February is here and with it comes Valentine’s Day, Presidents Day, and of course heart month. In the past decade, we have talked to a number of organizations that focus on the heart. For good reason, one out of for deaths each year is from heart disease. The translation is that over 659,000 people die in the United alone each year from heart disease. These are not just statistics but real people. To visualize this number that is over six huge football stadiums full of people each year. One person every 36 seconds, not to mention the 40,000 children will be born with congenital heart disease this year. So what do we do when are our hearts are broken?
Luckily for us, there are a multitude of amazing organizations working tirelessly to solve and tend to this problem. I thought before the month jumped into high gear we could take a moment to revisit some of the great organizations we have met who are working to reduce those numbers. Some of these go back so far that I felt like I was looking at old friends, I hope you feel the same.
Hopeful Hearts Foundation
A decade ago we talked to the Chez family about their organization, The Hopeful Hearts Foundation.The Chez family had three children all born with Congenital Heart Disease. Tragically they lost their daughter Gracie suddenly at the age of three and created the Hopeful Hearts Foundation in 2008 to keep her memory alive and to help other children suffering from CHD. The Hopeful Hearts Foundation supports families whose children have CHD and also raises funds to provide research for Congenital Heart Disease.
Camp Del Corazon
Some of you may remember Lisa Knight, a registered nurse and nonprofit founder of Camp Del Corazon. The camp is a place for children with heart-related health challenges to have fun, make friends and find fellow children going through similar health issues.
Lisa said, ” I get so filled up by it all. These kids have survived death, there are no camps for these types of kids due to their medical conditions. It transforms them. You see them show each other their scars. The most rewarding thing is when you hear children call you by your camp name when you see them years later not at camp. This year our first camper is coming back as a counselor, so to see not only these children grow up and give back but to watch my own 29-year-old daughter getting even more involved as she takes on more responsibility with her role at Camp del Corazon, is so rewarding. “
Mended Hearts
In 2017, we talked to our friends the Page family about their experience with Congenital Heart Disease in our post The Heart of the Matter. In that conversation, we learned about Max Page’s support of the organization Mended Hearts. A nonprofit that was created in 1951 to give peer support to those dealing with heart disease. Dr. Harken asked four of the first four people to ever have open heart surgery to help others facing the same experience. In 2004, Mended Hearts realized that families with children suffering from CHD also needed that same peer-to-peer support and created Mended Little Hearts.
There are hundreds of organizations working tirelessly to do research to cure Congenital Heart Disease. These are just a few of the amazing people working to heal broken hearts. Next week we will continue our look back with Francie Paul from Saving Tiny Hearts in our podcast. I’m so excited to share our conversation about the incredible work she and her team have been doing to help find a cure. Until then, wishing you all a wonderful heart month full of love.
CHARITY MATTERS.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
Each of us walks a path in life that takes us with a multitude of twists and turns. Today’s guest, Matt Kamin is no exception. Matt has lived a life full of philanthropy in so many ways. Before Matt became the host of the popular podcast, Nonprofit on the Rocks...which is how we met and Co-Founder of Envision Consulting, he was a two-time nonprofit founder.
I am so excited to share this incredible conversation with Matt about his multitude of experiences in the nonprofit space. Matt’s story is the perfect example of how one seed of compassion turned into an inspiring life full of service. Matt is truly a ray of sunshine and you won’t want to miss our joyful and uplifting conversation.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about Your early philanthropic experiences?
Matt Kamin: So that is a really good question. And I also agreed, where does that come from? Why do we take on jobs that pay nothing for more stress and more pressure at work? So I think that my nonprofit passion, the love that I have for this space comes from my grandma.
My grandmother was born with polio, and she moved to LA on her own with two kids. In the 1940s, she put together a booth at Santa Monica Pier. It was like a nickel and a dime machine and she saved her pennies. She saved and started investing in real estate. This is a woman in the 1940s in LA on her own and she grew this empire, this actual real estate empire. So first off, I’m just beyond impressed by this woman who, who was able to go and make all this happen for her family. right. And as a huge part of that, she gave back. I would tell you, like 25% of whatever it was that she made, she gave back to nonprofits.
As a child, she used me to raise money. I remember I think the first thing that I ever did was I helped auction off a car. One of her nonprofits was selling a donated car and she used me a six-year-old to sell tickets. That was my first taste and watching her do it and that was it. She also inspired my mom and my dad to also give back they chaired nonprofits as well. So in college when I came out, that was the time, and it was like, Okay, this is time for me.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Your first Nonprofit?
Matt Kamin: I volunteered at the time it was called the Gay Lesbian center. What we did was we went out on the weekends and talked to kids who were basically selling themselves in the park. The first kid that I talked to, had been kicked out of his home. I remember looking at him, he was my age and he was on all the drugs you can possibly be on. He had a pimp and he was trying to make money in prostitution. I remember saying to myself, how did I get so lucky? And that was it. That was the switch and when I said this is my life. And so I started a nonprofit at UCLA to bring support networks for gay kids at college. And that’s how my nonprofit career started.
I’m very proud of that college nonprofit because it still exists. They have a multi-million dollar budget, and it’s an international nonprofit.
Charity Matters: Now that you are helping nonprofit Founders, What are the biggest challenges you see?
Matt Kamin: Envision Consulting does both strategy and searches for nonprofits. That’s all we do. So it’s half strategy, half recruiting. On the strategy side, strategic plans, board retreats, mergers are huge things right now. Then on the search side, it’s recruiting for C suite individuals.. I’ll give you an example. I have a friend who started a nonprofit. And, she has over the last few months, been losing faith in her organization, because she was not able to find the people to fundraise period. She’s been like beating her head against the wall trying to figure out what to do. And so we’ve, we’ve had many conversations about what she can do.
What I will say is most important is when you run a nonprofit is that it’s lonely at the top. You have to fundraise, you have to meet the budget, you have to report to your board of directors who are all volunteers. You have to deal with your staff, you have to deal with all kinds of things and especially in COVID, it’s been impossible. Loneliness at the top is what I will tell you is the most challenging part of being an executive director and a founder.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Matt Kamin: We’ve been talking about this whole year. How do we keep going? How do we stay motivated? It’s hard and the honest answer is there are days that I just want to be done. But it’s really remembering why I do this at the end of the day, why it’s worth sometimes being yelled at by a client, right?
I’ll give you an example of what makes me so happy. We placed a CEO at a domestic violence shelter. We found her. She not only grew the organization but also received a grant for $5 million and just acquired another domestic violence shelter. So now they’re serving that many more victims of domestic violence. Big Wow. She is spectacular in every which way, but that is something that wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for us. So I may not be running a homeless shelter anymore. I may not be making those direct impacts on people’s lives. But she is and she wouldn’t have had that job and be doing this great work if it wasn’t for us.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Matt Kamin: This country’s become like the rest of the world, we’ve gotten ugly and we’re all politically just so divided. We can all get together no matter where you are, no matter who you are and we can volunteer at a soup kitchen to give out food to people who are hungry. Right, we can all do that? I think that it’s really important for us in the nonprofit space and for us all to think about giving back.
The thing to remember is, there’s always going to be somebody who has more, but there’s also always going to be somebody who has less. And so what gets me going is remembering that and giving back. I can always work harder to get the nicer car, or whatever it is, but I always try to remember why I did this, to begin with. I think that’s really important.
At the end of the day, that’s what my grandmother has taught me. You get to where you need to be in life and then don’t forget it. Don’t forget. Remember how lucky you are to give and give back regardless of where you are.
CHARITY MATTERS.
New episodes are released every Wednesday! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
It really is amazing the difference a month can make. The quiet of January is a stark contrast to the insanity of last month. This time of year I find that we all slow down for a number of reasons. First, we are exhausted from going full throttle during December. Secondly, we need the quiet and stillness of January to renew. January is really a month of renewal. It is a time when we give to ourselves.
The past few years we have taken our family vacation in January because after the hustle and bustle of the holidays we all really needed some downtime. The best thing about January travel is that nothing is crowded. It’s as if the world sent a memo that we all need to hibernate for the month. Starting off the New Year with a trip sets a great tone for the year and puts us all in such a great space to begin planning for our year ahead.
Now that our vacation is behind us and Season Three of our Charity Matters Podcast has launched, I’m thinking about self-care. A week or two to slow down the pace, read a little more and reflect on what’s ahead. I’m not sure about you but for me, the path forward is unclear right now. Sure, I have goals and plans but how exactly all of the dots are going to connect is truly a mystery. Things feel a bit fuzzy or slightly out of focus. I can see where I want to go but am really not sure the steps forward to get there.
Rather than forge ahead, like a bull in a china shop, I am going to pause. Take a breath, recharge, and make sure my tank is full so when the fog lifts I’ll be ready. Until then, you’ll find me reading, listening to our podcast, walking the dog, and enjoying the quiet pace of January….while it lasts.
CHARITY MATTERS.
New episodes are released every other Wednesday! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
Welcome to Season Three of the Charity Matters Podcast! We are so excited to introduce you to another incredible season filled with amazing heroes. Today’s guests are the perfect way to dive into this new season. As a lifelong recreational scuba diver, I know how scared I am every time I enter the water. So many things are out of my control, the fear of not being able to breathe followed by the peace, stillness, and beauty of the ocean. Overcoming that fear every time leaves me feeling recharged and accomplished. So when I heard about the nonprofit Diveheart.org that works with people with disabilities to live better lives, I knew they were the perfect organization to launch Season Three of our podcast. So let’s dive in!
We are so excited to introduce you to Jim Elliot the Founder of Diveheart.org and their Executive Director, Tinamarie Hernandez. Join us for a fun and inspirational conversation about what can happen with a positive can-do attitude, a scuba tank, a body of water, and a passion for making people’s lives better. You won’t want to miss this one!
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Diveheart does?
Tinamarie Hernandez: Diveheartis an organization that works with people with disabilities, physical and cognitive. We’re also a training agency for people who want to work safely with people with disabilities in the water. And we use scuba diving as a therapy.
So we start people in a pool, we get them to where they’re comfortable. We see a lot of stuff, self-improvement in the people that we work with. They get the confidence and a renewed vigor of life. Some of the people we work with might have been in an accident. We also work with people who’ve dealt with their condition their entire life.
And it’s one of those moments where they’re like, I’m getting a win, this is a winning day for me. And that’s something I tell parents and family members, you know because they’re nervous. I guarantee your loved one is going to leave with a win today. They’re going to be proud of themselves for something. So that’s what we do, we don’t cure ailments. What we do is help people live a better life.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Diveheart?
Jim Elliot: I’m a media guy by trade. I’m a journalist. I took diving because I thought if I ever meet someone like Jacques Cousteau, I better know how to scuba dive. I had a burning desire to learn how to dive and fell in love with it. As you know, it’s a great equalizer. It’s like being an astronaut in inner space. It’s amazing.
So during the 80s, I was in the media business and helped startup a TV station. I was also on these nonprofit organizations’ boards. And in the mid-80s, I started guiding and teaching blind skiers because my eldest daughter is blind. I saw how that helped people and said, “You know, you can only ski at certain times of the year in certain places in the world, but there’s a pool in every community. So what if I were to do what I’ve been doing for decades in skiing, and taking people out of wheelchairs and putting them in the water and having them fly, learn to be an astronaut.” And that was kind of the premise of the whole idea. That was 2001 that we incorporated and this is our 20th anniversary.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Tinamarie Hernandez: The challenges are to evolve and to keep our finger on the pulse of what is changing. As a nonprofit that needs help with funding, all of our pool programs are free. So we need people to give us 99% of the money that we need to help us run our programs. It’s about getting the word out and letting them know that, yes, you’re giving us money so that we can help people in the pool because even though it’s free for them, it’s not always free for us. So that’s a challenge to keep going.
Jim Elliot: We have a documentary called TurningPpoint that was done and airs on PBS every now and then. And we had somebody from Southern California call us and say, “You know, my husband and I watched turning point last night and we cried, where do we send a cheque?” Five years later, that donation (knock on wood )has increased every year. We just make sure she knows everything, all the good stuff that we’re doing. So she knows that her investment or donation is going places.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been?
Tinamarie Hernandez: We have one particular individual with who we’ve been working with her since she was three months past her very life-changing. accident. She’s now a complete quadriplegic and was injured at 19. You don’t know what you’re going to do with your life at 19, right? But when we met her she was still in her anger phase, which is understandable. She was a very decorated athlete before this accident.
This last week, she announced that she is going to finish her degree. I can’t say Diveheart did all the work. We didn’t but we helped get her that spark. I know we did. She’s worked with us and her whole life has changed. She’s been inspiring people with disabilities to get certified. They’re like, well, wow, I didn’t want to get certified or get in the water until I saw her.
Seeing this young woman coming up out of the water with a smile on her face with her energy makes others think, ” Maybe I am missing out on something.” Those are the impact moments. I can’t measure that impact. That person’s life is better. I know and I hope we can reach as many people as we can.
Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?
Jim Elliot: I think you hit the nail right on the head when you said ripple effect. Because what we do, and what’s really cool about what we do is that it can happen so fast. The first pool session can be so powerful because it’s not natural to breathe underwater. It happens to everybody that puts their face in the water and breathes it off that tank. And it changes the way they think and the way they really experience life.
We like to do to say that we take the unrealized human potential, and we create a paradigm shift. So now it’s not Johnny in a wheelchair, it’s Johnny, the scuba diver. Then what we do is, once they have this new identity, we point them towards being a good steward of the environment. You know, get into marine biology or just be a helper and do good in the world. Then we try to help them go in that direction. In turn, they inspire people around them, like you said, the ripple effect. And this girl that Tina was talking about. She came to us and said, “You changed my daughter’s life. Thank you so much. “
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Jim Elliot: One of the things that keep us going and able to adapt is when we are hit with an obstacle. We take lemons and make lemonade, basically. What action do we take, that’s going to really be meaningful at this moment? Where we can just stay with it and then persevere, take that obstacle and turn it around. And we’ve been successful doing that many times. As the book says, the obstacle is the way.
CHARITY MATTERS.
New episodes are released every Wednesday! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
Growing up in Los Angeles, we really don’t think much about tornadoes. Yes, there are earthquakes but most people don’t worry about them because they catch us all by surprise. This past weekend, all of us were caught off guard by the extreme magnitude of loss in Kentucky and the surrounding states and counties from the devastating tornadoes. There truly are no words to imagine what these families are going through right now. One minute they were preparing for the holidays and the next moment they have lost everything.
As broken and sad as our country may be right now, one thing Americans have done since they arrived on this land was helping one another. It is in our DNA and who we are. I can think of no better time of year than now to lend a hand. I came across this list in USA Today and wanted to share it here. Maybe just donating a few dollars you have to help a family in need? Perhaps you want to help a family for the holidays or give that as a gift to someone you care about? I thought it was worth sharing with each of you, some of the kindest and most compassionate people I know. Please feel free to share it and thank you in advance for doing what we do best, care for one another.
West Liberty, Ky., March 19, 2012 –Little remains standing of this historic church in downtown West Liberty. FEMA is working with Commonwealth and local officials to remove debris and demolish condemned buildings. Photo by Marilee Caliendo/FEMA
A few ways to help …..
Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund
Gov. Andy Beshear has established a fund to assist tornado victims and begin rebuilding. Donate at secure.kentucky.gov/formservices/Finance/WKYReliefor by sending a check to Public Protection Cabinet, 500 Mero St., 218 NC, Frankfort, KY 40601.
American Red Cross
Visitredcross.org, call 1-800-RED-CROSS, or text REDCROSS to 90999.
Aspire Appalachia
Send donations to [email protected] or PO Box 1255, Jackson, KY 41339.
CARE
The nonprofit based in Atlanta is partnering with Louisville’s Change Today, Change Tomorrow to distribute food, water, and cash vouchers to affected families. Donate to the tornado relief fund here.
Global Empowerment Mission
The disaster relief nonprofit based in Miami is sending trucks of supplies to western Kentucky, in partnership with Racing Louisville and Louisville City Football Club. Donate funds at globalempowermentmission.org/mission/kentucky-tornadoes/.
The organization is collecting donations that counselors and social workers in Graves County will distribute to affected families. Donate at kentuckycounselingcenter.com/mayfield-fund/.
The Marshall County Nonprofit Foundation has established a Venmo account to take funds at @MCNPF.
Mercy Chefs
The nonprofit that serves meals following natural disasters has set up at His House Ministries, 1250 KY-303, Mayfield, Kentucky, and will distribute food over the next few days. Donate funds at https://mercychefs.com/donation.
Owensboro residents who want to donate supplies can take them to Green River Distillery, 10 Distillery Road, beginning at 10 a.m. Monday. Most needed items include water, baby formula, diapers, sanitizing wipes, sanitizer, gloves, and trash bags.
Jefferson County Public Schools
The largest school district in the state is holding a “Stuff the Bus” event to collect donations for western Kentucky residents. Drop off donations in front of the VanHoose Education Building, 3332 Newburg Road, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day this week.
Lyon County Courthouse
People with supplies to donate in Lyon County can drop them off at the courthouse, 500 W. Dale Ave., Eddyville. Officials are requesting trash bags, coffee, disinfectant wipes, work gloves, safety glasses, and gift cards.
Marshall County Tornado Disaster Relief
Call 270-703-2706 or 270-252-6530 to donate food, water, toiletries, cleaning supplies, and other items.
Veteran’s Club Inc.
Veteran’s Club Inc. will be collecting donations to send to Western Kentucky from noon to 7 p.m. Monday at Fern Creek Christian Church, 9419 Seatonville Road.
Suggested donations include “water, medical supplies, non-perishable food, heaters, warm clothing, large tents, and pet food.”Donations will be transported to Mayfield.
Clayton & Crume
The leather goods company, which began a decade ago in a Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, is accepting donations via its website to support people and organizations in Bowling Green that need assistance. Any remaining donations will go to the American Red Cross.
Green River Distillery
The Green River Distillery in Owensboro is serving as a drop-off point starting at 10 a.m. Monday for locals looking for ways to help support tornado relief efforts in Western Kentucky.
As we wrap up Season Two of our podcast, I can think of no greater guest than todays to conclude this inspirational season. Lori Barr is no stranger to inspirational seasons because much of her life has been based around her now-famous son’s inspirational football seasons. Lori is the proud mother of NFL Minnesota Viking’s outside linebacker, Anthony Barr. However, it is much more than his football career that makes her proud, it is Anthony’s work to serve others with their nonprofit, Raise The Barr that is truly inspiring.
Photo cred- Janae Johnson photography
Join us today for an incredible conversation with Lori Barr about her journey as a single mother to nonprofit founder. Lori shares her story of raising Anthony as a young mother and how they decided to give back to help other single moms finish their education and support their families. She is pure sunshine and inspiration, it is a conversation you don’t want to miss.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Raise The Barr does?
Lori Barr: Raise The Barr’smission is to increase opportunity and economic mobility for single parents, students, and their children through education. What that looks like, is providing holistic resources and support to low-income single parents, students who are in pursuit of a post-secondary degree training certification. The end goal of securing a career that offers a family-sustaining wage. We know that education is one pathway out of poverty. So that’s the road that we’ve taken because it was inspired by our own experiences.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Raise The BARR?
Lori Barr: It’s kind of a combination of a whole lot of things and an intersection of all these life experiences that brought us to this point. Growing up Catholic, we were always taught very, very early on that when the basket passed that we put a little something from our own piggy bank into the collection plate. As a result, that very early experience of helping your neighbor and paying attention to the experiences of others.
Then all this stuff happens through life and I end up getting pregnant at the age of 19. I was going into my junior year at St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana. So, I kind of had to reprioritize my life and figure out how I was going to take care of myself and my small child. Those experiences kind of fueled the vision for Raise The Barr.
In 2014, when Anthony was drafted in the top 10 of the NFL Draft, we held a youth football camp. It was free and for the local community to get to meet Anthony. He was kind of a local star and he wanted to bring all these people together. It was an amazing day, we had over 300 Kids, 150 volunteers, and all of these people coming together. After that experience, he and I sat down and said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could harness this energy, and this enthusiasm, with your platform to really do something big and have a big impact on families like ours?” That’s where Raise the Barrwas born.
It really started from our own stories and experiences. What we originally thought was let’s just start a scholarship fund for single moms like me, who are trying to do something to support their family but they may need a little support. We thought that support looked like a scholarship. Although that is still part of our overall programming, that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of what single parents need in order to persist through post-secondary, it’s just one part of it.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Lori Barr: Right, it is hard work. I think that recognizing what your limitations are, is humbling. It puts you in a place to realize that we need to kind of stay in our lane. For us, it was recognizing that one of our biggest challenges was diverse revenue sources. Our biggest funder could not be Anthony. We needed to be sustainable and we really had to dig to create diverse revenue streams.
Our second biggest challenge would be brand awareness. It really is about folks learning about you and coming up with a plan of how you’re going to market your product. In order for people to get engaged, you have to start with building a relationship and building trust. That’s brand awareness, trusting who we are. When you see our logo, when you hear tackling poverty, we want you to think about Raise the Barr.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Lori Barr: The families we serve, the relationships that we’ve built, and the belief in our mission. Also, knowing that this works and that we are having an impact. Seeing the results of our early work, that’s what keeps us going. That’s what when I’m lying awake at night thinking, oh my God, I need to do blah, blah, blah, and I remember why we’re here. It is one step at a time. And, you know, we’re doing good work and we keep that in mind every step of the way.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been?
Lori Barr: 99% of our scholars have earned a degree or graduated. When we talk about increasing economic mobility, the annual income on average of an applicant, when they come into the Raise The Barrfamily is about $15,000 annually. Upon leaving and securing a career, the average income is $64,000 a year. So there’s a huge increase, and they can now support themselves and their family moving towards true prosperity.
For us, it’s totally about the stories and where they are now. A real quick story of Tanya. She is a Native American single mom who grew up in poverty. Father in prison, a mother struggling to make ends meat and college was not in her plan. She became a mom at a young age. And, like me, she decided she better get into school and figure something out. She went through community college and ended up transferring to a university. Today, she is now being invited by the American Indian Science and Engineers Council to speak and present at their conference. She is a chemist and will graduate this December. Her son is a fourth-grader, he’s achieving above grade level, three grades above with reading and math. Those are our success stories. That’s the impact that we’re having.
There are so many more stories like Tanya that we have and that we really celebrate because these are lives that are changed. That we can be a little part of that change, and create hope and opportunity to me, that’s a huge success.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Lori Barr: I think mine would be so similar to so many other small nonprofits out there. The dream is that we have all the resources that we need to do the work that we do. Our dream would look like us being able to really provide the resources needed to single parents, students everywhere, so they could succeed. That might look like something practical, like an endowed scholarship, that also might look like having strong partnerships with post-secondary partners. There are little things like that, which I think would help us continue this work, and really have an impact and really start to crack generational poverty.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Lori Barr: I’m a teacher at heart, that’s what I was trained to do, and I went on to pursue a master’s degree in counseling and psychology. So, I would say that I think I’m a pretty good listener. This has taught me to listen more, and talk less. And it’s taught me to really be more thoughtful about how I approach my own life. I think about the experiences of others. Somebody else’s experience is just as valuable, if not more than our own, and so listening, thinking, and letting that help our decision-making.
As a sports mom, I always use a sports analogy but really learned to focus on how to build a championship team. Bringing the right people on board, all with different skill sets. As a single parent, so often I carry the burden completely on my own, and decision-making all by myself. It was not really, within my experience for 29 years to say, I need to bring others into this to really help us have a great impact. And that’s changed for me.
I’m just happy for folks to inquire and to share what we’re doing. A big part of increasing our impact is raising that awareness and really building that championship team.
CHARITY MATTERS.
New episodes are released every Wednesday! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”
―H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Yesterday was Giving Tuesday which means officially that the season of giving is upon us, a time of year when we feel kindred spirits towards our fellow man. City streets are decorated and the clanging of the Salvation Army bell fills us with joy as we drop a few dollars in the shiny red bucket. For about forty days a year, we are called upon to be charitable. Why is giving only expected just once a year? More than that, how can we incorporate a little holiday season throughout our entire year?
Why We Give
We give gifts to those we love throughout the holidays for a number of reasons. First, we want to show those that we love by giving them something that will make them happy. Another reason we give gifts is to acknowledge our appreciation to someone such as a business associate, a neighbor, the dry cleaner, or anyone who makes your life better. When we give these gifts it is typically the gift giver that receives the most joy in the giving. Charity is no different. It is the giver of a gift that feels the resounding joy and goodwill from making another’s life better.
Where to begin?
For many of us, we want to help but often don’t know where to begin. While dropping a few dollars in a red bucket at the holidays is nice it is not a long-term solution to incorporating charity into your life. Like any lifestyle change, it takes a few things to begin. First and foremost, is your goal or intention. What do you hope to accomplish? Do you want to find a like-minded group of people to volunteer with? Perhaps something has happened recently in your life and you would like to find a way to help an organization that helped someone you care about. Maybe you have been the recipient of someone’s kindness and would like to pay it forward. Or perhaps you are trying to be an example for your children. Think about what you would like to accomplish. There is no wrong answer.
The next step is to identify a cause or nonprofit organization. With 1.5 million charitable organizations in the United States alone, it can be overwhelming. First, find the area of interest, is it education, health, military? Fortunately, there is an abundance of online resources. For volunteering, there are great sites like VolunteerMatch.org or CatchAFire.org that match you with nonprofits based on your interest and location. PointsofLight.orgoffers a variety of online or virtual volunteering opportunities.
Make giving part of daily life
For people looking to incorporate giving more into a habit, there is a host of apps for your phone. The app Daffy helps you make giving a habit by setting up daily, weekly, or monthly giving goals and delivers the funds to your cause of choice. Other options are incorporating apps like Roundup App that round up your change and donate it to your favorite cause on purchases you make throughout the year. There is even an app that helps you shop finding sustainable products and brands called the Good Human App.
Here are a few tips to remember as we approach the season of giving:
Set a goal or intention for what you want to achieve. Volunteering, giving back, raising philanthropic children
Find an area of interest. Think about what is important to you? Health, education, military?
Do your homework. Utilize online resources and apps to find ways to incorporate giving into your daily life.
Make giving habitual by being consistent. Whether it’s a holiday tradition, something you do at birthdays, or every day, be consistent. Establish giving as a tradition and habit. The more you participate the easier and more fun it becomes.
Emphasize the joy and the experience of giving rather than money. Philanthropy is about being a part of something bigger than yourself. Make it a joyful experience and something that makes you feel great.
This holiday season; enjoy the process of giving in whatever ways you decide to participate. Ultimately, we get so much more when we give. With a few simple changes, you can experience the season of giving all year long.
CHARITY MATTERS.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
Today is the day that we take time to be thankful. This year, this day and this moment I am grateful for many things, my guess is for many of the same things you are; health, family, friends and for all the amazing nonprofit founders who continue to inspire and teach so many invaluable life lessons.
This year has been a challenging one for me personally with more loss than I was prepared for. Yet, every time
I have a conversation with one of these inspiring founders its as if someone hit a reset button for me that leads me to gratitude. Each founder has sacrificed their life to make others lives better. Every one them remind us all what really matters and just how much we have to be grateful for each and every day.
So today, I am grateful to each person who has come into my life and for all of the lessons they have taught. Most of all, I am grateful to each of you who continue to inspire, teach and motivate on this journey. To each and all of you, I wish you and your families a very joyous and Happy Thanksgiving!
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
Today is Veterans Day. A day we honor those who served our country and sacrificed so much for our precious freedom. The story on today’s podcast is an incredible family legacy of service. Justin Gracieux uncovered old documents that showed his grandfather’s 14-year military service during World War II and beyond. However, the official military records of thousands of veterans were destroyed in a 1973 fire. The fire destroyed the major portion of records of Army military personnel for the period 1912 through 1959. Join us to learn the incredible adventure one grandson has gone on to right a wrong and in the process honor those who have served our country.
Photo Credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
Justin has founded the nonprofit organization Oath to Country Foundation to provide support for our Veterans. This inspirational conversation about family, love, and service brought me to tears more than once. Justin’s story, commitment, and determination to serve those who have so bravely served us is an inspiration for us all. Take a listen.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what The Oath To Country Foundation does?
Justin Gracieux: Our mission is to foster a community of connectivity and collaboration with partnerships and volunteers to educate on advocate for and strengthen veterans, military, and first responders’ mental health. We also provide street-side resources for our Veterans that end up homeless in Southern California. Oath to Country Foundation is also sponsoring combat veteran psychotherapy treatment sessions provided by a Board Certified Clinical site Colleges.
Photo Credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Oath to Country Foundation?
Justin Gracieux: The story begins during Covid. in September of 2019, I was at my parent’s house and my mom called me into her room. She said, “Here’s a folder.” It was an old vanilla envelope kind of thing. My mom said, ” Open it up and see what you want to do with this?”. So I opened it up. That’s where I found this letter written by my mom when she was 17.
To whom it may concern:
I hope that you can be of help, and refer me to anyone that will read this letter. My father, Joe B. Montoya, was born on June 23, 1927. He was a veteran with more than several honorable discharge certificates that I can remember. My father was a very hard worker and a good father to me. And that is why I’m here today, I vowed that I would have him a burial that he thought he was given. My father has been deceased since October of 1983. I’ll try and make a long story short, there was a fire and I know my father’s discharge paperwork was burned. When I lost my dad, it was a promise to him to get a copy of his papers and have him a burial service with full honors along with being buried with the veterans of the United States. He now lives in a cemetery, with no one knowing his battle to serve our country. There was no flag or knowledge of him in the service, with approximately 14 years of his life dedicated to this country. I need someone to help me find his past. My family tried, as long as we could to postpone his burial. And to find his service records. Photos of him are enclosed.
My mom said, “I called Washington DC, and nobody could hear me cry for help.” So I took this folder, opened it up. I noticed that there was a lot of information that I could use to my advantage to step back into that arena that my mom did at such a young age, to fight for his veteran recognition, and 14 years of service.
Photo credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
So right around this time, I started interviewing friends and family members who served our country through multiple wars. I started conducting these interviews, to put together these stories. Because the story of my grandfather wasn’t accurately passed down through the generations, I felt as though it was my duty to pay it forward. I needed to tell and archive the stories of these Veterans.
I remember meeting a gentleman who served in the Navy. Our conversation really opened my eyes to what motivated them to serve. The experiences they had, the fun experiences, and the traumatic experiences. I learned a lot about war and what it has done and what it does to our American soldiers. The PT, post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, isolation, and ultimately suicide. This really opened up my heart and my mind, to what it really means to serve. This was the foundation for The Oath to Country Foundation. Shortly thereafter, I filed the paperwork with the State of California in March to start our nonprofit and go full speed ahead.
Photo Credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Justin Gracieux: I remember one night, and this is before it was officially filed. I remember praying, I was in bed. All I could think about was the nonprofit how it’s gonna work. I had a lot of self-doubt stepping, into this role. I remember saying, “You know, God, I’m coming to you because I’m scared. I’m nervous. I don’t I know I have a heart for this. I want to do it. But I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Because I never served.” And I said,” If this is what you want me to do, and to do Your will. I said, just open the doors for me and I will go through them and I will never look back. I said.” Just help me. Help me. Help me see that this is the mission that you want me to serve.”
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Justin Gracieux: We perceive challenges as opportunities, with our nonprofit. We are looking at the glass half full because we have so many opportunities to rewrite the course of history for our heroes. We can do right in the world, serve others, and pay it forward and save lives. That is our fuel to our cause because we’re here for the right reasons and we’re here at the right time. We want to have an everlasting impact on the mental health of all of those around us.
Photo Credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and What has your impact been?
Justin Gracieux: Our impact is bringing our community together for various types of programs. Recently, we hosted our second beach yoga for mental health. We bring together the community, our military, veterans, first responders for a day on the beach. We’re conducting our 22-mile challenge. So, we either run or walk 22 miles along the California coast. 22 miles for 22 veterans. I run it with 22 pounds, signifying the lives taken by way of suicide every day. What we’re also doing is we’re sponsoring psychotherapy treatment sessions for our combat veterans. We are sponsoring gym memberships for our first responders, Veterans Military, across various gyms here in Southern California.
Photo Credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
Right now we’re running multiple programs. I think one of the more specialized programs that we’re actively involved with daily is, is providing street-side resources for our homeless veterans here in Los Angeles County. Just a couple of weeks ago, we put together approximately $4,000 worth of resources, with items such as hygiene products, clothing, tents, insect repellent supplies, and more. Living there on the streets has its challenges. So we’re helping our Veterans who sleep on the sidewalks outside the VA with the rodent issue that they’re faced with daily.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Justin Gracieux: To end the war on suicide. We’re doing everything we can every day to prevent the next suicide from occurring. I mean, we’re in it for a long fight. We won’t give in we won’t back down. And we have the right people involved in this organization to help accomplish that. We’re just taking it one day at a time right now because this battle that we’re faced with isn’t easy.
Photo Credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Justin Gracieux: I’ve learned that it’s our responsibility to honor the legacies that those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country and for our freedom. It’s our responsibility to continue to honor the names of those that are no longer with us. We have to continue to rely on each other to really continue to amplify the message within our own communities and even in our own households, and really look after one another.
The after-effects of someone taking their lives and those that have to live with it have been affected by it tremendously. I know some individuals that are still impacted by those who have taken their lives, and it breaks my heart to know that they still miss their loved ones. And they always will. It never goes away. So heartbreaking.
Photo Credit: L for Louie the Lens (Monrovia, California)
Charity Matters: Do you have any last message for us on veterans Day?
Justin Gracieux: Let me tell you a little short story. The other day I left work, and I’m literally sitting in the driver’s seat of my truck. To my left, I see this gentleman sort of kind of rocking in his truck. And I was like, that’s a little weird. So I finally looked and this gentleman was looking at the sticker on my truck. All-around every window of my truck. I have Oath to Country Foundationstickers. This gentleman’s looking at a sticker. So I finally wrote on my window, this is a foundation to save our veterans from taking their lives.
And it was just like that because we’re both at a stoplight, he’s about to leave, I’m about to leave. Sure enough, he sits back down. And he turns his face, one eye was missing. He raised his arm to salute me and his hand was missing. When you ask about what motivates our mission? What propels us to keep going? When we think we’re not moving anywhere, it’s experiences like that, that remind us that God is sending these messengers to us, to keep going and to never back down from this fight.
CHARITY MATTERS.
New episodes are released every Wednesday! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
Some of my earliest memories were the stories my parents told me. My father is Irish and loves to tell a good story. While my mother loved to tell stories of our family’s history and read to us as children. I could never get enough. It wasn’t until years later when I realized that my gift of gab actually was also a gift for storytelling. For the past decade, I have been telling stories to you each week about remarkable humans here at Charity Matters.
So when Professor Biel reached out to me from USC Marshall School and asked me if I would talk to her class about storytelling and nonprofits, I was really excited. I love going back to my alma mater and more than that I love telling stories. Today, rather than a podcast I thought I would share a little about what I shared with the class this past week.
There’s an old American Indian Proverb that says, “Those who tell the stories rule the world”.
I’m excited to talk about the power of storytelling and how we use stories to learn, to connect, and to build relationships and ultimately businesses/nonprofits specifically. If you think about it, one of the first things we learn as children is stories. Our parents read us stories and we watched Disney stories in movies. Stories are part of who we are and where we came from. There is a story in all of us.
The best stories are true, they have a beginning, a middle usually with a conflict, and an ending we hope with a happy resolution.
So rather than introduce myself properly, I’d like to tell you a story….my story. the one that changed my life from having a career in the software business to becoming a nonprofit founder, a storyteller, and a person on a mission to make the world better one story at a time.
Spiritual Care Guild
We tell stories get volunteers, communicate our vision, connect a community, to raise money…because in the nonprofit world the product that we sell is humanity….and we don’t sell, we tell…stories. Stories of those we serve. The stories are the connective tissue for our organization. They are the threads that connect our quilt and in this case, the quilt is a nonprofit. To sell your vision you have to tell the story.
Neurologists have studied storytelling and there are three main things that happen to our brains when we hear stories like the one I just told you
We remember, our neural activity increases fivefold
Stories generate empathy, like the empathy we just had for the girl with her pink blanket because our brains generate more oxytocin, (OXY-TOE-SIN) which predicts how much empathy we have.
Stories bring us together- we all collectively felt that compassion for that family, the empathy, which is why we watch movies on dates. We just all shared an experience and felt like we were in that room with the little girl.
After a few years of working with an incredible group of volunteers to launch the Spiritual Care Guild, I began to wonder who were these other people who started nonprofits and why? What was their story? At the time there wasn’t People Magazine Heroes Among Us or CNN Heroes or Upworthy…I realized there were 1.5 million nonprofits in the US and I wanted to know who started them and why? So I decided to find these nonprofit founders and tell their stories.
Charity Matters
I realized that if I can help the helpers I could help the most people. My impact and my skills as a storyteller would do the most good. I also quickly realized that all of these nonprofit founders had the makings for a great story. They had a conflict; a struggle, an obstacle, and that they had overcome their adversity and used it to help others, the happy ending….which was the perfect recipe for great stories. Nonprofit founders wanted to tell the stories of their work and not necessarily their own which was often the most powerful story of all. I am still telling these stories and fascinated by them each week. These are my people, people who have given their lives to serve. They are true leaders.
This leads me to a key component of any business/nonprofit and that is leadership.
TACSC
In 2013, I took over a 32-year-old nonprofit in need of some updating. Their messaging and stories didn’t exist but what they did (and did well) teaching leadership did exist. So we started by defining the work TACSC does and sharing that message…in order to lead you to need to:
Have a vision, a plan
Be able to communicate that plan
Be a lifelong mentor
You can not lead unless you serve
We began with that message and went in search of stories from our alumni and then found stories from those students we were serving, what was their story? Those stories took TACSC from serving 300 children a year to 3,000 with only 2.5 employees. That is the power of a story and a message. Each of these stories built and rebuilt three brands. Two of which are nonprofits, Spiritual Care, Charity Matters, and TACSC. They all started with a vision, then a story to communicate that vision, each organization brings along mentors and all three based on serving others. Leadership and nonprofits follow the same path.
Remember the power that stories have to connect us, build relationships, and command the most influence in your community, nonprofit, or business. So if you do one thing with all of this …..think of what your story will be? How will you use your gifts to serve others?
Make your life a story worth telling!
CHARITY MATTERS.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
I have to confess, I have never been on a dating site. Recently, one of my team suggested a site called PodMatch. While not a dating app, rather an app for connecting podcasters and guests. I admit, I was skeptical but willing to try. Through the most unexpected and roundabout way I had the privilege of being connected to today’s amazing guest, Ariel Nessel the founder of The Pollination Project.
Ariel is a successful real estate developer by day, a practicing yogi and an inspirational human being. You are not going to want to miss this incredible conversation about what inspired Ari to rethink philanthropy and create The Pollination Project.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what The Pollination Project does?
Ariel Nessel: When you think about what is the most synergistic form of relationship in the world, people often point to pollination. The reason is because you can’t have a distinction between who is giving and who’s receiving in that relationship. That’s where the name, The Pollination Project, oriented from. Like our name, pollination is a process that starts out small but has a huge impact. Our theory of change is that we work on small grants. We are supporting individual changemakers who feel a unique calling to be of service in the world.
Our grantees do this work on the basis of volunteerism, as opposed to a place of occupation. We’ve given out over 4000 grants and most of the grants are $1,000 each. We also provide service to support our grantees in their unfolding journey of service. We’ve placed grants into over 120 countries. The commonality of all the things is that we are creating something that develops more compassion in the world. Compassion, for me, is defined as the longing to reduce the suffering of others.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start The POLLINATION Project?
Ariel Nessel: I’ve been active in philanthropy, before founding The Pollination Project, as an as an advocate for things that I really cared about. Through that process I started giving and contributing to different groups that I thought were doing really good work in the world. My journey of philanthropy deepened but it wasn’t as fulfilling as I would have liked. I was writing bigger and bigger checks but I wasn’t feeling nourished inside by a bigger check. It was the intimacy I had with philanthropy that felt like a cog in the wheel. I felt like there was so much more to offer than financial capital.
So what came up for me was this question of how can I expand what I’m calling to offer? How can I feel more engaged in the world than a few minutes being generous, financially? How can I support and nurture and empower the most good from people? What came out of that was this idea that there’s probably some other people who want to do good in the world. How do we find those people, make them and acknowledge them? Then, how do we make them move from that point, too wouldn’t it be great if I did something about that?
So the idea that came out of it was to give one grant a day. Picking a whole network of people to work with in different movements who are asking these questions for themselves. Then to figure out which of those people are at the right point in their unfolding path to to be resourced with these grants to do something in the world. That became The Pollination Project.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Ariel Nessel: There have been myriad challenges along the way. Early on, it was the question of how do we find these people? You want to give a grant every day, you want to find good people. So how do we locate those people? Further down as it was unfolding, became how do we provide more than money? What is it that people really need? Other problems, that came up were questions like how do we change the focus for our grantees? We wanted to know who they become by accomplishing their project?
We’ve seen so many people who, as they grow their projects, their original motivation gets lost. Sometimes it becomes about building something, as opposed to like leaning into that seed within them that they cared so much about. How do we nourish that seed of caring?
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about your success and impact?
Ariel Nessel: I think one of things I’ve learned from my business experience is that what gets measured gets done. So it’s really important, what we measure what we’re paying attention to. For The Pollination Projectwe have how many grants we’ve given. We measure do they do what they set out to do? How many volunteer hours were provided in it? What do they write about how they were changed the process? Who was who was affected by their project? What percent of our dollars go to grant making versus overhead.?
The impact to be able to tell almost 5000 stories becomes really important to us. And even the stories that aren’t always a success. It’s not like it’s only worthwhile celebrating if you accomplished what you wanted to accomplish. Our failures often lead to greater success down the road. What do our grantees learn in the process of their mistakes? This is what’s beautiful about the $1,000 grants, they’re small enough that we don’t get attached to every one of them working out. What do we learn from the ones that don’t work out? Where do those people who try it and “fail”, what do they learn from the process?
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Ariel Nessel: I think the biggest dream I have is knowing that we played an enormous part in uprooting apathy around the world. So that anyone who ever had their own dream of how they can use their unique knowledge to make the world a better place, does something about it. So that these change makers knew that someone saw them, acknowledged them and was there to resource them. That there were so many grantees around the world that it wasn’t just us but that people copied us all around the world. So that philanthropy wasn’t just done by giant organizations, but there were innumerable smaller positions and individuals resourcing anyone who felt a similar calling. I think that would be my dream.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Ariel Nessel: So many lessons but asking what do I want for the world? And how can I be a person who helps manifest that? How do I live as an exemplar of what I wish for the world? Because purpose is such a big part of my life, I’ve created this acronym on what to engage. The acronym is pursue.
P is for personal transformation. Where do I need to grow as a human being? I started The Pollination Project where I wanted to grow and be able to see the best in others. I wanted to grow having a daily practice of generosity and feeling a deeper embodied sense of service.
The U is for unique. Where am I uniquely positioned? What am I uniquely called to do? I felt really called to support changemakers.
The R is for relationships. What are the relationships I have? Which ones do I get to spend more time with those people I really care about and want to learn from?
The S is serendipity or synchronicity. What is life pushing me towards? What success are you manifesting without too much effort? Where is there a sense of ease like a finesse that comes from things?
The U is for understanding.
The E is for external transformation or efficacy. Asking, where can I have the greatest impact? So I try to integrate that with all these other parts of it. A big part of the worlds problem is apathy and indifference. One way to address that is to demonstrate that there are people who have moved beyond apathy.
Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?
Ariel Nessel: I think that all of the above has really changed and made this path so much more joyful for me. This is why a harvest approach seems more appropriate to me than the activists. There’s not an exhaustion when you’re just going where there’s flow. You don’t get tired. Rather, it’s a regenerative energy. There’s a joy to giving, to service and life.
CHARITY MATTERS.
New episodes are released every Wednesday! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
I love meeting new people and while Zoom isn’t always the best way to meet, somedays it just has to suffice. The reality is that an amazing conversation can happen anywhere, whether in person or online. Today’s conversation is just that, amazing. When you meet someone you haven’t met before, you honestly never know what is going to happen? This one had me in tears, in the best of ways and I hope it does the same for you.
Join us today for an incredible conversation with Ashley Jones, the founder of Love Not Lost. Ashley shares her journey through grief with the loss of her young daughter and her transformational experience from loss to creating a remarkable organization that provides family photoshoots for the terminally ill.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Love Not Lost does?
Ashley Jones: Love Not Lostis on a mission to revolutionize the way we heal in grief. We photograph people facing
a terminal diagnosis, provide community support tools and resources to help people support others,
and we train leaders in the workplace to create cultures of caring around grief and loss at work.
Charity Matters: Tell us about your earliest memories or experiences with philanthropy?
Ashley Jones: I have always had a heart to help people. As soon as I was old enough (around middle school), I volunteered in the kid’s ministry at my church and stayed involved for decades. Through a peer-mentorship program at my high school, I volunteered to help severely handicapped children at the local elementary school. After graduating, I went on an ArtsLink trip to support orphanages in Ukraine and also served neighborhoods in Northern Ireland through Youth for Christ.
When Compassion International came to my university, I signed up to support a kid in India. After my daughter died, I volunteered with Help-Portrait, which helped lay the foundation for creating my own nonprofit. I had zero experience starting a nonprofit and leading a charity, but I knew I would figure it out.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Love Not Lost?
Ashley Jones: As I photographed Kevin Hill on his very last day on earth, fighting Stage 4 Melanoma Cancer, I knew this was part of my purpose; helping other people through suffering and loss. When his wife, Rachel, shared the impact the photos had on her kids in their healing, I knew this work was important. I kept volunteering portrait sessions for families facing a terminal diagnosis and launched it into a nonprofit the day my husband came to me and said, “I love you and your giving heart, but we simply can not afford to keep giving everything away.” I knew I could find other people who wanted to help me give it all away to these families.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Ashley Jones: One of our biggest challenges is pioneering in a world that is taboo. People are reluctant to talk about dying and grief, let alone engage with it on a deeper level. Our first hurdle is getting people to connect with our mission. Another hurdle is finding people who are willing to give to support people in grief. It’s hard to understand the depth of impact if you haven’t been through it.
Covid was obviously a huge challenge. We lost close to half of our expected annual donations due to canceled events and people not giving (which I completely understand), and we’re still recovering from that. We’re hoping our virtual wine tasting event will be a big help this year!
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Ashley Jones: The thing that keeps fueling me to do this work is the impact. When I hear someone tell me that the photos we gave them helped them heal, or a support tool gave them the courage to reach out to someone to show them love, or I’m talking to someone and can see the “ah-ha” moment when something clicks and they have a moment of healing right there on the spot. It’s a beautiful thing, and that’s how this world is going to change for the better. Each one of us healing our wounds, one moment, one person at a time.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had?
Ashley Jones: We’ve photographed close to 100 families now, impacting thousands of people through their friends and family grieving. We’ve given over 5,000 support cards out, not to mention the visitors and users on the digital version, HowCanILoveYouBetter.com… We’ve given thousands of empathy cards out to people to send to spread love and care through loss. And we’ve done it all on a shoe-string budget, but we’re facing max capacity and we really need to raise more to grow and serve more people.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Ashley Jones: As I dream for Love Not Lost, I imagine a world where everyone feels loved and supported in grief. A world where people know what to say and do, and collectively we help each other heal. I see Love Not Losthaving photographers in every major city across the globe. I see us being the number one place people turn to when facing a terminal diagnosis or loss of any kind. We will continue creating tools and resources to help meet unmet needs and build bridges to connect people with empathy and love.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Ashley Jones: I have learned some incredible life lessons on this journey so far, and I am sure there are many more coming my way. The first is that love heals. We all have wounds and we all experience loss. First, we need to love and care for ourselves; do our own work to heal before we can help others who are hurting. I believe hurt people hurt people, but healed people heal people. Changing the world truly does start with each of us doing our own work.
Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?
Ashley Jones: This journey has broken my heart a million times over. But each time, I get to rebuild my heart. And each time, I find that it gets bigger and bigger. I have grown so much in empathy, understanding, giving people the benefit of the doubt, and seeing people’s pain first. I’m much slower to anger and much more open to possibility.
CHARITY MATTERS.
New episodes are released every Wednesday! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
This week we are heading to Texas for Parents weekend to see our youngest son. He attends a big college football school where weekends included tailgates, football games, and obligatory fraternity parties. With so many students heading off to college and parents concerned about COVID and so much more, it seemed like the right time to reshare this story.
Gordie Bailey was a college freshman who died of alcohol poisoning from hazing his freshman year of college. September 17th marks the 17th anniversary of Gordie Bailey’s death. His parents created a nonprofit organization, The Gordie Center, as Gordie’s legacy to educate college students about drinking. The story is tragic and the lesson is invaluable. Sadly, it needs to be told over and over to each new generation of college students.
Loss
So often we do not make discoveries or connections until it is too late. We do not realize the value of a friend until they have moved away. We do not appreciate our children until they have left for college. Often, we do not realize the value of one’s life until it has passed.
Why is it that we wait to make these connections? How is our hindsight is so crystal clear and our day-to-day vision so clouded? This story is perhaps no different. However, the beauty of it lies in the ability to take that clear vision and create something that matters.
This month thousands of college freshmen have left home. Many students are beginning the process of Rush as they look to make new homes away from home in sororities and fraternities across the country. That is exactly what Gordie Bailey did in September 2004, as an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Gordie’s Story
Gordie, a fun-loving freshman who had been the Co-captain of his varsity high school football team, a drama star, a guitar player, and a walk-on at Boulder’s lacrosse team was adored by all. He pledged Chi Psi. On the evening of September 16th, Gordie and twenty-six other pledge brothers dressed in coats and ties for “bid night” and were taken blindfolded to the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest. There they were “encouraged” to drink four “handles” of whiskey and six (1.5 liters) bottles of wine.
The pledges were told, “no one is leaving here until these are gone.” When the group returned to the Fraternity house, Gordie was visibly intoxicated and did not drink anymore. He was placed on a couch to “sleep it off” at approximately 11 pm. His brothers proceeded to write on his body in another fraternity ritual. Gordie was left for 10 hours before he was found dead the next morning, face down on the floor. No one had called for help. He was 18 years old.
Turning Grief into Hope
The nonprofit Gordie Foundation was founded in Dallas in 2004 by Gordie’s parents as a dedication to his memory. The Gordie foundation creates and distributes educational programs and materials to reduce hazardous drinking and hazing and promote peer intervention among young adults. Their mission is committed to ensuring that Gordie’s story continues to impact students about the true risks of hazing and alcohol use.
There has been at least one university hazing death each year from 1969 to 2017 according to Franklin College journalism professor Hank Nuwer. Over 200 university deaths by hazing since 1839. There have been forty deaths from 2007-2017 alone and alcohol poisoning is the biggest cause of death. As Gordie’s mother Leslie said, “Parents more than anything want their dead children to be remembered and for their lives to have mattered.”
In almost seventeen years, the Gordie Foundation which is now re-named Gordie.Orghas made an enormous impact on hundreds of thousands of students across the country through its programs and educational efforts. If you have a college-age student, think about asking them to take the pledge to save a life, possibly their own.
Why is it that we wait to make these connections? How is our hindsight is so crystal clear and our day-to-day vision so clouded? Why is it that we do not know the value of one’s life until it has passed? Perhaps more than a decade later, our vision is becoming clearer and we realize just how precious each life is……
Charity Matters.
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Life is serendipitous, As most of you know, I no longer believe in coincidences. A few months back we asked all of our InstagraBumblm followers to send us their favorite nonprofits. One of the many on the list was an organization called The BumbleBee Foundation. I put it on a list and when we got back from vacation, I decided to reach out to Heather Donatini to set up an interview. We had an incredible conversation about their family’s recent move and the loss of their young son, Jarren. One I think we were destined to have.
Join us today to listen to the heartwarming conversation with Heather Donatini, aka Queen Bee of the BumbleBee Foundation. Heather and her husband Jason, established the Bumblebee Foundation in 2011 in memory of their son Jarren who was diagnosed with rare liver cancer at the age of three. Their mission is to inspire hope, faith, and the overall well-being of pediatric cancer families.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what The Bumble Bee Foundation does?
Heather Donatini: Bumblebee exists to support other pediatric cancer families fighting the same battle that our family fought. And we do that through six programs with our largest being our patient aid program. The patient aid program provides financial support for families and can literally be anything that is going to lighten the load for a family. Sometimes it’s just utility payments or a gift card for a cup of coffee. A cup of caffeine is a mighty thing in the hands of a very tired parent. We do anything from that on up to help with rent and mortgage assistance. In between, we do whatever it is that’s going to make the journey a little bit easier for our families. That is what we strive to do.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start your organization?
Heather Donatini: We watched her son fight for 18 months for his life. These children are my heroes because they’re always smiling and they have the best attitude ever. When our son Jarren took his final breath, honestly, is when my husband Jason and I knew the exact moment that we needed to do something. We knew that Jarren’s life was not in vain and that we were honored to have been chosen to be his parents. Even if he was only going to be here for four and a half years.
There were other families lying in the hospital beds of the place that we had just left that we’re still fighting. We wanted to do this not just for them but for the ones that were to come. The ones that were diagnosed that we didn’t know about yet. We had tremendous support from our community and we saw other kiddos that did not have that same support. And we wanted to build Bumblebee to be a gap to fill that support for these families that were fighting and just like us.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Heather Donatini: When we started Bumblebee, I didn’t have experience in a nonprofit. Most of us don’t choose this but somehow know that this is what we were supposed to do. As you said, we kept getting these signs along the way. Somebody had once told me that skills can be built, but passion cannot. Those of us that are in the nonprofit field, truly understand that. I can take classes, to figure things out to learn things that I need to know. We lead with passion and 100% once I kind of got out of my own way and realized it was going to be okay.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had? What has your impact been?
Heather Donatini: You know, we don’t always have measurable outcomes. So even though The Bumblebee Foundation has over 350 active families that we’re serving throughout the state of California, a lot of times, our impact is simply in the voice on the other end of a line of a mama who you just told that you paid their mortgage for them. Or, Bumblebee just saved them from eviction, or just put brand new tires on their vehicle so that they can get their child back and forth to treatment.
Those are things that hit when a family is diagnosed, that you don’t think about even just something as simple as a meal voucher or a parking voucher, right? A family could be making ends meat and doing just fine. Then all of a sudden, your child is diagnosed with cancer, and you have all these unexpected expenses, like paying for parking at a hospital. One of my most favorite memories is we were able to purchase a used vehicle for a family who was taking public transportation for treatment. Those are the kinds of impacts that Bumblebee strives to make.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Heather Donatini: Our ultimate goal is one day to have beehives all across the country. We call our supporters, our beehive because they are part of this organization. As a whole, they create that for our Bumblebeekiddos. Our main headquarters is based in Westlake Village, California. I would love to have that continue being our main beehive with beehives all throughout the states eventually.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Heather Donatini: So many life lessons, I can sum it up in one word and that one word is trust. Trust the process, trust the journey. Trust has been the one thing that resonates the most with me since the day that Jarren was diagnosed.
Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?
Heather Donatini: My heart, my eyes, my everything has changed. Going through something like that you cannot come away unscathed or unchanged. You learn to love more, you learn to accept more and you learn to see the beauty in a situation that people may not see beauty in. These cancer families are my everything. Making these connections with them and making things easier for them is such an honor. For me, as Jarren’s Mom, I get to honor the memory of my son. I get to do that because of the support from our beehive that allows me that gift to serve.
CHARITY MATTERS.
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