2015 All-In to Fight Cancer - An Interview With Co-Founder Steve Amedio
In this March 4 2015 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays, host Eric Cook (WSI) and co‑host Jeff Simpkins interview Steve Amedeo, co‑founder of the nonprofit All In to Fight Cancer. Amedeo recounts how the charity originated as a tribute to his friend Rob Eubank, a young entrepreneur who died of aggressive colon cancer, and how the idea of a charity Texas Hold’em poker tournament emerged during Rob’s final months. The conversation covers the evolution of the event over four years, detailing its scale (≈700 attendees, 50 tables, live music, raffles of Apple products), entertainment, and the inclusive atmosphere that mixes survivors, professionals, and volunteers. Amedeo explains the multichannel marketing strategy—social media, email lists (~5,000 local contacts), radio airtime via Clear Channel, yard signs, and traditional print—and how sponsors receive visibility through branding, co‑marketing templates, and social amplification. Financial operations are run on a volunteer basis with in‑kind professional services (accounting, legal, tax filing) and all proceeds are donated directly to four beneficiary organizations: 24 Hours of Booty (Levine Cancer Institute), Novant Nurse Navigator Program, Go Jen Go Foundation (women’s cancer financial aid), and the Isabella Santos Foundation for neuroblastoma. Personal impact stories, such as the Tanner‑Pam and Go Jen Go narratives, illustrate the charity’s tangible effect. The interview also reveals plans to expand to a second venue in San Francisco, maintaining the hyper‑local giving model while growing the brand. Throughout, Amedeo offers advice for others wanting to start similar charitable events, emphasizing passion, leveraging professional expertise, and creating scalable, inclusive experiences.
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Well, greetings everybody. Welcome to the Wednesday, March 4th, 2015 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook, and I'm with WSI Internet Consulting, where we work with businesses and organizations in helping them better understand and leverage the power of the internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me and WSI online at www.poweredbywsi.com. I am sitting here for the second time in Free Webinar Wednesday history with my good friend and Free Webinar Wednesday partner, Mr. Jeff Simpkins. He's so close I could actually touch him and I think I will. Poke. I just poked him and I didn't even have to use Facebook to do it. So Jeff, say hello to everybody out there in Free Webinar Wednesday world. Hello everybody, this is Jeff Simpkins. I'm with Community Bank Consulting Inc. And you can learn more about me and Community Bank Consulting online at www.communitybankconsulting.com. Awesome. Well, it's good to have you back. I missed you last week. I had to go all by myself, but fortunately we had several folks in the audience that kept me company with ideas. And the app show tended to be a little bit more, shall we say, Android Google focused, just because those are the apps that I'm experienced with. But we did manage to sneak a couple of iOS apps into the mix and a couple of new things. I think we discovered one of the limitations of the Evernote app on Android doesn't scan the little Evernote notebook the way that it does on an iPhone so there's some missing functionality there unfortunately. We had a good little show but it's good to have you back and I don't need to ask you what the weather's like because I'm sitting right here with you and it's getting sunny and it might even reach 70 today. You've reached one of our— you've come to Charlotte in one of our Yeah, exactly. Tomorrow it'll be gone. Considering when I left Detroit yesterday, we de-iced several times before we could leave Detroit Metro, this is a welcome change. So before we get started with our official presentation today, a couple of housekeeping items, as is typically the case here on the show. Wanted to make sure everybody remembers today, this show and all shows are recorded, made available at freewebinarwednesdays.com. So if you'd like to go back and check the show out or look at maybe some of our past episodes, you're welcome to do so. to do that online. And we also encourage and would love to have questions, comments, or anything else that you'd like to share. Please feel free to use the chat feature located in the control panel, which is likely hovering over to the right-hand side of your computer screen. And we'll go ahead and keep an eye on those. And if you've got any questions, feel free to do that. And then lastly, if anybody's dialed in on the telephone, just as a word of caution, The default phone number that is presented when you dial into Free Webinar Wednesdays is a Canadian number, and if you do not have international calling on your rate plan, you're going to want to make sure you disconnect, check out the actual numbers, and go ahead and dial up the American United States number if that is important to you. So with that, for the first time in Free Webinar Wednesdays history— so we, we've actually had a first time last year where I actually was sitting with our guest. We had a first time last year where I was sitting with Jeff, but this is the first time in almost 6 years that Jeff and I and our guest— and I'm going to poke Steve as well.
Yes.
I poked 2 of my buddies today and didn't have to use Facebook for it. I am joining you again this year, and this is Jeff's first time here, but Steve Medeo with TechniQs and the co-founder of an awesome effort that I came down and didn't do so well in Texas Hold'em, but I had a really great time at the event, and it was way more inspirational than I even thought it was going to be, called All In to Fight Cancer. So Mr. Amedeo, welcome to Free Webinar Wednesdays again. I'm thinking this is going to be an annual show.
I'm hoping so.
I'm hoping so.
Good to be back.
Keep the event on a Wednesday, and I think we can make it happen.
Yeah, well, I think that's probably true because we can't afford a venue on the weekend. Middle of the week is a Oh, cool.
So, uh, so as the write-up says, and hopefully you've had an opportunity, and I'm just gonna make sure that you all kinda check this out, the show link from last year. But I also wanna bring up, and I'm sure we'll talk about this as well because I've heard Tanner's gonna be back again this year, although don't put me at his table because he took me out last year way too early. He's a good player.
He is a good player.
But Steve will talk a little bit about this because this is one of the more inspirational stories that I've ever heard about an event focused on charity and fundraising and how it brings it all back together. But really encourage you to listen to this video or watch this video of Steve's speech last year where he introduced the Tanner and Pam story. So I'm sure we'll get to that, but certainly wanted to make mention of that. We've got a deck that we're actually going to go through. We've got some websites and some social sites that we'll make sure we come up with here. I guess let's go ahead and jump right into it. Maybe, Steve, give us the background of All In to Fight Cancer, what inspired you. We'll flip through the slides here, but really just tell the story about you and Rob and how this happened, where it's grown, and where you plan on taking it in '15 and beyond.
Yeah, sure. We've got some exciting stuff that we're doing. Thank you, everybody, for allowing us to be on and talk about something that's near and dear to us, which is All In to Fight Cancer. It's the brainchild of really my buddy Rob Eubank, and I can't believe that Rob's been gone for 4 years. The anniversary of Rob's passing was February 25th of this year, was the 4-year anniversary. So Rob was a very young guy, healthy guy, one of the healthiest guys that I know, frankly, or had known, and took great care of himself, was an amazing athlete, and he woke up one morning to a A very aggressive colon cancer diagnosis at the age of 37 years old, I guess 36, getting ready to turn 37. Rob was an amazing guy and he and I were buddies and he fought cancer very hard for a little over 2 and a half years before losing his battle with cancer. And, you know, like all folks I suppose who fight that battle, as time began to Draw to a close on his life and our relationship. We started to spend more time together. He did that with a lot of his friends and family, of course. And during that period, you know, he got interested in, I believe, and cared very much for how he could leave a bit of a legacy. He was actually a fantastic entrepreneur. He had started a very large technology staffing and consulting business that is a hundred plus million dollar business here in the Southeast called the Attain Group. He did it with a few of his friends. John Olin and Jeff Harris and Brian Deblitz, and they had a great business. So we already had a legacy. He was a great entrepreneur, but you know that became less important as we got near the closing of his time with us. And what really became important was how could he help and what could he do to last. Folks gave Rob great care, and in those, those last few months, we started talking about the legacy, and we started talking about the people that had cared for him, and we started talking about, well, what What could we do to keep his memory alive and to do good by the cancer community here? So we happened to be doing a lot of kind of running around. We played in a few golf tournaments and we went to a couple of 5Ks and a bike race. We're involved with 24 Hours of Booty here, which is a fantastic charity that raises money for cancer. But we also played within about 3 months, I suppose, of Rob passing, we played in a poker tournament. And after a couple years, 2 and a half long years, I suppose, of Rob fighting pretty hard to stay active and stay well and be participatory in his life and be with his family, he was pretty tired. And, you know, kind of running around town and showing up at events and participating, especially in anything that was particularly active, got kind of challenging for him. And so we played in a charity poker tournament, just as it would happen. That one in particular was a great one that was run by Easterseals and that benefited Easterseals. And we kind of sat down and we had such an amazing night. Rob sat at a table with myself and 7 other folks, and we had great conversation over many hours, and he shared his story and the joy of his life, and many folks came up to him and talked with him and shared, you know, how much they cared for him, and the experience was really fantastic for him. So when we left that event, he just kind of said to me, you know, maybe this is the thing. Maybe we could do something like this on a large scale. Maybe this is an interesting way. And when I asked him why, I think it was because because it was easy for him to be there, because he was able to go and sit at a table and be in a chair. He was, you know, still in the throes of very intense treatment, fighting to the very end to try and beat cancer, and he was able to really enjoy his friends and be surrounded by people who cared about him and to do it in a way that was comfortable and manageable, you know, rather than to be out running or riding a bike or doing some of the other fundraising events, which are all wonderful, certainly, events and worthy, but they're difficult sometimes for survivors to participate in. So we, on that day or very shortly thereafter, created All In to Fight Cancer, which is, we believe, the only that we know of 501 in the U.S. who's chartered specifically on using Texas Hold'em as a format for charity fundraising. So we're a 501 and our designation is based on playing charity poker. And so we began planning our very first event Just shortly after that period. And sadly, Rob didn't get to play. He passed just a few weeks before our first event, but All In to Fight Cancer is his legacy and to this day is a fantastic way to bring people together. We'll have at this year's 2015 event, which is our 5th event in 4 years, we'll have 700 people, 100 or so of them survivors and people in the cancer community locally, oncologists and nurse navigators and service workers and people that serve the cancer community as well as survivors themselves. And those folks will be spread out at tables. They'll spend time with 8 or so other folks, lots of intimate and important conversation, great relationships will be built. And to this day, I still have people that will stop me in the grocery store or on the street and tell me that the time they spent with a survivor during All In was life-changing for them. So it gets people very close to the core of what it's like to be a cancer survivor, and as a result, a lot of really good things happen.
Cool. One of the things that I want to maybe talk a little bit more about this time around is— last year's title, I think, for the post was Cancer Sucks, What Are You Doing About It? We touched on your creation, or yours and Rob's creation of this, and I think a lot of people are out there looking at this and going, how do I even start doing something like this. I, I had somebody that impacted me. I care. I want to make a difference more than just showing up and playing poker. I want to create a 5K or a poker tournament or a bicycle race or some other event. Maybe walk through some of the logistics of going through this and starting it out and the challenges of keeping things going. And then, you know, we've talked about scalability before.
Yes.
And really Or not. Or not, or sometimes not. But getting maximum exposure to— talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, I have an incredibly unfair advantage. I run a marketing company, so as a result, we've got 100 employees. They market for folks every day. We build software, we do data creation, we run marketing operations and marketing campaigns for folks on and offline. I have a team of people who live and breathe the kinds of activities that you need to do to be able to promote a cause. So I have a very, very unfair advantage. The brand itself was created by my creative director. He was also a very close friend of Rob's. And it was created in a— he'll tell you— almost an epiphany, a moment of clarity where he came up with the mark. And the branding and the mark has served us so incredibly well. But I would say nonetheless, despite my unfair advantage. It can be done, and it can be done by just about anybody. It does take some elbow grease, and I will tell you, and I always tell people this when they say, oh gosh, All In has gotten so big, and it's so successful, and you guys do such a great job, and I'll say, thank you, of course, because we do appreciate it, and we do work very, very hard for the local cancer community, but events are also not the best fundraising ideas, right? They're not the most scalable, and I don't know if I told this story last year, but I'll tell it this year. And the best example of that was after our very first year. You know, a lot of time and energy went into the event, and we did raise, you know, $30,000 or $40,000, and we gave all that back to the cancer community. And that was a proud moment because that's not an insignificant amount of money, but it's also not a huge amount of money. One of the things that we were doing was giving some money back at that time to Livestrong because Rob was very active in Livestrong before he passed. As a matter of fact, think about LIVESTRONG or about Lance, one of the highlights of Rob's last year of his life was riding in Austin with Lance and spending time with Lance Armstrong. And I firmly believe that that extended his life some at the very end. So I went down to Austin and presented them a check. And, you know, I happened to be next to a guy who was also in the lobby. And I said, hey, what do you do? He's like, oh, we're a charity. I was like, oh, we're a charity too. We're raising money. He's like, yeah, we're making a donation this year to the LIVESTRONG Foundation. I'm like, oh, that's great. That's why I'm here. He said, what's your cause? And for those of you that haven't heard of it, it was the gentleman who started Movember. And so they've gone, you know, from zero to raising a couple hundred million dollars by having dudes grow mustaches. So here's what I would say about if you want to start a charity. I would say do it because I'm not kidding when I tell you it's been the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life. It is the best day of the year for me, and it keeps Rob and his spirit and those people that are fighting, including my sister who's 8 years out from a lung cancer diagnosis, many friends and family that have been stricken with the illness, it keeps them all very top of mind, and it's powerful. It can be very powerful in your life, so please do do something. You might want to think of a really interesting and scalable idea, maybe one that's more scalable than poker tournaments. We have managed to scale. We're going to raise almost $200,000 at this year's event, so significantly more than the first year. We'll have about 700 people, as I indicated, at the event, but it was no $200 million Movember idea. While we appreciate it and we love it and it is our labor of love, it's not a huge organization, but it is near and dear to us. I think that's probably, in the end, really all that matters is that you're passionate about it. And so, you know, pick a cause, get behind people and benefiting organizations that do the great work every day in whatever community, whether it be the cancer community or whatever charity it is that you want to support. There's tons out there. Pick something that's near and dear to your heart and passionate. And if you're passionate about it and you love to talk about it and you like to share that energy and enthusiasm with other people, good things will happen. Ideas will come, people will come to support, volunteers, corporate organizations, Charity is an interesting thing. Sometimes people view fundraising as competitive. There's a dollar out there and you have to tell your story and hope that you can get a portion of somebody's dollar. I'm not sure. I don't know how to do the math, but I'm not sure that's actually true. I think if there's more of us out there telling the story and we're all very passionate about it, I think giving just grows. I think people just give more. I think there's, there's, and there's still more out there, and there's still more to give. So if you do have an idea, or you do have an organization or cause you want to support, just be passionate about it and share it with as many people as you can, and you'll find yourself surrounded by other people that are passionate, and it'll, it'll kind of take on a life of its own. That's what's happened with us.
Very cool. Well, we've got your deck up, so I'm just going to kind of, I guess, pick a couple of other slides to talk about. I know one of the things you try to do, and I saw it, I mean, this slide talks about being a world-class event planner. event and the entertainment and some of the things that go on. Maybe, and if anybody is in the Charlotte area and they are interested in joining, is there still tickets available?
There are, although we are sold out of player tickets this year, which is great, but there's attendee tickets. And of course, if a guest of yours happened to show up, I'd find a way to get them seated at the table. I can promise you.
So if you show up and mention Free Webinar Wednesdays, Maybe they won't necessarily know what you're talking about. But say Free Webinar Wednesdays and Steven Medeo and combine those 2. That way we'll make sure you get a place. And if you ask real nice, maybe I'll give you my seat because I don't have real high hopes of going real far.
You didn't last year. It was very entertaining but brief.
Yeah, I'm here for moral support and the good part is I was at a table close enough to the That's right. That's probably the best part. But talk about some of the entertainment and the other things that go on for people that aren't playing, or maybe, oh, I don't know, maybe get knocked out early and need something to do the rest of the night, like myself.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So yeah, so it is interesting. It is not just a hold 'em event. So there's obviously some other fundraising activities like raffles and things like that. There's live music. We have 2 live bands. Both of which are groups of folks who were friends of Rob. And so, I mean, this really is a very tight-knit group that it started with. So the entertainment, they're— first of all, they're fantastic musicians. The 2 bands are called Melon Belly and the Whiskey Dollars, and they play here locally. Cliff writes a lot of children's music, and John and his crew still play around the local area. They're certainly hobby musicians, but they're super talented guys. And so We have some live music. It's really fun. We've got drinks and food, and as I indicated, there's raffles. There's opportunities to take pictures with groups, and we do a lot of social and posting as a result of that. There's a lot of information about our benefiting organizations. I mean, one of the big things we want to do is make sure that everybody gets an understanding of who we benefit and what good work they do in the community. I mean, in the spirit of Rob, you know, he was really clear with me when we talked about, you know, what would we create and how would we create it and what would it be like, what would the experience be like. He was adamant that, you know, we not get a bunch of people in the room and, you know, show a bunch of pictures of dying cancer patients and, you know, sadden everyone with the situation. I mean, certainly— It is sad if you let it get to you, but it is, because cancer is pervasive. I think 1 in 5 are still the stats, so 20, everyone's got a 20% chance, which is just insane. And it is a sad thing, but he refused to let that be the theme, right? So we really, I mean, All In is a very big party. I mean, essentially, it's joyful. We remember those that have passed and we honor those folks, but really we party. And we spend time with survivors and people that are in the fight, and their caseworkers, and their medical professionals that are supporting them. We tell stories, we reminisce, we talk about old friends, we listen to great music, we have a few drinks, eat. I mean, it's a— it is a party for sure, and it will always be that way. And, you know, I think there's something to that for the brand as well too. You know, there are a lot of ways to raise money, and for those of you that are thinking about like Eric indicated earlier, maybe start getting something started. There's lots of different ways that you can do it. I will say that by bringing joy to people's lives, a little bit of joy, I think you get a little further than perhaps the other, you know, strategies. So people look forward to the event. They know that it's not going to be sad for them, that it's going to be joyous, that they're going to remember those folks that have been and are still in the fight, and it becomes a point that they can rally around and that can motivate them for the rest of the year to stay involved. in the cancer community or in whatever charity. So it is absolutely a world-class event. It is a party, and we have a ton of fun.
Yeah, you mentioned raffles. There's quite a bit of Apple swag that you guys are raffling off this year. You want to maybe run down that list of stuff that I'm going to be buying tickets hoping to win?
Yeah, yeah, we're pretty nerdy, I guess, because we're a marketing company, right? So we're all on Macs, all our software engineers and all of our designers and data folks. So, and we have a great partner. One of our sponsors is a business partner of mine at a company in Atlanta called Acceleration. His name is Ben Levenbaum and his business partner is Ralph Burton. These guys, Ralph is also a cancer survivor by the way. These guys have been incredibly generous and so they give us a tremendous amount of Apple gear as part of our raffle. So we raffle off iMacs and MacBook Pros and iPads and iPhones and Beats headphones and That's been a really good utility, and I think a lot of people do similar things, right? There's silent auctions. There's lots of stuff. We try and maintain All In as a very premium and prestige brand, so we want to give away and be associated with other premium and prestige brands. We believe obviously that Apple is one of those. That raffle alone will probably raise close to $10,000. We'll get probably nearing $10,000 in raffle tickets of people wanting Apple gear. When you get a group of people together, in our particular event format, you paid for a ticket. It's like a ball or a party, right? And as a function of your ticket, you'll be sat at the table and there'll be a chip stack there for you and you get to play poker. But because it's upbeat and it's exciting and it's fun, and maybe because there's alcohol, or maybe not, but maybe because there is—
He says with a big smile on his face.
People get a little loose with their wallets, which is also part of the reason why you do fundraising is to get people in a position where they feel generous. And so, yeah, so a lot of money flows. We'll raise probably 80% of the total funds in advance of the event through sponsorships and through tickets, but we'll raise another 20% of the total proceeds at the event itself selling apparel and getting people to participate in raffles and such.
Cool.
Yeah, so it's good stuff.
Good. The next little slide here talks about multichannel and the reach and some of the ways that you've spread the brand. So maybe talk a little bit about this, and then what I might do maybe is pop over to the browser and then take a look at some of your channel sites, and you can talk a little bit about those.
Yep, for sure. So I think probably— and you guys, I think, cover this quite a bit in a lot of the work that you guys do as consultants in the finance industry in particular. And we are B2B marketers primarily at Techneeqs, and actually largely in the agriculture, and in the pharmaceutical, and med device, and life sciences channels, although we do construction, and heavy equipment, and some other stuff. But social is clearly one of the key tools for fundraising. And email marketing is still a very, very useful and valuable fundraising tool and marketing tool for charities. But social has become more and more important I think that, you know, certainly Twitter, Facebook. I think we do a lot on LinkedIn as well too. A lot of what we're doing is selling sponsorships, so the business professional network is pretty valuable to us, so we get a lot of leverage there. I definitely have sponsors that come in year over year that have discovered us through social channels. That's really important. We've built a reasonably large email distribution list. We've got about 5,000 people in the local Charlotte community that have opted in to receive email on All In, as well as some partners that send email on our behalf. They're in the business community and the local cancer community. So one of the things you can do is leverage all of your relationships. And so our benefiting organizations, our sponsors, and all of our volunteers, they all participate in various methods of promoting socially. The other thing I would say is, you know, not to run away from, especially if you're doing hyperlocal work, not to run away from traditional media as well. So a couple of simple things, we got great lift last year and this year from one of the simplest of tactics, which is yard signs. So we went out to corners of the county where people, you know, may or may not have heard of us, and we had folks put up yard signs, and we got a lot of tremendous leverage out of that. The other thing that we have is a great, great partnership and relationship with Clear Channel. So they give us about 300 minutes of airtime in the 45 days leading up to the event across 3 of their stations. So another kind of what people may think is a little bit old school or spent in terms of media is actually fantastic for us. We get tremendous reach on the radio here locally, and it touches about 800,000 uniques in the county. over about a 45-day period. So it's a combination of digital and online channels and a lot of social, and certainly the social side is growing considerably, but we use a lot of traditional media in our efforts as well too, and we found it to be very impactful in the help of fundraising.
Very cool. So if you're interested, I pulled up their Twitter account here so you can see that they are @AllInTweet, and there's an event hashtag for this evening's event, #AllIn2015, so you can go ahead Put that into your search, however you like to follow your hashtags, and take a peek at it.
Is that a picture of you?
That is me, but I'm pulling that up not because it's me, but because this floor is going to be covered with how many tables within the next couple of hours?
Probably 50 poker tables.
50 tables. And how many people at a table?
Probably 50, 59 players or something.
So this is going to be packed. You're not going to be able to see wooden floor here in just a little bit.
No, that venue, if you're looking at any of those pictures of the empty venue as we're staging setup, that place will be wall-to-wall people by the time the evening kicks off.
Yeah.
So yeah, we're expecting about 700 total people in the venue. 450 of them will be playing, about 50 of them will be volunteers, and a couple hundred will be there to watch their friends play. For local folks that play for a living, there's still a considerable amount of people that play for a living. So we'll have a side teaching event and play for prizes. mini tournaments as well too for people that are intimidated by the larger-scale tournament poker format, which by the way, don't be. If you have any idea how to play even a single hand, it's very social, it's fantastically fun, the dealers are very instructional, they help you through it. I think the message for us and for anybody, again, who's thinking about things from a charitable standpoint is you want to make your event or your charity as inclusive as possible. You don't want to to intimidate or isolate people, or otherwise feel like you are excluding people, because it really is one of those things that the more the merrier. The more people know about the cause, the more people participate, the greater the fundraising, and the greater opportunity for growing and scaling the organization. So yeah, there is a lot to do for a lot of folks. And by the way, none of the pros have ever won the tournament. There will be about 30 professionals there, of 450 players and not one professional has ever won. As a matter of fact, 2 years ago my buddy Ben won, who's one of the sponsors. He had only played poker probably 3 or so times in his life and he won the whole tournament. Those are not good odds. It is not easy to win a large poker tournament, let me tell you. You're gonna be sitting at a table and you have to be smart and play well for a total of probably 4.5 or 5 hours and he made it. Yeah, so you can have fun and you can compete and have a good time. Everyone thinks they're going to show up and just get knocked out. It doesn't work like that. If you play relatively conservatively, you can always play for a good hour or more before the action gets a little bit more intense.
Yeah, I'll have to give that a try this year.
There is a Jackass trophy for all-in first out. My only hope would be that you actually were the first person knocked out.
I was going for that. Yeah, my luck, I'd be the second person knocked out. First loser, loser.
Yeah, first loser, loser. Oh, it's so good.
Oh, too funny. Well, let's pop back over to the slide deck real quick. I just want to make sure if there's some other stuff. So we talked about the multichannel and then maybe like the sponsor value I think is the next one. So obviously you've name-dropped a lot and you haven't done it, you know, with the intent of name-dropping, but there's a lot of people that have participated and made this possible that you're very passionate about, and it sounds like there's a nice local connection. A lot of people maybe had a connection to Rob, but when somebody comes in and sponsors an All-In, what kind of visibility do they get in addition to the banners and all the other stuff that's going on?
Yeah, and this is important because a lot of times people will sponsor just because they're passionate, right? And in our case, we've had sponsors who are participating for and got involved initially for no other reason than someone close to them, or someone in their employ, or one of their partners, or somebody that's very important to them had experienced cancer, and so they were passionate about the cause. But in the end, you're fundraising and you're trying to deliver value for the local business community, because that's how you're going to grow and scale so that you can raise more money and give more back to the local cancer community. And so, you do want to pay attention to the details about creating value for the businesses. So, we do have a multichannel approach, so we've got a decent— now this year, a considerable reach with radio. Considerable reach with print. We also do a print campaign that includes coffee shop and retail signage and some other key print pieces that go out in the community. Our distribution for email, events are kind of interesting. And I think we'll start to communicate more with our user and supporter populations throughout the year as the organization grows and scales. But right now we are pretty heavy on email marketing in between December and March for the event. And then we kind of We send out tax receipts and we do a couple of thank you communications and remind people who supported us from a sponsor standpoint. And then we kind of wind things down in between then and the next December for the event. Although this year that will be a little bit different, but that's the typical cycle. So for sponsors, they get a lot of media multichannel, a lot of radio, a lot of print. They get a lot of email. They get a lot of social. So one of the things we'll do is we will follow all of our sponsors. of course, and we'll pick up any other activity, not just in the cancer community, but in the community at large that they're involved in or that they're supporting, and we'll be retweeting and we'll be reposting a lot of their community activity and content as well too, so that'll go out to our network. And then our email template has all of our sponsors branded in it. And then our co-marketing partners, which are people that are not on our email list but are willing to send a notice or an email out on our behalf, will also include our sponsors in the template that we provide. So we pre-create the templates and a lot of the social, and we give it to our partners and sponsors and let them promote it that way. A lot of people don't like to share email lists because they're not opted in obviously, so they will send on our behalf which is nice once or twice throughout the kind of heavy part of our campaign. So with that additional reach, we probably hit about 50,000, 5-0 thousand uniques in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area on an annualized basis for email.
Very cool.
Yeah, so there's a good package from the media standpoint.
Cool. I'm just gonna kind of pick through a couple of the other slides that are on here, so why don't you pull the brake on me if you want to talk about a particular page or whatnot.
I know one thing I do definitely want to get in. So we've kind of grown out of our venue, but we had to make a difficult decision this year about whether or not we were going to stay at the Fillmore because the venue has gotten You know, we can hold only so many people there. And so, as opposed to changing the venue, which I believe would, in our particular case, and hopefully some of this will come through in the photography if you guys are online and checking stuff out, the venue is a very important part of the brand for us. It's on brand for us. It is a music venue, so the audio quality for the bands is great. The entertainment quality is very high, and the facility is a fantastic facility. It's very intimate and cool and really, really on brand. So as a result, we've decided to go to multiple locations rather than try and relocate our main event to a larger venue. So we'll continue at the Fillmore. So we'll continue this year and going forward at the Fillmore in Charlotte, but we're going to announce tonight— this is a preview— breaking news.
Breaking news. Breaking news here on Free Webinar Wednesdays. We will launch a track.
We will do a second event this year for the first time, and that will be on November 11th in San Francisco at the Independent, which is a smaller music venue than the Fillmore here in Charlotte, but a venue that we'll be able to put 200 or 300 people in and begin the process of connecting up to the West Coast. Our business has a lot of West Coast connections. We have clients there. We have technology partners there. And as a result, we've decided to grow All In through trying to take our brand and our event and our format and move it into another market. So this year, November 11th, in San Francisco at the Independent will be the first San Francisco or West Coast All In. So we're super excited about that. I'm also super nervous. Like, you know, I gotta tell you, we have a very unique thing, and Eric knows because he was there. The feeling that you get when you're there is In part because, you know, everybody there, all 700 people, are probably a degree of separation from each other, and probably 250 or 300 of them knew Rob personally, either through business or, you know, family, friends, and his personal network. And so I'm very nervous that we can recreate the vibe that we have at All In here in Charlotte, but we're gonna give it a try. We think it's important and the right way to try and grow the foundation for the next few years. So we'll be doing that San Francisco event. I've got a couple of connections there and I think, you know, the thing that's gonna give us a chance or give us a shot at growing on the West Coast and in San Fran in particular is, like the Charlotte event, all the proceeds will go to the local cancer community. So every dollar of the proceeds on the West Coast that we get out of the San Fran event will go into the local San Francisco We're in the process of selecting and vetting benefiting organizations right now. And I think by staying hyperlocal with our giving, that that gives us a chance to connect with people and professionals who can keep our brand and our cause important to them, and we can maintain that level of energy and that passion because will be benefiting people that they live and work with and that they support and that they're connected with. And so we're gonna try very, very hard to keep that feeling and that passion together, but we're in for an interesting year. I'm excited but nervous for sure. But growth is inevitable. You can't not do it. You gotta keep going.
Very cool. You've talked a good bit about the foundation. You've talked about putting together the event. I'm interested in how do you run the foundation?
Yeah, so again, I've got a little bit of an unfair advantage. So we keep the books, we do the administration, and all the reporting, financial reporting, right here with my marketing and accounting staff from our core business, Technique. So we also have had the benefit of wonderful in-kind sponsors that help us maintain— and you'll want to do this— a very professional You know, kind of outlook on what's going on, on how money's flowing, on where it's going. We're 100% volunteer, so we don't have salaries or staff or anything like that, but we do care for the money in a very professional way. And so our controller here manages the books. Taxes are handled through Dixon Hughes, which is one of our sponsors, and they donate their time to do so. And they're a large national accounting firm, and so they keep us organized and properly prepared from a charitable and foundation reporting standpoint. Our legal, we've had support on our 501 with Parker Poe which is another large legal organization, and a gentleman here in town who is a local attorney, Dane Delaney, who has been doing a lot of the nuts and bolts legal work for us as well too. So in my view, if you are going to do this and you are going to do it and try and create something that lasts or that stays, we take the same approach that we take with our business. We treat it like a business. We use professionals for what they're good for. We're not going to do our own taxes, our own accounting, or our own financial reporting. We're going to get in-kind time donated from folks who do it for a living. We do do our own marketing, certainly, but that's something that we're lucky to have the benefit of, but we're constantly in touch with people in the local community, and there are so many generous people who have given of their time and continue to offer their time to help make sure that things are running properly. that they're organized and that they're managed and reported effectively. The local community has been very generous in that way with their professional services, and so we do it completely volunteer and through in-kind with a lot of our partners.
What are some of the ways that the funds you raise are distributed?
So we give direct checks. We don't run any programs ourselves, so we take all the proceeds and they go to what we call our benefiting organizations. And this year there's 4 benefiting organizations. 24 Hours of Booty, which we talked about, and they raise considerable money annually, a couple million dollars or more through bicycle rides, and they direct our funds to the Levine Cancer Institute here in town. And so it goes to support oncology and other cancer programs at Levine. Another benefiting organization is the Novant Nurse Navigator Program. This is a fantastic program. I couldn't talk about these guys enough. So nurse navigators are really wonderful people. What happens is when you're diagnosed with cancer, obviously you're immediately overwhelmed and you don't know exactly what to do or how to handle things. Very quickly you've got all sorts of important decisions upon you— second opinions, treatment courses, recommendations, managed care issues, financial issues. You know, the first few weeks of a patient who's been newly diagnosed with cancer is incredibly overwhelming. What navigators do is they are a nonprofit organization here in town that give folks a single point of contact. So when you're diagnosed, you're assigned a nurse navigator, and from that point forward, if you have any questions, whether they be about treatment, about your diagnosis, whether it be connecting you to support groups, whether it be about Even getting a ride back and forth to, you know, the oncology center for treatment, whether it be about dealing with managed care. They're your single point of contact and they will help you navigate the system in every way, shape, and form as you begin to kind of get your feet back under you after those early days and weeks of a cancer diagnosis. So we also write a check to the Nurse Navigator Program to help keep that program alive and well and in support of the oncology community.
Can I pause you right there? I know we want to talk about the 2 other benefiting organizations, but this might be a good time to mention the Tanner and Pam story.
Yeah, so, yeah, lest you think that cancer is not something that has or is going to impact you, this story may change your mind a little bit. So I want to— so it'll be 2 years ago now. Tanner Fritz, who is the CTO of a company here in town called Speed Digital, they are a great company and a sponsor of Volant, and they build, I think, primarily auction software for folks that professionally trade antique cars and that kind of thing. It's a bit of a combination of an auction and a car enthusiast site. Tanner is a young guy.
He's—
well, 2 years ago Tanner would have been— I think he's 29 now, so 27 years old. Tanner used to work for me. before he was in the job that he's in now, or I used to work with him, and he, um, he, uh, was always supportive and came to the event. He also knew Rob, um, and so being involved in All In from the beginning was, was really important. Um, so Tanner came to the event a couple years ago, and as Tanner does, uh, he's a very bright guy, uh, very smart. He spent a, a lot of time getting ready for the event. He spent a lot of time with the benefiting organizations. Um, Nurse Navigators was still a benefiting organization then as they are now. And so he learned all about the benefiting organizations. He took his chips, he sat down at the table, and he began to play poker. He did very well. He made the second-to-last table, I think, or the last table. I have to remember. I think it was second-to-last table. And that's very hard. As we talked about earlier, winning a poker tournament— so this 450 people this year are going to play down over about 4.5 hours to 9 people.
Wow.
And, you know, the odds are not with you, right, to win a poker tournament. It's very difficult. But Tanner played very, very well and did great and got knocked out of the final table. Well, after he got knocked out, he spent a little bit more time roaming around the venue and he stumbled upon the nurse navigators. And he spent a little time with a woman, Pam, who Is a nurse navigator, one of the head navigators, and who was there to share information about the navigation program. And Tanner met Pam and took some good information away and went about his merry way feeling good. I think he had a prize in hand and did well in the tournament and went back to normal life. A couple months later, Tanner was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of testicular cancer. So here's a 26 or 27-year-old guy who comes to All In, who spends some time to talk to the benefiting organizations and then ultimately does very well in the tournament, almost makes it to the end, and had no idea that he was sitting at the final table with testicular cancer. He was undiagnosed at that time. So a couple months go by, he gets diagnosed, he's like most overwhelmed trying to figure it out. He enrolls in the Nurse Navigator Program at Novant, one of our benefiting organizations, and lo and behold, he's sitting in a treatment room waiting to be assigned his navigator, and in comes Pam. So just randomly, as the universe does often align, Pam was assigned to Tanner as his nurse navigator after having met her at All In a few months prior believing himself to be a young and healthy guy. He now is staring at Pam ready to help him through the process with an aggressive form of testicular cancer. So both treatment and surgeries happened in the following months. Pam took him through every step of that process. They became close and great friends. And last year at the event, Tanner was there, had a little less hair, but he was there feeling good and having kicked testicular cancer and was cancer-free last year at last year's event. So we told that story last year, and it's a very stark reminder to all of us that, that you never know what life's got in store. And so, you know, your involvement in some of these charities and some of these events and your generosity to support some of these benefiting organizations sometimes comes full circle and benefits you more directly than you could have ever imagined. So yeah, it was a fantastic closed loop of what we've done and how those local benefiting organizations can really impact folks' lives.
He sat next to me last year, actually took me out of the poker tournament in the first round. I kind of freaked him out a little bit last year because I recognized him being Hairless and you know looked like he probably was somebody that was either battling or had just survived cancer. And I said, "Are you Tanner?" And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "I know all about you." And and he was kind of like, "What?" That's right. That's right. Like I kind of creeped him out a little bit. Yeah.
Well, since then, he's a great guy. Yeah. We've written up his story and we've published it on the web. You can read his story of him and Pam Pam on our website as well too. It's it's one of the important stories that we have to share again about, you know, how, you know, there are very few people that will make it through their lives without being impacted in some way. Again, might not be you, and I hope it's not, but somebody you know, somebody you love, somebody you care for will be impacted by this terrible disease. So we've got to get out and do something about it.
There's 2 other benefiting organizations that I know we need to yet talk about before we wrap the show. So, Joe, again, Go Jen Go.
Yep, Go Jen Go. Go Jen Go is another amazing story. You'll see pictures on our website of Jen Pagani. Jen passed away last year. I believe Jen was in her 43rd year, 43 or 44. Jen was an amazing athlete, much like Rob. Cancer does not discriminate. I told you earlier Rob was such a great athlete, healthy guy, college soccer player. Wake, and just a good, just a great dude. Jen was a very competitive triathlete, Ironwoman distance triathlete, and she took incredible care of herself. Some of the pictures you'll see of her on the site, you can see she was just an amazing athlete. I think prior to getting into triathlon, she was a competitive swimmer. She woke up to a breast cancer diagnosis, and she fought for for a couple years, and we lost Jen last year. And, you know, it just— well, anyways, it never ceases to amaze me some of the folks that are stricken that take such great care of themselves. And so it's just really sad. But Jen left a great husband and 2 boys behind that are doing really well. One of the great things about Jen, one of the most memorable things about Jen and that keeps us attracted to her and her organization is 2 things. First, the story of how her foundation got created. Creating the Go Jen Go Foundation for the benefit of other women, not herself, happened only weeks after her diagnosis. So imagine that you're diagnosed with cancer and your first response is, what can I do for everyone else? Right? Which is a pretty amazing and unbelievably selfless thing. So that is just kind of who Jen was and her spirit. And if you knew her, she was an amazing, amazing woman. So she founded Gojengo very early, and she spearheaded her foundation through the entire time that she was fighting cancer. Their goal is to provide financial assistance to women who are faced with, you know, a really difficult decision. There are tons and tons of women out there who are either the primary breadwinners of their family or who otherwise might be single and raising children, have other personal and family responsibilities. And yet the decision that they're faced with come paycheck time is, do I buy groceries for my family? Do I pay for school and clothes for my kids? Or do I pay for my chemotherapy? That's like a— I mean, just the fact that our system is still like that is— well, that's a whole other issue. But that someone might be faced with that decision is just appalling and incredibly frightening. So Jen's mission and her goal was to take that decision off of the shoulders of as many of these women as she could. So the Go Jen Go Foundation raises money for those women to provide them financial assistance so that they can get through those periods of treatment and where healthcare costs and treatment costs often escalate beyond, you know, them being able to deal with them personally. And so that's her foundation's objective and they do a wonderful, wonderful job. job at it. As a matter of fact, the Go Jen Go 5K is this Saturday. She'll get an incredible turnout. It's their primary fundraising vehicle for the year, and they'll raise a ton of money that'll also go right back into the local cancer community. Everybody that Jen benefits and that Go Jen Go benefits is right here in Mecklenburg County as well too. The final benefiting organization is a new one this year for us, and I know it's one that Eric here cares about. It's the Isabella Santos Foundation for Neuroblastoma. Neuroblastomas are rare forms of cancer and they affect children, and usually children at very young ages. They are oftentimes fatal, but interestingly enough, because it's a rare disease— there are less than 1,000 children a year diagnosed with neuroblastoma— it gets no attention and therefore gets no funding. And because there aren't enough people diagnosed with it, enough young children diagnosed with it, it gets very little research. From the pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare companies. And so here's a form of cancer that's impacting 1,000 or so children a year, fatal in almost all cases, and there are very few courses of treatment or options for those children. And the researchers and the doctors that work on this problem in the oncology world will tell you this is a curable cancer. This can be fixed. They just need some more time and they need some funding and they need some attention. And some resources so they can attack the problem as aggressively as they'd like to. This is a cancer that can be cured. So we've brought the Isabel Santos Foundation on this year through a promotion generously supported again by Clear Channel, who's done a great job of promoting the foundation, as well as by No Doubt Brewing, one of the great craft brewers here in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. As a matter of fact, I think the current World Beer Champion for IPAs with a beer called Hop Drop and Roll, which I still think is a phenomenal name. They're donating all of the beer, and people are buying beer tickets, and all those proceeds are going directly to the Isabella Santos Foundation to try and continue to raise awareness and funds for neuroblastoma.
That's awesome. I know I'm really looking forward to meeting the family. sharing some stories.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're both— they're both her mom and dad. She passed away a couple years ago. I think she was 4 maybe when she passed away, 4 years old. But they're both gonna be there tonight, manning the booth, so you get a chance to meet them and share stories about your young friend who passed away with the same disorder.
Well, Christy— Free Webinar Wednesdays fans probably have heard me refer to Christy Thomas before, and she battled it for almost 4 and a half years and lost her battle at age 9. Her legacy lives on. She was going through a lot of experimental treatments, and they actually took some samples of blood and saved it. The family got to pick the name of the actual string that continues on, and they named it FUNB for obvious reasons. Christy is a neuroblastoma—
How old was Christy when she passed away? She was 9.
But on the flip side, we have a godson whose name is Mark, and he had neuroblastoma as an infant and battled it, had to take a year off from middle school, and beat it, and skipped a year of high school to catch up and graduate with his friends. And he's now in college and doing well. Ah, that's awesome. So there are many success stories that are out there, and it happens. But I was really excited to see that neuroblastoma made it on the list for this year because it's a rare and often ignored disease that needs some attention. So kudos.
Yeah, no doubt. No doubt.
Cool. Well, we are at the top of the hour, and I think I need to go online and refresh my poker skills before I show up this evening. Anything else for the show today? Any other questions or comments, Jeff? Maybe we can talk you into coming back and maybe having dinner. If you're nice to me, I'll give you my seat at the table.
You're just trying to make an excuse for not doing well.
I was going to donate. Yeah, yeah. Well, this has been great.
Thank you, guys. Any little bit we can do to get the word out is huge. If anybody knows anyone who might care about our cause, especially in San Francisco as we begin to try and grow roots on the West Coast, any information or referrals or anything would be super.
Absolutely. Make sure to stop by allindefightcancer.org. You can see their Twitter and their Facebook links are there. You can read more about it. If you'd like to make a donation, I'm sure Steve and the All In folks would obviously appreciate that. Anything that you can do to either support their cause or whatever cause is passionate in your life, do something to make a difference. That's really what it's all about. I'm excited to be back again and to be part of this. I know I won't get to talk to you a whole lot once the show's over with because you're going to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off.
It's a little crazy, 2 hours before the event and the event itself.
So I'll, I'll probably catch you tomorrow morning, but it was good that you could carve out an hour with us.
Thank you, guys.
Cool. Good. All right. Well, that concludes this week's episode. Thanks everybody for joining us. We'll get the recording online here shortly. And with that, have a good week. Take care.
