratitude for everything that the people around you are doing to support your own life, even if you're simply paying for a service.
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Amanda Greenwood of Petals that Inspire reveals how combining passion and purpose sets the foundation for a thriving social enterprise.
She discusses working with youth, building a business with passion and purpose, and staying connected to the community through her love of flower arrangement. Amanda shares how Petals that Inspire brings value to the community with the creative art of floral design. The initiative partners with Star House, which provides resources and job skills training to youth experiencing homelessness between the ages of 14 and 25.
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Kiss Nuka speaks about artistry and activism, sharing her insight into creativity, empowering people, and connecting work to social impact.
Kiss Nuka tells her personal story of finding her passion towards social impact concerns, along with her realization of the importance of having a community. People sometimes have some skill, talent, or perspective within themselves that doesn’t fully flourish since there isn’t a way to exercise that gift. Having a community to connect with can provide space for people to explore and sharpen what they have to offer the world.
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David Aspinall, CEO of Auticon US shares how companies can thrive hiring employees on the spectrum who excel in technology.
Auticon is a technology company focused on creating jobs for people with autism by tapping into their natural skills and abilities. As the company developed, they found a great model for those on the spectrum to overcome barriers to employment and thrive in better-suited positions.
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Saif Ali shares the story of how Dastgry is transforming the Pakistan economy with technology and the amazing opportunity for entrepreneurs.
Dastgyr is a tech platform that helps emerging and local businesses manage their inventory more effectively.
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Dr. Lynda of Ever Widening Circles Takes You Through the Four Shifts Needed to See an Entirely Different World on Media Platforms. She lays out principles of changing how you interact with the internet to get a different response from the algorithm, and plug into a greater worldview.
She started the media platform, Ever Widening Circles and the Conspiracy of Goodness Network. Both initiatives use media and connections to showcase people doing all the good in the world and to change the negative dialogue about our times.
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Tony Rothacker is the co-founder at Youngster.co, which provides job opportunities to youth and empowers elders to use technology better.
Tony Rothacker speaks about keeping open communication and discusses building mutual benefit into a social enterprise. Youth assist elders with learning new technology they may need to interact with the world, or programs they may need help to use in daily life. Both sides of the connection, youth and elders, benefit from the intergenerational service as the initiative addresses common issues on the respective sides.
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Allison Chaney CEO of the Breakthrough Accelerator imagines the world and business being a place where we can go-exist mindfully.
Breakthrough Accelerator is a business accelerator that helps create stronger efforts through intentional business development and accelerating results. She talked about the valuable impact that can occur for initiatives both internally and externally. In this case, the results are more than profitability. Results are also focused on the impact initiatives create in doing business. Breakthrough Accelerator is able to develop by sharing communication and mindset tools to shift business into a place of possibility.
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Joe DeLoss started Hot Chicken Takeover as a restaurant chain with really awesome chicken that prioritizes fair chance employment.
This fast-casual fried chicken restaurant uses business as a vehicle to create opportunity. No matter what somebody's resume or alternative resume from their past looks like, the intention is to offer an opportunity. Hot Chicken Takeover provides an environment for people who dealt with adversity to steady themselves.
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Rich Brubaker of Collective Responsibility explains sustainability and what's happening in Asia.
Rich’s portfolio is versatile, but he is one of Asia's most recognized authorities on sustainability, innovation and responsible leadership. Portions of his work include being the managing director of Collective Responsibility, the executive volunteer of HandsOn China and as an adjunct professor of sustainability and social innovation at Southern Methodist University, Richard has a career focused on helping develop businesses to address economic, environmental, and social hurdles.
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Gabriele Donati shares TimeRepublik, the world’s first purpose-driven social network centered around time banking.
With a global reach, TimeRepublik built a strong online community of users that value their social network platform. Gabriele described TimeRepublik’s function as “a digital platform where you can exchange time instead of money.” He followed up, explaining that there’s an idea of taking money out of the equation: “It's because we are more interested in creating relationships between people rather than transactions.” Gabriele emphasized the process of building trust between users, and how those bonds open doors. Unlike currency exchanges that can be “one and done”, the service-exchange approach on TimeRepublik starts a mutual effort on both sides to fully communicate.
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Cory and Annie of Grow Ensemble provide social impact businesses with tools they need to grow their audience and the reach of their impact.
Grow Ensemble is a content and media company inspiring businesses and individuals to consider more sustainable business and life choices in support of the impact economy. Cory and Annie also train and consult other purpose-driven businesses to achieve results to build audiences of advocates that connect with the mission of impact companies.
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Jen O’Ryan from Double Tall discussed diversity and inclusion as it relates to the LGBTQ community, and how companies can welcome diversity.
Double Tall provides service as a consulting firm for strategy, design, and implementation. Jen also placed her knowledge in her book “Inclusive AF: A Field Guide for ‘Accidental’ Diversity Experts”, which explains how to cultivate a more welcoming workplace.
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Bruce Waltuck shares how Freethinc for a Change helps social entrepreneurs build an efficient and inclusive process to grow social ventures. He holds three decades of experience from real-life settings and academia, which he spent improving business processes, teaching business courses, and being active in the U.S. Department of Labor. Bruce discussed methods social entrepreneurs can use to build an efficient and inclusive process for a social venture.
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Jodie and Grace share their social enterprise Paws and Pause, a doggy daycare assisting those recovering from mental health and addiction. The pair first started working together when running a project for St. Mungo’s, a homelessness organization in London. This is where they first began incorporating dogs in their work, which would lead to launching Paws and Pause in 2019.
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Rich shares how the Harwood Institute helps you to collaborate in your local communities to create effective long term change. He founded the Harwood Institute in 1988 with work centered around developing community change-centered conversations. A philosophy of civic faith and community-driven solutions fueled this initiative’s efforts for more than 30 years.
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Kaiti Burkhammer shares the story of how 3 Tree is helping people create sustainable habits that save the planet and help the environment.
A new company started during the GiveBackHack Global event last fall, they shared their strategy for developing a product that will help individuals create environmentally friendly habits. They started by getting feedback from friends and family and then reached out to the local changemaker community to understand what drives people to adopt new sustainable habits.
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Nohelia Rambal runs social enterprise GoodFind, a directory of sustainable brands helping consumers easily find an ethical alternative to everything.
She speaks on her experience of quitting a corporate job to become a marketing consultant for impact organizations. Ideally, the directory was created so that anyone could find an alternative for anything. Items in the directory range from clothing, home goods, sports, health, and more.
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Sheila Fuentes spoke on the mindset lessons she learned while building her sustainable retail brand, SI'LO. Sheila is based in the Philippines, and pivoted her career from banking with an economics background to the fashion industry. One of the leading concerns for SI'LO is sustainability, but Sheila also mentioned the issue of unethical labors. Adopting new mindsets would help her in situations like the pandemic, when the business model needed to be revised.Overthinking a problem can lead to overcomplicated solutions. Sustainable fashion contains a lot of moving parts, such as supply chain partners, which leads to unexpected problems scattering an entrepreneur’s attention. Shiela expressed her approach as specifying the problem and having clarity of the main goal. She explained that it’s okay to start without having a perfect process set in place. Attention should be placed on finding a clear goal for a set issue. Sheila gave it a simple order:“One problem to solve, and then clarity of your vision.”One common issue for social entrepreneurs comes from initiatives that work directly with communities. Connecting with people that are participants or receivers in an issue supported by the initiative is essential, but a system for these interactions can get lost. Sheila spoke from the perspective of what she observes happening between communities and social entrepreneurs in the Philippines. She shared an example of what it means to build a better relationship and build rapport with a community.Shiela then goes into her own personal stories of building her mindset and the confidence of her journey. Three years were spent being afraid of what would happen if she quit her full-time job. She transparently shared her thoughts around balancing her full-time job and the business in the beginning. Until one day, she bluntly realized her business was not progressing, and finally said “I need to challenge myself, and go out of this comfort zone”. Sheila goes on to discuss the relationship between decisions and circumstances in overcoming what entrepreneurs may think is holding them back.Before wrapping up, Sheila directed the conversation further into the topic of mindset. She has a business coach and has experience as a business coach, but she warns that the real block to mindset is ourself. Once moving past self-sabotage, entrepreneurs can grab hold of concepts such as a growth mindset, “selling is serving”, and self-awareness. Having a new mindset around the business opens the door to new approaches. Sheila then explained how these new mindsets start with first assessing your mind, and getting to know what narratives are stored in the subconscious mind.We finished up with how attached people are to being “validated”. We managed to put a positive spin on the topic by speaking about switching “validation” into acknowledging others for their work. We can really help inspire other people simply by noticing what they're accomplishing in a genuine way. Acknowledging each other helps lift up the world around us. If you would like to earn more, you can connect with Sheila over Instagram.
Cameron Cooper talks about her sustainability work through Cooper's Refillery. Society has tried numerous ways to reduce plastic use and promote recycling, but the amount of waste is still largely unaccounted for. Cooper's Refillery is working to reduce plastic waste by focusing on the circular economy of plastics and rethinking sustainable production and consumption. In their work, the initiative is developing refill stations for reductions of single use plastics to redirect the future of our environment.Experience as a field researcher for marine mammal conservation led to Cooper Refillery being created. During her time in field research, Cameron could see how even a limited amount of human interaction could alter the wild homes of marine mammals. Reducing plastic became the automatic driver of the initiative. Cameron gave a detailed explanation of the plastic issue in our environment, businesses, and community. Cameron summed up how this impacted the initiative: “We decided that instead of trying to manage the plastic waste, we wanted to stop it at the source.”Cooper’s Refillery aims to change the perception of plastic’s value. The main point of the initiative is to positively impact the environment, but Cooper has an interesting take on plastic’s value. She explained that plastic is seen as disposal in a linear economy where the products are produced and trashed. The common thought is that “Plastic is cheap, and made to be used once.” Copper’s Refillery is placing more value into plastics by bringing the products back into the economy and encouraging the standard of using plastic more than once. Convincingly, that’s a great point when you realize plastic bottles can last for more than four centuries.After she gave context around the plastic concerns, Cameron began to explain circular economy; starting with the three principles of the circular economy. She goes on to discuss why this approach to plastic waste is related to both economists and environmentalists. Cameron spoke on how the circular economy approach shifts the focus of business and explained Cooper Refillery’s strategy to measure the actual impact in a way that can be presented.Cameron gave a ton of value as we wrapped up the conversation. We talked about Cooper’s Refillery being in the user testing stage, and Cameron listed the prep that came before this point. A lot of this preparation is built with reading, researching, personal accounts, ambitions, and financial planning. She emphasized that financial planning is one aspect most people starting social enterprises overlook. While that preparation helps, Cameron also gave tips of building relationships with communities and mentors.Cooper’s Refillery is currently based in the Netherlands with hopes to expand throughout Europe and the US soon. Cameron expressed his hopes for the future plans of the initiative. Both the long-term and short-term goals give more clarity on building impact.“I think short-term goals are equally as important as long-term goals to keep yourself on track, and really building towards something.”--Cameron CooperIf you would like to learn more, you can explore their website, or connect with them on instagram and linked-in.
Ashley Connell reveals how reentering the workforce can be better understood with her work from The Prowess Project. Women looking to get back into the workforce can engage with this initiative that acts as an employment agency. While with the agency, women can also build relationships, and learn skill development in EQ to mesh the right opportunities for better employment.Among women who take two to three years off to raise children, 43% of those women will lose 37% of her compensation power for the remainder of her professional career. Ashley, who was wondering about having a family one day, explained how shocked she was at this statistic as she did research on what the future might hold. In talking to professional women that were living examples of this statistic Ashley found patterns to the workforce reentry barriers for women. She shared the number one barrier of reentry for women, and continued on how curious conversations led to the initiative looking at parts of the hiring process from a more inclusive lens.Contrary to common thinking, hiring managers care less about the hard skills on a resume than the soft skills that are more nuanced. Ashley explained how looking through thousands of resumes listing hard skills and experience doesn’t translate to how a possible employee would fit culture-wise. Behavior and emotional intelligence are two indicators for the fit of an employee to a company. Ashley shared the observations backing the need for emotional intelligence, empathy, and understanding the needs from both sides of the employee-employer relationship.Alongside the employee-employer relationship, Ashley emphasized the impacts of peer support. The Prowess Project incorporates organic relationship building between the women engaged with the initiative. Providing a space to connect allows women to bounce ideas off each other, learn what different versions of success look like, and even give them a chance to bond over hobbies. Ashley shared how it’s not unusual that they’ll see groups where one woman might want a 10hr work-week, while another wants to go into full-time.“It’s all these different ways that these women can choose their own adventure when it comes to getting back in.”-- Ashley ConnellFor women in the workforce, especially relating to leadership, there are three key relationships of support. Ashley expressed that you need three different types of people in order to be “successful”: your manager, your mentor, and a sponsor. She went further on explaining what each role brings to an individual, and clarifying that the relationships go two-ways. She shared her own story of realizing she was bringing value to her mentor, despite feeling nervous about how she was perceived. Through relationships and community initiatives can really take shape. Ashley gave examples from her own journey, including the community support that helped fuel and pivot her business.Ashley talked more about the resources available to women through the initiative and invites people who support women professionals to participate in conversations.If you would like to learn more, you can visit them on their Website, Linked In, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.
When Maxime Dücker arrived in Melbourne, Australia, she found inspiration in the thriving world of social & eco-focused enterprises seeking to change the world. So, she set out to wield her marketing and branding expertise to create change and launched Our Good Brands as an entertainment hub for brands and worldwide consumers to make better decisions.Our Good BrandsWith topics around sustainability, ethical living, ethical consumption, and eco-friendly trends – Our Good Brands is a platform that raises awareness and shares stories of many amazing brands and the people behind them. With so much news focused on the negative, Maxime took the approach of providing uplifting habits and insights into how we can incorporate sustainability into our everyday lives, keeping in mind that we all live busy lives.To be honest, I used to be slightly skeptical about the impact a single individual can make. The effect from a single individual appears insignificant against the sheer volume of people and the magnitude of damage caused through massive consumption.But Maxime shared her own experience on how people genuinely want to leave the world a better place, and how the conversation changed from being non-existent when she started to be commonplace today. She ran an eco-friendly air-BnB, complete with information about what she was doing. The biggest surprise was how often people would share all the things they were doing in their life to make an impact. And they would be excited to learn what else they can do.As you grow, you incorporate uplifting practices into your own life – others see this, and get inspired. So, as you work on yourself, you connect with communities that are doing this same work, and together you lift each other up – this change that you’re doing ripples out and touches many others, and it magnifies to the point that significant change occurs.And this change can start small. (And even better when it does, because small changes that are easy to make part of your life will pave the way for further, more impactful changes. You climb a mountain one step at a time.)Maxime points out that it makes such clear sense to solve social and environmental problems by using the mechanism of business because a solid business can not only magnify the impact but displace other business which is causing harm… and in the process give consumers an easy means to create change by choosing where they spend their dollars.Not sure where to start? Listen to the podcast, packed full with great insight. Check out Our Good Brands and the eco-guides, or follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. Need even more help with branding your social enterprise? Reach out to Maxime through her branding agency Four PPineapples.
Dalia Kamar established her work in Egypt as she develops entrepreneurs to maneuver barriers. No matter if the barrier is geographic or linguistic, Dalia worked to empower entrepreneurs of the Middle East to flourish in their own communities. She is not opposed to global interactions and details her own global experience. Being open to finding serendipitous opportunities helped Dalia connect with diverse entrepreneurs.She started off with her experience attending an American University in Cairo, Egypt. At this place she involved herself head first into engaging the rising trend entrepreneurs during that time. Eventually, Dalia found herself interning with RiseUp, which led to larger roles in different initiatives. Throughout her early work, Dalia focused on helping the initiative’s gain exposure and bringing resources to accelerate growth.Beyond growth, Dalia noticed the absence of the Arab voice in the entrepreneurship discussion of a region that is predominantly Arab. She commented on the lack of content on business topics, such as funding, provided in the Arabic language. Working around this particular barrier exposed the limits and gaps of content delivery not catering to the region. Dalia shared her thoughts on an important result of connecting people, especially role models and mentors, in the region: “...being part of a community that's trying to accomplish the same thing and being able to get feedback in ways that you really relate to.”Dalia spoke about her involvement with Rustic Pathways during an immersive summit geared towards youth. She explained that the summit gives an atmosphere of learning, messing up, and learning from your mess-ups. She shared her surprise at being invited; she attended the summit years ago as a participant. Dalia reflects on the lessons of creativity, developing ideas, and how we gain from every interaction in our life.Turning to entrepreneur trends, Dalia emphasized the process of tangible, measurable, and actionable impact. She expressed her thoughts of being able to manage that impact while scaling the business. Trends can create guidance, but knowing how to apply what you need to yourself is powerful. Learning to adapt is even more powerful. Dalia explained the lesson in being agile:“I think your constant state of being should be just being agile and adaptable, because I think if you're too set in your ways, not even in a business setting, just in a life setting, if you were too set in your ways, and you're not really able to absorb the changes around you, then you'll be a really unhappy person.”Dali is trying new things herself as she works with Equitie, an advisory and an investment firm. The initiative guides strategic decision-making, including product market fit, financial modeling, and raising finance for the companies around the Middle East. Equitie has a global network of investors for their diverse entrepreneurs to unlock market opportunities. Dalia explained details related to funding in capital from her experiences in the entrepreneur space considering the strategy and structures working today.If you would like to learn more, you can visit FOUNDERSMEDIA, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Anna Alaman spoke with us about her work in responsible and sustainable tourism through the Open Eyes Project. Anna was determined to build a social enterprise in India and focused on tourism. She shared the experiences that led her to establish the project, including lessons on “learning while doing” and the differences between “having the academic point of view and also the practitioner point of view”. From her experiences, she was able to help change tourism in India for the last 11 years.Tours are usually disconnected from the heart of the local people. Open Eyes Project relies on the authentic connection with the communities to create holistic experiences of the country and culture. Anna explained how the initiative integrates new aspects to reflect the social enterprise’s values; like bringing in more female tour guides and being inclusive of people with disabilities.Finding an alternative to “normal” business is a strength for the Open Eyes Project. Tourism is usually held in-person, but COVID-19 placed a stop to in-person gatherings. Anna shared how the team could not believe the pandemic lasted for over a year and added that dealing with the pandemic felt like starting from scratch again. I felt it was a great example of the way clarity about your purpose can foster the flexibility to adapt to what life throws. Being rooted in purpose, and understanding what you're about, allows you to adapt to create your impact in a different way and shift.Open Eyes Project took years to refine the businesses methods used in their initiative today, and are still refining. Anna explained that it took many years to fully understand the balance involved with creating impact and having sustainable revenue to maintain a sustainable business model. In social enterprise, both the impact and profit are hugely important factors that indicate whether a social enterprise is truly fulfilling the intended purpose. Anna also shared that figuring out the correct way to communicate with the target audience developed over the course of three to four websites.Anna reflected on the community being part of the business model and emphasized that they cannot be outside of the business model. Initiatives would not exist without communities. From this idea, the conversation bloomed into the real-life story of why Open Eyes Project’s consumers trust the initiative. Tourists see the impact of spending their money with the Open Eyes Project by the interactions with the communities that are part of the tours. This is intentional and has been woven into the fabric of the experience so that the impact is clearly felt.Towards the end, we discussed pushing past the hurdle of getting something up and running. Anna’s take is an insightful mix of personas and life experiences. A world beyond the hurdle may include recreating around older narratives your mind lived with. Anna acknowledged a common thread in going past limits: “I can see there is more success for those who are open to really learn by doing.”If you would like to learn more, you can visit Open Eyes Project and RegenLab.Connect with her through Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.If you speak Spanish, check out Anna's free course to give you the clarity and structure you need to start a social enterprise: http://bit.ly/2Nf7Rfy.Book mentioned on the podcast: Building Social Business from Muhammad YunusRead Full TranscriptAdam: [00:00:00] Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. And this month we are focused on providing you with tools to sharpen your creativity, gain insight, to developing great ideas for businesses that can create a social impact.So I'm very excited to have Anna Alaman on the podcast today. She founded the Open Eyes Project over 10 years ago in India and has become an icon for responsible and sustainable tourism. Open eyes,
Emily Stuhldreher shared insights into getting social enterprises up and running after years of work with GiveBackHack. There’s an entire community of social enterprises in Ohio that connect to GiveBackHack, including previous guests and myself. Emily talked through a lot of what it takes to build and validate the ideas we start with when embarking on the road of social enterprise.Our conversation started with updates on how the initiative is operating. Emily shared the transition of connecting with the community virtually. Last year, GiveBackHack held the event virtually for the first time. Participants were still able to build together and feel a team harmony. I also attended, so we discussed some ideas that we saw at the virtual GiveBackHack.When beginning a social enterprise, understanding the issue as an experience builds a foundation for the idea. Emily reflected on GiveBackHack over the years, noting the most successful ideas have experience or know someone with experience related to the issue. Emily called for social entrepreneurs to understand and challenge assumptions about the problem they are approaching. Sometimes, idea development requires learning about more lived experiences, then, circling back to your idea to integrate perspectives of the people with the experiences.Emily gave a lesson of the importance of feedback, the MVP (minimum viable product), and the design thinking process. She cautioned about the effort and losses associated with not confirming the needs of the community you engage with. This shifted into a discussion on social enterprise being a model where teams need to validate ideas and validate impact. Emily explained an approach to actively validating ideas by sharing the journey of previous GiveBackHack participant Renter Mentor. The initiative connects residents needing low-income housing with the landlords that will rent to them.Most of the impact social enterprises create by forming scalable small impacts. Emily expressed her thoughts on individual commitment to impact. She is a system change advocate but also emphasized her belief in the “... one-to-one impact you can have as a person by living your life as a person who's passionate about impact and cares about helping others.” Emily then gave insight on ways engaging with the impact community can help develop our scalable shared impact.In fact, scalable shared impact can lead to recognizing gaps in problems. There may be an angle or perspective of the problem that is not being fully addressed. That gap becomes an excellent opportunity to assist the community. Emily spoke about Upchieve, a 24/7 high school tutoring initiative, to illustrate the point of identifying issue gaps.Winding down, we discussed finding volunteer opportunities to stay in touch with communities. People living in Columbus may want to start with Point app, Columbus Gives Back, and BESA as resources for volunteering. You can start by engaging with people, then developing small prototypes to get feedback from stakeholders of the problems. Repeat this process to continue optimizing the impact you bring.If you would like to learn more, you can visit GiveBackHack, their Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
Lynnette Cook spends this episode discussing the Rootstrike program Hopeless to Fearless. We have a history with the initiative from our previous episode with Rootstrike’s Dave Parker. Through the program, frontline and mid-level professionals can use practical tools and resources to navigate challenging circumstances. We discussed the Nova membership looping informative experts, impact, and policy. Then, we returned to the origin story of Hopeless to Fearless developing into its current state.Lynnette and Dave crossed paths as being part of the local community. The collaborative work really began when Dave participated in the psychology of creativity speaking series hosted by Lynnette at Ohio State University. The speaking series was meant to help students get in touch with the use of creativity in ventures. Lynette explained thoughts on creativity being in the nonprofit space:“Creativity is about new and unique and seeing solutions where nobody's seen that before, and I can't think of a better definition for what nonprofits do.”From the speaking series collaboration, Hopeless to Fearless emerged. Lynnette continued by sharing the interactive approach to communicate the core characteristics of the program. She told us about how creativity goes beyond arts and sports. Creativity is tied to the way people maneuver life; like finding an alternate route for your commute when a road is blocked.People can begin to cultivate change even when roadblocks and limits may seem to fill a life. Lynnette explained that people can be innovative and get around feeling restricted while in supporting roles at work or in teams. Part of empowering yourself to be innovative is exercising mindfulness. Engaging in mindfulness focuses on being aware rather than controlling. Recalling a personal story, Lynnette shared a conversation with a colleague reflecting on Washington D.C. experiencing the storming of the Capitol.Following her recollection, we expanded the conversation into priorities and self-care. Taking care of yourself contributes to you being in the best place to create change. Besides mindfulness, Lynnette also recommended for people to become familiar with Carol Dweck’s concept of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Lynnette explains that people can shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. She emphasized that “...conceptually, your brain changes all the time; with every experience that you have, your brain changes.”Building these new changes takes time, which taps into the paradox of refining skills. Strengthening skills is a combination of innovation and grit. Lynnette gave her thoughts on the paradox existing; the place where you weigh whether to try something new or persist. With finding that balance, peer support can be a way for people to stay grounded. Lynnette shared the impact the peer-to-peer component in Hopeless and Fearless brings as fellow members bond through watching each other navigate their experiences.A majority of our entire discussion dealt with mindset. I asked Lynnette to share more about positive psychology, and then we followed up with three examples of gaining clarity in your journey.If you would like to learn more, you can visit: Rootstrike Labs, instagram, facebook, linked-in, or twitter. Also, check out Lynnette's company, ARNOVA.
Callee Ackland discussed how her commitment to a zero-waste lifestyle developed into Bestowed Essentials and Hippie Haven. Interest in sustainable products came to Callee in 2016 after a purchase of hand-made soap. From then on, Callee stayed mindful of the ingredients and sources of the skincare she used in her daily life. She gave herself one year to develop her soap-making business full time, which is now Bestowed Essentials.A sustainable lifestyle was a standard to Callee who grew up in places that gave her a different relationship to sustainability than people growing up in other parts of the country. Once she watched Netflix’s A Plastic Ocean, her approach towards her business and life shifted. We briefly discussed why audiences should be aware of companies and sustainability, such as the marketing tactics trying to transfer responsibility away from larger brands. Consumers have power in how and where they consistently spend their money.Callee brought attention to the fact that everyone can participate in change. She reassured that everyone’s best effort can look different. If you decided to bring your own bags for groceries, and your neighbor switched to more sustainable brands, both impacts compound. Callee shared that “...every one of these different actions does add up.” Continuing on, Callee explained her observations on why recycling is part of the pollution problem, the purpose of mutual aid, and knowing how to make a change in your own community.South Dakota’s community is one of the main influences of Hippie Haven, a retail store & community space with seemingly endless opportunities for social impact. One of the opportunities is a donation drop-off for the indigenous-led organization Camp Mniluzahan. Callee shared insight around the organization’s efforts in the community being an example of mutual aid.Callee’s community connections are also the reason she went from selling her products in the back of her van to being stocked in 200 stores. Even more so, she reminisced on the lesson that entrepreneurs don’t need to do everything alone, and shouldn’t try to. She explained how the business eventually scaled enough to require a second level of management, and how she deals with managing people while being a visionary.During the pandemic, Callee’s ventures experienced disruption, but found ways to pull through. Callee shared what it’s like being the recipient of grants from Stacy's Rise Project and the Spanx by Sara Blakely Foundation. Besides assistance, Callee found discipline and adapting useful in her journey, and we both spoke on the grit that comes with a lack of resources.Hippie Haven is also the name of Callee’s podcast. A major part of the podcast is to speak about sustainability topics in plain English that is accessible for the general public. Soon the podcast grew into much more, but it’s all part of Callee’s approach to impact. She gave advice about her approach and shared she’ll be adding the nonprofit Zero Waste Business Alliance as part of her impact.If you would like to learn more, you can listen to the podcast, visit the store, browse the product line, or connect on Instagram, Facebook and youtube.
Galicia Gordon discussed her work with Leading Learners, and gave her thoughts on how she was able to start building the initiative at 16 years old. Galicia Gordon’s experience with launching and developing Leading Learners became an amazing conversation to kick off this month’s theme of clarity and new possibilities for creating change.The initiative, based in Vancouver, CA, works to connect students with free resources, scholarships, and tools to empower ownership over their education journey. Galicia felt a one-stop platform for students and all freely accessible resources would serve students well during their academic years. She shared about “being able to build bridges for people when you do see a problem.”Deciding what to do after completing high school is a concern for a majority of youth, especially with the current education system. Galicia explained how she found a trend of young people not knowing what they would do to connect their interest to the real world after high school. In fact, she discovered that many students were not sure of their own real interests, and they described schooling as a “constant loop of just completing assignments”. From here, Galicia began talking to more and more people, including educators, which led to launching a website with free resources.Sharing the initiative’s mission, and creating dialogue among the community created a great boost in awareness around this concern. Once the awareness of the concern was uncovered, the initiative grew into one of empowerment. Leading Learners typically includes tips to help drive personal education forward. Galicia recalled that “... [Leading Learners] also thought about making student focused programs and events.” The initiative hosts opportunities for students to learn about each other, learn about other students who successfully improved, and speak with professionals with experiences of starting an initiative at a younger age.Galicia talked on what can help students that are more shy about creating change. Leading Learners is a great example that people don’t need years of experience to make a new change, or to start making a change. Galicia tapped into a point of having students that have made an impact in Leading Learners conversations. Seeing someone similar, and living boldly, can be the source of inspiration that pushes students aspiring to create impact towards gaining self-confidence and higher self-efficacy.During the past year, with the pandemic, checking-in with students became a priority. Galicia shared how she dealt with the Leading Learners team, as well as insight into viewing the time as “isolation” or “downtime” changes the way people approach the moment. Galicia emphasized that she enjoys how Leading Learners is capable of helping students as they explore, even if the students live in a different country.Wrapping up, Galicia shared that patience and market research are two lessons she suggests to anyone thinking of starting an initiative. Her thoughts uncover a balance of being committed, having preparation, and taking a leap.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or the official website.
Nicole Crone is a role model for using her curiosity to connect with the community and learn what it means to create impact.
Tim Rush spoke about creating a space for conversations through the Third Way Cafe -- a coffee house that helps the community come together for social good, entertainment, discussions, and of course, coffee! Tim mentioned “conversations” as a top priority in the atmosphere at the coffee house. Dialogue becomes more productive in a safe space, especially around social issues. Third Way Cafe is a place where you can order your coffee, and “talk to someone who's not just your barista, but also your friend”, Tim expressed.Conversational meetings are held at the cafe, but events such as poetry nights are also popular. Events give initiatives the chance to raise awareness or raise money for their cause. This is the case for the poetry night, which supports Think Make Live. Think Make Live is a community non-profit opening leadership and civic engagement programs to teens. The initiative raises money for their operations through poetry nights at the cafe.Tim then gave another example that is more focused on discussions. At one point, the cafe hosted an interactive event for Aunt Flow centered on what society considers “embarrassing” topics for women, like menstrual cycles. Tim recalled a scene from the event of four men trying to demonstrate how to use a tampon. With this atmosphere, the audience questioned why topics are “embarrassing” when they are natural in reality. Tim paraphrased the theme with this question: “Why do we make people feel bad about this?”From my eyes, one of the greatest barriers to solving issues is the discomfort of talking about it. Having a place to guide the conversations, or having a safe space for the conversations to unfold, allows for change to take place sooner. As a social enterprise, Third Way Cafe helps facilitate the conversations as casual and honest dialogue.We discussed Third Way Cafe’s future plans, including a second location in partnership with All People Art Gallery. The location operates within an assisting living complex. Tim spoke about how the space can be a great way to give retirees access to a social place. Retirees can feel heard, and remain active in their lives. Thinking further into the purpose of Third Way Cafe, Tim said:“I think the most important thing for us is that in each place that we open, we provide a safe space for people; a place where the culture is to pursue something greater than coffee, to pursue something greater than ourselves.”-- Tim Rush, Third Way CafeTim discussed his passion for prison reform. He discussed his views on the journey beyond jail while he reminisced on work he personally did with incarcerated individuals. Our conversation turned into our own dialogue of second chances, skepticisms, and what getting to the “root” of an issue looks like. Tim expressed that people could be off to a good start if everyone is willing to learn and willing to face some discomfort in these conversations for the larger picture.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Instagram or the official website.
Josh Boone of Cova Cowork shared his experience building support around social enterprises. Cova is a workspace providing tools and resources for entrepreneurship. While working as a freelance lawyer, Josh went on a global trip with a group of 50 others. He started an entrepreneurship mastermind with people who were interested. Oddly, a trend of social good came from out of the mastermind.Those first steps gained momentum, and eventually became the coworking space. Despite how smooth the transition may appear, Josh was candid about the learning process. One of the first lessons he gained was about execution. While reflecting, Josh said:“A lot of people have really great ideas and they can have a lot of energy in the beginning; and even getting down a business model, getting a few, few dollars of funding. But when it comes to taking that idea and making it real, it's hard.”-- Josh BooneOnce a space was secured, the real test of execution began. A factor many social enterprises have trouble with is their business model. Securing funding, operations, and logistics can take a toll in the ongoing process of refining. Josh shared what the process looked like for Cova. He mentioned a very intentional feature included with the workspace. Cova has childcare available on-site. This feature is geared towards parents that typically work from home. Josh explained the extra weight of commute time, parental managing, and expenses parents bare while trying to figure everything out. Cova relieves a lot of what could become anxiety, by addressing those concerns through the on-site childcare.Another program at Cova is their Changemakers program where space and resources are provided to help aid development. In the words of Josh, the program is “a long term incubator for businesses who have some traction, but basically needs space and resources to grow.” Most social enterprises in the program have a few paying customers and a tangible product, but Josh encourages all levels to engage with the space. For example, one of the social enterprises at Cova started without any customers. That social enterprise was deep into a research phase for building a program around helping kids deal with therapy. Josh praised the development of the idea related to behavioral therapy in two years of witnessing the project.Cova symbolizes a support system in more ways than one. From the business support to colleague support, the workspace creates an atmosphere of community. We discussed how tiresome ventures can be for solo entrepreneurs, and understanding the encouragement of interactions play into growing entrepreneurship.Speaking of support, Josh returned to the lesson of execution when asked for his advice to budding social entrepreneurs. Execution is not simply following through. Execution goes along with collaboration, and not doing everything by yourself. While giving compliments to amazing partnerships he values, including his wife, Josh explained having support means you see multiple scenarios and can make better decisions.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the official website.
Steve Votaw from Furniture Bank of Central Ohio discussed the depth in their mission to “turn empty houses into homes of hope”. A phrase of “empty houses” referring to the barren conditions of a household pushing through poverty. A lack of material resources, such as furniture and appliances, can eat away at the warmth of a home. Furniture Bank of Central Ohio noticed the resources are available, yet oftentimes wasted by fortunate families wishing to trash items. At the core, the initiative is redirecting items from becoming waste to finding renewed purpose in a new home.Each tale has its own twist. Origins for this initiative start with being a nonprofit. Steve talked through how the service and businesses model was not sustainable solely through philanthropic giving. The team decided to bring social enterprise into their nonprofit. In fact, there was urgency for a pivot. A partner who regularly gave the initiative $1 million could no longer support at that capacity. With no time to spare, the team was pivoting and experimenting with their external and internal operations.Ultimately, the shifts led toward two main approaches. The initiative now earns funds through owning thrift stores and operating a downsizing company. Funds can be secured by sales and received for the value of service. Conveniently, furniture can be gained through both options, which adds to the furniture the initiative supplies to families.Steve indulged in finding a good rhythm and the topic alludes to the compound of effort. While discussing the journey of their first thrift store, he expressed the growth from $40,000 in surplus the first year to $250,000 surplus the second year. The thrift store was more for maintaining operations, so any surplus was a gift. Discovering a fitting business model did more than expected.“It takes away the pressure on philanthropy because if we can raise our own resources through these efforts, it reduces our dependence on philanthropic support.”--Steve VotawFocusing more on numbers and impact, Steve explained the evolution of impact within Furniture Bank of Central Ohio. He first observed the growing need created by poverty being amplified by the disproportionately smaller presence of government assistance. Impact driven by the initiative comes from earning funds, volunteers, donations, and adjustments to the business model personalized for the mission. Steve broke down a few numbers to the core operations making everything function.In the near future, the initiative will be tested again by another residual issue of the pandemic. Steve expressed his thoughts on what role evictions will play in the initiative’s operations moving forward. Recognizing a shift reminds the team that the work is not over. Sharing a personal story, Steve recalled a “moving” moment he witnessed as one family was being helped. The moment is proof of simple things holding tremendous meaning. Steve summed up the experience saying that even the smallest moment “helps make a house, a home”.If you would like to learn more, check out Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or the official website.
Trigger Warning: Content in this episode involves conversations on human trafficking and trauma-based family dynamics.Lasheyl Stroud brought her expertise and authentic understating to share the work being done in and around the juvenile court system. At the time of recording, Lasheyl is growing past her role as Lead Magistrate, and running for judge of the Franklin County Court. She prepped the discussion by first explaining the difference between a judge and a magistrate. Lasheyl handled cases in Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court, which typically involve family-based issues. She also handled cases in Empowerment Court, where cases relate to human trafficking.Going across the state, and working with a sense of urgency, Lasheyl participated in every part of the court. The urgency comes not from a lack of time, but is sustained by clarity and passion. In her experience, she represented parents and children. From full time commitments at the Attorney General’s Office to volunteering as a Guardian Ad Litem, her focus on social justice impact exposed her to a wide range of experiences. Her passion and focus come from a profound sense of care, which explains the actions she upholds when children, children she considers as if they’re her own, are involved directly in court cases.Moving to a topic the public is less educated on, Lasheyl described the system of human trafficking from the perspective of her role in court. Unlike movies, human trafficking often begins with familiar figures in an individual’s life. Family and romantic partners are predators more often than people imagine. She revealed the name “Empowerment Court” is meant as a message to empower the victims within the court cases.Youth are showered in a love that is pure and genuine for the duration of the transition through court. Court staff, child services, and related stakeholders tend to be the first healthier examples of adults for some youth in court. Lasheyl unpacks the careful and attentive approach used to build true relationships with the youth. Lasheyl also dives into the delicate details of family dynamics. For example, removing youth from environments where the a parent is allowing the child to be trafficked by a significant other.If urged to add to the love being given to the youth, Lasheyl shared that people can donate gift cards, clothing, or other forms of service. As a step further, she also mentioned training conferences and mentoring programs can help people become more educated towards the social issue.Our discussion changed direction towards juvenile delinquency. Based on Lasheyl’s explanation, the harshest issue becomes the lingering consequence felt by youth after being engaged in the court system. Court personnel and volunteers aim to resolve this issue, with one hopeful option being restorative justice circles.In closing, Lasheyl took a deep dive into her journey through the social justice sphere that led to running for judge during COVID-19. (So, go out and vote, and vote all the way down your ticket!)If you would like to learn more, you can visit Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or the official website.
Susan Post introduced Aspire, the Columbus-cultivated award ceremony honoring social entrepreneurs. The annual award show began in 2013, and continues to celebrate social enterprise in Columbus today. Similar to many events in 2020, Aspire will be held virtually. Now the event has a larger capacity for more people to share this celebratory experience sponsored by Social Ventures.Three awards exist, which include Social Enterprise of the Year, Emerging Social Enterprise of the Year, and Nonprofit Sustainability. To give context to the awards, Susan gave examples of previous winners which included Freedom A La Cart, Honest Jobs, and Clean Turn. For this year, the award show has two awards: Social Enterprise of the Year award and the new Social Enterprise Coronavirus Pivot. Susan explained the importance of paying attention to recognizing the “social enterprises that were faced with huge challenges in their operational models because of the situation and found really great ways to pivot and find new ways to serve the community and carry out their mission.”Aspire establishes recognition, and provides a platform for social enterprises to tell their stories. Susan personally feels the value of awareness around social enterprise. People should see the link of engaging with social good initiatives to the impact born from the participation. The power of impact at scale becomes a more tangible topic to the general public.In this year’s awards, the public will be able to feel more acquainted with the award nominees. Susan shared her delight about the one-on-one interviews Aspire had with finalists. Unlike previous years, the interviews are a way to hear directly from the nominees. Susan suggested anyone in the general public can start by browsing listings from Social Ventures. She encourage everyone to actively discover social enterprises, whether local or non-local.From my experience, one thing I observed is that people in Columbus are supportive of each other. Spaces built for opening doors and connecting names with faces are at the core of the organic web of genuine effort in Columbus. Speaking of Columbus, we dived into Susan’s origin story. As of now, Susan worked with Metroprenuer for over seven years, but of course there is a journey prior to joining the initiative. She grew up in Ohio, and attended Ohio State University (OSU). Susan briefly explained how she ended up in her career path.Circling back to the awards, Susan informed everyone that tickets are a give-what-you-want donation this year. If you donate more than $15, you'll be eligible to win a social impact box from Social Ventures.Susan further expressed interactions she had in Ohio. She explained her thoughts on writing articles to convey the excitement companies have around their impact and missions. Susan speaks on the future complications Columbus could face, including evictions. The issues began before the evictions.l, and we dove into the topics layering social issues in Columbus. We had the type of conversation where you need more time.To learn more, visit Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter , and the official site.
Purnota Dutta Bahl of Cuddles Foundation provides nutrition to children undergoing cancer treatment. Being based in India, Purnota explained the barriers of cancer treatment for children within the country. Malnourishment is one of those barriers slimming the odds of proper treatment. Malnourished children can experience disruptive side effects during chemotherapy, and drop out of treatment. The organization believes “every child deserves a chance at cure”, and is determined to protect the probability of recovery.Cuddles Foundation does not focus solely on giving food to children. Purnota explained the initiative educated parents/ guardians, wrote nutrition prescriptions, sent nutritional baskets worth one month of nutrition, and educated nutritionists across the country in the science of pediatric oncology nutrition. Everything is done to ensure a better condition for undergoing cancer treatment.From the start, the initiative was intentional in purpose, and “let’s see how this goes” in actions. She has an instinct of treating the initiative like a startup. For example, Purnota recounted how she found herself at an opportunity with only ten days to register proper paperwork for Cuddles Foundation. The social enterprise benefited from her tendency to not waste a chance, and her skill of recognizing when to “push the panel harder”.As the organization developed, there was a need to create awareness around the specific cause of the initiative. In this case, the cause is “how important nutrition is in cancer treatment”. Rallying support produced a challenge at times, but Purnota made a point of succinct advocacy and meeting the right people at the right time. Following this lesson came a lesson many social enterprises face, which is forming a qualified team. Purnota expressed the gap between not having funds to pay the same rates corporations offer and a hiring qualified, cutting edge team. Her solution was to build a small core team. The core team of qualified individuals led to high performance and exponential results. Of course, we imagine this outcome not developing linearly, but unfolding ultimately. She summed up the key combination of securing a strong core team that has better potential to scale:“... bring the people in, then you make sure that they feel fulfilled, that the work is such good quality, that they themselves will bring in money and they themselves will bring in people.”-- Purnota BahlPurnota dug further into this topic on which individuals to engage if you want to produce these kinds of cooperative relationships. Most of the interaction is helping people know that they have a stake in the action, empowerment, and value.Cuddles Foundation approaches their operations by providing value from multiple sides and embraces mindset shifts. Purnota explained the future projects and goals the Cuddles Foundation is pursuing, including technology. She then explained past mindsets, even mentioning the beneficial e-commerce habit the Cuddles Foundation adopted. The organization is showing everyone how nutrition is an undeniable root cause in health treatment and needs an all-around approach.If you would like to learn more, check out Instagram, Facebook, or the official website.
Beth Gifford, President & CEO of Columbus Works, described the initiative perfectly, saying Columbus Works is a “nonprofit organization providing job readiness training and longterm wraparound support for any individual in central Ohio who desires to move out of poverty through full-time employment.” During COVID-19, assistance in employment matters is extremely relevant. Beth explained the pivoting challenges and adapting to the new atmosphere once stay-at-home orders began. For example, their coaching switching from physical locations to virtual sessions unknowingly led to other issues being exposed. A major one being their members did not have access to WiFi or access to a stable learning environment.Each new pivot became a defining moment to the decisions faced. Beth expressed the scenarios of chronically unemployed members, parent members with children, and the tough decisions where Columbus Works tried to provide guidance. People who make progress to come out of poverty are the most fragile and are understandably hit the hardest. It may take years to regain the momentum lost to the turmoil of the pandemic.According to plans by Columbus Works, it takes three to five years to earn your way out of poverty. After that, it takes an additional five to seven years to learn how to stay out of poverty. Beth emphasized their approach being reasonably predictable in how they walk alongside their members to achieve life improvements. We explore these different stages in the podcast, from the beginning with the very first steps of engaging with Columbus Works.Work through the initiative transforms the lives of members. Beth told a particular story of a man who went from living in a shelter owning a three-bedroom ranch in the course of a year. Not only did his life change, but the lives of the people he is connected to. The man was able to move his mother into his home and is able to take care of child support. At the time of the episode, the man is saving for a car, and Beth pointed out one threshold Columbus Works aims to have their members reach:“You want to be able to get to a place where you can choose.”-- Beth GiffordShe expanded on this thought using the car scenario. The financial ability to choose how and what to pursue gives a different sense of freedom.Another heavy area of impact within Columbus Works related to members learning through their trauma. For Beth, there came a realization that not being able to sustain employment could be connected to the fight or flight instinct of trauma. She delved into patterns she identified with Columbus Works members and their significance.Beth wrapped the conversation through an explanation of what it takes to be part of Columbus Works. She explained the main characteristics for roles, such as a member or a partnering employer, that are necessary for a thriving Columbus Works journey.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Twitter or check the official website.
George “Ski” Zarebski and Lolo Smith of Urban Accelerator X came to help everyone get on track around building up entrepreneurship. Urban Accelerator X works as an urban entrepreneur support organization much like their name would suggest. Usually, the initiative interacts with smaller businesses that are 5 years or younger in their business journey. The duo points out that they work with all levels of business, but the level closer to the ideation stage of business is where they currently have the most organic connection. To increase impact, they honor support for poc-owned and women-owned businesses against added barriers these entrepreneurs face. They also deliberately made their entrepreneur center accessible to the inner city. Clearly, Urban Accelerator X is adamant about supporting and expanding horizons of people growing through entrepreneurship.Ski and LoLo explain the three huge barriers in business: management, money, and markets. Lolo specifically addressed the additional factors of emotional trauma and generational curses. Barriers with lingering effects tend to create a gap that widens over time. These are barriers that we seem to address on the surface, only to realize there is more depth needing discussion. Ski and Lolo touched on the limits seen in these lingering barriers, such as difficulty in building wealth.A step toward minimizing these lingering barriers is to combat them from the beginning. One way is to focus on expanding the level of exposure to the possibilities of life. Ski gave an excellent analogy using an age-old question:“When you're a kid, you almost inevitably get the question: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ It's a horrible question because the only possible answers you can give are things that you've been exposed to. That's exactly what we're talking about here. We're talking about a group of people that have not had the same level of exposure as another group of people, and so what we're trying to do is broaden that awareness, broaden that exposure.” - SkiFeeding off this topic, we started sharing our own experiences of broadening our horizons. At times the shift was on purpose, and other times it was through shock. Each person is raised in different environments, and there comes a day when you realize what is the “normal” basic to you is not the same for everyone else. In a great illustration of this point, Lolo shared a personal college preparation experience that switched the entire perspective around family expectation and finance.We dive more into real life stories of entrepreneurs overcoming limiting beliefs and the value of changing the lens we perceive the business world through. Both Ski and Lolo have accounts on touching stories they witnessed develop as entrepreneurs found their place. Luckily, Urban Accelerator X is continuing their work of helping entrepreneurs find their place. Ski and Lolo announce exciting news about upcoming work that will further entrepreneurs in their business journeys.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the official website.
Jennifer Sconyers came to discuss her extensive work in diversity and inclusion, alongside commentary on what lessons she learned. Being the president and founder of Abundance Leadership Consulting, Jennifer continuously worked with numerous companies and observed a lack of diverse talent. Absence of diversity only intensified as the conditions did not allow diverse backgrounds to thrive and be successful. For diversity and inclusion, companies and organizations will benefit from viewing their environment from all sides.Examining both the internal and external relationships of a company reveal culture being upheld in the operations. Jennifer touched on what it looks like for a company where diversity has no longevity and added that the external affairs are important. The relationships with customers, clients, or any part of the external operation can also hold clues to how a company is choosing to interact with diversity. She explained how this can be experienced on different levels of a company, and the significance of tradition. A company that opened 100 years ago is more likely to have a set culture and be part of a larger system, which could make the issues of diversity a more tangled topic than a company first expects. Anything you change must be changed at the root, but reaching the root is not always easy.A portion of the work is discovering what it means to be anti-racist. Uncovering the systems constructing racism give space for individuals to dismantle, and create something new. Jennifer emphasizes this work is not to be done as a badge of honor, but to “fundamentally” change people’s outcomes for the better. The work is a long term commitment.At times the work appears in direct relationships, such as connections between co-workers or between relatives. Jennifer spoke on ways to approach the task of difficult discussion with relatives. We then switched into discussing relationships as building professional partnerships. I mentioned to Jennifer ways GiveBackHack is encouraging a more diverse environment. She took this moment to bring attention to the need for both sides to receive value. She expressed that people are willing to recruit for “diversity” as a metric. There needs to be value for the company, and for the individuals, the company is recruiting.“If you're doing it because you need to increase diversity numbers, I would say rethink that. Cause there's gotta be something in it for both of you.”--Jennifer SconyersJennifer explained how diversity is not only race but thought and experience. Diversity work is around including diverse backgrounds and making the environment welcoming. Involvement in the work is the follow up to actually acknowledging the work needs to be done. Jennifer gave a creative example on how oppressive structural systems are like a default wallpaper, which really speaks to the proactive nature and awareness we need. Recognizing the first steps in diversity and inclusion helps us find workable, impact-filled solutions in how we move forward.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Jennifer’s official website or YouTube.
Durell Coleman speaks on DC Design’s work as a social impact strategy and design consulting firm. The firm works on the pressing issues such as the criminal justice system, healthcare, foster care, and education. Through their efforts, DC Design helps organizations nurture relationships with their communities in addition to developing strong strategies and resources. In the end, the firm provides an overall structure to empower the organization and the community."Our work is powered by the belief that in order to truly create the type of change the communities need, you need to be in community with those communities. You need to be working hand in hand with the people that you want to benefit."-- Durell ColemanDurell discussed DC Design’s multi-stakeholder human-centred design, starting with an example of work done on criminal justice in Santa Clara. The multi-stakeholder approach searches for the different narratives taking place within one scenario. For Santa Clara, Durell explained the choice to speak with people who worked with incarcerated individuals, people who had been incarcerated, mentors of incarcerated individuals, family members of incarcerated individuals, and victims of crime. DC Design’s process goes even further as the firm sat down with power roles, such as the sheriff and public defender, to include those narratives. All of the experiences are gathered to work towards a solution.Collaborative effort plays a huge role in the vision towards a better solution in DC Design’s playbook. Letting the community take the lead, the firm focuses on listening. Durell expressed thoughts behind the importance of listening deeply to people in direct contact with the issues. We continued our discussion into the topic of longevity coming to the most fitting solution. The goal is to find a solution that will still have a positive impact years later. Identifying the different needs surrounding the issue, and discovering the overlap, provides a way to create such a solution.“I think you need to make sure that you define the problem correctly to make sure that what you create actually solves the right problem.”-- Durell ColemanBeyond helping organizations and governments, the firm opened DC Design University for people set on creating social impact. Courses explore topics that reach into overall achievement. DC Design is currently launching a self-paced course, Design Thinking Fundamentals for Social Change, giving the fundamentals of community change while using real stories of pivotal community initiatives.We then discussed the untapped potential high schoolers have in our world. The podcast discussed this a while back, but to summarize, there is a sort of natural innovation in the limitless mind of youth. Durell shared his own story of this realization, bringing a new depth to why empowering youth is insanely beneficial. Durell then reminisced on major moments and questions that pushed his journey leading up to DC Design. He expressed his commitment to continuing the work changing communities and systems.If you would like to learn more, you can check LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or the official site. You can also find Durell Coleman directly on Instagram or Twitter.Also - they extended the discount of their innovative DC Design University program through August 3rd - check it out!
In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with past guest Omar Elhagmusa and bringing in new guest Paul Bryson. Omar was a past guest when I spoke with his non-profit lending company Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF). Paul is working for the Legal Aid Society (LAS) as a non-profit lawyer. We dive into the benefits of incorporating as a non-profit, and navigate a conversation of whether to start as an LLC or non-profit. Quite often we hear the benefits of starting an LLC, so these two guests together help fill out the story on the other side.Omar explained his work with the largest Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in the Midwest. He gave more information on similar community finance institutions, such as micro lenders. Paul followed up with his perspective on the strong points and barriers of each side. Paul mainly expressed the initial goal is simply to determine capacity and what ways to move forward.Our conversation evolved into something like a brief consultation. We discussed the impact of timely advice on the operation of initiatives, whether for-profit or non-profit. Business models play an incredible role in sustaining and developing community initiatives. Soon we discussed our takes on business model examples in the social good space, such as Foundry. Paul provides his expertise in carefully explaining L3C (low-profit limited liability company), which is the closest to a cross-over of for-profit and non-profit. He described the common approaches of what a social entrepreneur might experience; speaking from both a bank’s perspective and the community perspective.“I think the final thing is sometimes people go ‘Well, if I'm a nonprofit, then I can't earn money’. That's a huge myth that I think we're going to dispel as we go forward. ‘Nonprofit’ doesn't mean you can't earn money.” -- - Paul BrysonWe dug a little further into nonprofit operations, such as relations with the IRS or choosing a board of directors. Omar suggested an untapped source for finding board members, and discussed the benefits of incorporating board culture into social enterprises. Keeping social good at the forefront becomes key.“The temptation of doing the easy, fast thing at the beginning may not translate to helping you achieve your mission, which is why you start a social enterprise in the first place; because you believe in the mission and you're trying to find a way to unlock capitalism in order to achieve that social good.”-- Omar ElhagmusaIn a full circle moment, I asked for a verdict on switching from an LLC to a nonprofit. Suggestions on how you transition were given, but overall, switching is not to be done casually. During our conversation we also discussed topics like subsidies and common myths around non-profits, alongside examples to properly illustrate which social entrepreneur interactions to expect.If you would like to learn more you can check out the IFF official site or the LAS official site to find more information.Omar ElhagmusaLinkedInEmailPaul BrysonOfficial PageDirect intake line: 614-241-2001
Marvetta Rutherford discussed with us her take on transportation, food access, ownership, and empowering people. Marvetta gave her observations on the evolution of her hometown, Cleveland, Ohio. Her life experience spans enough eras to remember the Hough riots and Glenville riots during the sixties.
Allen Proctor from SocialVentures balances optimism with an extremely realistic outlook on the development of social enterprises and community relations. He builds the ecosystem of social entrepreneurship. We talked through what is working well for social entrepreneurs and what they need to know.Starting off strong, his first two points revolved around what some of the best social enterprises are doing right now. One part is social media, and the other relates to business models. Lingering on the topic of business models, Allen gave his take on a gap in business awareness within social enterprise.Many people start from a similar viewpoint of the business world, but it is a viewpoint of tattered pieces. Allen explained the scenarios often found in the aftermath. Being aware of your business model and having a sustainable plan becomes crucial in longevity and scaling impact. While speaking through the decisions social enterprises should be aware of, he managed to bring our attention back to an old saying, “Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.” Soon after, he reassures that there are social enterprises doing well, but realistically points out where improvements could be made.Along with laying out the business model, there are times of pivoting and boundaries. In business, you’ll make decisions about where and what to change, including when letting go to make more room for change. Concerning boundaries, Allen gave an excellent example using catering. He explained that if the business is equipped to order 10 to 25 lunch boxes, they shouldn’t agree to every delivery request significantly beyond that range. A fluctuating expectation is understandably unsustainable.Our discussion shifted to the contrasting relation of funds available compared to impact on communities. Smaller companies more tied to the community are receiving less funding than larger corporations that have no focus on helping communities. In housing, for example, Allen shared his opinion on what’s been happening in opportunity zones around Columbus, and how it is not transformational for the communities. Speaking of transformation, Allen has a strong take on entrepreneurship being the start to community wealth, and it’s not the take you may think. He shared observations and conversations on what actually occurs when trying to build wealth in community. One dilemma centers on placement and market exposure for the entrepreneurs. Chances are not in favor of the business owners, and lead to an opposite effect if business does not go well.We also had a chance to discuss Allen’s work in initiatives, such as Impact Boxes. This particular venture is driven in response to the pandemic. Impact Boxes lessens the burden of delivery management small businesses suddenly faced amidst the pandemic. Allen talked about pivoting while staying connected with social impact and listening to the community. Fittingly, Allen then expressed the mission behind work with SocialVentures:“SocialVentures’ mission is to empower mission-driven businesses to eliminate the social and economic divide in our community.” -- Allen ProctorIf you would like to learn more, you can visit their website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. And do check out their Impact Boxes!
Trudi Lebron is a business coach for social impact-driven entrepreneurs. She also works as a diversity equity and inclusion strategist.She reflects on how she first began her venture into the coaching space. Trudi said school loan payment helped fuel her natural side hustle tendency. She briefly describes what gave the first push of momentum behind her coaching. As one learning point, she notes: “Swim towards the people who are swimming towards you.”From there, it’s all about taking small steps. Interestingly, for Trudi, small steps are more about the questions. She’ll ask herself “How can I replace my electric bill?” rather than only saying “I’m going to save money.” Trudi is specific in finding a bare minimum to move her progress forward.Among the ways she concentrated her dedication, Trudi invested in her progress by hiring a coach. A professional coach was a huge investment at the time; “... it was more than my car payment” Trudi recalls. While in the coaching program, Trudi needed to unpack lingering narratives about the nonprofit sector with money. She gave an example of where the narrative is birthed from and said nonprofits can attest to this honest scenario. After acknowledging the narrative, Trudi explains what brought her to realize that money can function differently.Deeper than the money narrative, Trudi commented on efficiency needing to be a larger focus for nonprofits. Many nonprofits, if they were to calculate their efforts, have a negatively disproportionate amount of money compared to the hours and services they provide. Her first suggestion towards improving efficiency is developing protocols. She explained that the protocols should hone the process, not necessarily the humans performing the process.“I tell people that they shouldn't be managing people. They should be managing outcomes, and if they stop managing people and start managing outcomes, you actually get to your outcomes way faster.”- Trudi LebronBuilding a framework benefits the company’s ability to naturally thrive. Trudi expressed how nonprofits and for-profits can exchange knowledge to better their operations. How companies organize their operations don’t always match their values. Trudi discussed her approach to addressing disconnect by having her clients realize their own behavior in comparison to their values.OPPORTUNITY became the topic of discussion once Trudi talked more on the differences behind access and what people are exposed to while in their own surroundings. She did not let the lack of anything disrupt her from starting her ventures. Trudi navigated her space with questioning, seeking where she could find the resources. Through this, she goes back to discussing coaching, and also the importance of collaboration.During the end of our conversation, Trudi really expressed how her passion for coaching is linked with diversity and inclusion. Trudi’s passion is the driving force behind her ventures, which continues through work such as coaching, Script Flip, and her new podcast, Business Remixed - a different kind of business podcast around social impact.If you would like to learn more, you can check out Instagram, Facebook, or the official website.
Rebecca Cohen explained how Share My Journey “connects caring people to share knowledge and experience during challenging life circumstances.” She created a way for people who lived through a certain experience to give support to people currently living that experience. Whether the experience deals with family, career, or any of life’s endless enigmas, Share My Journey is filled with insights built from first-hand experience.Rebecca recalled the countless times she had no one in her immediate circle to discuss a problem with. She wanted to speak with someone who navigated the problem before her, and could understand what it’s like to go through similar circumstances. After eight years of sitting on the idea, Rebecca decided to launch Share My Journey after participating in a 48 hour social venture launch camp called Seed Spot. A lot can be learned from Rebecca’s “just start” process. She would focus on diving into the next simple step, rather than overthinking the next five steps. When first starting, she sent a message out on a neighborhood app to find participants, and 12 strangers responded right away. She said in that moment, “I knew I was onto something.”Needs for connection and conversation unmasked itself to Rebecca through Share My Journey. She expressed the realization of how much impact a meaningful conversation can have on the giver and receiver. Share My Journey received positive feedback not only from the surveys taken by participants, but Rebecca shared that she receives unsolicited emails complimenting the initiative.“…an authentic connection or a conversation that's meaningful; it’s such powerful medicine, and this is a tool that's available to us now to add to our toolbox of things that can reduce our anxiety, or at least provide a way to acknowledge the anxiety that we feel with what's going on.”--Rebecca CohenFor connection, Rebecca asked people about their memories of receiving help. She found that each person she interviewed mentioned a time when they were offered help without asking. She expressed the power behind offering help and explained the ways she integrates this principle into her own life.Rebecca then talked about her pitching to mentors, and the feedback given to her ideas. The task of pushing her idea out for people to evaluate brought Rebecca lessons in pivoting the execution of her ideas. From this, Rebecca outlined general, simple steps in starting with what you have.Social venture projects seem to start very naturally and internally for Rebecca. She gave the background story on how she became an author, and the real life events that led her to write specific topics that relate to her own experiences.The growth of Rebecca’s projects also comes naturally. She explained what I like to think of as community support developing a project compared to the strings of investor funding. Then, she dove into what she envisions for Share My Journey as the initiative progresses.If you would like to learn more, you can check out Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or the official website.
Vincenzo Landino speaks on how Can’t Stop Columbus emerged during this time of social distancing for COVID-19. He recalls how the grassroots initiative began from a tweet on Twitter. Someone asked a holding a virtual hack-a-thon to combat COVID-19, and the response was overwhelming... three days later, over 300 people were involved.Seeing the huge amount of engagement, a Slack account was created to further organize everyone. One week later, Can’t Stop Columbus would find more and more people wanted to get involved with the initiative.There are multiple pitches, projects, and collaborations happening within Can’t Stop Columbus. Most projects focus on connecting communities to life-sustaining initiatives in Columbus and Ohio. Vincenzo mentioned Columbus Eats, Columbus Helper, and Columbus Day Active to give an idea of the current ongoing projects.Columbus eats was a particular focal point of Vincenzo’s efforts. After restaurants closed down, he really began questioning how he could form a resource around this situation. Following his gut, he launched a site to become the centralized spot to organize restaurant information. Within the first two weeks, the site had 30,000 unique visitors and 425 self-submitted restaurants.From there, ideas continue to build upon each other. Vincenzo goes into the story of the server inspired feature being added to Columbus eats, after an idea to extend help to servers came into discussion. Can’t Stop Columbus reached the point where entire committees are dedicated to brainstorming more ideas for community resources. For clarity, Vincenzo explained that the ideas are looked at from different angles to ensure the projects are effective.Can’t Stop Columbus is innovative, almost fearless, in using strategies to get the word out to communities. Marketing communications create graphics and videos for major social media outlets, like Instagram, for their roll out.Beyond resources, Can’t Stop Columbus is bringing joy to people. Vincenzo reflected on his amazement towards small acts bringing huge joy. He talked about really considering what brings people together. Then, he discussed knowing to play a person’s strengths to achieve the optimal performance in the initiative.“…who can motivate people, who is good at design, who can talk to developers, and putting all those people together, and then saying, okay, now that we've got all of this diverse understanding of potential solutions, let's attack problems.”--Vincenzo LandinoWe shared the feeling of Columbus being extremely proactive in giving support to one another. Initiatives filled with leadership and camaraderie created this momentum found within Columbus. The natural pull towards finding solutions could be used even after COVID-19 passes. Vincenzo touched on showing people that they can be part of a bigger community effort.Vincenzo goes into more detail when discussing the ongoing projects happening in Columbus. He lists multiple resources for people to stay updated on news, finding free meals, fitness, mental health, and more. All the resources can be found on the Can’t Stop Columbus official website.“…coming together for the greater good, coming together as a team is really important.”--Vincenzo LandinoIf you would like to learn more, you can visit Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or the official website.
- Left to right: myself, Emily of GiveBackHack, Madison of Point, Mico, and Nicole of APTE.Madison Mikhail Bush from the Point app is creating an easier way to volunteer and connect so that causes can have the necessary support. In her own words, she describes Point as “your starting point for doing good”. Regular volunteers may be familiar with the tiring task of learning about organizations and how to get involved. Discovering a nonprofit to support can also be its own task. Volunteering and donating should be much more seamless for people who want to be active.Madison discussed making the volunteering process smoother for volunteers and nonprofits. She recalls her first failed venture of an online giving site during her college days. After failing, she raised $20k on Indiegogo and hired San Francisco based help to develop the point app. Unfortunately, those developers from San Fran took most of the money without giving Madison a product, but she didn't give up and persevered to develop a solution.Not only perseverance but her resourcefulness. Madison’s journey is an excellent example of reaching major players through seemingly minor connections. One instance is Madison randomly calling an old friend about an old offer. The friend casually offered to build an app for Madison two years ago. She hadn’t spoken to that friend since then. To her surprise, the friend agreed to honor that offer. More surprising, that friend happened to be working for Google when she called.Point app still experienced hurdles. Madison shares her stories of the challenges raising funds. She expressed how grateful she is to Point’s early supporters; including the Columbus Foundation who gave Point a boost to get more done.Now, Point is focused more than ever on supporting good in the midst of COVID-19. Harnessing more passion and drive, Madison talks briefly about her approach to remaining active at this time. She mentioned the virtual hack-a-thon, Can’t Stop Columbus, being one way.Madison did mention how people react to the word “volunteering”. She admits it’s not associated with a cool or exciting image. Through Point, she hopes to re-brand the word. In her work, she sees many exciting things take place. Madison found that volunteering brings very different backgrounds together, like varied socioeconomic class.“Your time matters. How you spend your time matters.”- MadisonShe explained the stories that can be shared during these interactions can really bring more creativity to someone’s life. Almost widening a lens, or enlarging a canvas. Madison thinks everyone has “value to give”.I can understand the value Point has to give. Point becomes this lens of focus saying, “Hey. Here's where help is needed most, and here's how you can jump in and get involved in a productive way without wasting your time. ”If you would like to learn more, you can check out Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or the official website. The Point app is available for iOS and android... download it!*Note: Madison is center in the photo. This is what I love about Columbus - this was a chance encounter with local change-makers at the Roosevelt Coffeehouse (a social enterprise), with Emily (left, organizer GiveBackHack Columbus), Madison (Point), Mico, (a local restaurateur), and Nicole (President of Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship over at OSU.) As a bonus, Emily is wearing a Jeni's t-shirt, a great B-Corp ice cream company that started in Columbus.
Annalies Corbin, Ph.D., from PAST Foundation speaks on transforming education through the PAST Innovation Lab. Programs in the organization change how students interact with learning environments.From Annalies’ view, today’s education systems do not properly equip students as the structure of those education systems is obsolete. She brought our attention to how we’re using the same education approaches we used over 100 years ago. Back then, education prepared students for specific industry skills based on career needs of that age, like blue-collar jobs. That was a time when people spent decades doing the same job in a rapidly developing United States.After all these years, that structure was never re-engineered to fit our current times. Now, we are called to rethink a huge question: “What are we preparing kids for?”The PAST Foundation became Annalies’ way to prepare students living in this age of society. A large part of preparing students for today’s world is reestablishing “problem solving”. PAST made a warehouse into a lab space for this purpose. Programs at the PAST Innovation Lab feature varied projects, from tech to fashion, with hands-on approaches in a transdisciplinary problem-based learning (TPBL) format.“…watch your kid play. They are amazing, and yet we get them into school, and we squish that out of them, right? We structure them to the point that they've lost the ability to think and be creative on their own without any adult’s interjection.”– Annalies CorbinThese learning spaces take inspiration from Annalies’ experience in Honda R&D (Research & Development). She explains the typical R&D process, then relates that process to the collaborative environment PAST creates. Everything is based around creativity and collaboration.Annalies believes everyone is capable of participating and solving problems in the labs. PAST will give the basic tools and instruction needed, and step back to let students work through the projects. She expressed that the kids love the process of figuring things out, being hands-on, and building belief in their capability. Students become immersed to the point that she must remind them they need to go home for the day.These projects can be useful to R&D experts since kids can think in ways experts do not. Annalies explains that kids approach problems without some of the constraints adults do, like knowing the laws of physics. Even if a kid’s solution cannot be exactly replicated, their ideas can be the missing link to a different solution.With 20 years of experience, Annalies discussed what she believes keeps students coming back, nurturing leadership, and near-peer mentoring. She later gives a real example of dealing with less-than collaborative people in a very collaborative environment. We both admit that taking initiative comes more naturally to some people, and Annalies views participation as a huge step. The PAST Foundation is fostering natural participation by encouraging students to take more ownership in their learning process.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, or the official website.
Craig Chavis of Cre8ive Craig is a serial entrepreneur and a coach on how you can fulfill your creative dreams. He launched his book, Burdens of a Dream, on the topic a few days ago. Craig shares his story and the lessons he learned in his creative pursuits.Craig went from his home state, Ohio, to play collegiate football in Alabama. After two years, he experienced a season-ending injury that led him to study abroad in Costa Rica instead. Fast forward all the way to Craig finishing up his MBA, he was not sure where he would see himself next. He ended up joining the Peace Corps in January 2014 for Peru.Then, Craig goes on to explain examining the location, using a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and other ways of becoming familiar with the community structure. The first thing Craig did was to connect with youth about entrepreneurship, which turned into a huge success. “Mesh their needs with your actual abilities.” – Craig ChavezHe is realistic about committing to and addressing community needs. The community may have numerous issues, demands, and ideas that might not be possible for the resources available. Craig added that he had to balance those aspects with his own ideas since he also had his own agenda for what could be done to help the community. Craig calls the overlap of these two sides the “sweet spot”.Finding a sweet spot is how he managed to secure a $15,000 grant to help farmers come together as a mango association for negotiating fair prices.Craig continued to observe and have conversations with the community in Peru. He came to realize that the real approach to use is simply being mindful of different perspectives.“I couldn’t impose my Western ideologies and mentalities on people in this part of the world. It really caused me to be more empathetic…”– Craig ChavezFollowing success in his own community, Craig partnered with another volunteer to help in another community. Craig discussed his involvement with an Indiegogo Campaign for a distillery. He shared preparations, such as being familiar with flavors of Peru and continuing to involve the community to validate the idea. It’s amazing how he managed to raise capital just as his campaign was coming to a close with the campaign only halfway funded.In his advice to budding entrepreneurs, Craig gave thoughtful answers on generating income, burn out, time management, product development, and simply what it means to start. He keeps a practical outlook on balancing entrepreneurship with everyday life. He provided great depth for explaining the mindset of finding where to begin.Coming full circle, we ended on his involvement with work happening in Columbus. Craig spoke on the purposeful culture that is alive and well in Columbus. We rounded up the conversation discussing business models, and strategically developing better entrepreneurship. If you would like to learn more and connect with Craig more, check out his Instagram, official website.Craig's Book has just been published: Burdens of a Dream: 33 Actionable Nuggets of Wisdom for the Creative - it's packed with some great nuggets and stories to get you going.And to top it off, he's just launched an online course: Simply Scalable: 12 Steps for Building a Business That Works for You
Kristine Snow and Chelsea Akers amplify true diversity and inclusion through Level D&I Solutions. From WITI (Women in Technology International) to a partnership with Revel IT, these two social entrepreneurs are molding a new experience for “women in tech”. Kristine and Chelsea imagine Level reaching more narratives to widen their involvement with diversity and inclusion.The duo identified a “disconnect” between the corporate environment and advocacy groups. Hosting networking or up-skilling events became a response to “disconnect”. Kristine and Chelsea spoke about seeing a great turnout of women for these events, including minorities. Strong attendance is all that’s needed to prove “no women are interested” is only a tech myth.“… at the end of the day, we try to look at diversity and inclusion as a strategic business initiative, not just something to ‘check a box’ or to ‘look good’ in the community.”--Kristine SnowFor Level, ensuring impact meant narrowing how Level provides impact, and hone their methods. Level operates within three tiers of business: recruiting, consulting and training, and community outreach. Within recruiting, Level is heavily involved in executive search, pipelining, and diversity recruitment. The major focus falls on full-time placements and top-down change.Within consulting and training, a process of evaluating and improving a company’s diversity and inclusion is scored by Level. The major goals are creating tangible change and combating an unconscious bias. Level’s approach includes education, such as presentations to help establish awareness for what diversity and inclusion really mean.Kristine and Chelsea described their consulting and training process as “productive discomfort”. The women gave strong talking points about what dialogue and reflections are needed to see real results. Through productive discomfort, companies can experience favorable outcomes, like making more money or higher retention rates.Within community outreach, Level actively engages through events, podcasts, social media, and more. Level considers working on the ground and at the top level the way to “highlight both sides” in their quest for all-around diversity and inclusion.Our conversation took an interesting turn at this point. We discussed viewing privilege not as what you have, but what you lack. The women shared stories of what lack of experience and lacking awareness of that experience looks like. Effortlessly, we found ourselves soon discussing how representation is a huge factor alongside diversity, equity, and inclusion. Without representation, you’re alienating a ton of valuable narratives.The duo uncovers a topic of diversity not always visible. Diversity lives in our experiences and our thought patterns.“There’s importance in everyone participating and sharing. If you only have like-minded people working on one project and people who think differently work on another project, the interaction is still missing.”--Chelsea AkersOur conversation then dives into Level’s first step for any company, describing disadvantages in context, and future plans. I can say Kristine and Chelsea earnestly insist on pushing diversity and inclusion forward.If you would like to learn more, you can visit Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or the official website.Can't Stop ColumbusWe recorded this just days before COVID-19 shut everything down. I've seen Chelsea as an active participant on Can't Stop Columbus, a virtual hack-a-thon bringing together people to create solutions to help those (i.e. all of us) effected by COVID-19. It's been inspiring to see leaders in Columbus along with 700 technologists, creatives and all others come together to do something about our situation, from the isolation of our home.
Asking the right questions is essential for accessing insightful information. Abel Koury from Compelling Analytics helps refine questions that drive your social enterprise forward.After multiple interactions with nonprofits, Abel was inspired to combine his experience in research design and data analytics with social justice. Non-profits and smaller organizations don’t always have the capacity to create great surveys that will collect and analyze the proper data to further develop the organization’s services. Abel says organizations might be doing a wonderful job, but their data does not reflect the scope of their work.Growing up in an “underprivileged town” with “economically disadvantaged immigrant parents” also shaped Abel’s perspective.“I know firsthand how it is to grow up in poverty. I take that with me where I go, and I try to use that as a lens in my work.”--Abel KouryAbel explained his thoughts on a rule of thumb for organizations. He started by creating an example of an organization with the goal of eliminating food insecurity. Focus first on articulating what you're trying to achieve, and then sum up that end goal as a headline for a reporter. In this example, Abel said using “36% of kids are now able to eat three meals a day”. By focusing on the way you expect to present the story, and where you want the program to be when you get to the stage of sharing with reporters, you get clarity. Organizations can work backwards from that imagined headline.“Before you even start the program, you've got to think about what do you want the data to look like? What do you want to collect? How are you going to show your impact?”--Abel KouryGoing deeper, Abel talked more about deciding what to ask and what information should be presented. Questions can limit results when the research design is lacking from the beginning. This led to Abel discussing how surveys should be created with the most diverse participant in mind. Questions inclusive to the variety of perspectives within your audience are an attentive and conscious effort.Defining a question’s context is equally significant. Abel gave a great example where people need to choose between 1-5, with 1 = not very fit and 5 = very fit. These choices too much room for personal interpretation, miscommunication of the question and flawed survey answers. Unless fitness is defined through context. For example, 1 = not very fit (eg. I couldn’t run a mile) and 5 = very fit (eg. I can run a mile with no problem.)As we continued, Abel got more into the rules of thumb organizations can consider to craft more effective surveys. He gave three solid rules any organization can utilize. I could really connect, since at Wild Tiger Tees, is also still learning to craft data collection, defining measures, and amplifying impact. Abel’s work with Compelling Analytics is building the future of proven impact.If you would like to learn more you can visit the official website or Abel’s LinkedIn.Read Full TranscriptAdam: [00:00:00] Welcome to the People Helping People podcast, the podcast to inspire greater social change in the business world and give you ideas on how to take action.I'm your host, Adam Morris. And today I am here with Dr Abel Koury a personal trainer and founder of Compelling Analytics. A company which really helps you to ask the right questions to get the answers you need to drive your nonprofit or social enterprise forward. So I'm very excited to hear today. We have a treat. We're going to talk about something which has alluded me for a very long time, which is how do you write a good survey.And how do you get good information that you can actually use? We're going to get some really interesting practical information here, so I'm excited to dive in. So, Abel, welcome on the podcast.Abel: [00:00:48] Thanks so much for having me.Adam: [00:00:49] I'd love to hear a little bit about the journey that led up to compelling analyt...
Today we’re going to talk about measuring social impact. We’re going to start by diving into the Sustainable Development Goals, and then wrap it up looking at some ways to measure social impact.In 2015, the United Nations came up with 17 Sustainable Development Goals as part of their 2030 Agenda. At one level, the sustainable development goals are designed to be measured against these metrics set for 2030, but to do this, they created a set of goals which are broad and easy to understand.What I’ve found is that they’re a great tool for thinking about social impact, and useful framework for discussing the impact that you’re making. Actually, a lot of have people have found this, and they’ve become the gold standard for categorizing the impact you’re making.The SDG’s are something I take into consideration when finding interesting stories for this podcast… partly because social entrepreneurship on its own has no governing definition. And by that, I mean, any company can call itself a social enterprise without any oversight - or any metric of qualifying what their social impact actually is.If you think about a non-profit for example, that is well defined and has specific requirements baked into its legal structure. The term 501(c)(3) relates to the specific section of the US tax code, and the 3 is one of 29 types of tax-exempt organizations. Another example is the b-corp designation which is a certification provided by the organization B-Labs. A social enterprise has no such legal definition or body certifying its validity.So, the Sustainable Development Goals become a useful tool for qualifying the impact that a social enterprise is making. They are certainly not the only system, but they are the most commonly used.At a high level, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are:1 - No Poverty2 - Zero Hunger3 - Good Health and Well-Being4 - Quality Education5 - Gender Equality6 - Clean Water and Sanitation7 - Affordable and Clean Energy8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth9 - Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure10 - Reduced Inequalities11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities12 - Responsible Consumption and Production13 - Climate Action14 - Life Below Water15 - Life on Land16 - Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions17 - Partnerships for the GoalsSo, those are the 17 goals. I actually, want to dive into these goals in a bit more detail to give you a better picture of what they mean. This information is coming directly from the United Nations’s website at un.org/sustainabledevelopmentIn more detail, the Sustainable Development Goals are: No Poverty. To end poverty in all its forms everywhere, because more than 700 million people, or 10% of the world population, still live in extreme poverty. Personally, one thing you can do to help end poverty is to donate what you don’t use. It’s huge, and there is a reason it’s number one on the list.Zero Hunger. To end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. Our food sources such as soil, freshwater, oceans, forests and other biodiversity are being rapidly degraded - and an estimated 821 million people were undernourished in 2017. Agriculture is the world’s largest employer, providing a livelihood for 40% of the world’s population. So, Zero Hunger means focusing on sustainability and nutrition. Also, 840 million people have no access to electricity worldwide, so energy poverty is also a barrier to reducing hunger. One thing you can do is to waste less food and support local farmers.Good Health and Well-being. To ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. 17,000 fewer children die each day than in 1990, but more than five million children still die before their fifth birthday each year. People will generally try to fit their impact into this category, but a large part of this goal is actually about reducing infant mortality.
Raj Raghunathan of Happy Smarts teaches others to nurture well being and happiness. His recent courses, A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment and HEROIC (Happier Employees and Return-On-Investment Course), guide people in measuring happiness levels in the determinants of happiness.His story first began in 2007. In his seventh year as a marketing professor at the University of Texas, Raj had a chance to go to India, where he is from, and meet with old friends from way back. Questions about life and purpose came to his attention.“I noticed that career success does not translate into life success. So, you could be really doing well in your career, earning a lot of money, you may be famous, you may be powerful, you may be at the top of the ladder, but that doesn't mean that you're going to have a great life.”--Raj RaghunathanOne question Raj asked himself: “What is the purpose of education?” He suggests that education is meant to give students the skill sets and tools to “enhance the well being” of themselves and people around them, including society as a whole. From there, he moved towards teaching about happiness.Attaining happiness is a goal most people think of at least once. Raj discussed how happiness, or the lack of emotion, feeds a person’s experience of life. Happier people are healthier, make better decisions, and tend to lead better lives overall. He used an example of how an employee being happier results in that employee being more productive, which can also help the employee secure higher payment. Then, Raj expressed how he found it as no surprise that things affecting happiness in life also affect happiness in the workplace.Raj breaks down his learning through a model called BAMBA, what he describes as the five determinants of happiness: Basic Needs, Autonomy, Mastery, Belongingness and Abundance Orientation. “It takes two to BAMBA”, Raj says, and he emphasizes that “you” are the lead dancer. Happiness level maintenance, much like communication, is a two-way interaction both sides have ownership in. People should not shy away from their ownership, but take the initiative to engage.You are responsible for your happiness, and so it doesn't make sense to pin your happiness on other people, then blame them when you're not happy. Your happiness is your responsibility.“You can’t shirk your responsibility.”-- Raj RaghunathanThere’s no doubt of Raj being knowledgeable about happiness. He mentioned a few philosophy and science aspects around the human condition. Such as non-energetic joy, mood congruence, and the power behind meditation.I asked Raj on his perspective of society in the next ten years. He talked through a great list naming protecting the environment and more of what he thinks are the basic essential aims of the world. Then, he went a step further. Almost as if having a spontaneous epiphany. Raj suggested a “prioritization of well being at an individual level by a critical mass of people” He predicts doing so would be the better, faster way of addressing all other problems. Raj shared that if the individual is not well, they can’t really help others.If you would like to learn more, you can engage with more content on the official website, Facebook, or Youtube. And do check out his recently launched Happier Employees and Return-On-Investment Course!
Continuing our discussion from episode 55, Suzy of GiveBackHack hosted an episode exploring my experience building Wild Tiger Tees, and what it’s like to engage with the social enterprise community.Reflecting on the journey so far, Suzy and I agree two major parts are finding what impact to make and discovering how to sustain what you are creating. I find myself navigating how to efficiently grow and sustain the projects I’m currently focused on. Honestly, there are barriers to get over.Our discussion transformed into conversations that need to happen to help grow passion projects. Along with growth, alterations may occur. For Wild Tiger Tees, we became more involved with giving youth exposure to technology and training to help explore their talents, such as art. Suzy and I expressed the value of having conversations to make sure what we do is helpful and useful. Identifying the population you work with and their specialities are crucial.Being the innovative thinker she is, Suzy gathered questions and commentary from community leaders to bring new topics to our discussion. First up was a shoutout to my time management skills. Undoubtedly, that credit goes to my wife, Anu, who keeps our projects on track. She is a natural project manager, and everything runs smoother with her attentiveness. (To put it nicely, delegation and time management are key skills I continue to develop.) In order to continue growing, I need to make sure my focus can be driven towards growth, and not preoccupied with only the maintenance of the projects.We then explained our thoughts on what people should know if they would like to participate in the field of social enterprise. A major thought-piece for myself is “understanding your personal motivations”. These are the origin of anything you do afterwards. Suzy asked if I could give a couple of tips, so I listed a few everyone may find helpful with their own journey.Some of the GiveBackHack crew who've helped us launch!Suzy was curious about the background for the team I work with. I can say that having an interdisciplinary team is an undeniable asset. Both the project and the team benefit. We are able to deepen the project’s impact, and our team members are exposed to all the possibilities their efforts create. I couldn’t stop myself from mentioning our Wild Tiger Tees art teacher, Catherine. Around six months after we started, Catherine said she never imagined she would be an entrepreneur. She, and every entrepreneur, shows that you don’t know what you could do until you start.“If you have a passion to solve a problem, you can learn whatever you need to do along the way.”--Suzy BureauWe close our discussion on the near future of Wild Tiger Tees and the People Helping People podcast. I list ways I’ll expand these projects, like the Social Good Blueprint. I also talk about what I want to hear from you!If you want to learn more about Wild Tiger Tees, check out Instagram, Facebook, or the official site.
Today’s special, special guest is Suzy Bureau of GiveBackHack. If you listened to episode 50, you knew this would happen. I was encouraged to share a little more about my story, especially Wild Tiger Tees, and Suzy jumped in to share my experience starting a social enterprise.Wild Tiger Tees came together during a weekend at GiveBackHack in 2018. I, Adam Morris, am the co-founder of this social enterprise where we “empower youth experiencing homelessness with the skills necessary to gain employment through the art of screen printing.” We partner with Star House under their workforce development program called Star Works.Our talk began at a point where I did not have an idea for Wild Tiger Tees or the People Helping People Podcast. In 2006, I was out in London working at a bank after my MBA and was not connecting with my role. If anything, the most meaningful thing to me at that time was my volunteer work with Samaritans for suicide prevention. Once I acknowledged that passion I began trying to build a career around giving back and making an impact. Of course, I didn’t forget to tell Suzy about the oddly comical moment of being let go from that bank job.Until 2016, I wasn’t having any luck with ideas on how I would give back or make an impact. Then I realized that 10 years passed already. I told Suzy about the importance I found in being able to connect with people and what things mean. I discussed my thoughts on being inspired to make a change awhile “thinking into it”. Suzy gave a positive outlook on my choice to look at the strengths and weaknesses of my entrepreneur skills; whether it was looking at experience or exposure to the issue.I discovered that spending 10 years of trying to figure something out on my own was not helping much, and decided I needed to talk to people who were active and engaged in cool work. My only thought was to see where that would take me. With this approach, I was led to the conversation inspiring this podcast. Coincidentally, or maybe not-so-coincidentally, the same approach towards interaction inspired the idea behind Wild Tiger Tees. I enjoyed getting to dig back into the journey with Suzy.Another inspiration behind Wild Tiger Tees came from a staggering statistic. Out of the youth that come into Star House, 90% secure jobs. After revisiting those youth three months later, only 10% still have that job. Wild Tiger Tees began concentrating on better preparing the youth to deal with the real-world workforce. Our focus points are teamwork, communication, effort, and punctuality.The conversation with Suzy had such great momentum, so we split our talk into two episodes. Up next, we get into building an interdisciplinary team, doing the groundwork for your ideas, and making things work.If you want to learn more about Wild Tiger Tees, check out Instagram, Facebook, or the official site.
Foodies will love this one! Tanya Vora of SpiceUp advocates for people impacted by the immigrant experience through food events. Each event highlights the culture of a chef impacted by the immigrant experience. Typically, this means an immigrant or first-generation immigrant. Tanya shares the story of their event with Bonifacio, hosted by a mother-daughter duo. At this point, SpiceUp hosted food events with cultural themes connected to Mexico, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.These events were created to showcase people while giving them a proper platform to share stories of their culture. Tanya understands the immigrant experience first-hand from being the child of immigrants. Her family came from India, and even her older siblings were raised in India. She shared her experience of finding her place between two cultures.When Tanya goes to India, she tells me it’s clear that she is not fully Indian. Habits and certain cultural nuances she embodies are American. Of course this makes sense, she was raised in America. On the other side, she reflected on growing up in a predominantly caucasian environment, where there were more obvious differences between her and her peers.Her ability to understand others comes not only from her personal experience - but also her background in user experience and design. And then as she's expanded on that through events and accelerator programs such as Unreal Collective (where we met), Give Back Hack and Sea Change.For Tanya, the business side did not come easy. She does not have a background in the field, so she had a lot to learn. We began discussing the strain behind pursuing side hustle projects. Tanya admitted that her mental health did take a hit (I can relate!). Working tirelessly was hard on her and her team, especially since people were still working outside the project. She learned she needed to take more care of herself, and find an appropriate balance.“If your mental health isn't where it needs to be, then everything else is going to take an even harder hit.” - Tanya VoraSpiceUp talks to many chefs across communities - Tanya found that the city of Columbus is very separated between cultures and demographics. Access to other cultures showed barriers, but the people SpiceUp encountered did want exposure to other cultures. Tanya knows it’s good to hear from people who are part of the country the cuisine comes from, as food is heavily interconnected with culture.Later on, Tanya mentioned the chefs not being able to fully present their cultures in their restaurants. She brought an interesting learning point about the word “ethnic”. Tanya explained the negative connotation the label can have, thus adding a layer of separation to something as universal as food. Chefs find themselves tailoring the cuisine to fit western, or American, palates. SpiceUp is creating an environment encouraging chefs to truly provide their wonderful cultures.“We all eat.” - Tanya VoraIf you want to connect with SpiceUp, or are interested in their upcoming events, you can check out their Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the official site. Their next event is Sunday, February 16th for a Brunch at Mazah.
Ryan Scott shared how Bonifier is helping children get better care during their journey in the hospital system. Working outside medical or physical components, Bonifier is developing a 24/7 digital imaginary friend. The tool uses emotional support, self-care, and data approaches to improve child patient experience.“Our mission is to assist chronically ill children overcome their fear and anxieties.”-- Ryan ScottBeing a patient can be a confusing, scary, and lonely experience in the midst of dealing with a life-altering illness. For kids, the experience is amplified, especially when unaware of processing or expressing feelings fully.Ryan explains Bonifier is not meant to distract from fear and anxiety, but help kids address the feelings. In a sense, the tool guides kids in learning skills to build resilience. Ryan also mentioned a sounding board, where data can be given to clinicians, so they can see how the child’s mental health journey looks in conjunction with their medical treatment.Despite hospitals having mental health resources, Ryan observed how the demand for resources has “outpaced” the supply, such as professionals available to children. He makes it clear he’s not promoting that humans be replaced but realized the proportion is noticeably off-balanced. Hearing Ryan explains observations on the journey around patient mental health assessment brought up great points.Major elements of the assessment journey include the assessment being early in the diagnosis and done at a fixed time. These seem like harmless logistics. Ryan expressed how examining a child’s mental health early does not reflect the build-up of experiencing medical treatment. Likewise, a child may feel good on Tuesday at 3 pm when they have their assessment, but there is nothing to note how they felt later.Following the current methods, the journey is not measured as it is experienced: an experience which includes a transition from moment to moment. To emphasize, Ryan mentioned there is no protocol for re-assessment.Never would anyone guess Ryan would go from running a video production company to pitching at a social impact startup weekend. Not even Ryan himself. He looks back on how he only focused on making something “cool” when he first began working.A day came where his family experienced supporting a child with a life-altering illness. It is a reality and awareness that stayed with him. Ryan changed the reason behind his drive and began using his gift of intense work ethic differently.“If I'm going to go a hundred mile an hour through a wall, it needs to be for a real purpose, not just to help sell another widget, not to do some other ego-driven thing.”-- Ryan ScottIn the future, Ryan hopes Bonifier to be a more preventative tool to interrupt the trajectory from anxiety to depression. As our conversation continued, I got to hear Ryan’s reflections on the behind-the-scenes lessons learned. From reviewing mistakes in hindsight to admiring the strong community and friends helping the work develop.To learn more, you can connect with Bonifier at their official website.
Jerry Valentine explains how Renter Mentor is transforming the search for affordable housing as a consulting service and tech platform. In a way, they streamlined the landlord-tenant relationship. While working through community partnerships, the organization is bringing accountability, clarity, and efficiency to the affordable housing market.Speaking from personal experience, this is not Jerry Valentine’s first run with low-income housing, and he only became more knowledgeable. He actually gives a simple description of the state of the affordable housing market. Section 8 developed into the Housing Choice Voucher Program. In the program, tenants can find housing anywhere within public housing authorities’ jurisdiction as long as the landlord is willing to accept. Jerry and I both agreed that the last part is the huge “catch” of the fine print.Low-income housing is not a simple process. Paperwork alone can create a progress hurdle. Once landlords have a glimpse of the procedures, they are more likely to back out of the process completely. Jerry also mentioned aspects like the inspection (which you only have two times to pass), bring more hurdles to the affordable housing market.He didn’t fail to admit the public sector is not exactly up to speed on tech advances either, consequently making processes slower. Facing difficulties and learning curves can turn people away, but Renter Mentor is sure this does not need to be the reality.“I'm not a developer by any means, but I do have an innovative mindset; because I do know innovation and technology is a big part of advancing into this decade.” - Jerry ValentineSimilar to his housing market familiarity, Jerry is no stranger to forging his own path. He reflects on his momentum with Renter Mentor starting at Give Back Hack. Funnily, Renter Mentor did not begin as the most popular idea, but they got the three people they needed to form a team - and have gone on to be one of the successful startups launched from the Give Back Hack weekend launchpad.They followed their Give Back Hack success by joining SEA Change. SEA Change is a 14-week accelerator supporting social enterprises in the earlier stages of their journey. Renter mentor was 1 of the 6 winners to collectively gain funding towards their venture.Jerry reassured that everything isn’t perfect. He shared lessons the team learned along the way, such as not being established as a business in the beginning and having to rewind the process of incorporating. Fortunately, the positives outweigh the negatives overall.Columbus is a challenging city with fast growth: more people moving in, more displacement, and increasing homelessness. He explains the situation is not at the point where a change can’t be made, but that addressing the situation now is more beneficial.“That's why Renter Mentor is here. It's a disruptive solution to the problem, and trying to get ahead of things...” - Jerry ValentineYou can connect with Renter Mentor on their website at joinrentermentor.wixsite.com/rentermentor or on LinkedIn. If you’re interested in learning more, attend one of their upcoming events.
Today, I’m sharing a bonus episode from my conversation with Sam Baddoo of [re]start, where we talk about some of the magic behind the social change that happens when connecting people.Sam Baddoo is a serial entrepreneur and an expert in social entrepreneurship. He is currently a co-founder of [re]start, a company helping people find and grow careers they will love. I admire his insight into connecting people with ideas and resources to find their passions and leave the world a better place.This entire podcast exists to give you ideas, and I’m so grateful to share these inspiring stories. What I’ve found is that the more I surround myself with innovative ideas, the better my own ideas become. And it’s my dream that by sharing the best ones, you will not only be more successful but hopefully, some of that success will make the world a better place. To amplify this, I launched a weekly newsletter called the Social Good Blueprint, with trending stories with social entrepreneurship. Please sign up if you don't want to miss any hot topics in social change.There is so much cool stuff happening in this space, but let’s face it, social change is hard. If they were simple, the problems wouldn’t exist.The United Nations categorized social issues into 17 sustainable development goals, to help give focus and clarity to social change. These include topics ranging across poverty, hunger, education, energy, the environment, justice and equality.What’s challenging is to break out of the small circle we live in to see the bigger picture of what is going on, and how we can work together to create huge change.So the question is, how do you figure out where to put your attention to create change?
Today is special for more than a few reasons. One, you came to engage with the People Helping People podcast! Two, it’s a new year! Three, this is the 50th episode! I always have great discussions with impact-focused individuals on impact-driven initiatives. This episode was no different.Suzy Bureau and Louisa Lee flex their social impact muscles with Give Back Hack. At this event, ideas are put through a weekend of organizing, assessing, and presenting to establish a better vision for the idea’s relevance to the community. Here, you’ll find the tech and startup community being brought together. You can think of Give Back Hack as the launchpad for social innovation.You don’t need to be a full-on entrepreneur with years of experience. All ideas creating impact are welcomed. Give Back Hack is empowering the people who have a bit of knowledge regarding a problem they observed and gathering a set of resources to move solutions forward.“Connecting folks who have ideas with a team of people who can help work through that first design thinking cycle to create a business model and impact model is a really big piece.” - SuzyActually, the event starts with pitching the idea to the fellow participants. Then, teams are formed for the top voted ideas. From there, the teams organize, plan, and validate the idea to create a minimally viable product. On Sunday, all ideas are presented to judges and community members to decide which great ideas will receive funding.Most focus is on building the solution and user validation. However, Suzy does mention that empathy comes first. Even after the initial idea stage, the event process gives the chance to look back and reevaluate before prototyping.Give Back Hack is placing more weight on understanding the problem. The event does encourage for ideas to be partially-vetted. Similarly, Give Back Hack started wondering if participants plan to take ideas to the next stage beyond the event. Suzy says they are constantly thinking of how to host an even better event.The entire event is built on collaboration. Everyone brings their best skills, questions, and suggestions forward! Reliving the six years of Give Back Hack, Suzy and Louisa discussed participant experiences and were not shy to express their reflection of past events. They flipped the script and even had me share an update about Wild Tiger Tees.“If you're coming just to see what it's all about, come with an open mind and be willing and ready to jump in to help out.” - LouisaEverything we discussed can’t be compacted into show notes, but there is one more thing I will share. Give Back Hack discovered that people who participated felt more comfortable with imperfect presentations after the event. That realization is tremendous for anyone, as “imperfection” can deter most people with ideas from ever sharing. The next Give Back Hack event is in Columbus, April 24 - 26. You can find out more, and about other upcoming events on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn!
Finding a job, securing a job, and developing a skill for a job could seem like energy-draining tasks. Thankfully, Sam Baddoo is changing the perspective of the job ecosystem in his work with [re]start. As a workforce development company, this social enterprise helps people grow their careers through business sponsorships. Sam, along with co-founder Chad Silverstein, created a program closing in on both sides connected to a “quality of life” issue. Sam is great at breaking down the concept structure, and relaying why it is so important.Embracing a new angle, [re]start approaches customers of businesses, such as mortgage and healthcare institutions, and helps those customers find better jobs to be more financially sound. Sam shared that a “better community” is more so related to how the community is experiencing life. If the individuals of a community are stable, the community flourishes.Sam explained why it makes sense for the businesses. Alongside wanting to help people, he knows companies realize having customers that are stable and have access to value will benefit the company. I can see how it’s in the best interest of the company to make sure the people using their services are thriving. People cannot pay bills properly if they don’t have stability.Rather than pushing for a transaction accompanied by ruthless payment reminders, [re]start forms a way for businesses to have a more considerate relation with the community they provide service to. One example being Choice Recovery, a debt collection company connecting jobs to the people in debt to their clients.Diving deeper, the program takes members on a journey. Unlike a job board or recruitment agency, coaching and resources are given to help members for continuous growth. Sam emphasizes that understanding the members is a top priority. In the company, understanding what each person is naturally drawn to is indispensable:“We start from: What is it that you are uniquely built for? What is it that you enjoy doing? It has nothing to do with your previous sales job or your customer service job. The reason why you were great at customer service is because deep down you love connecting.” - Sam BaddooWhen I thought it couldn’t get more insightful, Sam expressed what he learned to be key factors for fulfilling your purpose. We discussed having a clear vision, or a vision of someone’s vision. Then, Sam exposed how surrounding yourself with the right example of your vision, particularly people, leads you to realize you’re not crazy for your ideas. He went further to touch on how the gateway to diversity and inclusion begins with openness. Sam’s attentive explanation built more value into our conversation.Sam says, “The mission is simple; for us to help people find and grow careers that they will love.” Empowering customers “to afford their financial obligations by connecting them to better careers” is an approach that [re]start is passionately advocating.You can connect with [re]start on Instagram, Twitter, or on the [re]start website if you’re interested in learning more.
David White IV founded the O2 Conference, which gives students an opportunity to bring their ideas to life. Based in Hilliard, Ohio, young people from grades 6-12 can use the platform to highlight a need in their community. Whether this is in their home or their school, David emphasized how the conference is designed to encourage and support the ideas behind each student’s endeavor.“We want to see the citythriving, and we believe that young people are super capable. They're worldchangers. They don't need to be older to make a difference.” - David White IVStudentsobserve needs in their community first-hand, and then express their approachfor finding a solution. Applying to the conference allows middle and highschool students a different type of inspiration they can tap into. They feelthe accountability and ownership in the social change they can supply to theworld.Inevery conference, a few students are chosen through an application process topresent an idea at the O2 Conference. The result becomes students being pairedwith a mentor and receiving $10,000 in funding. Monetary funding can alsoincrease, depending on donations given to a student’s idea. Other thandonations, the community plays a huge role in the conference; from a portion ofthe conference ticket sales going directly towards student projects to theaudience voting for the projects they connect with most. Through every step,the students are engaging with the community in the direction of social good.Once a student begins the process of making their project more tangible, it sparks reflection. David has a very honest way of revealing the outcomes of student projects. He explains the highlights and lessons discovered through this collaborative effort of students, mentors, and community. In some cases, the projects rocketed past what was expected. In others, the outcome had more internal value, which in turn can later be transformed into a better external social good gain. To David, all the experiences brought a new perspective to be grateful for.Hosting the O2 Conference is about “Breathing life into Columbus through the ideas of young people”, but David further explains the idea of organizing around an organic need. To hear his take on community initiatives forging participation beyond location boundaries and generation gaps was intriguing. It makes you really think of how one action or exchange can open many doors.David even began to speak about how the O2 Conference became established. He talks about what led to the creation of this platform through his church, Upper Arlington Lutheran Church (UALC). He dips into his own journey embracing his role as a pastor, and what it means to his life. Being involved with helping people in need and creating a space for people to thrive is not a foreign concept for David. I loved hearing him speak of the wonderful, community-centered initiatives he takes joy in.The theme for this year’s O2 Conference is “Thriving Environment”. Middle and high school students have until early January to submit an application for the conference being held in March 2020. Details for registration can be found on the application page.Get caught up with the O2 Conference on Instagram, Facebook, or directly at the O2 Conference website.
Heide Rembold is a conscious business activist here in Columbus, Ohio. She’s passionate about reducing waste, making purchasing decisions that have an impact, and social entrepreneurship. She’s just released her holiday guide to purchasing conscious gifts. Heidi runs @consciouscbus on Instagram - highlighting small businesses doing good in central Ohio, with a real focus on conscious living and conscious consumerism.For a long time, Heidi has been digging into social issues here in Columbus. She previously worked at the Star House as a youth advocate -- the Star House is a drop-in centre for youth experiencing homelessness, aged 14-24. She would spend time with the youth to listen to their story and help them in any way that she could.She also has launched a social enterprise called Solar Bean Cafe and is currently looking for a home for her coffeehouse, where she plans to hire at-risk youth and others with barriers to employment.I love her passion for reducing waste and evaluating what you purchase to see where you can make better choices. We both love amazon but recognize that with a little planning you can make choices which support your local economy and have a better net impact on the environment and the community. She's put together this guide to help save you time on finding these opportunities.Check out what she's doing on Instagram, Facebook and on The Conscious Hive!Read Full Transcript[00:00:00]Adam: Welcome to people, helping people, the podcast to inspire greater social change in the business world and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris, and today I'm talking with Heidi rumble, a conscious business activist here in Columbus, Ohio. She's passionate about reducing waste and making purchasing decisions that have an impact, and she's also has plans for our own social enterprise.[00:00:35] She's just released her holiday guide to help you purchase conscious gifts. And I'm very excited to have her on the podcast to talk about easy ways that you can make an impact while you do your holiday shopping. So without further ado, Heidi, welcome on the podcast. [00:00:50] Heidi: Thank you. It's so nice to be here.[00:00:52] Adam: You have quite a social impact mission that you're developing in your life. And I was wondering if we could just start and talk about some of the projects that you're working on. [00:01:01] Heidi: Absolutely. So we can start with, conscious Columbus since that's my kind of most recent and most active one. I started at conscious Columbus too.[00:01:08] Really connect consumers with conscious businesses in Columbus, Ohio. so kind of a little bit of everything, social enterprises, nonprofits, even those small kind of non-classified businesses that actually are giving back with their business in some way or another. So I started that on social media, just an Instagram page, really to get with people, meet new people, and connect everybody together.[00:01:28]I always say, I'm not. Necessarily the creative one behind the scenes doing the arts and crafts, but I am a loud speaker and I'm very passionate so I can really amplify their voice and their existence. so sort of that and just started posting, started getting to meet people. Well, doing a lot of networking with it and then going from there.[00:01:48]we are slowly transitioning into a full blog and a couple of other little fun things that are coming along this holiday season to really highlight those businesses and those people and individuals doing good in Columbus. All right, cool. [00:02:02] Adam: You have big dreams as well. Plans to open a coffee shop down the road, correct?[00:02:05] Heidi: Yes. Yes. I have a social enterprise of my own called the solar bean cafe, and currently we're seeking a home in a small village outside of Zanesville, Ohio. it's an impoverished village with a lot of, social issues going on right now, and they're looking to revamp it.
Stephanie Page started the Seize the Good in 2019 to share positive stories highlighting non-profit organizations, businesses doing good, social movements and success stories of people helping people.Talking to her, I realized we share a similar curiosity. We both want to contribute to the world in a more meaningful way… but weren't sure how. Podcasting became our mechanism to explore this and share the inspiration that we ourselves are seeking. I don't talk much about the artform of podcasting, but it's much more complicated than blogging - scheduling guests, learning to conduct an interesting interview, understanding recording equipment and how to edit audio - it's time-consuming, and a labor of love. But Stephanie made the point that it's so satisfying because you get to choose your guests and direction, which to me is one of the best parts. It's amazing seeking out interesting people and having a forum to ask them questions which inspire you. And it feels great being able to share this so others can also benefit.Stephanie's podcasts are fun to listen to - she is the embodiment of enthusiasm. Her positivity is one of her strengths - so if you need an uplifting podcast, check her's out. (Hint: she just recorded what I'm doing with Wild Tiger Tees.)One thing she's really passionate about is changing the stigma around mental illness… and also understanding our own mental health, as across the board, we're all struggling with similar things.Stephanie also works for Point, a volunteer app that makes it so easy to do more good. Their founder Madison was lying in bed one night, lamenting on how you could order food in bed at 11 pm from your phone, but to find a place to volunteer was complicated… you had to do your own research, and often play phone tag just to figure out how to volunteer. So they build the point app to make it easy to find opportunities around what you believe in. Over time, they've built up their capabilities to provide non-profits and service organizations with the digital reporting tools to better understand and qualify the impact their volunteers are having… providing an easy to use technology platform that's missing from organizations that manage volunteers.You can find her on:seizethegood.orgiTunes PodcastsSpotifyAnd download the Point App from the app store or google play if you haven't already!
Dave Parker has long been at the forefront of social innovation. He’s a former director of the National Center for Social Entrepreneurs, and in 1999, Dave founded CauseImpact, a consultancy that worked with nonprofits to develop social enterprises. Dave recently sold the consultancy to launch Rootstrike Labs. Rootstrike Labs helps agents of social impact increase their capacity to innovate so that they can change the world.Dave Parker is working with Lynnette Cook, who is the Director of Bliss (which must be one of the coolest positions out there). Together, their signature program Hopeless to Fearless exists to help employees in non-profits develop their own creativity and a support network that can help unlock powerful ideas for change.In the podcast, Dave walks through a history of how social entrepreneurship grew in Columbus, Ohio, and how it's changed and evolved over the years - especially how the thinking in non-profits have changed, and some of the challenges that they're facing today.I thought it was very interesting that many non-profits turn to social entrepreneurship out of pressure, when quite often what they need to is to focus attention on their core competencies, and making sure that they're first excelling in the value they're delivering.I love that Rootstrike Labs is approaching non-profits from the standpoint that their social workers on the front lines are some of the most valuable assets... and by working with these groups to develop their creativity, that they can unlock potential in their organizations that are untapped. If you find yourself curious on how to do this, reach out to Rootstrike Labs to check out their Hopeless to Fearless program.You can find them:At rootstrikelabs.comOn Facebook/RootStrikeLabsOn Twitter @rootstrike
Following our conversation about Brilliance Inside, Mariette Fourmeaux had a sidebar discussion with me about having the courage to walk the path, and I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to share it as a bonus.There is no quick fix. No simple red pill that lets you face the harsh realities of your life with extraordinary ease and effortlessness. The deeper path in life takes effort and determination, especially when the destination is uncertain. The results are most certainly worth it, but it takes courage upfront to walk that path and let go of your expectations.Our life is a continuous journey, and there are so many messages about who and what we should be, what we should stand for, and what we should believe in… many of these messages are handed down from generation to generation, or enshrined by society’s ideals… but that does not make them correct, or the truest representation of who we are.Standing up to these takes courage. Even uncovering our truths takes courage.When you have a goal in mind, you start forming expectations of what results of what you want. This is useful in setting a direction to achieve your goal… but quite often these expectations are blinders that cause more misery because things unfold over time in ways outside of our control. (That is, we don’t always get what we want.)The universe has an odd habit of letting things unfold in unexpected ways. And accepting this can be challenging, especially when we pretend to be masters of our own destiny.Albert Einstein once said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” If you view the universe as hostile, then you tend to take these unexpected outcomes with tension and resentment. But by accepting it as friendly, and trusting that the universe is giving you exactly what you need in every moment, it can dramatically alter how you adapt to life’s ups and downs.Social change is about forging new paths for humanity and solving sticky problems which are frequently difficult to talk about. Quite often, change is hard, takes a long time, and doesn’t turn out how we expect.To make it even more complicated, sometimes the work we must do to change the world is work we must do on ourselves. Having the guts to change yourself with honesty and willingness is tough. I know, because I’m far from perfect, and the work I do on myself is the most gut-wrenching of all the social impact work I engage in. Everything else is the icing on the cake.Enjoy this bonus episode, and let me know in the comments if you enjoyed it!
Healing Society’s Cycle of ViolenceI dove into the heart of healing society's cycle of violence with Mariette Fourmeaux, founder of Brilliance Inside - a mission working with prison populations to do just that.Coming from the corporate world, this work was a complete shift for Mariette - from trusting business plans and corporate strategy to trusting the universe and her gut. She felt called to work in prisons and showed up at the Donovan Correctional Facility in California. After starting in prison ministry she began a program to have the prisoners organize a TEDx event... empowering the men in blue to organize and facilitate a TEDx event, sharing stories and conversations between prisoners, custodians, and those from the outside.In the podcast, Mariette shares this journey in a profound manner - both in her approach of showing up as much as a student as a teacher. Her work is largely in creating the space for people to listen and share, and then allowing those participating to show up. It’s not a typical program where you have a presentation or top-down teaching. It’s a collaborative environment that empowers as well as invites everyone (whether on the inside or outside) to participate, share, and grow.Hurt people hurt people.One of her great insights into this work is that hurt people hurt people. And by healing ourselves, we heal the hurt that we’re causing. We are all highly interconnected, and even when this is hard to see, this connection is there. It takes a certain courage to show up and work on yourself, and for me, that is an important message that I took away from this conversation. I need the courage to work on myself and by healing myself, I’m doing my part to make the world a better place.One thing that struck me, was that we tend to operate in ways which treat others as their role, and not as the humans that they are. With people in prison, I got the sense that it’s very much the same. They’re people, and people who have significant hurt in their past. We choose how we connect and treat our fellow humans.The work of Brilliance Inside is an interesting balance. It’s about empowerment and helping prisoners find their own light. But at the same time, there is an honesty that these prisoners quite often need a break from society. It’s not that their prison time is unjust or unwarranted… but rather that there are ways to use that prison time to heal, instead of perpetuating society’s cycle of violence.What struck me the most, was that many of the inmates that she’s worked with are drawn to give back after they get out of prison (and sort out their own financial situation) - often supporting at-risk youth. They have a deeper understanding of the pitfalls and are well suited to approach at-risk youth with the empathy and understanding they need.For more information visit Brilliance Inside. The talks are inspiring, and the podcast has an incredible flow of its own, so I’m delighted to share this conversation about their mission and how together we can heal society’s cycle of violence.
I sat down with CEO Joe Neri, and the Senior Lender of the Columbus Office, Omar Elhagmusa to talk about IFF - a mission-driven lender, real estate consultant, and developer that helps communities thrive. They are unique in that they lend specifically to non-profits, and provide the wrap-around real estate services that are generally outside a non-profit’s core expertise.IFF grew out of a need in Chicago, where non-profits were asking for grants to fix up some of their leased spaces - and they really didn’t have the capability or financial instruments to make it happen. What IFF realized was that traditional lenders appraised properties, and lent money with very specific objectives in mind… but what non-profits needed was a much different mechanism.Since non-profits aren’t in it for the money, they really don’t cultivate the real estate expertise that they need in the long term. IFF realized that they could provide that expertise, as well as sound financial backing for non-profits. It still needs to make financial sense - but it’s not about turning people away and only funding the winners. It’s about coaching everyone to the point that they can fund them down the road.IFF takes a very long-term approach to work with companies because the growth of non-profit missions can span decades. Joe actually has some cool success stories in the podcast, watching a food pantry grow from a small pantry to a much bigger, well-established entity.What struck me time again throughout the podcast, was the attitude of “we’re here so that non-profits can focus on their mission and who they’re serving” - taking the burden off the non-profits to be real estate experts, and focus on what they do best. Their company mission is to fund everyone… (just not necessarily today) - so clients are approached with the sense of how what's needed for them to realize their mission.IFF is expanding rapidly in Ohio to become a full-service provider - so if you know of any non-profits with real estate needs, have them reach out to Omar Elhagmusa to kick-start the conversation.You can find Omar's contact details on IFF's website.
Lamar Peoples is the outreach coordinator at the Star House, a drop-in center for youth experiencing homelessness here in Central Ohio.Lamar’s has spent his career on the ground reaching out to people, and he’s put a lot of effort into something that has long been a mystery to me... politics. Generally, political news drives me nuts, but I’ve always wondered how politics actually works, and how people make a difference through the government.His political career started off with grassroots outreach into the community, knocking on doors. October 9, 2012, met President Obama on the tarmac when he came into Columbus, Ohio, and was impacted by his presence. After the election, he became a super volunteer, canvasing through different neighborhoods.And it gave him a first-hand perspective of what people really want from their government. People want clean air, a livable wage job, and access to decent healthcare. They want their kids and grandkids to have a good education.One of his colleagues got a job at the statehouse, and he started hanging out with him... which gave him a chance to talk to local politicians of all background. He was such in the thick of it, he joined an internship in the Ohio House of Representatives. It really gave him a perspective of the state - it is made of 99 members, all representing various representations.It’s interesting because, on the inside, all the politicians are getting along - they all have to work together. But then quite often the put a show when they’re on the floor... partly to keep their base in check, to show up for what their base has voted for them on. He also found it interesting how many different issues people represent, and how there is a lot of negotiating to address a broad range of issue.Over time, Lamar got involved with AmeriCorps and realized he really loves the non-profit sector. He enjoys finding a mission and creating programming around realizing that mission. He really has this passion for going out, knocking doors, being that presents, working with politicians and talking about policy.For a while, he went around and let people know about the work Habitat for Humanity does - telling people how they can build a house from the ground up, and get a 15-year interest-free loan... as well as the work they do to educate and help people learn how to be homeowners. Habitat is a great organization which doesn’t just provide housing but teaches people about how to be successful in their homeownership.He went to work for Danny O’Conner, and found it really insightful working in the statehouse, but wanted more than just an administrative position, so around August of 2017, left to be the outreach coordinator at Star House - a local center for youth ages 14-24 who are experiencing homelessness. They provide access to food, clothes, counselling, workforce development, (even yoga). In 2018, they served 1,200 individual youths. There is an estimate that there are 3,000 - 9,000 in the Columbus area of these youth in any year.He’s run for office, although missed the deadline to be endorsed by the Democratic Party, and without that endorsement, it is very difficult. But it’s also very challenging... as a young politician, you join a caucus, and a junior member of a caucus focuses largely on getting re-elected. It’s often based on seniority on who has the greatest voice, so after you’ve demonstrated that you can get re-elected, you slowly develop more and more capabilities to effect policy.Best way to get involved?“Think about what keeps you up at night. What’s on your mind about what could be better. Think about it, and about the party that supports it. Each party has local volunteer events - search in google, and Democratic Party in Franklinton County - and they’ll be eager to talk. Learn the issues and go from there!”-- Lamar Peoples
Emily built the company Lilac Pack from the ground up - a true "moms helping moms" company, providing care packages to support women in their postpartum period (the first 6-8 weeks after childbirth), with their personal recovery and to help them get their best start nursing.It's a time when the attention is so focused on their newborn that quite often a new mother doesn't get the attention that they need. While they're in the hospital, there may be fantastic support and tons of information, but it's hard to take it all in, especially if you're medicated or otherwise overwhelmed from childbirth.Emily Lawrence, an engineer by trade, wanted to change this, so she brought her idea to an event called Give Back Hack."It was insane."An introvert by nature, she gathered her wits and pitched her idea to a crowd of strangers, only to be surprised by such a supportive environment. Over a single weekend, she was able to form a team and flush out her project."They pushed you to get out into the community… as in to put on your shoes and get on the ground and talk to people face-to-face to get their input on your idea."She was surprised at how much she accomplished over the weekend, but luckily her journey didn't end there. She went on to SEA Change - an accelerator for social enterprises, which provided her a 14-week deep dive into building her business model, connecting with experts, and further validating her idea.For Emily, it also gave her the opportunity to push herself to develop the social impact side of her business. As she puts it, it's easy to put this off until later, but you'll never get around to it -- instead, start with your impact and it gives you direction and a standard to live up to.So she built Lilac Pack as a social enterprise -- in addition to the core product, they are a living wage company that provides child care support. (Child daycare often creates a job barrier… the cost is too high for low wage jobs.) The third aspect to their social mission is resource matching -- they have a mommy map with locations of services for lactation consultants, doulas, and other similar services as an open directory of relevant services.Now she's up and running, and growing her business - learning how to tackle online marketing, and how to develop a presence on social media. I was so thankful that she shared some of her insight on the podcast.When asked what surprises she's had about starting a company, Emily responded:"I thought it was going to be harder. It is hard, and just like being a mom, it is relentless. It does not let up, but if you have an idea, and if you are passionate about that idea people will get behind you."Having Emily on the podcast is such a joy - we journeyed with her during SEA Change while we were building Wild Tiger Tees, our t-shirt screen printing social enterprise employing youth experiencing homelessness. She was one of the first to utilize our services to print t-shirts to helped us pilot our program - and she continues to openly share her business insight with us, magnifying the impact that she makes. I love what she’s doing with Lilac Pack, and if you know anyone about to give birth, her packages make for beautiful gifts - so go out and support her wonderful venture!ResourcesLilac PackThe Mommy MapGive Back HackSEA Change
In this episode we dive deep into investment insight, on how to save for your future.The People Helping People podcast is back after a long break. Over the last year, I went to Give Back Hack up in Cleveland, and pitched an idea to start a t-shirt screen printing company to employ youth experiencing homelessness. The idea was selected, a team was formed, and we launched Wild Tiger Tees. Working in partnership with the Star House, we're helping mentor and employ youth in the Columbus area.The youth that we work with are amazing - they're all quite different with each navigating their own challenging situation - and usually without family or mentors giving them feedback or direction.So, I was excited to recored a podcast with a long-time friend, and New Yorker, Alan Grodin, founder of Northern State Financial. He has a career in financial services, but has been giving back by teaching youth about finance and saving... so I was curious what he does.Alan started his financial services right on the precipice of the tech bubble... and weathered the storm in 2008, when the average stock lost 40% of its value. He speaks about good savings habits -- but what struck me is that his core message was to build the habit. In your 20s and 30s, even if you can just save $50 a month - it’s giving you the mindset you need to be successful later on. On the flip side, he warns to never be fooled by credit cards, and to learn how to use them as tool to only spend what you have... never to accumulate debt with them, because their interest rates are so high that it becomes a very ineffective method of managing your money.I didn’t know this, but when selecting a financial advisor, you can search on FINRA -- (I even checked out Alan) and advisors with more complaints, or those that move between jobs more often, should be treated with suspect. The podcast is packed full of investment advice, and is a great starting point if you have no idea about saving for your future, so tune in!
In this episode, Jason Moore, founder, and principal of Fulcrum Creatives, explains what a Certified B Corporation is, how companies can qualify and what it means for not only businesses but communities.What is Fulcrum Creatives?Based out of Columbus, Ohio, Fulcrum Creatives is a design and creative studio with the goal of always working for clients that were doing something beyond profit. While a client doesn’t have to be a non-profit organization to work with the studio, there does need to be a mission that includes providing something to a greater good.What is a Certified B Corporation?A B Corp refers to a certification, designated by a non-profit organization called B Lab, that businesses can acquire based on certain criteria. More specifically from their website:“Certified B Corporations meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.”B Corps came into the scene 11 years ago, and one way you can organize as a B Corporation is to maintain a mission-based charter. While that isn’t an option in Ohio just yet, there are people making movements toward getting B Corp legislation passed. The hold-up is mainly attributed to the base of the Bar Association, which is mainly composed of corporate lawyers whom don’t necessarily think a B Corp would be something that people would want to invest in. The interesting point is that there are no tax breaks associated with the designation. Meaning:“There’s no reason not to have it. If you don’t want to invest in it, that doesn’t mean there’s no reason to not have it exist. Otherwise, to be a B Corporation, you would have to organize in another state and do business here.”As of now, there are somewhere between 32-34 states where there is a legal standing for organizing a B Corp this way.What’s the alternative? How did Fulcrum Creatives do it?Since becoming a B Corporation isn’t available in Ohio, Fulcrum Creatives is a Certified B Corp, which Jason explains:“There is an assessment where you have to go through and open up all your books, all your HR practices, everything about your company and supply chains—every single thing that you do receives scores. And you have to score enough points to be able to gain the certification.”In total, there are currently over 2,500 Certified B Corporations in more than 50 countries, according to the B Corp website.What components are looked at to become a Certified B Corp?Every two years, a company will have to go through an assessment. One thing this assessment does is show you areas where you can improve in your business, such as energy consumption. Anything from burning incandescent bulbs to low flow toilets can affect your score. In addition to what your business does, the assessment also looks at your supply chain vendors, which is a major point for a design company like Fulcrum Creatives.“One of the biggest areas that we could change is in print… There's not as much print as there used to be, but if you are going to do print, you can use post-industrial, recycled waste, paper-based products and other areas of the printing industry that can be a bit more green.”Other points considered in the assessment is a company’s client list (who are you working with, what impact are you having in communities, etc.) and transparency (equal employee pay, open books, etc.).If Fulcrum Creatives worked with BP, for example, their score would go down. As opposed to working with people doing economic development and companies working with low-income or at-risk populations.How does Fulcrum Creatives decide which clients to take on?Essentially, they look at what the client is doing. For instance, Fulcrum Creatives took on a for-profit publishing company because they were doing work for higher education, so that benefits the community.“We were approached by a brewery that was starting up ..
SEA Change—The Social Enterprise Accelerator—is an organization that supports social entrepreneurs by helping them develop a sustainable business model, access funding and solidify their meaningful impact. In this episode, we talk with Lauren Edwards, the Columbus director of SEA Change and owner and principal of Next Step Business Consulting.What does Lauren do?With Next Step Business Consulting, Lauren helps organizations develop their next step, thus the name, for their social enterprise. This includes program development, streamlining processes and logistics, recognizing areas that may have duplicative efforts and so on. Essentially, she helps with anything where an enterprise can save time, money or both.What’s Lauren’s personal goal in this?Put simply, alleviating poverty.“It’s not just happenstance that [poverty] happened. We as a society made decisions that put people in places where they could not build generational wealth and they could not achieve growth in their careers,” Lauren states. “It’s something that’s so unfortunate and that needs to be undone and there are tools out there.”Supporting social enterprises is one tool in the toolbox for our society to use to help alleviate poverty. Poverty is something that is so ingrained in our society, that it affects a multitude of areas. This is the reason why Lauren does what she does because she can work with all different types of social enterprises and all of them play some sort of role in alleviating poverty.“Last time I checked, [Columbus] is the second most income-segregated community in the country,” she says. “There are some awesome charts put together by the Pew Research Center that show what the government sets as the poverty level and they show what one working parent would have to make or how many hours they’d have to work in order to make that. It’s unreasonable, and it has been for 80 years.”What can young social entrepreneurs do to get going, specifically in Columbus?Once you have an issue you’re passionate about, find other people who are working to solve that same issue. Whether you form a partnership or simply gain valuable insight, that’s a great first step.“You may think of someone as a competitor, but you should at least approach them about a partnership,” Lauren explains. “Ultimately, you’re in this social service sector because you want to help people.”The SEA Change Pitch Day, which showcases local social enterprises that went through the SEA Change programming, is a great place to find inspiration - and possibly an organization with whom you can share your expertise: Every entrepreneur needs help; that’s just part of the business. If you have a passion, find a way to get involved and use your talents.How did Lauren get involved in social entrepreneurship?While working with a Columbus nonprofit called Local Matters, Lauren helped educate individuals about healthful food choices on a budget. They’d have hands-on cooking and gardening classes that taught a range of people from children all the way up to senior citizens. More and more people kept asking her if she would teach these tips at corporate events, and that’s when she had her lightbulb moment. That evolved into a program called Wellness Matters, which not only is helping the companies that pay for it retain and engage their employees, but it’s increasing the health of their employees as well.How did SEA Change get started?The Business of Good Foundation, based in Northeast, Ohio, saw a gap in the ecosystem for social enterprise when it comes to education. They discovered that there was a program that was already running at Brown University called SE Greenhouse, which is a 12-module online curriculum. Brown University agreed to let The Good Business Foundation use the program and eventually they brought it to Columbus, where it was developed into what is now SEA Change.What exactly is a social enterprise and what challenges do..
Eleventh Candle Co is a social enterprise that seeks to redeem, restore, empower and equip those vulnerable to human trafficking, abuse, exploitation, and addiction. It is a way to employ women and empower them through work.How did they get started?Amber's interest in human trafficking was born during a trip to Ethiopia, where she witnessed human trafficking in broad daylight. And she wasn’t okay with this. When she returned home to Columbus, Ohio, she was shocked to learn that human trafficking was just as prevalent in her hometown as it was in Ethiopia. So she set to work to figure out a way to make an impact.She googled what businesses she could start that would take the least amount of capital, and she came up with... candles. She started over two years ago, mostly selling online and at festivals and events, and just recently opened their first store in the Madery, at the Co-Hatch in Worthington - a place where artisans make their socially minded, locally made, and finely crafted products right in front of your eyes.While reflecting on their journey, Amber remarked that she grew up through foster care and recognizes the statistics of what can happen... 50% of kids in foster care are trafficked or abused: she could easily have been one of those she works with today.What do survivors need?In this podcast, we talk about many forms of trafficking - whether it's drug addiction, forced dependency, kidnapping, labor trafficking - it has countless different forms. Eleventh Candle Co is focusing on what survivors of human trafficking need:They need a safe place, safe people, and a purpose in their job. One of the most important things is teaching them how to dream.Quite often those who have been through extreme situations need extra guidance - especially working through the past trauma they have experienced. Everyone is unique, and this can range from basic life skills such as budgeting to healthy eating to rebuilding trust. One of the most useful ways to make a difference is through peer support, and Amber has worked hard to create an environment where you can’t tell the CEO from an employee, from someone who has been trafficked. Because, as she puts it:“One, we're not a petting zoo, and two we need to have the same level of respect, so my staff can freely call me out on if I'm doing something wrong, whether it’s how I’m making a candle to if I have a bad attitude... and the reason that we did that is to create a level playing ground. “Trust is a huge component as is creating a safe place where you're held accountable but it's still okay to fail. Only when you are on an even playing ground can you really develop trust.What are the challenges of incarceration?For those who have been incarcerated, it's even more challenging getting back on your feet.The average woman leaves prison with about 29 dollars and the clothes that she came in with.The transition from prison is challenging, so Eleventh Candle Co has a different solution to working with formerly incarcerated women: they reach out and working with them in the prison system by getting to know them and paying them real wages so that they have a path after they are released.How do you affect change as a consumer?Eleventh Candle Co has a variety of beautifully scented candles. Personally, I love beeswax candles, and since I attended the She Has a Name training on Human Trafficking, I light a candle from Eleventh Candle everytime I'm working on this podcast. There is one burning right now. For me, it is a symbol of the change I want to see happen in the world (plus, it's an awesome candle) -- but in the bigger picture, it is an example how we can effect change through the products you purchase as a consumer.Here is just a sample of companies built around a social mission like Eleventh Candle Co:The Noonday Collection - Jewelry & AccessoriesThe Madery in Worthington,
There are so many issues for us to collectively tackle - but perhaps above all is the environment, because if we destroy our home, where are we going to live?What is Zero Waste?Zero Waste started as an effort with the Nelsonville Music Festival, to transform how they manage waste at their festival. A festival generally generates tons of waste from the vendors and sheer mass of attendees that they support. Over the years, Zero Waste started by managing the trash -- adding in a conveyor belt to sort trash into recycling and compost -- right on the event grounds. Over time, they’ve worked closely with the vendors, to ensure they are using environmentally sound and compostable materials.When Tyler Bonner decided to join AmeriCorps, he found himself in the middle of this project. Today, he is leading the social enterprise Zero Waste Event Productions - the leading recycling, composting, and waste management provider for indoor and outdoor live music events, sporting events, community gatherings, and conferences. They are literarily changing the approach to litter, impacting celebrations which often generate huge amounts of trash for the landfill.What is Zero Waste about?The company started as an AmeriCorp project within Rural Action - a non-profit in Athens, Ohio focusing on promoting social, economic, and environmental justice by training, organizing and supporting communities:Our work is about developing the region’s many assets in environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways. We do this by focusing on sectors identified as important by our members: food and agriculture, forestry, zero waste and recycling, environmental education, and watershed restoration. Emerging work in social enterprise development, local tourism, and energy are more recent parts of our portfolio.They continue to build new tools to help make the recycling and composting more efficient -- but the main attraction is their conveyor belt. At the events, they’ll have volunteers sorting through trash -- a fun bonding experience that brings back many return volunteers.Who knew sorting trash could be fun... but Tyler explained how you’re in the middle of the festival, doing something great, visible to attendees and able to educate them -- and the conveyor belt means you don’t have to touch anything you don’t want to.They’ve achieved Zero Waste at the Nelsonville Music Festival -- less than 10% of the trash ends up in the landfill... meaning 90% is either recycled or composted. Now, that’s transformative for the environment.Most of their events are in Ohio, but they do branch out to Pennsylvania and beyond - check out their facebook page to see how you can get involved!ResourcesZero Waste Event Productions: zerowastefest.comFacebook: fb.com/zerowasteeventproductionsRural Action - ruralaction.org
Where do you go when you want to meet people, and yet do something good at the same time? Columbus Gives Back.Who are they?Columbus Gives Back is a non-profit which provides social volunteer and philanthropic opportunities throughout central Ohio. They organize events which are meaningful for both their volunteers and the groups they serve — and they have a nice twist of socializing to foster connections and develop stronger ties to the city. What I love about their approach is that they’re open to everyone, with a single purpose of make it super easy to join in cool projects.And they are growing like crazy -- because so many people want an easy way to volunteer, and it’s an awesome way to meet other people who love to get involved.Who volunteers with Columbus Gives Back?Think about it: when you’re new to a city, and you don’t know a ton of people, how do you get involved? This is what they’re after -- when you volunteer in the community you not only bond with your fellow volunteers, but you also learn about where you live.Alfred described it best:My favorite conversations at our events are about how long volunteers have been in Columbus. There are plenty of lifers here (I am one of them), but there are so many who respond: "I just moved three months ago or four months ago, or six months ago. I just moved here two weeks ago, and I want to get involved", and this wasn't the case four years ago. Everybody knows that Columbus is as a hot city right now - we are we are moving in talented educated people.What is it like volunteering with them?Amanda stressed that they strive to be open for everyone -- you can come with a friend, but you can also come on your own. Each project has a team leader to make sure everyone feels welcome and is comfortable getting involved. The whole point is to get to serve, socialize and have fun.Amanda described this spirit with a great story:There was one time we had this event at the Broad Street Food Pantry, where we go monthly. This one time it happened to be closed. We had a handful of volunteers show up who were ready to give back, and so we just found someone at the Broad Street Presbyterian Church, and were like, "listen, we came to volunteer, but the opportunity we came for is not available... what can we do to help you guys out?" And they just happen to need help cleaning the walls in their Nursery before they repainted the room. And our volunteers were like yes, we will absolutely do that!We were recording at the Columbus Public Library, and we ran into one of their Team Leaders, Evan Miller: the camaraderie was visible. They’re fun, easy to connect with, and possibly growing to 2,000 volunteers this year. (Listen all the way to the end of the podcast if you’re curious why this is important.)So check them out!ResourcesYou can find them at columbusgivesback.org - with about 30 events a month, you can easily find an event which fits your schedule, gets you out and helping out in the community and making a difference without the complications of arranging your own service projects.If you want to learn more, they're socializing at Land Grant this April 4th with Columbus Soup -- more details here!
You’re in for a ride today. I know we’ve been digging into some serious podcasts around trafficking, but this podcast is about a different kind of traffic: transportation.Who is EmpowerBus?I met with Aslyne and Jerry of EmpowerBus - a social enterprise which strengthens the roads to social mobility. What does that mean? It means providing dignified, reliable, and on-time transportation to and from employment, education, and healthcare opportunities. Basically getting people without access or means to transportation where they need to go, trying to close the gap between opportunities and the transportation barriers that exist in Columbus, Ohio.EmpowerBus is strengthening the roads to social mobility by providing dignified, reliable, and on-time transportation to and from employment, education, and healthcare opportunities.How did access to transportation become an issue?When the city was younger, factories and jobs were available downtown - and low-wage workers were able to access these jobs. With urban sprawl, Columbus grew outwards, and as rents raised, it pushed low-income areas out of downtown, but still within the beltway.But as the city continued to grow and attract big businesses business parks sprung up either downtown or outside the beltway -- effectively creating a transportation barrier for low-wage workers. The sprawl of Columbus makes it difficult to offer a comprehensive system of affordable transportation... meaning for people in low-cost areas have a harder time reaching the job opportunities. Not only is this a challenge for low-income workers, but this also impacts businesses with higher costs from higher turnover.Is it about access or fair wages?EmpowerBus built a business around connecting low-income areas with businesses that want to provide reliable transportation to their workers.Aslyne and Jerry are very aware of the dark side of this: are companies paying unfair wages, keeping employees from meeting their basic needs? Part of their company's DNA is to vet who they work with to ensure that the companies they work with are fair with their wages and employee benefits.The two sides of ColumbusStill - Columbus has two sides. One side is well off and thriving, and another which is low-income, and disconnected. I must admit, until I started this podcast, I had no understanding of what that meant.Aslyne described it pretty well, what it means to live in a low-income area:A Kroger store shut down -- the nearest one was far enough away to make it prohibitive to reach by public transit. Two bus changes, and unpredictable bus routes? Some of these people use the grocery store in ways that I couldn’t imagine - it’s their bank, it’s where they go to cash their checks, to pay their bills. Things which you’ve automotive because you have a bank account and bill pay... other people go to the grocery store. It’s their lifeline.EmpowerBus is not alone in trying to tackle this. SMART Columbus is an initiative to develop the transportation needs for Columbus. But instead of competing with them, they’re working together, looking for opportunities that the other can’t serve. For example - as a for-profit company, they can bus people across county lines... meaning they can connect people living in Franklin County with the Honda plant in Union County.Building social entrepreneursBoth Aslyne and Jerry served in Teach for America - this is actually how they met. I've seen with programs like Teach for America, the Peace Corps, Americorps a similar thread of entrepreneurial spirit and social change activism. When I asked Jerry about this, he shared his perspective:These organizations find naive well-accomplished college graduates who believe they can go and change the world. As they join, they get to see firsthand how deep and how challenging the world really is -- and they face all these difficulties head on and when they come out the other end...
Clean Turn is a cleaning company with a purpose -- not only do they provide quality cleaning services; they employ people who have been affected by trafficking, domestic violence, and other vulnerable populations and work to raise awareness about these issues.NOTE: When the podcast was recorded, they were called She Has a Name Cleaning, but have since adopted the name of their parent company.What does it mean to be affected by trafficking?Amanda Wells shared her story. She was introduced to drugs in high school and for a long time had her use under control. But at some point it spiraled out of control - she lost her children and ended up on the street, even resorting to selling herself to get high. She ended up in CATCH Court, a specialty docket in the justice system aiming at identifying victims of human trafficking and providing a rigorous program that gives these ladies an alternative.But as you’re getting back on your feet, finding employment is still a challenge. Clean Turn opened their doors and gave Amanda an opportunity. She’s been there two years and has grown to become a team leader.I feel like it gives me a greater purpose to work and help other girls that are going through the same thing. ~Amanda WellsIt’s been extremely rewarding for Amanda, and having people trust her fills her with hope. But Clean Turn also gives her a chance to help others who have been through similar situations, and that support is transformational.How does the business work?Managing Director, Kelsie Johnson, said their focus first is on providing top quality cleaning services. They don’t hire everyone -- they’ll qualify where people are in their recovery, and point them to their next steps if they’re not ready to join the workforce.They’re not significantly different from a for-profit business, but they do approach their fellow employees with understanding and structuring their teams so that individuals are set up to succeed.Challenges can look like, "great I am sober and clean. I have a job now and all of a sudden life gets crazy again". And so how do I not revert to old behaviors how do I have a new healthy support group. How do I cut out things that probably aren't helpful and could be a trigger in my life. So it's a lot of just coaching. ~Kelsie JohnsonKelsie herself had never run a social enterprise before -- but she couldn’t resist an opportunity that mixed the purpose of the work that she does. And she doesn’t see herself ever going back.What's it like running a social enterprise?For others interested in becoming a social entrepreneur, Kelsie told me, “Fear can be a big obstacle, but I think if you have that passion if you're willing to learn and just listen. I would say go for it.”It’s not always easy though, and she wasn’t expecting what it would mean to listen to the stories of those she works with:I don't think I was ready to take on the pain of their stories... and you're amazed because you see the new person if you will and so you're just kind of like I can't imagine you any differently. You're happy, you're smiling. But to know that you've lived this history of pain or abuse or hardship it's just amazing that you're here and it puts it into perspective. Honestly when maybe something small at work happened and I'm like oh they should know not to do blank but you understand like Oh man that's a that's a big step for them in where they're at.I’ve rarely met someone who has said their life is easy but listening to stories like Amanda’s, you realize how some people have endured much more difficult situations. And I’m so grateful for companies like Clean Turn who are giving people like Amanda an opportunity to grow and thrive.ResourcesInterested in learning more about Clean Turn, or using them for your house cleaning? Find out more at cleanturn.comI just completed the human trafficking training, by their partner organization She has a Name - I found it v..
Recently, we spoke with Paul Haines of Freedom a la Cart - a social enterprise bringing hope to survivors of human trafficking so they can build a new life of freedom and self-sufficiency. In this podcast, we dove deeper into this conversation with April Thacker, the caseworker at Freedom a la Cart, to hear her story as a survivor of human trafficking.What is Human Trafficking?If I’ve learned anything about human trafficking, it’s that as soon I think I know what it is, I find out I’m wrong -- there is no single story or background that trafficking effects, or any single simple definition. Human trafficking is complex and comes in countless forms — and this is an essential story to share as a foundation for creating change."The United Nations defines human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means (such as force, abduction, fraud, or coercion) for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation."Please do listen to April's story: I can’t recreate it in writing — her story is an important one to share because it illustrates how subtle and manipulative trafficking can be — and paints one picture of how human trafficking happens in our communities.What's the point?One thing that really struck me, is that viewing oneself as a victim of human trafficking has nothing to do with not taking responsibility. April explained that she couldn’t even see herself as a victim until after she started working with Freedom a la Cart. It’s not a question of taking responsibility for your actions, but of understanding that you weren’t alone in making those choices... which can help tackle the guilt and shame that holds one back. Recovery isn’t easy -- it’s not just “oh, I’m going to get a job and build a new life” — externally you’re facing a history of felonies, negative stigmas from society, and any legal issues stemming from your past, internally you're dealing with trauma and addiction.There is so much in life that we can take for granted, that sometimes we don’t know what’s missing when we don’t have a role model to share with us a different way. But even more critical is having support as you build your life in a new direction.Resources to find out more:National Human Trafficking Hotline: 1 (888) 373-7888Freedom a la Cart - catering company & social enterprise for impacting lives impacted by human traffickingMaryhaven - Specializes in addiction recoveryAmethyst - focuses on the unique needs women have during recovery.
“87% of consumer believe that business needs to place equal weight on society's interest as it does its own business interest. Not only do they want their jobs to have meaning but they want the businesses that they interact with as consumers to have meaning.”~ Haley BoehningI recently met with Haley Boehning to explore the question of how for-profit companies can shift to make a better impact in the world, and how they can develop a definite purpose that drives their business forward.What is Storyforge?She founded Storyforge with Barry Chandler with this express purpose: “to help founder-led businesses forge their meaningful story”. It’s critical, she noted, because if your purpose isn't clear then you can’t be consistent throughout your organization. It is a problem if your marketing message says one thing, but the delivery of your services are inconsistent. It needs to be clear, simple, meaningful and compelling so that everyone in the organization can use that as a filter for making decisions.As an organization, Storyforge helps other businesses achieve this clarity so that they can tell more meaningful stories across all of their stakeholders. The research shows that having a purpose higher than profitability helps companies to be more successful - which Haley pointed out means that purpose and profitability are not opposites -- they actually feed each other, and when you miss one, it will hurt the other.Storyforge mostly works with companies one on one, but in 2018, they're developing an intensive workshop day for companies to create this clarity in a single day. (I'll post more details here when they come available!)What is Conscious Capitalism?Haley is also involved with bringing Conscious Capitalism to Central Ohio. Thier credo:“We believe that business is good because it creates value, it is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange, it is noble because it can elevate our existence and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity. Free enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to even more.”~ From the Conscious Capitalist CredoI’m excited about this new chapter because this podcast usually explores non-profits and social enterprises, but I believe there is a significant opportunity that established businesses can make to impact our society.What events are coming up?The kick-off event for Conscious Capitalism is this Thursday, February 15th, at 5:30 pm -- check out this eventbrite sign-up.Storyforge WebsiteHaley on Twitter: @haley_boehningConscious Capitalism, Central OhioConscious Capitalism InternationalConscious Capitalism, Twitter: @consciouscap
Freedom a la Cart & Paula HainesHuman trafficking is a complicated social issue -- it's difficult to speak about, which makes it harder to raise awareness, but it's even more challenging for one to survive and get back on their feet. Freedom a la Cart is a social enterprise here in Columbus, which provides a working environment that helps victims of human trafficking develop the skills they need to succeed.How did they start?Freedom a la Cart started actually as DOMA International back in 2009 as a supportive arm to the CATCH Court program.CATCH Court is a specialty docket in Franklin County that gives survivors of human trafficking a second chance, treating them as victims instead of criminals. It's a two-year probationary program where they receive recovery assistance for addiction, trauma counseling and lots of support. Every two weeks, they come to court, and after two years of this intensive program they graduate and have their record expunged.But after going out in the world, they were being turned down for jobs, and still recovering from addiction, so DOMA International bought a food cart off of eBay, started making great sandwiches, and giving these ladies a chance to work at festivals. (Which is the fun fact why Freedom a la Cart has no e.)It grew from there into a catering business (because you can’t survive as a food cart business through a Columbus winter), and have since opened a cafe in the north branch of the Columbus Public Library. (They are currently developing plans to open a full cafe in the city!)How does this drive their mission?As with any business, quality is key. But they learned that in order to utilize their ladies effectively, they had to develop a menu both that tasted great, and one that they could master. They also had to develop a support system and community that could create the right environment.What really struck me is that Freedom a la Cart is not about training women to work in the food industry - it’s about helping them developing skills so that they have a pathway to freedom:“No person should be bought or sold for sex. Not here in Central Ohio. Not anywhere.At Freedom a la Cart, we bring hope to survivors of human trafficking so they can build a new life of freedom and self-sufficiency. We believe that giving a woman practical job skills and developing a strong work ethic is vital for creating a pathway to freedom. So, we’ve created a safe place for restoration where survivors can heal, learn and grow as they prepare for sustainable employment within our community” -- Mission of Freedom a la CartWhat is Eat-Up Columbus?Their annual Eat-Up Columbus event is just around the corner on February 10th. They bring together award-winning chefs to prepare an extravagant five-course meal, the funds of which go to support the social impact of their organization. Their menu is stellar, so check it out!Want to find out more?Website: freedomalacart.orgEat-up Columbus, February 10thFacebook: fb.com/FreedomalaCartInstagram: @freedomalacart1Twitter: @freedomalacartCATCH Court
US Together“We’re not here to help people to survive - they survived without us. We’re here to give them tools that will help empower them to succeed.” -- Nadia KasvinWho is US Together?US Together is an organization which helps refugees get the support they need in central Ohio. They treat everyone like the individual that they are, and I believe this is what helps them do such outstanding work to help refugees settle in and excel in their new surroundings.By definition, a refugee is someone who has been forced to flee their country because of persecution, war, or violence and are often escaping from traumatic situations. In this podcast with Nadia Kasvin, co-founder of US Together, we explore what this means, what’s happening, and how you can help US Together make an impact.How did Nadia come to the US?Nadia herself was a refugee from Crimea, almost 25 years ago. But she was lucky. She knew English and didn’t have to experience displacement or survive in a refugee camp. The day after they arrived in the US, her husband had a job interview and started work the following week. This is not normal, especially today.Today there are about 60 million people displaced around the world -- more than after World War II. Of these, 25 million have reached an office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to register for refugee status. Of these 25 million, only 1% will be able to resettle in a third country through a refugee resettlement program similar to what with have in the US: one percent.How does US Together make an impact?Their services are broad, including:Cultural OrientationESL classesCitizenship classesCitizenship application assistanceJob & employment assistance through our Matching Grant ProgramClothing and household item donationsInterpreter ServicesWhen speaking with Nadia, I was struck by how their services change and adapt to the individual -- she stressed how everyone is unique in their situation and their capabilities. So many working at US Together have been refugees themselves, and so have a perspective on adjusting to living in a new country, learning a new culture, and rebuilding their lives after facing a traumatic situation.“With the right support, people come in and get situated, and a couple years later, you’ll see they’re buying a house and their kids are going to college. It’s great.”They even have a women empowerment program and helping with things we take for granted, such as financial literacy, or understanding of our education system works. They work with survivors of torture and women who have experienced sexual assault and domestic violence, to get them the support they need to help as they settle into a new life.So, how can you get involved?Volunteer — so many opportunities, but just talking &sharing stories helps develop new connections — and has a great impact on helping refugees adapt.Be a host - US Together brings professionals over from overseas for a week or longer - it's a great way to get to know someone much better and really share a new culture.And stay tuned for a brand new Refugee Integration Conference later in the year!How do you find out more?Website: ustogether.usFacebook: fb.com/USTogetherIncColumbusTwitter: @USTogetherCBUSThe UN Refugee Agency: UNHCR2015 US Together Report: Impact of Refugees on Central Ohio (This report is outstanding - an excellent source for understanding more about refugees in central Ohio!)
Brook Kohn and Nathali Bertran brought their frustration with the DACA application process to the Columbus Give Back Hack -- a 54-hour hack-a-thon aimed at developing sustainable social enterprises. There, they put together a team and over a weekend built a wireframe and working prototype for a platform that would ease the process for dreamers applying for DACA.What was it like growing up as a dreamer?Nathali grew up in New York City - she moved there when she was just 9 and went to elementary school just like any other kid. She didn’t realize what her status as undocumented meant until she had to apply for college and applications kept requiring her social security numbers. So, she had to dig into the possibilities with her guidance counselors and family to figure out what she could do. Coming from a low-income background, her family couldn’t afford a full education, so her options were limited. This was 2010, and a common barrier that dreamers face.Today, there is a lot more awareness in education. Some institutions disregard the social security requirement if you’ve attended public school. Others treat you like a student from abroad. There are still challenges on scholarships -- Nathali was one of the lucky few who received a scholarship.What is DACA?In 2012, President Obama passed DACA, and that allowed Nathali to get a work permit, and allowed her to look for a job like anyone else. As Brook explained,DACA is really deferred action. It was created way back when we had the Beatles touring America, specifically for John Lennon. He was a British citizen, but he wanted to stay in the United States. So his smart immigration attorney said OK let's just defer his deportation because he has overstayed his artist visa but he's contributing so much to America. People wanted him to stay, because he made a lot of money for everyone -- sold out shows and all this artistic value and revenue. So they said, let's keep him here and just put him up at the bottom of the list, and focus our attention on people that are causing harm.It’s from this same deferred action that DACA was born in 2012. But the process is complicated. Complex forms. All to be done with pen and paper. Nathali was lucky that her parents were able to save enough to afford a lawyer - it was over $1,000, which is significant when you’re from a low-income background. She was also lucky that she didn’t miss school, and had records of her attendance because you have to show that you’ve never left the country after you arrived. She has to renew her application every two years - but now that she’s a working professional, that’s less of a burden.How did DACA Time come about?For many dreamers the process is both complicated and expensive, creating a huge barrier. After Nathali explained this to Brook, they decided they wanted to do something about it. So they brought this idea to Give Back Hack to build a platform that would help automate and simplify the process of filling out these forms, to make it more accessible to other dreamers.The response was fantastic. Derek Dehart, a product manager at Cover My Meds, joined their team, and Nicholas Tietz came onboard as their developer, as well as a couple of talented designers - Chriss Barr and Andy Jett.After Give Back Hack, they took their idea to Columbus Soup and APTE (Alleviating Poverty through Entrepreneurship) conference at OSU, which led them to SEA Change -- a Columbus program for helping develop social enterprises.Now through all of this, mind you, the entire team has full-time jobs, and yet they’re pouring their spare time into this passion, working fast to develop their platform and connections into the community.What happened when DACA was rescinded?In September/October of 2017, the current administration ended DACA. Nathali’s renewed her application right before it ended, so she has until 2019, but for those whose applications have expired before getting renewe..
Jay Clouse & Unreal CollectiveSo what is the Unreal Collective?Jay Clouse runs the Unreal Collective - he brings together talented individuals, entrepreneurs, freelancers... awesome people working on interesting projects, for a 12-week program for each to take their project to the next level by supporting each other. There are goals, clarity, and direction balanced with the support of peers that provides a catalyst for ideas and inspiration that help push progress forward.I mention the Unreal Collective often in the podcast - I participated in this program in October, and it propelled this podcast forward. I was introduced to some great people, received feedback that reframed my approach, and the clarity and attention on the goals for this podcast helped me refine my process. It felt transformational, and it the productivity was tangible.How do you build a community?Jay’s always had an entrepreneurial streak from his days at OSU, which lead him to pitch ideas, and trying to find a developer for a project... which landed him at the Startup Weekend, and later with a startup called Tixers. But Jay also has a talent for building communities and networking - for him, this is very intentional and wants to be known for this. In his own words:If you're going to build a network and build relationships it has to be based on giving. You have to be providing some sort of value to that person or it’s not a relationship that you can count on. I would find people who you are genuinely interested in learning from - and perhaps what you’re providing is just genuine interest and gratitude. A lot of people will be happy to provide information if you ask them for advice ask them about their experience and what they've learned. People like to talk about what they've learned. But don't make it about yourself. I always try to talk the least in any interaction because if I'm talking I’m not learning.And Jay lives up to this, and his networking skills are a product of this very vision. We didn’t dive further into this in the podcast, but the notion of being of service is something I’ve heard consistently from a number of different leaders and coaches. We no longer live in a world where we “get ahead” in a world filled with lack. We make progress by helping each other achieve our dreams. Further… I’d postulate that only by using our personal talents and joy to help others do we find our own fulfillment. In a world where you make a contribution, you can’t win or lose. You can only contribute more or less.What is the Give Back Hack and the Startup Weekend?We did dive into the Startup Weekend and the Give Back Hack. Startup Weekend is a hack-a-thon of sorts... people from diverse (not just technical) background coming together for a weekend to develop and launch a business. The experience is intense, but it opens your eyes to what is possible.The Give Back Hack was started by Suzy Bureau. As the organizer of Startup Weekend here in Columbus she wanted to refine the structure to support developing and launching social enterprises... in a format that provided them more support to grow after the weekend event. Aunt Flow, DACA Time, and Abe’s Kitchen are some fantastic startups that have been through this. If you have entrepreneurial dreams, participate in one of these events.Should you check out the Unreal Collective?And if you ready to take the next step with your project… applications to join Unreal Collective are now open! Some great projects you might bring to the Unreal Collective include:Starting your projectValidating your business ideaBuilding your MVPFinding your first customerOpening your online storeWriting a bookLaunching your podcast...and moreI’ll testify that you’ll join a community of driven people like you, in a group you’ll meet with every week. And by joining a community of action-oriented people invested in your success, you will achieve more than you can do alone.
Three percent. That’s your chance of recovery, once you’ve stuck a needle in your arm.Where does this story start?Taylor Hunt had a rocky start - alcohol & drugs - to the point that he thought his life was over. But during a short period in detox and a moment of clarity, the choice came to him that he wanted to live.His journey through recovery was not easy. On the 11th step of AA, yoga found him and pulled him in. He had a lot of resistance to his first class, and it brought up a lot, but his sponsor directed him back.As Taylor found his way deeper into yoga, he found that the effort and community held keys to transformation. For someone coming out of addiction where you have no easy path forward, yoga is very encouraging. You can see the progress in front of you with a little bit of dedicated practice. And this is important: to develop the wisdom that small steps lead to change is essential... and transformative to realize you can take other such steps in your life to turn things around, even if the change isn’t always immediately apparent.Yoga has a way of clearing the body -- when your body doesn’t process old experiences, it stores them, like chemicals in your cells. As you heat the body, these are released, and you have to deal with them. In a supportive environment such as yoga, it helps with recovery.How did this lead to Astanga Yoga Columbus and the Trini Foundation?Taylor opened the Astanga Yoga Columbus studio in 2014 and deliberately built a community which is supportive and an atmosphere that encourages this hard work.Mysore style Astanga Yoga varies from other forms, where it provides students with their own practice, bit by bit. You come in and practice your own routine, as opposed to following in a group. You learn new poses only as you’re ready.Mysore, IndiaBut Taylor knew what he had learned could help others struggling with addiction. So he, along with his wife Jess, and teacher Dawn Blevins started the Trini Foundation.The foundation provides training so that yoga teachers can go into recovery facilities to teach yoga for recovering addicts. When people leave their programs, it provides scholarships to Astanga yoga in exchange for their commitment to show up, in order to help support the transition. Through this, they are reaching out and changing lives.As a side note, I came to Taylor’s studio many years ago and can attest to the energy in the room that pulls you forward. My own practice has been in hibernation as I’ve focused on developing other habits -- but what I learned from Taylor is that it’s meant to be a daily practice, and need at least three days a week to work properly. I set out at the beginning of this year to develop my own understanding of how to make a social impact and set a goal for this podcast to record 25 episodes. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, but it was really a miracle at the last minute that Taylor was able to connect with me to make this happen.How do you get involved?If you’re in Columbus and struggling with addiction, have a look at Trina foundation. If you’re a yoga teacher, interested in making an impact, take a look. If you’re looking for a cause to donate that can give people the tools they need to radically transform their lives check it out. But I’d also encourage you to try out yoga. It works. Ashtanga Yoga Columbus Trini Foundation Facebook: fb.com/ashtangacbus Instagram: @ashtangacbus Twitter: @ashtangacbus
“So it started right at the end of 2008, which was the start of the Great Recession. We became concerned that nonprofits were facing unfavorable year ends with giving decreasing, so we decided to step in... and basically help non-profits generate revenue streams.”Grants for Social EntrepreneurshipThe Columbus Foundation was founded in 1943, and are celebrating their 75th year next year. Their mission is to assist donors and others in the area to strengthen and improve the community for the benefit of all. Consider them the community’s philanthropic advisors.Social entrepreneurship wasn’t the buzz word in 2008 that it is today. At the time, the idea was to help considerable, established charities such as the Salvation Army. At the time, they thought it would just last a couple of years, but then the recession lingered on.And their understanding of social entrepreneurship continued to evolve.Who are these social entrepreneurs?What Emily found was that it wasn’t just prominent organizations adding revenue streams to support other areas of their charity. Small social enterprises started showing up that were standing on their own. For example, Lettuce Work is a small venture growing lettuce... with the purpose of employing those affected by autism. They seek to break even - it’s not about funding a different part of their charity... the work itself supports its social mission.And then they helped a local furniture bank expand their mission and developer their store called Furniture with a Heart, a shop which helps to fund their mission to provide furniture to those in need. They now have a service called “Downsize with a Heart” that helps elderly and others downsize... providing service across the board, both social services, and moving and sorting, so that individuals can cut down the number of people and organizations someone needs to work with to get help.Not all are small, either. The Columbus Foundation helped Equitas Health to build a pharmacy -- a health organization which started an HIV/AIDS program but has since expanded far beyond that. Equitas Health is nation’s largest HIV/AIDS, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) healthcare organizations. With 15 offices in 11 cities, it serves more than 67,000 across the mid-west.What’s in the bigger picture?Now - a social enterprise isn’t the solution for all non-profits or charities. “The odds of a food pantry or homeless shelter figuring out how to do a social enterprise is small,” Emily remarked. And for many charities, they have well-established routes of funding.“The odds of a food pantry or homeless shelter figuring out how to do a social enterprise is small.”But at the same time - the grant process for a non-profit depends on timing and availability. When it comes to a social enterprise, the Emily learned that they don’t operate on a schedule, so that their grants needed to be flexible as well. So they built up a mission that provides support as needed. Because these opportunities tend to have a path to self-sufficiency and are fewer in number, it’s much easier to fund most of the sound opportunities that approach the foundation.Going forward, the Columbus Foundation is planning on launching a service in 2018 for impact investing, so they can make loans to social enterprises or non-profits that can pay back... to help with cash flow for organizations that have a route to earning money.It was a real delight hearing about the work that Emily Savors does at the Columbus Foundation. It’s an exciting time for the city of Columbus, because the social entrepreneurship community is small enough that people know each other, and this has a huge benefit for people working together. And the Columbus Foundation is one of the pillars that helps serve an essential need in helping these businesses grow.To find out more, you can visit: The Columbus Foundation Furniture with a Heart,
Kenny Sipes started the Roosevelt Coffeehouse in 2013 to make a social impact. He knew from the start that he wanted to build the coffee shop without any loans so that they would be able to make the biggest impact.Before starting the Roosevelt Coffeehouse, Kenny worked as a pastor for youth services. He imagined it must be a bit creepy for youths to meet in a pastors office, so he often met kids in coffee shops, where the atmosphere was more conducive. And he was always reflecting on the long-term view - what effect could he have now that would impact these kids 10 years down the road.How did compassion develop through his work?Through his work, Kenny organized missions for the youths he helped -- first in the US, and then abroad, to Africa and south-east Asia. On one trip to St Louis, after spending the day helping paint a house, they discovered a nearby house had caught fire -- a family with very little now had nothing and was out on the streets. Instead of taking their leave to enjoy their free day, the kids unanimously put in their travel money and went to Walmart to buy essential supplies for the family to help them rebuild. That’s the moment that Kenny realized these kids understood their privilege and compassion.As they continued their work abroad, he developed insight into cultural and issues people face around the world. In Africa, he realized the significance of clean water - something we take for granted in the US, (unless more examples like Flint start rising up!) Without latrines, or even basic understanding of how to keep clean, or access to clean running water -- disease spreads so easily -- even though we know how to prevent this with the proper infrastructure.So how did this lead to a coffeehouse?When Kenny left the church, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. But a trip to dream about the possibilities took him to Nashville, where he spent time hopping from one coffeehouse to the next. This led him to The Well, a coffeehouse with a mission to make a social impact.The idea was simple: build a coffeehouse where the profits can support causes where they could make a difference: Water, hunger, and human trafficking.What's it like at the Roosevelt?What really strikes me about Roosevelt is that it has a strong community feel. They make everyone feel welcome. They’re just a block away from CCAD, the Columbus College of Art & Design, so it attracts designers. With their social mission, they bring in lots of social entrepreneurs... as well as people trying to get back on their feet. There is an uplifting energy in the coffeehouse that you can feel when you walk in the door.Kenny sets the example for how to foster this community, but he told me, “Adam, it is critical that you don’t get carried away by your social missions, to the point that you neglect the quality of the product or service you are delivering”.With social entrepreneurship, I keep hearing this time and again. As with any business, develop a quality product, and produce a solid business that stands on it own. Only with a strong business can you tie in a strong a mission to serve. But a mission without a strong business behind it won’t be able to make its potential impact in the long term.What about trafficking?Learning about trafficking has been an eye-opening experience for me. I never expected it to exist in my own backyard, or for it to be such a prevalent issue. Something Kenny said struck out -- that we really need to change the story around prostitution -- the truth is that women are usually victims of the John’s who are pimping them out. It’s a complex issue, sometimes involving kidnapping, sometimes drugs and co-dependency. But we need to make it easier to talk about so that we can develop the awareness to address some of the issues that fuel it.Kenny shared so much in the podcast - here are some resources that we touched on: The Roosevelt Coffeehouse and their mission
Pete Cline was racing at a semi-professional level in motorsports when an accident forced him to take a different turn. An event in the UK had inspired Pete to enlist some veterans to show some patriotic support with his team, and it put him on a ride which led to VETMotorosports.What is VETMotorsports about?VETMotorsports is an organization that honors and empowers disabled combat veterans through active participation in motorsports. At least, that’s their tagline.Thier events are not centered around veterans. Rather, veterans are participating and racing with civilians, and it’s about empowerment, building new connections, and having a great time. In fact, their four basic guidelines are:Have a great timeAsk questionsBe on timeBe soberI found it amusing that Pete thought it was a good idea to invite disabled veterans to an event that is loud, noisy and unpredictable… especially when the pit crew has to be aware so not to jeopardize the life of the racer. But actually, the environment parallels experiences veterans had in the military - so not only do they excel, but they have fun while working together as a team with civilians.How do you engage with veterans?Never having served in the military, it took Pete some time to understand how to reach out and engage a skeptical community that saw him as a civilian outsider.But he explained it to me -- in the military, you have a very different culture. You don’t have to pay bills or worry about food or healthcare or where you’re going to sleep. You don’t have to figure out getting a job, transportation, your own house, building your job experience, and the social skills that you need in a very different social environment. Teamwork is part of your life. Flexibility and moving around is a part of your life. Responsibility at a young age, leading others is common -- much more so than in the corporate world. So for some, it can be a challenge translating the military culture into one that makes sense in the civilian world.For a veteran with some sort of disability, whether it is physical or mental, where you’re faced with an adversity on top of the cultural challenge, it can be disempowering adjusting to a life outside the military.How can you get involved?VETMotorsports has a variety ways to get involved - find out more about them:Website: vetmotorsports.orgTwitter: @VETMotorsportsInstagram: @VETMotorsportsOn another note - I attended a community panel hosted by VETMotorsports and the Columbus Foundation back in November. One thing that struck me from the panel was how significant the cultural challenges are for many veterans face when returning to civilian life. Translating who you are from your military experience to the civilian world isn't always clear-cut.One simple thing you can do is to learn how to speak with veterans more effectively. One of the panelists, Mrs. Ailabouni, sent me an article on How to Talk To a Veteran, which has an insightful perspective on what to ask and what not to ask. It’s worth read:https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/how-to-talk-to-a-veteran/
When you walk around Columbus, one population you don’t encounter are the homeless, but they are here behind the backdrop of the city. The organization Star House reaches out to specifically help those who are between the ages of 14 to 24 and don’t have permanent housing. Star house offers a safe place, providing these homeless youth with access to food and basic needs, showers, resources, and counseling. Not only are they the only research-based drop-in center in the country, but they are also launching a social enterprise to help this vulnerable population get the support they need to get on their feet. For episode 21, I sat down with Ann Bischoff, CEO of Star House to learn more about their mission and understand better the homeless youth they serve, and some of the challenges they face.The Four Pillars of StabilityAnn described the four pillars that people need in order to have stability - housing, transportation, jobs and support from others. Without any one of these pillars, then the others fall apart.Without transportation or stable housing, it’s hard to get a job. And without a job, you can’t get housing or afford transportation. Without support from others, then dealing with the complexities of the three other pillars can be paralyzing. It's a catch-22.It’s a catch-22.This is why Star House exists - to help set these pillars up, in a way that they’re not going to just collapse after a short period of time.Understand What You Don’t SeeI think Ann really explained it well that you can drive from the suburbs downtown to work, and never see the epidemic of homelessness in Columbus. I’m so glad of the work that Star House is done, but it’s so clear that there is so much more to do. If you want to explore the conversation further, The Columbus Metropolitan Club is having a talk at noon on November 29th about the Unexpected Face of Homelessness: Teens on the Street to explore this topic further. It’s down at the Boat House at Confluence Park, and you can find more on columbusmetroclub.org.If you would like to find out more about Star House, then visit starhousecolumbus.org, or follow them on Facebook at fb.com/starhousecolumbus. And, winter is here - if you have spare warm jackets, clothing, blankets or tents for the winter - make a donation!!
Join me as I speak with my longtime mentor, Dr. Srikumar Rao -- TED speaker, author, consultant, and creator of the Creativity & Personal Mastery course. I took his course at the London Business School back in 2005 - and never imagined it would still have an impact on my life 12 years later. Perhaps I'd have imagined that I would have achieved some level of mastery by now, but one thing I've learned is that life continues to evolve and change... for everyone. The course provided me a framework for much of my personal development today -- building on tools such as examining your mental chatter and evaluating how you perceive the world and profoundly changing this to something more effective.But in this podcast, I reached out to Dr. Rao to have a discussion on how we can create a positive social change in the world - both internally and externally, and we got into some really deep stuff. (And some great parables!)Gandhi’s quote “Be the change that you wish to see in the world” resonates deeply with my understanding of the world. But I’ve always wondered if the world changes because you see it differently, or if it changes when the world is inspired by your transformation.You certainly can’t force change, and if your hopes are pinned on a certain outcome, you’re bound to be disappointed, as the universe is constantly changing by forces much more complex than your singular influence. Prof. Rao explained how to keep your intent pure and focused on something greater than yourself -- and this will help bring about a change for the better, even if it isn't the one that you expect.On advice to those who want to make a difference, he said:“There are so many areas in the world where so much has gone awry. Pick any one area, and educate yourself. Become an expert, to the point when you understand how you can be personally involved. And then take action.”Pour in your energy and effort and resources, do something personally -- just make sure it’s more than just donating money.This podcast is jam-packed with wonderful parables, insight, and tools to transform the world, so make sure to tune in!For more details on how to find out about the course, visit theraoinstitute.com - he has two courses scheduled for next spring, as well as various talks around the world. I can't recommend this course highly enough -- so if this podcast strikes a chord, definitely look into his program, it lives up to its reputation for creating profound change!
For episode 19, we spoke with Ione Butler of Uplifting Content, and like the name, uplifting content is all about creating uplifting content… because the world needs more of it. (Personally, I couldn’t agree more. The toxic political elections in 2016 were one of the reasons this podcast came into being.)Ione Butler is a superstar in the space of connecting people with inspiring stories and she has a unique authenticity in the way she connects with people. She moved from the UK to L.A. to further her acting career, and one day found herself frustrated that she couldn’t find anything inspiring on TV — as she reflected on the industry she was working in, she had to ask, "what’s the point of telling people what’s awful without telling them what they can do about it?" And so she set out to build a hub of inspiration and a platform centered around being of service and doing things for other people, raising attention for causes in the community and providing a space for others to share their own uplifting content.What’s the point of telling people what’s awful without telling them what they can do about it?Ione is the first guest on People Helping People who I hadn’t spoken with prior to our podcast, and I really didn’t expect to be diving into depression and these masks that we wear to the outside world. But being able to talk about our hardships and difficulties is important, just as is talking about how we overcome our adversities. Ione pointed out that the key is to develop awareness of what is going on so that we can accept it and feel it fully. When we resist feeling what we’re feeling, it just gets bottled up.I meditate daily for an hour with the same premise of observing my sensations without reacting, so that I can do just that — and yet it is really hard. Especially when we pack our lives with stuff, or something happens, or not enough happens. Suffering is a complex phenomenon that is fairly universal, and it only is compounded when we only see the bright side that our peers project, and the doomsday armageddon on tv.This strikes me as noteworthy - these masks we wear that hide the authentic-who-we-are-behind-the-scene prevents us from expressing our experience… which is often what is needed to work through whatever is blocking us. It holds us back from reaching out for help. But it also makes it hard for others to do the same without an example to follow.Ione and her co-host Adam Roa held their first summit over the summer, where they brought in top speakers, writers, coaches and speakers to explore what keeps you uplifted. Seriously cool line up and worth checking out… their interviews included: Jay Shetty - What Keeps You Uplifted? Preston Smiles - Not Letting Your Story Define You Azrya Cohen – Being Your Authentic Self Kate Maree O’Brien – The Importance of Creativity Alexi Panos - Change Comes From Within Donny Epstein – Redefining What It Means To Be Uplifted Adam Siddiq – Staying Uplifted During The Creative Process Peta Kelly - Being In The Now Christine Hassler – Tips Galore On How To Stay Uplifted! Jenna Phillips Ballard – Being Fearlessly Yourself Kyle Cease – Evolving Out Loud Michael Graziano - Seeing The World As HomeA couple of Ione’s key takeaways from the summit: you feel better when you're authentic, remember to spend time in nature (with your devices left behind), and you can learn to reframe things when you're in a sucky situation just by tacking "... and I love it!" at the end of your gripe. Ione also gave me an inspirational push to podcast live with zoom... so look for that in the new year! Enjoy the podcast!To find out more about uplifting content and Ione Butler, check out: UpliftingContent.com Facebook: fb.com/upliftingcontent Facebook: fb.com/ionebutler Podcast: Let's Talk About with Ione Butler YouTube: Uplifting Content Instagram: @upliftingcontent Twitter: @UpliftingCont
David reached out to me on Twitter -- and I found myself intrigued by his use of affiliate marketing to raise money for causes that offset the social economics costs of tourism. The statistic I’ve heard is that only 5% of your tourism dollars typically go to the local economy that you visit. Quite often we go and stay in chains or resorts or eat in restaurants that are owned by individuals that aren’t part of the local economy... but, if we change our thinking and book locally or seek out local restaurants, tours, bed and breakfasts and other activities, then much of our dollars can make a huge impact in the world.David’s story is quite interesting -- he was in advertising (still is), but at the time he was marketing plastic sachets for some product. The next day, he went on vacation far away and was scuba diving... only to come up with handfuls of plastic debris which reminded him of what he was selling. This continued to eat away at him and he started to research how he could travel better, and make less of an impact.From this, he started Merriness Mapped which is “A Travel Directory Of Causes, Charities, Social Enterprises & Local Businesses Adding Value To The Global Traveling Community”. He researched and vetted locations, to build up a pretty cool database -- worth checking out.Over time, he pondered how he could put his advertising knowledge to good use, and in the end dove into exploring affiliate marketing, and building the site All Good Travel -- where you can click links through to any of your usual travel sources (Expedia, Booking.com, G Adventures, Trivago, and tons more) -- and the affiliate revenue earned will help to support good causes that help local economies throughout the world, such as Bali WISE whose mission is to empower marginalized women through skills education, as a means to develop sustainable communities in Indonesia.Overall, I love the idea that David is taking one of the most unpleasant aspects of travel (booking the trip), and adding a little sweetness to it, knowing that you’re helping to support a good cause. It’s a cool application of using internet marketing to make a difference.Discover more about David here: MoreMakesMerry.com MerrinessMapped.com AllGood.Travel Instagram: @MoreMakesMerry Twitter: @MoreMakesMerry Facebook: fb.com/MoreMakesMerry TravelMassive: travelmassive.com/davidshekleton YouTube: MoreMakesMerry The two sides of the island. One for clean swimming, one for discovering your impact on the planet
I recently met John Rush, President, and CEO for Clean Turn enterprises, right before their Passion Purpose Profit conference. Their mission is to strengthen communities with an empowered workforce by creating profitable social enterprises, and have built up quite an organization in the last 5 years. Through their work, they create employment for men and women formerly impacted by homelessness, incarceration, human trafficking, domestic violence and other challenges.Passion Purpose Profit is an annual conference geared towards HR practices of hiring people who come from challenging backgrounds, and it was a real eye-opener for me personally. Until I had met Harley Blakeman, I had never thought about the effects of incarceration on an individual. But to realize that our prison rates have increased from 200,000 to 2,000,000 -- mostly in the 1980’s, due to drugs -- and to learn that more than 75% of people released will return to prison within 5 years -- it just underscores a massive social issue that we need to tackle.In our podcast, John dove into how he got started with similar work in Chicago, before coming to Columbus and launching Clean Turn (and five other businesses!) in 2012. What was really interesting to me, is that people who have previously been in prison are highly motivated and dedicated to their work, making for great hires, although they do require support with the transition. In Ohio, where unemployment is at one of it’s lowest peaks around 3% -- looking for talented individuals from other places is key to a thriving workplace. One of the main things I took away from this conversation is that it is important to visit prisons and establish connections with people before they are released so that you can build relationships ahead of time. We do this in other areas of our life, but going in to meet people in prison is not usually part of your hiring practice.If you are in HR or have exposure to hiring employees, put the Passion Purpose Profit conference on your calendar for next year. It’s an awesome place to share ideas on how to hire talented individuals from non-traditional avenues.Find out more here: Conference: passionpurposeprofit.co Company: CleanTurn Enterprises Instagram: @cleanturn Twitter: @CleanTurnLLC Facebook: fb.com/CleanTurn Facebook: Passion Purpose Profit
I recently met Amy Noltemeyer at the Aspire 2017 awards, where her social enterprise, Growlers Dog Bones, took first place for Emerging Social Enterprise of the Year.Growlers Dog Bones is a nonprofit whose goal is to provide adults with disabilities viable employment and vocational opportunities.Amy is herself a teacher, which makes her a constant life learner. Her own son, Max, is autistic, and as he was going through high school, they started exploring employment opportunities... because she new Max needed something more fulfilling than staying at home. It’s very challenging because autism spans quite a range of capabilities. How schools have adapted to meet these needs varies greatly, and opportunities are quite limited.So, Amy decided to start her own venture to train those with disabilities, such that they could make a meaningful contribution to society. In the last year, the operation has grown, and working with local breweries to turn their spent grain into healthy premium quality dog treats has been a huge hit.Throughout the podcast, I was in awe of Amy’s gratitude to the amount of community support -- although she remarked that in the beginning, she felt like people were playing a game with her... seeing how far she’d make it with a pat on the back and a “come back once you’ve had success”. Even with that, she’s had tremendous support, and she’s emerged herself in learning about running a social enterprise -- and found that many of her skills from the school district proved to be invaluable in organizing and coordinating the business, employees, and volunteers.Her energy and enthusiasm are awesome. If you’re in Columbus this weekend, I would encourage you to attend the Festival For Good at the North Market on September 29th & 30th -- a showcase of local social enterprises... Growlers Dog Bones included. Your dog will fully appreciate it. You can learn more at growlersdogbones.org And meet them in person at the Clintonville Farmers Market Facebook: fb.com/growlersdogbones Instagram: @growlersdogbones Twitter: @GrowlersBones
I recently met Lily Vail, the Program Lead for Kiva in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve known Kiva for years as the icon for social lending abroad, making loans accessible for businesses and projects that were outside the realm of traditional bank loans... and I love their vision which is “We envision a world where all people hold the power to create an opportunity for themselves and others”.But learning that Kiva has expanded to the US, especially as far as my home city of Columbus, Ohio was a bit of a shock. I understand a $500 loan can make a huge difference in starting a business in a rural area of a third world country, but that really isn’t going to do much in the US.“Actually,” Lily explained, “in the US, Kiva is a pure peer-to-peer lending program. In other countries, we still partner with local institutions for financing. Abroad the average loan is around $500, but in the US it’s closer to $5,000 -- so it is a different mindset. When you lend in the US, you’re not necessarily going to bring someone out of poverty or even make a huge boost in their business. But what you do is increase their access to resources, you increase their community, their social capital, and that business’s confidence to move forward and access other lending sources.”Bake Me Happy, Too Good Eats, and North Country Charcuterie are some examples of companies which have used Kiva to help take their business to the next level. (If you love good food -- they're worth checking out!)Lily walked me through her fascinating story attending LIU Global, an alternative education program run through Long Island University which sends students abroad to work on experiential projects abroad for three and half years. After this, she worked on a social initiative in Brazil before joining Kiva and landing in Columbus at the beginning of 2017.And now she's helping entrepreneurs and small business owners in Columbus to access funding that would otherwise be unavailable!I hope you enjoy this podcast -- please sign up for the newsletter for quick insights from this podcast series, and let me know what you think in the comments.
Ethan Martin and his wife started Reading for Change just a few years ago. Sitting in a coffee shop, his wife was lamenting over her previous teaching position in title 1 school, where she felt like she had made a real difference in the lives of low-income kids. The conversation rolled into an inspiration, and Reading for Change sprung to life. Moments later they would be driving around looking for the right location to start an after-school program for kids that would become a safe place where students are provided free literacy tutoring, homework help, a nutritious meal, love, and encouragement.“The challenge has never been fundraising”, Ethan told me, “No, the challenge was that the Christian faith is important to us, and that disqualified us from being part of the school’s agenda, and we didn’t want to exclude any future possibilities from our organization.” So they started with a small group with just 5 students and 3 volunteers... and had to grow organically.This turned out to be a blessing, allowing them to refine their program and get the kinks out: they added about a student a week and by the end of the year had outgrown their space with 25 students!When I asked about fundraising... Ethan was so grateful at how much support they’ve received. He said he’s found people eager and willing to donate. But, he elaborated, that people didn’t want to just donate cash. They wanted to be involved. And so he would always know what specific items they were needed what items were needed: when he would let a donor know that they needed $175 for six chairs that 6 new students would use, and then they were much more connected to the movement knowing exactly how they were contributing to the program.Overall, Ethan told me, hey, when you have an idea, just go for it. Don’t hold yourself back. You’ll find the support you need - and let it grow into something bigger than yourself. People are hungry for change.
I have known Raj Thangavelu since we ran cross-country together in high school; he was an early inspiration in my life. Raj, who stood 4’ 10.75” tall, wasn’t the fastest runner on our team, but he had something unique: a drive to show up and put in his best effort. For me, that is where I learned that winning isn’t everything and what matters is that you show up and put your heart into what you do.I reconnected with Raj over Facebook a few years ago, and I love his outspoken attitude -- he doesn’t idly sit on the sideline but voices his opinion about what he is passionate about. And one thing he is passionate about is volunteering.After interviewing Alexa from the Flying Horse Farms, one of Paul Newman’s Serious Fun Camps for children with serious illnesses, I noticed Raj mentioned he was leaving to volunteer at a serious fun camp in Denver and was curious to hear what it was like from a volunteer's perspective.Despite his initial hesitations (having no medical experience, or kids of his own), it was indeed very rewarding -- he realized not only that male volunteers at these camps are in short supply, but that he has a gift for storytelling.Raj's volunteering extends beyond the serious fun camps. Throughout the year he coaches a local basketball team, and while parents question his ability when they first meet him (he hasn’t grown much since high school), they change their mind after hearing his impressive record of wins and championships his teams have attended.Raj let me in on his secret: coaching at a young age isn’t about complicated techniques. It is about life skills. Respect. Not giving up. Putting your best effort in. And it’s challenging work because you need to set your personal judgment aside -- because you never know who has a hidden talent.For example, one kid was quiet, because his English wasn’t his native language. He was great at getting the ball but didn't have the self-confidence to take the shot. At one game they had only 2 minutes left. Raj pulled him aside and told him if he got the ball, they didn’t have time for his usual antics of passing the ball... he just had to take the shot, regardless of if it went in. He gave Raj the usual "yeah, okay, whatever" look, and went back to play.Sure enough, he got the ball. But then something happened... he took the shot.And it went in.And it clicked.In the last two minutes of the game and the three minutes of overtime, their team scored 11 points to win the game... and this kid scored every single one of those points. A few months later, Raj came to found out that his parents were so proud when he got in trouble at school... because he was talking too much.Speaking to Raj reinforced how powerful and fulfilling volunteering can be. When we listen, we can connect and impact others. When we respect each other and show up with our best effort, we can transform. And when we set aside our judgment anything is possible.
I met Harley when he interned in our company. I knew he was a relative of my parents' friends from college, but had no idea of his story or his social mission to help ex-offenders get back on their feet. Then I want to his book launch: "GRIT: How to Get a Job and Build a Career with a Criminal Record".Harley had a rough childhood after his father passed away. He started using drugs at a young age, and then started selling them eventually landing in prison. I was shocked to learn that 76.6% of ex-offenders are arrested again within 5 years. That number rises to 84.1% if you're 24 years old or younger when released! (Talk about something seriously ineffective with our system of reform!)Harley’s life fortunately took a different turn -- his aunts took him in for a couple months, and helped him get back on his feet. Working in a restaurant was frustrating -- because it was mentally numbing, and frustrating watching business owners do such a bad job. So he returned to school to get a degree in business management.Along the way, he realized that there was a much bigger problem: how do people get back on their feet after prison, when their criminal record causes so many obstacles? And that led to starting Just Corrections to help ex-convicts find their way.I thought the dynamic entrepreneurial community might offer a great opportunity, where a person isn't judged by their history. But Harley explained it was the opposite -- and said he saw people with good intentions coach in that direction. Unfortunately, they don’t understand entrepreneurship or what it’s like coming out of jail. Right after prison, you are at your most vulnerable, struggling to get back on your feet -- and that is the worst time to lay everything on the line in order to start a new venture.Part of his philosophy is to understand what you need to get back on your feet. Most convicts work in the restaurant industry -- because the jobs are easier to get, have less background checks -- but are usually miserable mind-numbing environments, and depending on the situation filled with drugs and drinking which can cause problems of their own.Moving back into higher employment is very difficult, because there are more candidates, background checks are regular, and you’re automatically discarded, because employers don't need to take the risk.Instead, his focus is on education and networking -- furthering your skills and connecting with people who can get to know you beyond your background check.Overall, if our rate of recidivism stays above 70%, something is wrong with our reform system. We need to make changes, either in the prison or out, so that people can get the direction and guidance they need to find their way back to fruitful lives.You can find more about his social enterprise Just Corrections at justcorrections.com, or help support his social mission by reading his book: GRIT: How to Get a Job and Build a Career with a Criminal RecordYou can find him:YouTube: Between Two FelonsFacebook: Just CorrectionsInstagram: @harleyblakemanTwitter: @harley_blakeman
So, I was on twitter where I follow a lot of people. Anyone I think might be interesting, and I often wonder if this accomplishes anything, as I rarely see any of these people again. A significant portion respond with automated DM's, so I just kind of ignore them.Somehow, in this madness, I followed Donna Blume. And she responded with an actual message. I'm glad I saw it and asked her what she was passionate about because she has a unique journey with insight into a sub-culture I knew nothing about: transracial adoptees.There is something magical when you meet someone who is really passionate about something. This podcast is centered around culture and social change -- and I firmly believe that the better we understand each other the deeper our connections become, and the more meaning we find in our lives.I've thought about adoption, but it never had crossed my mind that there were hardships faced by adoptees of a different race.Transracial adoptees are an interesting mix of cultures, stuck in the middle between two worlds. They miss some of their cultural heritage that their genetic ancestry or outward appearance represents, and don't quite fit in with their adopted racial group, even though this is the family and culture that they grow up with.Donna Blume, was adopted at age 4. What did she experience growing up?Micro-aggressions. They're comments people make that may be intended to be funny or cordial, but are offensive. "You're the whitest black person I know" or "But you don't sound black".Social awkwardness. You don't look like your family, or the culture you associate with, so there is a separation. She noticed this even more in high school — and even had a friend who tried to give her black lessons because she wasn't "black" enough.Isolation. Moving to a new place meant people would see her as just another black person. It was another hurdle to overcome when meeting people.Location matters: California was easier: they're more diverse, and more tolerant. Texas was like driving a time machine into the past. Europe was a whole different story -- people didn't question her heritage, and just assumed she was Spanish or Italian.Behind Donna’s quest and lifelong research was fueled by her experiences. Over time, she connected with others through conferences and on Twitter, and started #AdopteeChat… and found others eager to share their stories.What’s she’s learned: even with all the technology and communication that exists today, people in high school are pretty much the same as they were in the 80s. We haven't made much progress in terms of education.So what can you do, especially when you've adopted someone from another race?It's not enough to just share stories from their heritage. Find someone with your adopted kid’s cultural background so they can learn first-hand about the culture.Pay attention to how they're doing. Recognize that they're probably going to hide what's really happening from you. (This has been a very common theme from adoptees Donna’s met… they don’t want their families to know what they’re going through, even if this just adds to their isolation.)Help them to connect with other transracial adoptees with whom they can share their experiences and connect with others experiencing something similar.It reminds me of my first podcast with Mikela Thomas, sharing a story of an inner-city African American, who after moving out into a majority white suburb, ran up to her and on his first day in school and gave her a hug, exclaiming, “I’m not the only one.” Being able to find others whom you can relate to is important for finding your own voice.Donna knows herself very well at this point — and is passionate about connecting with other transracial adoptees to hear and share their stories. I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast for more of her stories and insight!You can connect with her on twitter @Donna_Blume, or through the #AdopteeChat (@adopteechat).
Flower La Warner, left her home in South Africa and journeyed to Korea to teach English in a small village. While many foreigners experience culture shock, Flower fell in love with the culture right away, but over time found herself feeling agitated by social issues repressed by Korean culture, especially orphans and suicide: Orphans have a taboo in Korea and are often treated as if they have dirty blood, creating a stigma to adopting. But they are just kids. And the stigma just gets in the way connecting children with families. There is tremendous pressure for students in Korea to study and excel on a single exam which determines their future studies -- and there is a cultural myth that if you mess up on this test, your chances in life are over. Regardless of the myth, there is a high increase in suicide after the results of the test each year. To make matters worse, suicide is a taboo subject that is difficult to speak about in Korean culture, so much of it is hidden underneath the folds of society which only makes those with suicidal feelings more isolated.As an expat in the heart of Asia, Flower started traveling extensively -- and discovered it was quite affordable when utilizing trains and the local economy. The carefree self-gratifying travel of her youth transformed as she started talking with locals, and she began questioning the impact that travel had on their lives. As she began to change internally, she started travel blogging to raise awareness of these social issues she was encountering.Visit Flower takes on the world on Medium for more of her stories!When hiking in the Himalayas she hiked without a porter, but she shared lunch with them, and talked to them... and when she reached the peak and noticed other tourist hikers celebrating their ascent, she felt her own victory paled in comparison to the porters -- the ones who carry the supplies daily, and sometimes even barefoot -- eclipsing the effort of the ordinary climber.Her travels deepened as she explored volunteering through workaway - a platform for providing volunteering, working and cultural exchange through travel. This led to some very enriching experiences... but Flower cautions for research and constant questioning with any form of voluntourism. For example, one orphanage she visited, even though she had researched it beforehand, pressured her into giving money... and when she dug deeper, she saw parents and staff of the orphanage eating really well... and the kids receiving very little. Even though they said the kids could eat and shower as they pleased, when speaking to the kids, it turned out that they weren't allowed to. It didn't add up.Visit Flower takes on the world on YouTube for her travel videos!With the rise of voluntourism, many fake orphanages or other organizations have popped up which pressure volunteers to donate money, often by showing the degraded life of the orphans... but the money only goes to the parents and orphan owners for the own livelihood. In some instances, kids only spend the day at the orphanage, to give a sense of the operation, and then return to their families in the evening. Even with research into reputable places, sometimes it is difficult to discern the true from the fake. You’ve got to ask questions, ask the children questions, and push back, especially when pressured to give money.Traveling in Hanoi, Vietnam, Flower uncovered how gangs in Sapa Valley exploit children: gang leaders own children and force them to go out to beg and sell items, depriving them of their childhood and education. Even mothers with children would beg for milk, only to return the milk to grocery stores, and the money would go straight to the gangs.The whole point of these stories are to raise awareness so that we travel more intelligently, and have a better impact when we travel, because we can travel and mix with other cultures without causing harm.
Don Strasser moved to Columbus after living in New York until he was 40, and after a career serving those effected by mental health, he retired. But the idea of moving to Florida and spending his days playing golf on pristine golf courses just didn’t sit with him. So what did he do? He got even further involved with the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless.He was working in mental health services when the housing boom in Columbus created a disparity of affordable housing. The lack of affordable housing gave rise to homelessness in the city. Turns out, this is a complex issue, as the homeless are a very diverse population. Many are unemployable due to drugs, incarceration or mental health issues -- and fall outside society's normal structure. But job loss and other life situations lead to homelessness as well. There isn’t enough shelter space, and even for those who are allowed in, the environment is restrictive with curfews, cots and strict rules.Don helps run Street Speech, the Columbus newspaper for the homeless. While he is quite humble about it strengths, Columbus is a difficult market for the newspaper's growth, as expanding to the suburbs requires authorization from each municipality, as well as means of travel. What struck me though was when Don remarked that expanding the newspaper isn’t what's needed. While it provides income for those who may be otherwise unemployable, what is needed is more opportunities and innovation.He relayed how the Give Back Hack raised $1,000 to explore a concept for mobile bathrooms -- on that could be used for the homeless, and then rented out to events on the weekend -- complete with janitor -- to earn a profit for the service. Tapping into Columbus’s vibrant entrepreneurial community, and the blossoming social entrepreneurship may be best way to build opportunities for the homeless. And with so much energy around fresh ideas, this may be our best hope for change.If you'd like to get involved with Street Speech or the coalition, you can find them at the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless!Also published on Medium.Are you on Pinterest? Pin these and let's connect!
Flying horse farms is not a farm, nor do they have any horses. But what they do have is serious fun.The SeriousFun camps, formerly known as The Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, was founded by Paul Newman in 1988, and now is a network of 30 camps for children with serious illnesses. Flying Horse Farms opened in 2010, in Gilead, Ohio and hosts about 900 children and families each year, all at no cost to their participants! Each week a new batch of kids arrives, all with similar illnesses... and the fun begins.Talking with Alexa Donner, a program coordinator at the Flying Horse Farms, was an absolute joy. Alexa told me that many people come up to her and say it must be hard, challenging work serving with kids with serious illnesses, but she explained that this completely misses the point. Camp is the one place where kids come to put aside their illness and have fun… it’s where their illness doesn’t interfere with who they are, and surrounded by their peers, are empowered to explore and dive deep into the joys of camp. They are beyond happy, and being a part of this is so much fun.When I visited the camp, I was blown away by how awesome the facilities are. It’s not the kind of camp you’d find in the parent trap — it’s beautiful, air-conditioned and very well coordinated. For a camp run with donations and volunteers, this is beyond impressive. Unfortunately, though, there are no horses on the farm (except one, hidden flying horse) -- the camp's name comes from a children’s book called Big Red Barn, which Alexa insisted I read.I hope you join me for the 8th episode of podcast on a journey through camp, what it's like helping these kids, what kind of difference it makes, and how we can get involved. I can still hear the magic of the camp echoing in Alexa's voice. It is palpable the difference that they make, and how rewarding it is. Also published on Medium.Are you on Pinterest? Pin these and let's connect!
For episode 7, we dive deep into Mysore style Astanga Yoga with Danielle DePompei, an instructor at Astanga Yoga Columbus.Danielle has such awesome energy and a cool story about how she found Astanga Yoga and made it to Columbus. I feel quite honored to explore her story and what insights she's uncovering from her own journey.Personally, I have practiced this form of yoga for over 10 years (although, as a disclaimer, typically once a week... not as regularly as I'd like...). Astanga Vinyasa yoga is itself a common base from many modern forms of yoga: vinyasa is about linking your body’s movement with the breath. Astanga is the name of the yoga, as brought to the western world by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois — a set of certain postures to improve circulation, develop a strong body and a calm mind.What sets Mysore style apart is a philosophy of independence. (It's named after the place in India where it is taught.) You learn your own practice, posture by posture. While there are led classes to reinforce the series, most classes involve you showing up when you show up and start your practice on your own. Teachers are there to guide you with adjustments, and new postures only as you are ready for them. The room is usually quiet (except for maybe the thoughts in your head), and your practice fits your pace and abilities.Enjoy!Read Full Transcript[00:00:00] Adam: Welcome to the people helping people podcast where we talk about social change, social entrepreneurship and culture, and all great things going on in the world. I am very excited today to be talking with Daniel, the pump. A[00:00:23] Danielle: nice yes.[00:00:24] Adam: Who teaches yoga up at the Steiger yoga Columbus. Up on Indianola[00:00:31] Danielle: and Morris road.[00:00:32] Yes. Cool.[00:00:33] Adam: So welcome. And I'd just like to start off maybe asking you how you got into yoga, like how did your yoga journey start?[00:00:42] Danielle: Yeah, well, it started years ago and it was like 2008 and I was living with a friend and, well, for years, for like 15 years, I was a competitive figure skater. And when I moved to Columbus, I came to go to hair school, actually become like a cosmetologist.[00:01:02] And the girl that I was living with at the time that I moved in with who's now, like my, one of my closest friends, she was like, you should really try yoga. Like she had been going with like her mom or whatever, cause I haven't stopped sort of skating. I just like couldn't like find the time to get to a rank.[00:01:19] And she was like, you should try this yoga thing. So I was like, yeah. I dunno, I tend to like resist most things that people tell me to do. And so, which I'm getting better at, but not doing. But yeah, so I went to a yoga class and then I just like, I, I mean, I loved everything about it. Like I just, I really honestly, I liked the way that it made me feel and there was like a lot of connection in the like creative sort of movement and expression that I also found in skating.[00:01:46] But to be honest with like a lot less of the pressure of like the competitive, like figure skating world. Sort of[00:01:52] Adam: thing getting very competitive.[00:01:54] Danielle: It could be. Yeah. I think it definitely could be, at least for me, it started to like become less of fun and more about like always training through these life competitions.[00:02:06] So over time it sort of lost, its like I sort of lost the joy in it cause it was just like training to get somewhere, you know? And I didn't really kind of. I wasn't into that anymore. That aspect of it. Yeah. And then when I moved, it's just became like really expensive to be honest, to do the competing and coaching and all of that.[00:02:25] So, so anyway, so I got into yoga and just sort of like started dabbling in it for years, just like random classes. I would do it at home. In that time I was doing hair too, so I had like a full time job.
I am very fortunate to present this podcast with Steven Anderson, founder of Integrated Leadership Systems. ILS helps organizations all over North America improve their leadership and team building to be more effective so they can perform at a higher level, and I know this through my own experience in their program.This, however, is a podcast about what you can do to help the environment.Steven’s environmental activism is inspiring. He is an avid bird watcher and has been counting birds to track their migration and population for 20 years. He works to protect rainforest abroad as well as local wetlands. He drives a Chevy Volt, composts, and he’s traveled to Washington DC to meet with our congressmen.For a long time, I’ve been curious about how people get involved in our political discourse — it is a mystery to me. So it was fun to hear his journey to DC to meet with politicians and what happened when he met with our representatives.Throughout the podcast, Steven shares a ton of ways that you can make a difference. I believe understanding is the first step to taking action and taking action is important because it’s not just a beautiful planet, it’s the only one we’ve got. That, and, as Steven puts it, “The planet doesn’t care if we die. We’re doing this for ourselves.”I dream for the day when the environmental stability of our planet is not a potential threat - the more we understand where we can best focus our efforts, the more we can magnify the effect that we have on the world. I hope you listen and share your own insights in the comments!Read Full Transcript[00:00:00] Adam: Welcome to have people helping people, a podcast to share ideas on how to make the world a better place and to inspire you with ideas of how to get involved. We are exploring stories about social change, culture, the environment, and basically people helping people and make awesome stuff happen. I'm very grateful to be talking today with Steven Anderson who found an integrated leadership systems.[00:00:30] They help organizations and companies all over North America improve their leadership and team building so that the organizations can perform at a higher level. Personally, they coach me to be more effective as I've grown in my own career, and I'm very thankful for that. Now, Steven has a great story, but I'm not going into that today because he also does a lot of awesome stuff to help the environment and easy when he God to the Capitol.[00:00:54] To discuss issues with our Congressman, and I just want to know more about how this all came about. So, welcome, Steve. Maybe I can do stop. I'm curious like what motivated you to get involved in improving the environment?[00:01:08] Steve: Well, so I mean, to go all the way back, I, I was raised at a hundred acres and it was.[00:01:14] A small neighborhood of families with about 38 two creeks and about 30 acres of woods attached to it, and I probably was in the woods as much as I was in my house. I mean, I just loved being out there. I love building a campfire of love. We camped out all the time. We just love, we go up on a Hill and find a vine and cut off the bottom of it and swing out there like Tarzan.[00:01:37] It was just build tree houses. It was just the place to be, and I just always felt the most alive in the woods. When I got to be 11 years old, I became a scout and really enjoyed that, became an Eagle scout, and just really deepen my love for nature and appreciation for it. And then when I was my early twenties I started, my brother was a birdwatcher and I started birdwatching.[00:02:04] I was taking a hike with him and he had his binoculars and he started showing me, what's this bring migration started showing me what was. Flying up over the trees that looked like sparrows, but they weren't there. Warblers and I found out there's about 50 species of warblers that winter and South American Nast in Canada,
Entrepreneurs often don't understand the value of graphic design. People like me don't understand the world of freelancing. So when I met Rose, who is building a freelancing graphic design career in her spare time and mostly working with entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists, I figured there was an interesting conversation to be had.Rose works as a graphic designer in her spare time, a nice complement to her career in marketing. It is an interesting story of how she found her first few clients to actually turn her passion into a side-business.She also filled me in on what you need to know when you’re starting a venture and developing your branding: entrepreneurs are often strapped of cash and inexperienced with branding -- often thinking they just need a logo, when really a cohesive design goes much deeper.So, enjoy going deeper into episode 5 of the people helping people podcast, exploring graphic design for entrepreneurs. You can find out more about Rose Buoni on her website chromarosa.com.Read Full Transcript[00:00:00] Adam: welcome to that people helping people podcast where we discuss culture, social change, entrepreneurship, and basically anything go where people are helping people make awesome stuff happen. I'm your host, Adam, Maurice. And today I'm very excited to be here with Rose and we're going to be talking about graphic design, entrepreneurship, starting on freelance business and what it takes to start something on your own.[00:00:36] So I met Rose a few weeks ago and, uh, the CSCA was having their monthly talk. And she's starting her own freelancing and a part time and she's been doing some great stuff.[00:00:46] Rose: So, hi, welcome. Hi. Thank you. I'm excited.[00:00:50] Adam: So let's start off. I'm curious a little bit. What's been going on with your, your freelancing work?[00:00:55] I know you, you have a full time job and then in your part time you've been building up a[00:00:59] Rose: freelancing career.[00:01:00] Adam: So[00:01:00] Rose: what does that look like? So I started part time about six years ago when I was in college. I started off really, really, really baby steps. I mostly was self-taught with graphic design too, so I started out not even thinking of it as a business.[00:01:20] At first. I started out doing. Things for friends who are in bands, they see the cover or something like that, so invitations, things, different labels, reading cards, and then it became clear that I really liked doing it and I wanted to do things that challenged and inspired me, and it became clear maybe a couple of years into it that.[00:01:45] I wanted to make money doing it. So I began doing more logo work and more poster work and kind of getting in touch more with different networks of people beyond family and friends. And so I went to Ohio state, so I had an Ohio state network, and then I was studying English actually. So I work in marketing and I also do graphic design.[00:02:11] So it began there. In school when I was thinking about how my English degree would be complimented so well through visual communication. So it just kind of was born naturally that way. And then, yeah, after I graduated, I kept with it still very, very part time. Couple of years ago, I started getting people who I didn't necessarily know that well, but were still part of my professional or Ohio state network.[00:02:41] Contacting me asking for something. So I think there were a couple of people that I was in classes with at Ohio state, a couple of people that I knew socially from Ohio state, a couple of people that are in different professional organizations. In different community groups. So 2015 was when I started taking it more seriously and trying to figure out what to charge and how often to do freelance work too, because since I do have a full time job, I was thinking a lot about that at that time.[00:03:15] And then. In late 2016 early 2017 it's already shifting a little bit mo...
My father founded his company, ASG, 15 years ago to provide retail real estate services: helping retailers to audit landlords, manage leases, build stores, negotiate deals and develop strategy. Personally, I started working with my dad 8 years ago and built up a cloud platform called ASGedge for managing retail real estate.There are so many glamorous stories of aspiring entrepreneur's from Shark Tank or venture capital-funded companies -- it's refreshing to hear how a company was built without outside capital by building relationships and providing good service.It is a bit different from what I've written about, but I was very excited to interview my dad because it's a story of how a successful company got off the ground: how they found their first contracts, hired their first employee, faced growing pains and built a solid business in the wild ever-changing world of retail.Read Full Transcript[00:00:00] Adam: welcome to that people helping people podcast where we talk about culture, social change, and entrepreneurship. I am very excited today to be speaking with my father, Steve Morris, who started assets, strategies group or. ASG about 17 years ago. As a quick disclaimer, I do work for my dad. I manage a cloud platform called ASG edge for retail real estate management.[00:00:36] With that said, let's jump right in. Thanks that for talking to me, and maybe we could kick off with a little bit. What gave you the idea to start your own company?[00:00:44] Steve: Well, I tell you, when I had a long corporate career and I worked for a number of turnaround situations, and after my last one, which was at the limited, I just started, I had a small nest egg and I started looking around for something I could buy and run.[00:00:59] I always . Wanted to run my own business, so I ran a small.com and Baltimore for about a year and a half. That didn't pan out. I teamed up with a friend of mine, Rick Warren, and we looked at a number of businesses we invested in, one that was in bankruptcy that unfortunately stayed in bankruptcy, didn't pan out, so I'd been on about a two or a two and a half year quest on kind of startup ideas and things I could get involved in and end up running.[00:01:27] And controlling, and I was pitching an idea to the CFO of justice, a guy named Kent Berger around a credit card, a proprietary credit card idea and camp. Ask me why I wasn't doing real estate when I was COO of real estate at limited brands. He said, and justice was part of limited brands. They were getting half a million dollars a year in savings through our.[00:01:53] Various initiatives. And frankly, I was a bit burned out after leaving the limited about real estate and I, I gave them the names of some people I thought would be good for him to contact. And we scheduled a meeting about a month on and at that meeting he again, he set up, talked to all of those people.[00:02:12] They're not anywhere near. I have the capabilities you had. Think about this again. He said, I'll give you would be all in. I'm giving you a contract and doing our audit work, landlord audit work. So at that point, I've always wanted to do, I've always been a Namor, the idea of having an in business with a partner and the person who worked for me at the limited and was a good friend all and I.[00:02:36] Kick that idea around and the partnership idea goes back to, you know, Paul Allen, bill Gates, Charlie monger, Warren Buffett, and reflect, or John D Rockefeller. There are a lot of really good entrepreneurs that may be more prominent, but they had a, or have a partner that. We're pretty instrumental in beginning of the business.[00:02:57] So I kicked this idea around with all Ambien and also cautious. I had a couple of trips scheduled. I was in San Francisco. I met with gap and asked them about if we started this company, what would it look like to them? Would, would it be something they would give us contracts for? And I will say,
I am delighted to bring to you a podcast with Matt Reese, a Columbus photographer who has built up the Commons Studio photography company with a social mission.His social mission has three aspects:First off, Commons Studio provides paid internships — something virtually unheard of in the photography business. (Because why would you pay your future competition?) But Matt believes it is important to pay young photographers who are just starting out and teaching them the ropes of the photography business, especially how to price their work and establish themselves.With digital photography, the cost of becoming a photographer and learning how to take good pictures has dropped — but then young photographers work for unsustainable prices, or misunderstand the value of the rights to the work… which lowers the expectations in the marketplace making it more difficult for all photographers.By educating new photographers on how to price appropriately and manage their digital rights, Matt is effecting the overall sustainability of photography as a business.The second aspect of the studio is Shot For Shot — for each headshot produced, Commons Studio gives one headshot away to someone in need. Matt is dedicated to helping individuals get back on their feet, and helping them develop their image as they transition. This one-for-one is a common theme in social enterprises, and a great way to build a business where social change is funded by one half of the business. I love this approach because it sends the message that you can develop a business and earn a profit while delivering real value to your community.The third aspect to Commons Studio is to do business with "good" companies. Any companies which aren't wholesome, or not in line with the values of Commons Studio are turned down as clients. This way Matt Reese is promoting work within a sustainable community, and multiplying the impact of social change in Columbus.It was a real pleasure to speak with Matt - he is such a dynamic and engaging fellow, and it was awesome to hear his story on how he is using his talents to build a company making a difference. His studio has a pretty cool history of its own, but you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out more about that — I hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think in the comments!And... if you need a headshot, reach out to Matt at the Commons Studio and make a difference at the same time!Read Full Transcript[00:00:00] Adam: . So we are live. I'm your host, Adam Morris, and here we are on our podcast talking about people, helping people do awesome stuff, make awesome stuff happen. Today I'm talking with the social entrepreneur, Matt Reese. We're going to hear about everything that you've done with your photography business to fill it up as a social enterprise.[00:00:31] Matt: Fantastic. Or do you wanna get started here? So,[00:00:34] Adam: uh, well last time I ran into you, you were telling me a little bit, you were sitting on a panel discussing what social enterprise is. And I realized I didn't know. Um, I always thought it was just a company that was, had a social mission that was helping somebody out.[00:00:50] And you explained to me that it's a lot more than[00:00:52] Matt: that. Yeah. I mean there are a lot of ways that you can go about doing it. A lot of people think like maybe a social enterprise is limited to helping people on like the lower end of like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like supplying water or food to children in Africa.[00:01:07] And that's great. That's a, there is absolutely a need for that. But. There are a lot of other ways that you can apply social enterprise as well, where we do, it's a bit higher up on that Mazlow's hierarchy, but I feel it's just as worthy. So we are helping folks, uh, take the first steps into a longterm employment.[00:01:25] So we're doing that in a number of ways.
Welcome to Episode 2 of the People Helping People Podcast.I had the pleasure of speaking with Lindsay Stevenson, who delightfully discussed her passion for permaculture farming... and her motivations on why she wants to leave her profession as a medical doctor to start her own farm. I am really excited to present this conversation: I learned a lot about the environmental threat to our oceans, as well as some inspiring possibilities through permaculture farming. I invite you to listen along, enjoy!Read Full Transcript[00:00:00] Adam: welcome to the people helping people podcast where we are exploring social change culture, cool projects, making a difference, and basically people helping people make awesome stuff happen. This is your host, Adam Morris, and today we are speaking with Lindsay Stevenson, a medical doctor for British Glanbia who is passionate about permaculture farming.[00:00:28] I had never even heard of permaculture farming before I met Lindsey or even understood the environmental threat to our oceans. So perhaps we could dive right in. And Lindsay, you could tell us how this all began.[00:00:38] Lindsay: It's been a really long time and I struggled with the idea of ocean acidification and the predictions related to that.[00:00:46] So they're, they're very depressing if you'd ever look at them. There's all these things hitting the oceans from all sides. The worst case scenario and the way we were heading there is some change in the carbon crisis a little bit, but where we were heading about a year ago. Was a prediction that in 50 years there would be no fish in the ocean except for jellyfish and algae because the levels of acidification are so bad, and that was just one of four big threats hitting the ocean.[00:01:14] There's, there's still problems with like the dead zones from the nitrogen runoff from all the fertilizers and that kind of thing. Cause what happens is you get these algal blooms all at once. They consume all the oxygen in an area and you get this water that has no oxygen in it whatsoever. So everything dies all at once.[00:01:33] And I say the consistency of the water actually changes. They said it's a weird thing when you just run your hand through this water, this ocean water. It doesn't. It does. Yeah. You can feel that it's difference. Crazy. So there's these dead zones and the dead zones have been like the Gulf of Mexico has been pretty bad for dead zones because the Mississippi runs in there, and so they had all these areas that they knew, but then there's these dead zones happening other places in the ocean,[00:01:58] Adam: and it comes from farming.[00:02:00] Lindsay: It comes from the fertilizers that are used in farming and then like the overfishing and the plastics in the ocean. That's all hitting. So the oceans, like the predictions for the oceans are really dire. They're really bad. I didn't know that. Yeah, they call it the evil twin of global warming, but in my opinion, it's actually the more concerning because life is, life has existed on the globe without anything living on land.[00:02:26] But we've never seen life exist without the ocean because I used to actually wake me up at night. You know, this sort of anxiety that say, grabs you in the middle of the night and you wake without even knowing why. I'm a family doc now, as you know. And so the residency that I went through, it was pretty traumatic in a way, like they really put you into situations way before you're ready for them, and it's people's lives on the line.[00:02:49] And it was really tough. So coming out of that, I've had a period of healing where like I went to being like, okay, I can't do this job to working one day a week. And then it went to like two days a week. And then I got to the point that I was working, I feel comfortable there for five years and, but then I just realized my life was stagnant.[00:03:06] Like nothing was happening.
Welcome to the first episode of the People Helping People Podcast, where we're going to talk to people involved in social change, developing cultural ties, and cool projects that are making a difference.For this first episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Mikela Thomas, the diversity liaison at Cheshire Elementary School, about culture and diversity. The Olentangy school district in Ohio has a diversity liaison for each school – and she has used her position to put together an impressive annual cultural festival.She shared her story – how and why she developed the program in her school, how she moved around growing up and experienced diversity in her own life and shared stories how diversity has affected students in her school – and how they’ve been able to break down barriers.From my experience, diversity and travel go hand in hand. The more we learn about culture by interacting with people and opening up and sharing our stories, the more accepting and tolerant we become. It’s the first step to combatting xenophobia and developing stronger ties around the world, which in turn leads to more peaceful relationships and people working together in collaboration.Read Full TranscriptAdam: And today we are going to talk about diversity and culture. Kayla has and the cultural liaison in Cheshire elementary school and three years ago she started a cultural festival to celebrate culture and diversity in the school. So we're going to talk about how she came up with this a little bit about what she's found in diversity and how she's helped spread awareness, help children understand that their diversity is okay and overcome cultural barriers.[00:00:41] You started this three years ago.[00:00:42] Mikela: Yes.[00:00:43] Adam: What was the inspiration for that?[00:00:45] Mikela: So, um, our district actually is just trying to build that inclusive climate, that culture of community. So we actually have diversity liaison supposition that was created and in every single building. So I believe we have 2324 schools in our district and every single building, elementary, all the way up to high school has a diversity liaison in that position.[00:01:09] And at that school. And so basically I took on that role. I was like, you know, being the only African American teacher at the school, actually there's only two minority teachers in the whole building. Oh, wow. You know, I just wanted to make sure to bring that awareness of diversity here. As soon as I found out that that was like a position that was coming up and I was like, Oh, I'm on it.[00:01:30] And there was no[00:01:31] Adam: position.[00:01:32] Mikela: So, so as a diversity liaison, we are responsible for providing professional development to the staff about identity inclusion, awareness, you know, different things. We also have a student diversity group, and so my diversity group was called the wild cards because our school theme is wondering, imagining learning, discovering which stands.[00:01:51] That's our wild. And the card stands for children, advocates, respecting differences. And so I teach the kids that if you're a wild car, like in the game, you know, have that car that has all the colors on it and it's a wild card. It just changes the whole game, changes everything. So I wanted them to feel like empowering them to be an advocate and making changes in our world if they see injustices and things like that.[00:02:13] So our club meets twice a month. So far this year we've done so much. We had a student come in and he has type one diabetes and he did a whole presentation on what that is, and he's still a normal kid like everyone else, but there's some extra steps he has to go through to prepare for the day and, but it just empowered him because now people aren't like, well, where are you going?[00:02:32] Why do you have to keep going to the nurse? You know, like can actually teach them about what's going on. We had Joanie, Callum.