How a Food Pantry Pivoted Mission Delivery to Deepen Impact - LaVal Brewer

9:27PM Oct 15, 2021

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

LaVal Brewer

Keywords:

people

homelessness

mission

pantry

community

organization

ymca

talking

shopping

started

pandemic

nonprofit

family

walk

pivot

handed

homeless prevention

support

county

lavelle

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. Are you ready to go to California?

I'm so excited. We've got a social services expert leader fundraiser in the house, and just by virtue of spending five to 10 minutes with them one of the kindest souls. Yeah, so I am just so delighted to introduce everyone to LaVal Brewer, he is the president. No, I'm sorry, proud president that's actually in his bio proud president and CEO of South County outreach in Irvine, California. It's a really incredible organization that's working to prevent hunger and homelessness by helping people help themselves, which is really an incredible mission. So lavas Cole is to transform the organization's food pantry into a place where people who are sort of in short term crisis situations can feel like they're shopping for nutritious healthy food in a normal grocery store environment without having to pay. So immediately, my heart is exploding. And I'm getting a visual of this. And this organization was just really able to pivot in some really brilliant ways during COVID to better meet the demand and improve their mission delivery. So we're going to be diving in that today. So before I introduce you to Laval, I just want to say that he lives it in Mission Viejo, California with his wife and three daughters, who are the loves of his life. And he says they provide him inspiration every day. Thank you for including that into your bio and making yourself more of a human being LaVal. We're glad you're here.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's just a blessing to be on with you today.

Well, we're really interested in what you're doing at South County outreach, can you kind of give us an overview of your mission, your programs and the impact you guys are having?

Absolutely. South County outreach is really a hunger and homeless prevention program. So when I say that people go, Oh, great, that's awesome. But they don't really ask me what that mean. So I always go in the second part, which means we want to prevent people from being hungry. We want to prevent people from having to fall into homelessness. So for us, it's really about prevention. And it's about helping people be successful. We do that in a couple of ways. So in South County, South County, orange, South Orange County, California, you may know us from the news recently been going on South Orange County, Newport Beach, Dana Point, in the oil spill recently. That's the area we're living. We live in a beautiful neighborhood. But you know, every neighborhood has patches of hunger and homelessness, or home insecurity. So we help people by making sure that they have food on their table, through offering a client choice pantry, where you get to walk through our pantry, the market is what we call it, walk through our market and get to choose the types of foods and items your best fit your family. And then we have helpful volunteers who pick out fresh produce, and protein milk, eggs and butter that meet your needs also, literally like a counter where they say I like that, that I like that kind of meat and cannot have these many potatoes and Can I have this many oranges. So we we run a client choice pantry that makes it possible for a family to feel as normal as possible. And then additionally, on top of that, we support families or rental assistance, primarily those who are renting and making sure that they can stay in their homes. So we do that by paying their rent, when they're behind the rent. We qualify them, we make sure they actually need the money. And then we make sure that they stay in their homes, because falling into homelessness is really bad, the bad deal for anybody. So we want to prevent people from falling into homelessness.

I mean, we've talked about this a lot in health care, like trying to get to the root of the disease before it actually becomes a disease. And why would we not do this with every single one of our mission deliveries I'm loving,

I love how you described your pantry because there's such dignity for the people that you serve. Also that there's their choice is infused in this and the things that their family may like and needs and kind of just their dietary restrictions. So I just think there's a lot of dignity infused which is a beautiful thing.

What are two of our core values are dignity and respect. So when we make decisions around here, we always turn back and ask the question is what we're doing providing dignity for people and is how we're doing it being respectful to their personal, their personal beliefs and who they are. So when we when we make decisions, we're thinking beyond what we would traditionally think Someone would want or need. And we're asking, what do they want in need?

So I know Laval, you're in the middle of California, during the pandemic, California has just been an epicenter of so much, you know, that's plaguing y'all. I mean, from the natural disasters to all of the regulations around COVID. How did it force you into a place of innovation? And I can tell you're an innovative guy anyway. But what did the last year look like? Would you talk a little bit about pivoting through COVID for your mission and kind of how you approached it?

Sure. There's a couple of really critical areas where we we pivoted, so let's start off with we've been a hunger and homeless prevention program for many years, we've had client choice for at least seven years. I joined back in June of 2020. So in the middle of the pandemic, I decided that I would leave my really awesome job working at home and I would go and work here. So how do we how do we change? How do we pivot, I'll tell you what we didn't, we didn't, we didn't go away from client choice. And we didn't go away from preventing homelessness. So I'll start with homelessness first. With the shutdown, it meant that the ability for us to contact and be engaged with clients, the way we were in the past, wasn't going to exist in the future, which was very upfront, very close personal, lots of paper passing back and forth, copying, verifying, and we very quickly determine that we need to use technology and innovation in displaying DocuSign to make it possible for individuals and families to connect with us just on that part, the back and forth of paperwork. Additionally, we handed all of our team members, Google phones, which allowed us to then text our clients back and forth, which gave us greater access to them. And we put the power of a small device like this into the hands of our team members. And we didn't say, Oh, my God, people don't have computers, we don't know how we're going to connect with them. When we know them, a good number of people had those handheld devices could take a picture of the document, could then give us the information. And that would be just as good as a piece of paper handed back and forth on a desk. So we utilize tools very quickly, which were inexpensive, readily accessible to us and widely spread them to our team. We wildly just gave out that like you need a phone. Here you go. Here's a pump, here's a phone, you need access to survey monkey, okay, here's your login access, you need access to DocuSign. Let's get you DocuSign. So then we had seamless connection with our, with our clients without having to break that connection of people coming together. So that was that was one of the first things we did was, how do we stay connected? And how do we then stay true to our due diligence around helping families individuals. On the food side, it was a little hard to see how we stay connected with that. But when you walk through our pantry, you actually use a shopping cart. So you take a shopping cart, you walk in the door, and you kind of walk through the aisles and you pick things off the shelf and you get handed stuff. When when we pivoted because it couldn't come into the pantry to shop for themselves. We still stay true to the client choice model. And we ask people, what's the size of your family? What are your dietary needs? What do you like, what, what don't you like? And because we have so many volunteers who already knew are a good number of our families and individuals long term, they'd see someone's name that they knew. And they would know, they literally would know Okay, well she doesn't like chicken. Well, they need a low low sugar diet, oh, no sodium over here. And they would walk up and down the aisles. For a family they knew or family they didn't know. And they would shop for them. They would pick things off the wall off the shelf, roll that basket out and say here's your basket. So instead of hand them a box or a bag of food, we handed them a shopping basket like they normally would with shopping bags, and they would then take it and put in their car. So all we did was in that case, we just stayed true to the to the to the client choice model. And we just moved through having pickers do that, which we determined from that this is kind of a pivot a long term conversation. We determined from that that why couldn't we continue to do that we even when we opened back up the doors, which we did this last July, because that tells me that when we do that, that tells me that when we do that we're staying true to what you and I could do if we were to go shopping. So if I couldn't, didn't have time to go shopping, I can call up my local grocery store and say hey, I want this I want that or I'm going online. And then a nice person will walk it out and give it to me in my in my car. We could keep those same aspects of normal shopping experience, even when we came back into shopping in the pantry. So just to clear examples of how we moved and pivoted but stay true to the mission.

I just think you say they're just two little things. But they are simple, but they are impactful things. And I want to give you a really nice compliment. Because if your culture is so healthy, that your volunteers know your family so well that they're so in tune to, to what their needs are, that you already have connectivity, and you're ready for a moment, like Panda, you know, this pandemic, which no one is truly ready, but you're as ready as you could possibly be. And that really speaks to the culture of how you have brought volunteers into the mission and put them on the frontlines. So that is number one. And the other thing is, I'm just really impressed with the way that you all saw communication as being one of the hallmarks to being successful. When you're connected, you can you know, stay true to that due diligence. And However, you can connect people, whether that's through a phone or through WhatsApp, or if it's on email, or whatever it is, that has to be integrated, so that everybody is speaking with one voice, because I'm assuming that your situation is probably changing all the time. And what what you're getting low on is something that somebody is going to need to know if you have a specific pain point that was not existing, you know, during non quarantine times that might pop up. So I just really think this commitment to innovation and seeing the mission so clearly, really makes you kind of a growth mindset leader. So kudos on both those things. One of the things that you had kind of educated us about was just that we that our country is really in a state of crisis right now with like an A homelessness crisis right now. In fact, I was so shocked when I saw the stat that more than 500,000 people nationwide are currently experiencing some form of homelessness right now. That's shocking. I mean, that's like twice of what the great recession was. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, you know, the state of homelessness right now in our country, and how you can talk about the insights and solutions that exist.

So I really wish I can give a solution because that'd be, that'd be the blessing of the other world, right? Totally just be the, I can't say I know the solution. I've seen some really good good solutions around the world around the country. The billions project back in New York, which took one street at a time and really got people housed, and just focused on the most chronically homeless people and just said, we're going to just do this one person at a time we're going to get these people off the street, and other efforts around homelessness. I think the thing that for me, where we live, which is in South County, which people go, Oh, you're really wealthy, and there's lots of wealth there. I think we're, I struggle here in that conversation, what you're asking for, and how we solve it, is I see a lot of people who are homeless or are potentially homeless, who are still housed. Right. So what I mean by that is, they move in with a with a family member, or they, if they're with us, let's say 20 to 25 age of my children, there's sometimes couchsurfing with their friends, their family members, and you don't see them. Or a family might have a job where they're working all day long, but don't have the ability to get into rental housing or any type of housing so they live in their car. And they and they you don't see them in South County you don't see him in some places. Because they're moving from one place to another because they don't want to get hassled for living is sleeping on the street. Or they don't want to be seen. So I mean, there's a lot that kind of baked into that. And the one thing I can just say from my personal opinion and I'm not an expert trust me I'm really not because I've only been doing this for a year and a half is say that it's one thing that it drugs or alcohol or it's our it's it's it's uh, they don't want to have housing or whatever. Okay, sure, that's very possible. We also know that there's a good number of people who want to be housed, have a job in our own house. And aren't in isn't because they're on, you know, drugs or alcohol or some other mental health, it just sometimes you lose your job, and you don't have a fallback. And your safety net, which is possibly your savings doesn't exist, or is diminished very quickly. And that makes you fall into homelessness. Of that

your mission is so community based. I mean, it serves the community, and you've really embraced the community based fundraising approach as well. And they have had a lot of success in finding community centered partnerships. Would you talk a little bit about some of those kind of nuance wins and how to really know ignite that and surround your mission with support?

Sure, yeah, I've I've had the fortune of being trained up as a YMCA staff person. So I started working for the YMCA back in April 5 1980. Five, and kind of grew up in the YMCA and eventually became an executive director of three different YMCA in Southern California and the YMCA fundraising model is all about community it is about is about your local community supporting your local YMCA who is supporting those who can't afford the services that others might afford. So in other words, you at viewer had a membership, you can maybe afford that membership. But maybe there's someone else who couldn't afford that membership. So YMCA raise money to support those people who could not afford the membership through the membership. Or if you were in childcare, a childcare person and you you could afford the the monthly rate for childcare. But maybe someone else couldn't want to raise money to support a family who could not afford the childcare. So we learned really quickly that it was really about the community support in the community, which I think really kind of helped me when I got here because our community supports our community. But in the bigger picture around fundraising, I've always taken the approach that people give to things that are local, they give the things that are national to the things that they care about. But when you start talking about my neighborhood, and where I live, and, and my neighbors, it becomes real, especially when you put a face on it right? When you go we can when you can kind of give us a picture of here's what's happening, here's how you can help. That includes major funders. And I say major funders, individuals who live in our community, and include foundations. So when we do fundraising, and we think about fundraising, we are talking about local, we're talking about right here right now. And here is why. So I rarely in my fundraising pitch and some people were like, I don't know about that. So I'm just gonna tell you how it works for me. I really my fundraising pitch started talking about how many people we served. Rarely, Miss it's a it's, I will say to someone asked me like how many people to serve last year, I'll tell them how many people we serve. But as far as talking about fundraising, I'm not talking about today. I'm talking about tomorrow, next week, next year. Because the reality is that I want to make sure that we are funding into the future enough funding today, for funding Today we're in crisis, right? We're in crisis, or we're just making it by that's just not good enough, right? So we're always I'm always fundraising into the future. Here's what's going to be different in the future or here's where we're going or here's how you can help so I'll give you an example. One of our most successful fundraising campaigns that we did here last year was the milk eggs and butter campaign. And the reason why we did that campaign was because multiple times I was walking through the pantry and I don't I don't run the pantry I just I run the organization other other competent really great people run the pantry. I was walking through the pantry and I saw a woman turn back and she humbled herself to say hey, do you have any milk it had to ask us if we had some milk and then once I was looking at the milk we had the milk we get sometimes from from grocery rescue in other words your local grocery store says hey this is as close to into the shelf life here you go give it away and I was noticing that the milk we were getting was expiring the next day and and back that dignity respect thing we're like huh that's not very dignified and respectful. And then I just started thinking about you know, what is it we really should be doing here because we had some extra resources because people our community was was rallying around food insecurity. That's it you know, we're gonna do we're gonna buy milk, eggs and butter. And the campaign we use was to quantify why we should buy milk eggs and butter. Not Not for today because we already had the money right? remind you we had the money because we got money to help. It was for tomorrow we said, we want to make sure that every time someone walks in our pantry, they get fresh eggs, milk and butter if they so choose. And why do we want that because you donated some macaroni and cheese last month. And now macaroni and cheese in that box cost 69 cents, maybe $1.09 in a way you live, but you don't have any butter in any milk. You can't make that macaroni and cheese

the magic ingredient as my kids call it.

Yes.

So the campaign was was really around. We need to continuously make sure that this item that cannot be donated by you walking hand in tune that I have the ability to buy because I want to make sure that no one goes without milk, eggs and butter. Why? Because I want the food you gave me yesterday to be used. People got it all automatic. They're like Oh I get it. I get so I'm giving you 69 cents worth of macaroni and cheese and I feel great but the reality is a parent or a family can have to go buy butter and milk which is Four times more than that macaroni and cheese. Sure, overwhelming success around people saying we get it. In the campaign when we did the milk, eggs and butter, we tied it back to the second part which are home because you always want to tie both of those together. So we started saying what does it mean to be at home and cook for yourself. So we said, you know, there's nothing better than cooking, cooking, because I, my daughter's love to make cookies every once in a while. So our kick, he come home, you smell the cookies in the house, you know what that gives you, it gives you that really good feeling of home. So for us, we were like, if you can make cookies at home, then your child knows that you're loving new love on them that you love them to death, because you're making them something so delicious. And so personal, those cookies, whatever cookies it are. And that gives you that sense of home and that sense of hope. So we want both of those to come together. We want you to be able to cook for yourself and make nurse for meals, we want you to be able to cook at home and feed your family's body. But also there's so that was a magic campaign brought both them together.

Laval I want to reach across and give you the biggest mom for what you are doing and how you have figured this out. And I also think you have more than 30 years in the nonprofit sector you have been in the social service and community based organizations. And I'm just curious, like as a leader, because you're so good at tone setting. What kind of leadership advice do you have that you've learned along the way for leaders who are kind of trying to navigate this new world right now.

So I think the advice I've been, I've given myself and given others is, one, don't look at the bright, shiny object of the organization next to you. That's not important. What's important is what you can do and what you can solve. Right? So one, great, you're doing an awesome job, go do that. And I'm I love you for it. Second, for me, leadership is leadership. I think that I think a lot of times when I was a first time executive, I was trying to be all things to all things. So I was trying to be the executive director and the program director and the finance person and and the and sometimes the chief table mover. Still Am I still am the chief table because when you gotta you got to be a servant leader, you got to be right. So there's some things you got to do. Leadership is leadership. It when your executive director, CEO, your job is to lead. It's to say, Where are we going? How are we going to get there, then turn back and communicate that to all involved? Whether it be your staff who are going to be marshaling the work, your volunteers are supporting the staff, the volunteer, the organization, your donors who are saying, here's how we how we fundraise and into that space. And your community who says Why are you doing where you're doing? And how are you doing it? How are you helping us. So you got to turn it communicate, here's what we're trying to do. And you need to be clear and concise. So don't you don't need to tell everyone everything, tell them what's important. And tell them what's happening next, and then tell them why you're doing. And then for me, it's Get out of the way and let people who know how to do the work, do the work. Right. So let my programs team, let my just my leaders, my staff, let them go do their job. And then I have my job on that on that is to just come around and support them, encourage them, remind them where we're going provide systems and solutions for them to be successful. So they do it easily. So it's, it's easy. And then, at the end of the day, say here's what we did it, remind them that where we're going is where we're still heading, and how far we've actually moved towards that. And then my job is to not get caught in that. But stay out in front, stay out in front and communicate from that. That's really actually really hard work. Because I see things that go wrong all the time. And I just want to I'm like oh go fix it. Like don't go fix it. That's not your job. You don't do that. So those are the key two things. I think the last thing that I would I would add into that is diversify your revenue. So our nonprofit you know the food pantry, obviously there's no revenue, you know being generated there. But I have a thrift store down the street. And when I first got here that thrift store was about 2000 square foot of sales floor. One of the first thing we did was we moved that in is now 3500 feet of sales floor and another 15 100,000 feet of warehouse space behind it. We during the pandemic while people were you know, in some cases not going out and shopping. We prepared for when we reopened and it is just gone gangbusters almost 25% over previous year revenues because we focused on How do we maximize the success of this thrift store.

And then on the other side, we have 17 condo units, and we got a donor to pay off the loan that we had. So this was a big donation from one of our donors paid off the loan that allowed us to then eliminate that monthly payment, and eliminate the interest and then reinvest those dollars were getting for rental back into the back into the organization. So the ability just kind of maximize our revenue and move forward within that is a critical part of what a nonprofit has to think about. And then on the on the second side is, we started white labeling our homeless prevention work. Remember I told you how we did that work around the technology and everything? Well, one of the things we realize is that there are other cities and municipalities who might actually be able to utilize that service on the back end. In other words, they needed to help. And we had the expertise. So since then, we've started helping other communities outside of our local community. And we've been helping with rental assistance with other weather organizations. Basically, we're white labeling that because we're helping a behind the scenes we're not promoting. We're not promoting that South County outreach is working in this city or in that county or in this area, we're just taking in the work getting paid to do that work, maximizing our return, having a contribution to overhead and covering staff costs, and then maximizing those staff to be as productive productive as possible without being working hard. So that that back end piece provides me with additional 10% of well, not full 10% additional revenue line that supports the operations.

Okay, you have our hearts because you're teaching the printers, ship hacks, thinking like a business not just being stuck in that we're in the nonprofit tax code. I love everything you're saying about revenue streams, the disruptive ways that you have found stability and activated your donors and really kind of unique ways, all coming to the table. But let me say what it's what's really drying out to me is we're just all texting among ourselves of how sage and wise you are. And I just think this is a calling to say, we need to expand our peer groups and be talking to people that have been in this you know, and if you don't have somebody like Lavelle in your world, like mentorship is so key, you have had this wisdom that's come because you've sharpened your software, 30 years in, you know, doing the hard work at the YMCA for all those years. And now you're you know, in your prime, doing the best work. And I just think we need to surround ourselves with different this cognitive diversity of thought of approach. And it's just so good and wholesome.

Yes, thank you for saying that you are so spot on john. And I also think this is a challenge to everyone listening. If you're doing something great, put a framework together and share it with your nonprofit friends there is there is something we can all learn from each other. The fact that, you know, South County outreach has figured out a way to work within these systems and you would share it with others not only is that sharing is caring, hashtag Sharing is caring and kind. It's the kind thing to do. But it's going to ultimately help you reach your collective goals in that area of homelessness and hunger prevention, it's only going to help serve and just think about the the partnerships that can come in with that I remember when we had feeding Tampa Bay on early in season one and they were talking about in COVID. You know, they ended up partnering with a cafe, they ended up partnering with an IT solution and somebody else that was doing something that was not quite exactly in their reign, but they understood it had a ripple effect to their people. So figure out your partnerships, share your frameworks and your successes. And this is not bragging this is you can make it a humble brag. If you want come and tell us we will put you on the podcast because we want these ideas to be multiplied and we want them to ripple out as much as possible to do more good. Thank you Lavelle, what you're doing is really extraordinary.

This storyline of this the individual I mean, you gave us an incredible hack that you don't talk about the big stats because it comes down to the one that you're serving. I wonder if there's a story that you would share of how philanthropy has really transformed somebody's life that you've worked with, or maybe it's some thing personal

during the economic downturn of 2008. You know, being a nonprofit executive. We struggled, right? We struggled, our family struggled and it was hard. And my wife said something when I started here, she said you know there was one there was one point where I thought maybe we should go to a food pantry. And I didn't know that. Reality is I probably was thinking this I think I'll do the same thing and she told me that story and And I was like, wow, you know, we didn't do that we probably could have helped ourselves if we had done that, right. That's our that's our core mission, right? Well, one of the things I keep thinking about when I'm walking through our pantry, and I don't have a name for you, or a particular person, but I started to notice that there are more and more men who are walking through our pantry shopping for their families. And when I was looking, I started noticing it more like clearly it was always all women, like when I say 90 95%, women would shop through the pantry, I started seeing more men walking through. And I asked myself, What have we done to allow more men to humble themselves because my wife was taking it. And that is that makes sense to me, right? Female, stereotypical female shoppers and family want to make sure they're fed. I get that. I didn't think about it for me personally at the time. So when I was thinking, like, but there's these men who want to provide for their family, and they they maybe can't, but now they're humbling themselves to come into our pantry. In the in the beauty of is asked why are they humbling themselves. Now, I don't think it's because of the pandemic versus the economic downturn. I actually think it's because we made the shopping experience, so normal, and so relevant to what they would possibly do that it wasn't that they were humbling themselves, that they weren't being vulnerable. But it was that this is where I go shopping, and I'm not going to feel less than because of it. I am just encouraged by that part of our mission that we can make people not say I'm less than, and that a man like myself, could then help themselves, which that core mission that we have to help themselves, a man would be willing to come in and help themselves and do what may not be a traditional effort.

And that is when you know that your nonprofit is truly a pillar of inclusivity of dignity, of respect when you don't even have to make that a core program. It's just part of the culture when you walk in, so good for you for starting there. And promoting and fostering an environment and an ecosystem where someone can come in and just feel that way that is next level leadership and insight. Thank you so much for that. You know, I hate to ask this question, because it kind of means we're starting to slow our conversation. But what is your one good thing we'd love to ask this of all of our guests, it could be a life hack, helpful lesson or habit for someone? What's your one? Good thing Laval.

Make it easy for your team members to do their job. If it's anything that I do that brings me joy, brings my life hack eight is how do I help people find joy in their lives. And I know that about myself, when I have the ability to do it, I do it because it brings me joy, and it fills me up. And when I'm full and I'm good, I overflow out of my picture into this into a cup. And in that cup is my team. And when I flow outflow in that cup so well that they get filled up, that they do their job so easily and effortlessly that it just works if they flow outside their cup into the saucer. And the saucer is our community and our clients. So my role, our role. Our my big thing is build people up so they can fill up other people

anymore. No, I did not think I could that was such a beautiful one good thing. And honestly, that comes through and in the way that you talk and the way that you storytel and the way that this mission is set up. Allowing I think ending homelessness. Ending hunger is going to put an infuse so much joy into people's lives. And it allows them to have creature comforts that you don't have when you're in crisis. So that was beautiful. Thank you.

How can people connect with you? We love your mission. I know people are gonna want to connect to your mission, South County outreach, what is the best way to connect with you Lavelle also?

Sure. I'm an I'm an open book, you can go to our website at SEO hyphen osi.org. And you can see all the programs we do. If you want to connect with me, my email is available. It's l Brewer at SEO hyphen osi.org. Send me an email, I'd be more than happy to respond to you.

I love it when founders and CEOs give out their personal email address, you know the real so please go check out their website. If you feel so inclined to make a gift. I think you have been convinced on this podcast that it will go to extraordinary. Use it and I just thank you for what you're doing in Southern California and I and I know that we have a lot of social service nonprofit professionals that lifts into this podcast. So I hope you got some really incredible nuggets. Go check out Lavelle and their team. He's just you guys are just doing a great job.

Yeah, it's been an honor talking to you.

Thank you so much.

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