Welcome to the using the Whole Whale podcast where we learn from leaders about new ideas and digital strategies making a difference in the social impact world. This podcast is a proud production of Whole Whale, a B Corp digital agency. Thank you for joining us. Now let's go learn something. You've got a great guest talking about some just, frankly, really old tech that I'm excited about. Because it's going to allow more money for more good, but I won't give it away. I won't spoil it because we have DOM calms the founder and CEO of the generous how's it gone?
It's great. Thanks so much for having me on to that. Yeah,
absolutely. Glad you could come on. And I'm even more excited for you to explain what give now pay later actually means for you.
Absolutely. So, I don't know, Giorgio, if your listeners are you familiar with the Buy Now pay later space. But this is, you know, a market that sprung up around 10 years ago. And what these products allow you to do is exactly what the name sounds like you can buy a product now and pay for it over time. So the leaders in this space are affirmed Klarna and afterpay. Probably seen them in news recently, they've all been part of major IPOs and acquisitions. But the way it works is very simple. You can go to an e commerce website, let's say you want to buy a television and the television costs $1,000. Well, not everybody has $1,000 necessarily or wants to use a credit card with exorbitant interest rates. So what you would do is you would use a buy now pay later loan to purchase the product. And you can basically apply get underwritten and approved in about 30 seconds, at the point of sale, literally as you're checking out. So what would happen is you get approved, the money will be sent to the merchant by one of these companies, the merchant receives the $1,000, you then get the television, and you pay it off in installments, usually with some interest. Now, what's important to know about these loans is that they're very, very, very popular. So the CFPB Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just put out a report that said 56% of all Americans have used a buy now pay later loan to purchase a product online, which is unbelievable considering is an industry that's you know, not even a decade old. And one out of every five online ecommerce transactions today, or 20% of the market is purchased using Buy now pay later loans. So it's big, big business. And so what we've done is we've taken the best parts of that infrastructure, you've ripped out the worst part, which is of course, the interest payments, the consumer, I was about to say, yeah, we've taken that out. And what we've done is we've created the first ever philanthropic credit product, which allows someone instead of buying now and paying later to donate now and pay later or to give now and pay later. And so the way it effectively works is that you can go to your favorite nonprofits website, you let's decide, let's say you want to give them 100 bucks, you put in $100. And you basically get told, instead of giving $100 today, would you be able interested or open to splitting up that $100 over let's say 10 payments just to make the math very simple. And so you then split it up over 10 payments, however, the nonprofit receives the $100 today, and the donor gets the full tax deduction today for $100. Meanwhile, the donor pays nothing out of pocket today. And their first payment of $10 is due in 30 days from now, no fees, no interest, no late transaction costs, no hidden costs of any kind. So simply what you're doing is taking your donation the principle of it and spreading it out over payments. So it's more convenient and easier for the average person to pay over time. But we send all the money to the nonprofit, and we give the donor the full tax deduction right away.
And it sounds it sounds awesome. And I guess that'd be honest, like it's been around in the for profit ecommerce ecosystem for so long. Why is it taking so long for this to come to nonprofits?
Let's Why don't you it's very funny you say that, because when we were raising our venture capital round for this, I would talk to the VCs and all of them would be like, how has no one done this? Why like, like, I don't understand why you guys are supposed to do why didn't want to do before? And I'll give you my answer and then I'll give you what I think I'll give you my personal answer, then I'll give you what I think is a better answer. My personal answer is for a long time, Silicon Valley has ignored the philanthropic space. I mean, that's just the reality. If you look at where big innovation has occurred in the payment space in the technology world, most of it has to do with online banking payments and E commerce transactions. And I understand why that is these companies are in the business of making money. And the word nonprofit is literally in the title of right of nonprofit technology. It says nonprofit and so there's a strong misnomer that these companies can't be profitable can't be a business can't make money. However, what you know and I'm sure your listeners know is that when companies innovate in this marketplace, there's a huge amount of quote unquote profit they can make, as long as it's a sustainable and ethical fair business model. Because when I tell people all the time and they're shocked to hear this is that the nonprofit space as To find by the total amount of donations to US based nonprofits is basically the same size as the ecommerce space. Right. So last year, they were $484 billion of donations given to nonprofits. There are 1.7 million nonprofits in America, and over 200 million Americans give to nonprofits annually. And the larger the app, the average annual gift to a nonprofit in the United States is larger than the average online ecommerce transaction. So in the many ways the marketplaces are similar, one of them is saturated with credit and lending and technology products, which is the E commerce and banking world, the nonprofit space does not have that level of saturation when it comes to stuff like this. So I think that it's just been a space that's been ignored for a very long time. And the other reason, I'll tell you from more from a personal perspective, this is very, very hard to build a product like this, because not only do you need to build the technology, you need to secure a lending facility, because openly This is a lending product. So I can tell I can't get into the specific numbers, but we have a multimillionaire mean 10s of millions and more lending facility by an incredible bank foreigner that we have to community bank, Minnesota, who have you know, obviously taken a risk on us and say, Hey, we're gonna lend out a significant millions and millions of dollars worth of capital to donors who want to support their nonprofits. And that process and being regulated like a bank, and having to raise a big VC round to do this is just very, very difficult. So I think that's another barrier to entry for something like this.
Yeah, that makes sense. Also, my mind goes to like, for how many years? Did it take us as a species to finally put wheels on luggage? You go hunting reels on luggage? You do?
Yeah, yeah. Why?
Why didn't you tug in that around?
It? You're it's so true. Some of the VCs I talked to were like, This is so obvious. I can't believe it's not been done before. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, it is. But it's, it's hard to build the amount
comes down to execution. Right. So that's, that's the next layer.
So I'll just ask a straightforward question. Yeah, it sounds like you're not charging interest from what I heard on these loans to donors. That's correct. This is completely free for donors, there is no cost of any kinds of the donor. So how do you make money? Yes, great question. So yeah, I like this question. Because, you know, I've been in the what I call Phil tech philanthropy technology space for 10 years plus now. And so I, you know, I try to do things that are in the best interest of the of the sector as a whole. So from the beginning, I said, I was adamant that I didn't want to charge the donor anything, any way, whether it's a late fee, or a late whether it's an interest payment, whether it's a transaction costs. And the reason is, I think it's a bad business model to charge donors money to give away money, it's a disincentive. And you want to do the opposite, you want to incentivize them to give donations. So that's the first thing. The second thing is I wanted to create a frictionless product for the nonprofit's what I, what I mean by that is, I do not want to We do not charge them subscription fees, we do not charge them SAS fees, and we do not charge them integration costs. So from a fixed cost perspective, also free to the nonprofit, the way we make money is a success fee. So only when it's successful Donate now pay later transaction actually occurs and someone uses Donate now pay later increases their donation to their nonprofit, a percentage of that transaction is is basically debited back to the lender. And then we the generous split that with the lender. So in effect, the nonprofit is absorbing the cost of this program effectively. Well, via donation, so it comes off the top of whatever that donation comes in. Exactly. It's essentially an add on a percent yet, are
you still figuring that out? No.
So it's variable, it's actually variable. And the reason it's variable, and I'm sure you know, this is something that's very popular in the nonprofit world is allowing donors to cover a percentage of the transaction costs. So today, if you go to most nonprofit websites, when you check out, it'll say, Do you want to add five bucks to an ad 5% A cover fortune or whatever it might be? We basically do the same thing, because this is free, completely free for donors. We see a lot of donors opting in and say, yeah, we'll cover a percentage because doesn't cost me anything. And it's a couple percent and so forth. So the rate because of that the rate is very low. Okay. So it's by donor choice for a suggested tip or something like that. You're you're working on. Exactly, exactly. That's right. So the rate but that nonprofit cashes that check that day, regardless of whether that donor ends up fulfilling and paying that the total amount of effectively the loan you have given your part. You're exactly right. That's the really important part. So you know, even if a donor a month three says, You know what, I can't afford this anymore. I lost my job, or I just don't like these guys anymore. And they decide to stop paying the non there is no risk to the nonprofit, the nonprofit has already received the money. And maybe they've even used the money, right? So this and by the way, this whole process towards is instantaneous. Right? So I'm sort of laying it out methodically step by step. But the reality is you go to your nonprofit's website, you see a Donate now pay later, but you and you click it, which is our product, you can get through that entire flow. I mean, literally within a minute and a half. And this whole process happens virtually instantaneously. The money is then sent to the nonprofit immediately, and the nonprofit has access to those funds. The minute they hit their bank account regardless of if the donor fulfills the full Payment Plan and the tax receipt to comes to the donor immediately to. So if you give $1,000 to a nonprofit, you actually get $1,000 tax deduction. You know, within a couple of minutes of, of, of you clicking donate effectively, even though
you have any money, but it just jumped to the thing that caught my imagination immediately because you've made that point. It's December 15. And I'm feeling generous, but my wallet is not great. Right? I made this comment on LinkedIn, and someone had gotten back like, Oh, I've just used my credit card in the past to do that. And I was like, Oh, you mean, you got like, you know, 30 days to pay back a generous moment. I risk of APR. Thank you like lending, MasterCard. I was like, I think this is different. And I think it's different in a big way. Can you just map out this like, mindset of tax incentive? And I'll be it I'm aware that only 15% there abouts, of US taxpayer itemize? Yeah, yet to be seen with the new changes come in of auditing
grownups. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you about that opportunity. You're exactly right. So people, a lot of times think that the biggest benefit for this trap this, this type of product is the tax receipt. Now for those who gift over $10,000, this is a huge benefit, right, you're booking an immediate tax deduction, you're coming out of pocket, no money. And of course, you're just just the principal, no interest or fees. So this can be a big benefit for you. If you in fact, you itemize and you're giving larger amounts. But for the average person who gives maybe three or $400, a year to maybe one or two nonprofits, the tax receipts not going to be the biggest incentive. And for the biggest value, I should say, we've done a lot of holding with donors who have access to our products. And the number one reason that people find value in our product is simply Well, it's really two reasons within one. The first is, this is completely free for the donor. So you just made the point A minute ago, if you don't, if you put 1000 bucks on your credit card, the average interest rate in the United States, the average APR is only 16 to 18%. Okay, so now that that donation is actually not $1,000, it's going to cost you almost $1,200, right? So you are incurring these to give away money, and you're incurring significant fees to do that the exact same transaction on our product cost you nothing, it's $1,000. And that's what you're paying back $1,000. So of course, that's a huge benefit. The second big benefit that people derive from our product is, and this is actually this was the number one reason in the poll that we did with are the people who have access to the product. The number one reason people like this is simply the idea that the nonprofit that that they can pay over time for free, but that the nonprofit gets the money today. Because as everybody knows, nonprofits oftentimes are short of capital, 40% of all donations in the United States come in the last quarter of the year. And about half of all nonprofits today in the United States have less than one month of cash on hand. So the problem the nonprofit space isn't necessarily there's not enough money being given overall, because what's happened trillion dollars being given that there is a problem of liquidity, which is the money at the right time to the organizations that need it. And so this fundamentally solve that problem, that it allows the donor to pay at their convenience without stressing their bank account, or charging them anything to do it. And that is ultimately the core value of the product. I want to get a little nuanced in here. So forgive me, because I've been trying to map out the or basically game, game out the difference between the opportunity to get some, some a monthly donor, right, that sort of like give 25 every month and just let it run versus this opportunity to donate as much as I can right now and then pay it off later.
How do you look at that inflection point? What would What do you imagine? Because it's hard to say and don't have enough data? You know, there's an over under credit card numbers change and things can happen. And the I need to find the accurate data on like the average retention for a monthly donor? Well, I'm
glad you asked that question, because we do have the data from GuideStar. So I'll put it this way. I was on the phone a couple of weeks ago with the CEO of one of the largest nonprofits in the United States there within the animal space. I said, Jim, can you tell me about your monthly giving program? He said, Well, we have a significant monthly giving program we have, you know, let's just say a very large number of donors give us you know, in the order of, you know, 20 bucks a month, basically. And I said, Okay, can you tell me about, you know, your cancellation rates basically. And we didn't get into exact numbers, but it was basically it was double digit percentages, right. And according to GuideStar, this was this shocked me, by the way, GuideStar says 50% 50% of all donors who sign up to give monthly cancel within the first year. That's it, that's, that's a stat that they provide, right? So whether it's 50% 30% 40% it's a significant percentage of people who become a sustainable or a monthly giver who do not follow through as the first year. So that's the first problem with monthly giving a second run with monthly giving, oftentimes for a lot of nonprofits is again, the liquidity problem. If I said to you, hey, I can give you $120 Today, versus I can drip in 10 bucks a month for 10 Months, which would you prefer? Most people, most organizations want the money upfront. And that's the same thing with people, right? If I said I can give you 10 bucks a month for a year, or $120. Now people want the money now nonprofits are the same. They want the money. Now, they could they obviously, they need the money to do run programs, and so forth. So what I had said to this song, executive, as I said, look, let's just make up a scenario, imagine switched all of your monthly givers from a monthly Sustainer giver model, the way they give now, into a Donate now pay later fraud right into our product, it's a two things will happen first, instead of dripping in $20 a month, you're now going to get $240 upfront, right you're getting, you're getting the getting an apple pull donation upfront. So that's going to fundamentally change your liquidity profile. And of course, he agreed and was like, yes, that would be a huge change in the way we manage our cash flow. And I said, the second thing that would happen is, let's just say you're writing off 30% of gifts, because people do not follow through, you don't just reduce your monthly donor journey, your monthly dark cancellation, you eliminate it. This is one of the few products where I can sit here and look you in the face and say, we will solve this problem for you, we won't reduce it, we will end it completely. Because because you get all the money upfront. And because we absorbed the last, even if the donor stops paying, it has no effect on the nonprofit versus obviously in a normal monthly giving program when someone stops paying the profit loses the money. So those are the two material benefits and material differences between monthly giving and using the donate now pay later product. Now we're not trying to necessarily compete if people want to do both, they can do both. But the last point I'll make on this is that the beautiful part about this and one of the hardest parts with building a startup, any startup is trying to get users to adopt a new behavior, it's very, very difficult to get users to adopt the behavior they're not familiar with. Well, in this instance, donors are very familiar with monthly given gifts. Half of donors, particularly millennials, and Gen Zers are on a monthly giving program. So to the average user, the average donor, let's say for product just looks like a monthly giving program, whether they're doing it through their credit card or their debit card directly with the nonprofit or whether they're doing through us 10 bucks out of your account every month, 10 bucks out of your account every month. The difference is we give you the full tax deduction, of course, right up front, but we're not teaching the daughter a new behavior. It's something they already know how to do. Yeah, there's some nuance though,
there's definitely some nuance where I'd imagine in my mind, it's, it's a in addition to not instead of strategy, potentially, yeah, because I hear you 50% is under I know how numbers work. The other 50% is over. And so the question is, then it's on your team to renew that. And there's also a question of, you know, big numbers, scary donor, right? Oh, my gosh, you know, like, because humans math $25 A month is like, oh, I can handle that. And suddenly I'm looking at a bill what, you know, $250 or $500, you're like, Whoa, that's more than I'm ready to spend,
like, how do you think about that? The risk of sticker shock of large numbers like that? Well, we don't, because of the way the product is built, we you know, same same with the Buy Now pay later February. So we don't run into that problem. Person, the donor never sees the big number, right? They only see 1/9 of the number for example, right? So we offer three, six and nine months of payment periods, right? So so if you made a donation to the Red Cross, let's just say you're an A, you normally give $250, let's say and now you decide to get $500, you don't ever $500 does not leave your account all at once you never see the $500 number other than when you first put it in, and it's broken down for you. So you can see what does 1/9 of $500 look like, right? So, again, to make the math simple, let's just use 110? Because that's easy. Obviously, that would be 50 bucks. Right? So $50 is not scary to a lot of people, whereas $500 is, right. So when you show them, you're breaking it down. And of course, it's free for them. And they have the convenience of paying over time. That sticker shop problem doesn't really come into play for us. What is the I'm just curious, what is the max number you allow for a donation. So we can finance donations all the way from 75 bucks on the very low end, all the way in aggregate up to $50,000. So one donor can roll in. And he said like it takes 90 seconds, you could drop 5050 grand on nonprofit. I mean, it's you could if you wanted to, I mean, you need obviously you have to get approved, right? Not every single person. Like if you have active bankruptcies and tax liens and stuff. I mean, we wouldn't approve you. But yeah, I mean, the whole process can take about 90 seconds. That's right. But you're not running a credit check on someone's social, right. This does not affect their credit to apply. It's a soft credit vote. So we do look at it, but it does not affect like if you use this product, it will not affect your credit to apply for this. Yeah, I feel like that's important. You know, when someone getting a deal, FICO score dropped because they wanted to donate $100 You know, like that feels broken. That is important. Yeah, absolutely.
So you know, I kind of covered this question of does a cannibalize monthly giving, and it's interesting and like that sort of like sticker shock. I think there's still things to play with in there. I'm very curious as what you'll what you'll find And are there any other insights that you got in building this product
that you want to share? Yeah, I mean, there's so many insights. It's a great question. I think what's most astounding to me is, so when I first conceived of this, and when I looked into the Buy Now pay later space, and some of our investors come from the Buy Now pay later world and are CEOs and board members at some of those companies. So we have a lot of insights, you know, what I what you see in the Buy Now pay later space, the big the average, the big claim of buy now pay later, if you look at the ecommerce spaces, look, we can increase your average order value by 50 6070 80% plus, right. That's why Amazon and Walmart and all these companies, that's why they use the Buy Now pay later loans, and they offer them simply because when you allow somebody in any industry to pay for something over time, people will pay more money. It's a reason that people put expensive things on credit cards, not a lot of people want to drop $1,000 All at once on the TV, you let them split it up over 12 months, and they're like, Okay, it becomes more affordable. And that's with interest rates, right? That that's, that's even with charging people interest. Same thing, I always say with a car payment. Most people if they had to put all that money down right away, nobody would want a car. But if you allow them to lease it over three years, it becomes affordable. And of course, same thing with the house. People are dropping a million know most people don't have a million dollars to put down on the house, but you allow them to pay it off over 35 years in a mortgage, people buy homes. So I knew that there would be an increase in the amount that people would give using this methodology. But what surprised me is how many people said they would actually do it based off of our survey research. So we recently like as in like a week and a half ago, ran a survey with hundreds of donors, hundreds of donors, where we basically showed them the product, the prototype and the video of the product. And we then gave them a scenario, we asked them a simple question, using this product, would you keep your donation the same? Decrease your donation or increase your donation. And the most startling thing I can share with you 100%, every single donor who took the survey, and this is a random sample statistically significant, conducted by a company that not our company, we did not conduct the surveys. There's no bias in there. But 100% of the survey respondents said I would use this to increase my donation. And that's an astounding number. Right? So that's just a really interesting insight. So I knew there would be people who were willing to give more. I didn't know this many people would be willing to give, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and the opportunity is there. Really quickly, I'm trying to play the sort of voice in someone's head and executives, you know, you started off with this comparison to companies like a firm and the Buy Now pay, I now pay later, which has deep association with predatory types of you know, APR is traps for for people that can't afford things that they're buying. Yeah, what happens, frankly? And that what is your process for dealing with people that like got over their skis got more generous than their, their wallet would allow?
Absolutely. So I'm glad you mentioned the predatory neath er stuff. So as you said, at the beginning, I mentioned, we took out the worst parts of buy now pay later. Obviously, ours is interest free, so we don't get into any predatory lending or anything like that. But however, you're talking about delinquencies and defaults, which of course do happen. So we have a very generous hardship process. So basically, anybody who can't pay because of a legitimate reason, I lost my job, I can't afford it anymore. Whatever the I got divorced, whatever the situation might be, you put them into a hardship loan process, which allows them to basically ask for things like skip if they make a partial payment, can I pay down early by reducing the amount I'm having to pay, and etc, etc. And we do not charge late fees or late penalties. That's ultimately a huge consideration as well, you're not going to you know, no one's jacking up any rates on you are charging you late fees, which pull out of the Buy Now pay later is due and they got in trouble, boy. So we really have taken the worst aspects of the Buy Now pay later space, like interest, and late fees and also hard collections process. And we've removed them from our process. We don't do any of those things.
Nice. And then my next question is, I guess more of a tactical one. We we actually have oh, well, we do work with the giving block, which is a crypto donation platform. And you know, we are we're battling constantly with this mindset of like, do you want to put this all on one mega donation page? Or do you want to split it up and have different avenues for the types of mindsets of givers? Where are you landing so far on? You know, obviously, the
data that you are developing insights that you have found for good old good old gut? Yeah, if that's it's a great question. This is this is a question that we wrestle with all the time, right, like the giving block, like you were alluding to, right now, the way that we've created our integration process is it's essentially a line of JavaScript that the nonprofit can decide where best to put this button. And most nonprofits decide to put it on their main fundraising page just next to their donate button, right. So when you log visitors, you go to your nonprofit's website, they'll see the donate button next we'll see Donate now pay later. Now that's where they've chosen to do it. But a lot of other nonprofits have said like, they put on an email marketing campaign and they build out a separate page specifically for this. And so those are capabilities that were literally As I speak developing right now, but it is, it is an interesting question, because different organizations have totally different viewpoints on
this. Yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, if you've seen one, you've seen one kind of thing, depending on donor behavior. However, I could imagine a world where it fits very elegantly on a campaign specifically designed around like, pay for, you know, for five, you know, for whatever it is divided by nine, this much a month, you can do this, come here, one and done, and especially coming back and like, hammering that in December is that opportunity, hammering that and giving Tuesday window of saying like, you could be a month of donor or you know, that you're going for that? Yeah. It's, it'll be just interesting to watch and see that, Matt, how many, how many organizations are signing up using this right now
with that process? Yeah. So we have, well, we have 1000s of organizations in our basically sales pipeline, we're in the midst of contracting with several 100 of them. So I mean, like, literally, as I speak, contracts are being sent out to these organizations. And, you know, our, our, it looks like we'll be on track. And our goal will be to do about $90 million of gross loan volume over the next 12 months. That's great. That's really impressive.
Yeah, it's it's the, of course, though, you feel at the danger of being the the folks that put wheels on luggage is the rest of the people be like, does that wheels on luggage? You gotta say we've good idea.
Yeah, that's already started. That's already started. So we're seeing I wouldn't be surprised if we see, you know, basketball, close copycats, whatever you want to call them eventually. And no, I think competition is fine. You know, we're comfortable with our product. But we're certainly innovators in the space you know, this is completely proprietary was incredibly difficult. incredibly expensive to get the trademark forgive now. Donate now pay later. Yeah, we have it pending right now with the trademark office. Oh, good luck on now. That's pretty tasty. Added.
Nobody grabbed that. Yeah, you
know, it's pretty wild. So I have the trademark for a lot of things and having to do with give not give now pay later, don't eat now pay later, give now pay over time, like all of these things are pending right now with the USPTO. And actually, we've actually received some of them in foreign countries as well. So we filed in foreign countries as well, and other markets that are philanthropic Lee engaged. And we've actually received approvals and some phrases, which is interesting.
Well, very exciting. All right. Anything else to share before we jump into rapid fire?
No, this was great. This was great. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Oh, we're doing our best over here. Right? Please keep your responses to about, I don't know, 30 seconds. What is one tech tool or website that you have started using last year? Slack loves slack. Any tech issues you're currently battling with at the organization?
That's a good question. tech issues that we're currently battling with. We are? Well, it's what you referenced earlier, the various integration options, because that changes the code base of how you offer your product. So I think you know, the integration options and how you build something like that is a challenge.
What is coming in the next 12 months that has you the most excited?
Yeah, so love it. So we have also created something called a pod a point of donation advertisement, I won't get into too many details, but it's very, very cool. And it's very proprietary as well and would benefit nonprofits a lot. Talk about a mistake that you made earlier in your career that
shapes the way you do things today.
Well, so I grew up, I went to graduate school at Columbia University in New York City. And when I was in graduate school, you know, we would get told by all of our professors that we were the best and we were smart, and we went to an Ivy League school and all that what I contribute nonsense, quite frankly, now, and it goes to your head as a young kid, you believe it, and you you know, you're you're when you're told everyday, this, these things are true. So I went out there very cocky, after I graduated from grad school thinking I'm gonna get a job making 250k and I'm gonna be the man and all this stuff. And it was during the subprime Oh, eight crash, and I got nothing. I was unemployed, basically. And so it was a lesson that I learned. And so you know, about a humility and be humble. And so now that to answer your question more directly. Now, every single person who applies for a job, I don't always succeed, but I really do try to get back to them, and treat everybody with respect. They don't always succeed because I get 500 emails a day, but I try as much as I can. So it's a lesson I've taken with me my whole life. Do you believe that nonprofits can successfully go out of business? Yes, yes. It would be incredible if every nonprofit did go out of business because that would mean hopefully, the reason that they were created has been solved. You know, if that were to happen, that would be incredible. So if they could solve the problems they're intending to solve, that would be amazing. So yes, I do.
Florida throw you in the Hot Tub Time Machine back to the beginning of founding, the generous. What advice would you give yourself? Be patient and remember, it's a marathon not a sprint. We It is something that you think your organization should stop doing.
It being so hard on ourselves, and being so tough ourselves.
If I were to give you a magic wand to do whatever you want, wave it across the social impact sector,
what would it do? For me, it's very self serving, but we really don't eat out the later button. On every time
you gave me the one, I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna use it. There you go. Yeah, I don't you get started in the social impact sector.
I grew up around the world. I was born in Asia, grew up in Europe, lived in the United States, really saw the world from different perspectives saw, you know, extreme poverty when I was younger in Asia, and growing up, sort of, on the other side of things in central London. And I'd always been interested in helping people but something I was really passionate about, I thought that government was the way I could do that. Obviously, as a young man, I was naive and realize, I'm not really helping anybody here. And I was. So I was in government for a couple years. And I worked in the private sector and was thoroughly unfulfilled by just making money very unfulfilled. So I was looking for something at the intersection of profit and purpose. And I found it in Los Angeles at a company called Global Philanthropy group. This was a private philanthropy consulting firm, for nonprofits. That's where I fell in love with doing good in the world, helping people trying to make nonprofits more efficient, but still being able to have the the nimbleness and the innovation of the private sector.
What advice would you give college grads looking to enter the social impact sector?
Do not, do not give up? It's a sector that needs innovation in need smart people and smart minds. But it can be hard to break into people can be suspected motivations. People are busy, like in every industry, don't give up if you really have a passion for this. Don't give up. But one other thing I will add no yes, for one, but I have to say, don't go into this field, if you just think you want to if this is a way you think you're gonna make a lot of money, right? You go into the field if you really want to help people, because I get people pinging me once a week saying I have this new tech company that's going to revolutionize nonprofit donations, and we're gonna make a billion dollars. And I'm like, What's your background? They're like, Oh, I came from this bank or that bank or this McKinsey of era. And I'm like, You're barking up the wrong tree. That is a this is like there's made way easier ways to make money than doing this. So you know, if your motivations aren't in it for the right reasons, don't do it. All right. What
advice did your parents give you that you either followed or did not follow?
It's a great question. That's a great question. I see, well, my father gave me lots of advice over the years. But a couple of times, he's given me advice that I didn't follow, which I was thankful about, about how to respond to people that are, let's say, rude to you on email or something like that. And you write those angry responses back, and then you sit on it for 24 hours, like we've all done, and sometimes he's like, Oh, that's great response, you should send it. And I'm like, I don't know about that. I'm gonna give it a couple more days. And then I come back from I think, got it inside that email. So yeah, stuff like that. Nice. All right. Final hardball.
How do people find you? How do people help you?
Yeah, thank you. So I'm personally very active on LinkedIn. My full name is Dominic calms a LMS. pretty active LinkedIn account, always posting about philanthropy, trends in the nonprofit space, and of course, my company, be generous. And then our website is the letter B, just the letter B, the word generous, let's not be so it's just be generous.com. And we'd love to have you guys check it out.
Thanks for the work you're doing pushing innovation in the social impact sector getting more money to more good causes. We're wishing you luck. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
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