The Mission of Orangewood Foundation - Chris Simonsen

8:19PM Jan 16, 2022

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Chris Simonsen

Keywords:

people

nonprofit

donor

foster youth

community

programs

trauma

job

young

virtuous

kids

serve

growing

cfo

organization

challenging

support

charter school

chris

helping

Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky.

And this is the we are for good podcast.

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So let's get started. Hey, Becky.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today, we are about to have a really great conversation with an awesome human

love, like these winding paths, you know, that brings really talented people into the sector that are challenging us that are shaping the really the transformational nonprofits of today. And that's what today's conversation is all about.

And the success story about what you're going to hear the empathy, the compassion, the smart innovation is just going to be permeated through everything we talk about. So it is my great honor today to introduce Chris Simonsson. He's the CEO of the orangewood Foundation. And Chris, you have one of the most amazing stories because Chris used to be the CFO of the Fortune 500 company, you may know it triple A. And he was just one of these people who just felt like there was something missing in his life. And so by a stroke of luck, he was introduced to the orangewood Foundation. And he just ran full tilt at this incredible organization that is helping and serving foster youth. And beyond just the services and programs that they provide. What they are doing to connect at the human to human level with each of these foster children is nothing short of extraordinary. They have launched this incredible Charter School, which has the best graduation rate 99% of seniors at exploding college admission rate 80% go to college for foster youth in the entire country. And so we want to know how you guys are doing this. We want to know what your secret sauce is. And we just really want to know your story. So Chris, welcome to the show. We're so excited. You're here.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here. And thanks for inviting me. And yeah, I look forward to talking a little bit about our amazing organization. Well, kinda

like John said, We just love it when people chase purpose. And I always think it's fascinating when a CFO becomes a CEO, because I can tell you those operations are going to be shored up like nothing else that I really want to know just a little bit about your journey, like growing up and your life and how did philanthropy play into that?

Sure, yeah. So you know, I grew up in the South Bay of Los Angeles and got my finance accounting degree from Cal State Dominguez Hills. And when I went off on my traditional finance career path, I took a job at Ernst and Young and worked there for several years, and then had an opportunity to take a job down in Irvine, triple A approached me, after about seven years looking for someone for their finance team. So I got promoted from manager to Vice President and then ultimately to Chief Financial Officer. So there I was, at age 39, I thought I had achieved everything, you know, that someone with a finance background would want to achieve working for a multibillion dollar company with eight to 9000 employees, but it wasn't working for me. You know, I had this young family with four kids and I was working so many hours and triple A's a dynamic organization that, at the time, had a lot of growth and lose a lot going on. And it was just a personal challenge for me as far as how do I balance my family life and my and my work life and, and I just wasn't satisfied. And I knew I needed to make a change of some kind. And I and I was struggling for a while figuring out what what is it I want to, you know, try to do, I could try to tough it out for another 15 years and retire. But then my don't see my kids growing up. And to me, that was the most important thing. And so it was just a fluke, fortunate thing. I got a letter from a headhunter on my desk, and it said, Hey, there's a nonprofit that needs a CFO. And I said, Look, this must be a sign that I should look into this. So I came over it didn't know anything about orangewood foundation knew nothing about foster care. But I just loved the mission. As soon as I got here. I love the people I talked with. And of course, their first question is, you know, what are you doing here? You know, you're at this multi billion dollar company. We're a little $7 million nonprofit, and we can't pay you anything close to what you're making. And I said, look, it's not about money. I need to make a huge adjustment in my life. And this seemed like the right fit for me. Ultimately, they offered me a job and I took it and it's the best decision I ever made.

There's your quote card, you know, and you found something that really aligns. And we talked a lot about alignment last year. And so I love when people find that place, because we need people to get in those positions, you know, across the board, because that's when this can really come alive. And so I see that in your story, I can see that the mission really captivated you. And so how cool that you get to be at the helm of that and really kind of unpack that now. Tell us a little bit, you know, give us some context. What did you learn as you stepped into this area of foster youth, I mean, what a more divergent next path moving from like supporting cars that are broken down on the road are all the other things by triple eight is to, you know, the hands and feet of a mission serving youth that are struggling, you know, that are in a really difficult position. How did you make that transition? What did you learn?

Well, I was just frankly, disgusted by the way that the foster care system prepares young people to be out on their own. You know, if you think about yourselves, when you turned 18 years old, could you have gone out on your own to find an apartment to potentially if you graduated high school to go to college, to get a job, with no support system, no family network to help you, I think most of us could say, that would be an impossible task. And that's what we're asking our young people coming out of foster care to do. Now, some states, including California, have allowed people to stay in foster care till age 21, which is a positive step, and they provide them a housing allowance, but that's relatively new in the last six or seven years. And so when I first got to orange, when 2007, I just couldn't believe what us as a community, as society were asking these kids to accomplish. And that was really where orangewood Foundation came in to help prepare these kids, when they were teenagers still in foster care, to give them some of the basic skills they're going to need. But then more importantly, once they turned 18, and they were on their own, to provide them the support they needed, whether it was scholarships for for college, whether it was housing, a mentor, a drop in a resource center, so they could come and get groceries and use the computer and work with our staff to get jobs. So all of those things that we do are things that I wish an organization like ours existed in every county in every state, because we're asking a lot of these young people to do this on their own. And we're not even factoring in the trauma that many of them experienced growing up in the foster care system, or what led them to be in the foster care system. So all of those things, including brain development of a young person really doesn't even get completed till your mid to late 20s. So I'm just really proud of our team here and the way our organization is there for our young people. And, you know, coming out of the for profit industry, nonprofit is no different than for profit, you have to run your organization like a business, nonprofit doesn't mean you lose money every year, if you don't make money or break even, you aren't going to be able to keep your doors open and fulfill your mission. So you know, we do a great job of putting our mission first, whatever is best for the youth. That's what we focus on and strive to do, and all decisions that we make. But we also have created financial model here that really insulates us from big downturns in the economy, or allows us to have the resources to grow and to do things and be flexible and provide our staff with the resources, they need to do what's best for the youth to make decisions that are going to benefit that individual that must be made to help them.

I love that you walked us through it in that way. Because I can see you kind of just peeling back the layers. And anytime you make a shift, I mean, we felt this moving from higher ed to health care, you start asking questions when you're coming into a new space of like, why are the walls the way that they are? Why are the fences where they're at? And just because they're there doesn't mean it's right, you know, so I love that you came in with such a business mind. And we want to come back to the foster conversation cuz there's a lot that we want to dive into today. But since you brought this up, I can't resist because we see this as a huge trend around this concept of just nonprofits have to rewire and think like a business. And that doesn't mean selling your soul. You know, like even getting shareholders but really viewing that we do have shareholders and it's those kids. I mean, in your case, it's the kids that you're serving, that are the shareholders in what you're doing. And so how are you aligning and making sure that you're delivering the most value to that, you know, and I would love for you to talk about what are a couple of the principles that came over from business that have served y'all well as you have grown and as you've scaled and just go more deeply in your work. And I

would love to know what this financial model is. I bet there's a lot of nonprofits out there who are really, you know, hungry for something like that that is going to sustain them through periods like we're seeing in the pandemic. So there's a twofer on that question for tourists.

No problem. Well, let me I guess go back and talk a little bit about when I took over a CEO in 2013. One of the things that we did in a strategic planning session that we had was we asked the question, Who do we serve. And as we had that discussion, we realized, look, there are a lot of teens and young adults that need help in the community. And by us kind of having a narrow mission of helping just foster youth or former foster youth, we're excluding a population of young people that are really in need. So one of the first things we did is we said, look, we're going to still have a focus on the foster youth community. But if they bring a friend of theirs to the resource center, who's homeless, and he needs help, we're not going to turn them away, just because they never made it into the foster care system, which nine times out of 10, they probably should have. So that was one of the fundamental things we changed. And when we did that, it also opened up our eyes to more opportunities for funding that were available. And some of it was just good timing in the fact that the issue of homelessness really came to the forefront at the local state and federal level, and a lot more funding opportunities became available, and we had really only focused on county funding opportunities. And so in 2016, I started doing some research on state opportunities and found a grant serving homeless young adults 18 to 25. And we got it, it was a game changer because it funded half a million dollars a year for our drop in center operations. And this was work we were already doing. So that freed up donor dollars for us to reallocate to new programs or other programs of ours, or to invest in our staff or other services. We were too heavily dependent on donor revenue when I was the CFO. And that caused us a lot of pain and heartache during the recession. I mean, it was challenging because some companies went out of business, other donors, maybe they were giving us $5,000 a year, and now they're giving us $2,000 A year well, if you have 100 donors doing that cutting their donations in half, it causes you a lot of issues because at the same time your services are going up because more kids are in need. So we had to get a better balance of money from government services and contracts and donor dollars. And having that balance and not being overly concentrated. Just like in a, in a private business, you know, you don't want all of your sales coming from one customer. Because if something happens, and they have a change when their CEO or they change, decide to change their product lines, you're sunk. So we really have built a model now that is diversified, where all of our revenue is coming from some of its from the federal government, we have state revenue, we have county revenue, we have donor dollars, our charter school that we opened up, we get some money through the public school system, it's really a great mix of different sources of revenue, so we can provide services.

That's a great tip, and we talk all the time about you have to diversify your revenue streams. And I'm so glad that you're talking about that. Because I even think on the donor side, we have to diversify the donors that we have, we can't just be cultivating our top donors or our event donors, or we're only putting all of our eggs in the grant basket, it's really about if you can hone in and get to know the donor, if you can, you know, be curious and figure out behaviors you can that will immediately lend itself to better connectivity and longer retention. So I just really applaud the way you're looking at this model. Because I really think that when a time like a pandemic comes up, you are positioned for so much more success, and it's gonna allow you to scale and run faster. But I want to pivot because I want to talk about foster youth. And I am so excited that we're holding court to talk about this issue. So can you kind of give us a high level overview of what is the state of affairs right now, especially in COVID? And what how are you kind of meeting the moment right now with your foundation?

First, let me just say I think that individuals that work in the various social services agencies across the country, they do incredible work. They're passionate, dedicated people that want what's best for the youth, they want to do everything they can to help the youth. The thing that is challenging sometimes is we've seen governments whether it's at state or federal level, try to put everything into one box and say this is the best thing for foster youth. So this is what we're going to do. We believe that, you know, you should have a continuum of options because every young person is unique. Their background is unique. How they need to be cared for is also unique. If you're put into foster care, and I can't speak from personal experience, but there's just so much going on in your head as you're a teenager I mean, most teenagers, you know, we were all teenagers. It's a, it's a challenging time, right? You're trying to figure everything out. But these are kids now that are changing schools every six months and changing placements, you know, every six months sometimes and going to six or seven different high schools, and only two thirds of them are graduating from high school. So that was one of the reasons we started our charter school was we were tired of seeing kids coming into our resource center with no high school diploma. And we created our school, which is not just for foster youth, we have mostly youth from the community there, but foster youth automatically get into the school, and we've had 100% graduation rate for our foster youth and 99% for our other kids. And we figured you know, what, if we can do it better, and understand what the needs of these young people are based on our 30 plus years of experience, you know, let's give it a shot.

I just feel like you're hitting on all the right cylinders, Chris, like you're partnering with like minded agencies, you know, so you all can run faster together, I think, just the diversification of revenue is so smart and, and it just feels like you're listening to these kids. Because I think you have a little bit of a social experiment going on with the school and you have proven and your case study, that if you can educate these kids and provide the support programs, their future is really limitless. And I also just want to say thank you for uplifting the mental health and the trauma piece of this, because we have got to put some investment in that. Because there's no way you can be successful in life and your job and with your family and have nurturing relationships if you're not doing the inner work to heal through that trauma. So I love that you guys are doing it. And thanks for educating us on that.

No, you're welcome. And, you know, I will just say, as an agency, we weren't really doing a lot in the mental health area, up until about four to five years ago. And we realize that we can't get these kids to stay in their jobs or to stay in their housing, if they've got mental health issues that are unaddressed. So where we were spending $0 a month, we're now spent spending close to $20,000 a month for a variety of therapists, whether we have a specialized therapist for our survivors of human trafficking, or we have a therapy therapy group near our office here. And then we've got a couple other ones. So we're giving our youth choices, and they're taking advantage of it, thankfully, which is great. And in addition, we are fortunate that through donor relationship, we also offer the same therapy group to our staff. So you have to take care of the caregivers, if they're not feeling great, then they're not going to be able to help the youth the way they need to and they need to be taken care of to make sure that they're not taking a lot of this secondary trauma home with them. So that's been a real positive development for us as well.

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You're always gonna get a standing ovation from us when you care for your staff. So thank you for doing that.

And I think even the way y'all did that is smart that you weren't didn't have to recreate the wheel but it's like you're rolling this out how do we reflect back and see how this could nurture and take care of our own team that's, you know, facing the trauma. I think trauma is the right word as you're helping others through that you are taking that on your on yourself on the level too. So just really Love the Evolve leadership that you're at, I feel like we want a little bit of context of just what is the continuum of care that y'all offer. Because I do think it's unique and your service offerings, kind of how your programs are set up. Sure,

yeah. So we have a whole spectrum of young people that we serve. We're teens and young adults, that's really our sweet spot, we do have a small program to give grants to foster parents for younger kids. But really, our expertise is in teens and young adults. And we serve people that are sleeping on the streets, sleeping in their car, they're coming to our office every day to take a shower to get a couple hot meals, and all the way up to people that are getting their masters and PhDs at various universities across the country. And everything in between. Our goal is to really look at all of the needs of these people and just meet them where they're at. Everybody's unique, their backgrounds, the trauma they've experienced, it's all very different. And so really, we have one program, sometimes we joke about this, but it's true. Our program is building relationships, if our youth don't trust us, they're not going to listen to what we have to say they're not going to take advantage of our programs, they need a safe place where they're not going to be judged. And people they can talk to that they know when I tell them these things, they're not going to correct me or tell me I should do something differently. And so that's really our approach from day one is you have to connect and build a relationship with the young person first. And maybe it takes two weeks or a month of them coming and getting meals before they even can start thinking about, okay, yeah, I'd like to get better housing than I have, or I need a better job. Now, we do have a lot of young people that they're going to community college, they've got stable housing, and all they need from us is someone to help guide them, maybe help them fill out their financial aid forms, provide them some grants for their books and laptops and things like that, and just a place they can come and check in. And then we've got some better just superstars that are really driven, really motivated, maybe all they need is a grant from us to help them with their master's degree. As far as our services go, we've got a drop in center for all the basic essentials of any young person that needs help, doesn't matter if they're in foster care or not. And then we've got four housing programs in the community. One is dedicated to survivors of human trafficking. Another one is for young moms with toddlers and infants. And then two are for other young adults. We've got a mentoring program, we do independent living workshops for teens in foster care to help them prepare for exiting the system. We've got a new workforce Academy for developing trade skills in the construction industry, for those non college bound young people that still need a sustainable career at a livable wage. And then we've got our charter school, which I mentioned earlier, has an on campus dorm where our foster youth students can live during the week, and then on the weekends in the breaks, they live with their foster family, and build that relationship with them.

I think one of the words that has just been kind of bouncing around in my head during this conversation is dignity. And I feel like you give these kids so much dignity and be in from that the trust starts to build. And that is just to me, the bedrock of what we try to do in philanthropy is we're connecting with people and this is an ethos that is translatable, whether you're at AAA, whether you're in a nonprofit, you know, wherever you are, is just seeing people listening to their needs, showing compassion and empathy, and finding a way to make it work. And I just really applaud what you all are doing. And I'm wondering if there's a face or a story that pops up have someone who has been helped by your organization that that has just really stuck with you that you might share with us?

Sure. I mean, there's lots of stories but I think the the one that sticks out to me, we had a young man who his senior year of high school, he slept in a park, he was homeless, had no support system, and he was coming to our drop in Resource Center to get food to shower up just to get help overall got out of high school and you know, we got him different various jobs here and there, but none of them really stuck. He was struggling with substance abuse issues and he was a great kid. I mean, he just you know had a good heart and he was just great to be around and he was here every single day so we got to know him really well and as did I because our resource centers right downstairs, but then you know substance abuse issues got a little worse and and he wasn't always the happy go lucky, young person that we had seen and and eventually got to the point where our staff had to tell him look, you know what you need To take a month off, you know, the way you're treating our staff and things like that is not acceptable. And, and we don't do that unless it gets to a really bad point. And so he came back a month later and he said, You know what, you know, I've missed this place, you guys are my family, I need to do better for myself, I need to listen to you guys. What you've been telling me. So we got him into a sober living program, we would visit him all throughout the program. And 90 days later, he got clean. He came in to the office, I hadn't seen him obviously in like four or five months. And he looked like a completely different person just all cleaned up, his eyes lit up big smile, he ended up getting on track got a job as manager of a Papa John's pizza place and got his own apartment, just bought his new first new a used BMW. And he's he's doing it. This is a kid that was sleeping in a park. And with our support and his determination, and him making some good decisions, he's now a productive member of our community. And he jokes around and says, Yeah, I used to be the guy that would go to those places and ask them if they had any leftover slices of pizza that I could have. And now I'm able to make pizzas for our homeless community and, and give them food and being able to turn turn someone's life around. It's not because of us. I mean, we're there to support them. It's it's their life, they need to chart the course that they want, and they need to make the right decisions. And when they're ready, they're ready. We're always here for them. We love that kid, and we would do anything for him. And, and now, you know, he popped into the office, pre COVID Unexpectedly, and it was just so great to see him and how well he's doing and just how happy he is about where he's at in his life. You know, there's other stories like that, but he's a special one for me.

I love that story, Chris and I just the full nature pneus of him being able to go back and serve his community is so beautiful. And I just really appreciate the way so many nonprofits like yours. And I know so many of our listeners who are running nonprofits, they are steady. They are a steady, reliable source of support.

I mean, that's the power of how storytelling brings color to this continuum that job built and what the result is. So what a beautiful testament to what y'all are doing. Okay, or This means our conversations kind of winding down to the end, but we love to ask all of our guests, what's your one good thing if you could offer one piece of advice that really has served you either personally or through your work at orangewood? What's one good thing?

Well, you know, we had our annual luncheon last October. And our our speaker was Dr. Bruce Perry. And he wrote a book with Oprah Winfrey recently. And really, the premise of the book is when you see somebody and they're not acting appropriately or whatever, don't don't ask what's wrong with that person, take a step back and ask what happened to that person. And that's kind of the way we look at our young people, we look through a trauma informed lens, knowing that most likely they had a lot of trauma growing up, so they're not always going to make the right decisions. They're their behaviors, not always gonna be perfect, check all of us, our behaviors aren't perfect, right? Everybody's unique. Everybody is different, you know, one size doesn't fit all. People just want to be treated with respect with kindness, and they want to be heard, all of us can do that in our everyday lives. Just treat people nicely be nice. It's not that difficult. See how you can be helpful.

I mean, that resonates with our community, it's really about how do you show up and just be a good human. And so thank you for that really important reminder. And I just want to like tell our listeners, where can they find the orangewood? Foundation? How can they connect with you let us know your where you are on social. And yeah, give us the website. Our website

is orangewood foundation.org. And I have a LinkedIn profile. So look me up and connect with me on LinkedIn, that's probably the best way to connect with me. And yeah, I just really appreciate you having me on the show and putting a spotlight on on these young people that really need a lot of support from our community. And we're happy to do our part. And yeah, just really enjoys talking to both of you. And I

would just also add on to that. Our young people who not only need support, but have so much untapped potential, that imagine if we could invest in them what they could do to create thriving communities everywhere. So I love ending with that challenge. I just really appreciate this call to arms to really lean into our foster youth. So thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

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