S5 E18 | Maximizing Impact

In this next episode, we're going to teach you how you can learn how to maximize your impact by creating criteria for your giving. Listen in.

I'm excited to dive in and talk about how either myself, you, or everyone else who's listening, how do you choose.

That cause? How do you pick the organization, the company to really give? The nonprofit, the foundation? There's so many out there, so many good causes that people can give to. How do. How do they elect to choose?

Well, I think the very first thing you've got to do is write your eulogy, which you're going to hear me say a hundred thousand times all the time. What is the impact that you want to make in your lifetime and past your lifetime? How can your wealth continue to perpetuate that impact either with your own nonprofit or through others? So when you think about spending money, it's always investing, like we talked about. It's always expanding whatever it touches. And so how can you be finding orgs that align with your values? Well, you gotta get clear on what your values are, which sounds really simple, but it's really amazing how few people.

Take the time to outline their values. And so what is it that resonates with you most? Let's just say it's animal rescue. Okay, what animals? Is it dogs? Is it otters? Is it horses? What kind? Get a little clearer. And so let's say it's dogs. If it's dog rescue, how do you want them to be rescued? What is the picture in your head? Are they just getting taken out of a situation and thrown into a shelter so they're not just tied up in the backyard and getting beaten? Or do you want them to go to loving homes? Do you want them to go to another country? What does that picture look like? And then you try to find an org that is doing the thing, but then has other really important criteria associated as well. And we just talked to our dear friend and wonderful G Force member, supporter of aerial recovery, Justin Campbell, who gave us an incredible strategy on how he invests.

Yeah.

In different non profits. And I would love you to share his formula.

I will. And I like that. I like the acronym because I'm all about raising capital and raising people's awareness and raising their consciousness and raising their vibrations adjusting. Let's just add another raise up in here. So we have the acronym raise and what we're going to also do after this is kind of talk about what this means for Brittany and myself as well. And the takeaway that we got from learning this. And One of the GeForce calls a few months ago and obviously just recently when we talked to Justin on the phone. So R meaning relationships. So you want to make sure that you have or could have or have the potential to have a good relationship with the organization that you're giving money to.

Well, this is their criteria. So this is an example of criteria we want you to have. He did reference that. This example is from the book God and Money.

Yes, that's right.

Which is important to give credit. But for them, their rules are they don't want to just throw money into an abyss. They want to have a relationship with the people who conduct these missions.

Right? Precisely, precisely. And that makes sense. Right. Makes perfect sense to me. You want to have a relationship because you could just give money to a huge, huge, huge organization that's been around forever and there goes your money. But you're talking to probably an intern from college and that's as high up the ladder you're going to get to the actual overseer, the oversight of that nonprofit organization. Next in raise you have accountable.

What does that mean to you?

Accountable that they have good corporate record keeping, record keeping. That things are as transparent as they need to be and that they are held accountable for the money that goes in and where it's going.

And for an investor and or someone who is donating an impact report, giving people some updates, hey, here's what we did. Here's how much money we raised in total either in the year or the quarter. Here's what we did with it. We had some great impact reports that Xochi Rodriguez and Emil Young put together for Real Life foundation and I was able to present that to my team numerous times. It's really cool. Just look back and go, wow. That year we raised that amount of money from incredible willing, aligned, heart set investors. And yeah, we were able to take, I mean the first year, I think we did $180,000 the very, very first year, which was so cool to me. We impacted three different organizations in 2021 and we were able to give and just, just learned so much. The whole process was fantastic to see. At the time the operating expense for the foundation was 100% so we had no overhead. Just ran all the overhead through real and that was really cool. So accountable. Are you getting good documentation? Are you knowing where your money's going? Are you really seeing the impact? Love that. Now I and raise. This one was interesting. When he first said it, I was like, what does that mean? And it was indigenous leadership.

For him and for the book, which I haven't read yet, but I'm going to. God and money. That sounds awesome. That's like right up my alley. Local leaders.

Yeah.

So depending on if you are doing something international and you're raising money internationally and you're trying to give to an international organization, are they empowering and propelling people in that country to also be local leaders? Or once that ngo, whoever leaves the country or city or location, is it kind of in shambles and is everyone on their own and are they no longer having really beautiful communication?

Are they going to constantly be requiring overseas input? Expat. You could call it that. Do they need that or are they raising up those local leaders? So love that. And again, that might not be something that matters to you and it might be super important to you. So coming up with your acronym, what are your questions? All right, what's the next one S for?

Sustainable. So does it have long term growth? Is it something that you feel like would probably in soon or could end soon? I'll pick a random one. Right. White owls in Tennessee, if someone really cared about that particular organization, once that culture of animals are rehabilitated fully and they're past, you know, the extinction or they're on that line and now they're flourishing. Cool. Right now can you back off, pull your funds from that and go into something else? Different owls in a different territory, perhaps? So that, that's what that means for me. Is sustainability meaning? Is it, is it going to, is it going to continue? Is there something that this needs to be a problem forever? Does it. Can it end? Should it end? Do you want to try to end it today? Is it going to be going on forever? That was my take. What was your take?

I took the same thing. Sounds great.

Okay. And then we have equitable.

Equitable.

So he more or less mentioned for this one, is it something that's good for all parties?

Yeah.

And this one is one that I think is probably would take me a little bit longer to really, really figure out because I think most organizations, they're probably doing their absolute best to really be equitable and to provide actual true use there. But there's a use case that I'd like to get your thoughts and feedback on. And he mentioned too, when we were talking to him was Tom Shoes. And he mentioned that Tom Shoes, as good as the oversight was in the thought and the company, they ended up really crushing local economies because the individuals who were there, they weren't able to sell shoes because they got all these shoes for free. So no one in These countries sold shoes. So all the cobblers went out of business. All the local stores that were making shoes or creating shoes when I business because they got a bunch of free shoes and just kind of ruined their business. I don't think that Tom went out and thought that that would be the case.

No. He saw a bunch of kids running around getting diseases from not being able to afford shoes from the local shops even, or wherever they would buy them from. So before you hate on anybody trying to do good, I'm just riled up about this. People love to hate. Before you hate, just know it's overall the mission, trying to do good. And can we always be getting better? If so, work with them, don't attack them. Sure, don't attack them. So in my opinion, yes, you can be doing some market research just like we did when we were developing these orphanages. Is starting a chicken farm here going to flood the market and put all the other chicken farmers out of business? Therefore we should do a tilapia farm.

Or you know, just do a little more research on how the impact of what you are giving. If you're giving something, will that hurt other places? If so. So for example, maybe he could have bought shoes from local suppliers with the money versus shipping shoes made in their factory. And so that's one more step that would have made it incredibly difficult. But if it really mattered to them, as their giving required them to uphold the local economy. Because that may not be part of their mission.

Right.

Which is an important part of your mission.

Sure.

And the more you keep going, the more you're going to learn about how to even ask those kinds of questions. So I think the most important thing I would love to impart is again, anybody trying to do good work with them. There's a bunch of freaking keyboard warriors out there ready to attack anybody when you've never even done anything with your life.

Given no money, just try. They've given no time.

They're trying. Be kind to people who have good hearts and if you see a way that they can improve, ask them if they've thought about it before and if they haven't, then start providing some opportunities and solutions and help them be even more. What I would say is mindful in their consideration of the local economies, for example, before you just rip them in half. So I know it's a tangent, but it's important because you do need to think the word equitable in this situation is is this good for all?

Yeah.

And if it's not, ask yourself how can it be? And so that's a really good question that I always ask myself. Even in developing. You can ask yourself this in your for profit world, not just your nonprofit donations. It's just a good question. Dang it.

Well, I'm going to say, because you taught me this fun fact. It's one of the only 437,000 things you've taught me. But if you ever sell a house, you want to pass equity on to the buyer. You don't want to be the person who is trying their best to sell at the absolute peak, so the other person gets crushed, right? And I thought when you told me that that makes perfect sense. But this would be one of those examples where you just want to do your best, do your research. And, and the reason that we're bringing this up, the reason that we feel that this is important is because the last episode we talked about, as you are on your fire movement or as you're trying to make a bunch of money, retire early, stack cash, be passive. You should have some type of giving goal because the meaning of living is giving, as Anil Gupta says, and the overall impact that you're giving your money to, you want to have some level of criteria for that, because when you get more money, more people will ask you for it. I had a gentleman I was coaching with named Alan, and he said his biggest goal in life was to make $2 million liquid. If you can make $2 million liquid, that would be the greatest thing he could ever perceive or dream. I was like, dude, that's amazing. That's a great. That's a huge amount of money. Why do you want to do that? And he said, well, because then I could give to everyone who asked me. I was like, okay, let me. Can we dive into that for a second? I was like, so everyone who asked you, you would give to them? Like, how much would you give? And he's like, oh, man, I would just love to be able to give to anyone anytime that they ask. Like, just being able to be that facilitator of good. I was like, yeah, for sure. But can I hit you with some math real quick?

Let me hit you with some math.

Because if he has $2 million liquid, right? Two with two commas and a bunch of zeros, six zeros. If he gives $10,000 to every single person who asks 200 times, goodbye, 2 million.

Goodbye, $2 million. Farewell.

Yeah. For real.

Well, it's important to have criteria in order to maximize your impact. I want you to really hear that. It is important to have criteria pre Figured out in order to maximize your impact. If not, once people find out that you're a generous person or a philanthropist in any way, shape or form, they're going to be hitting you for their little league jerseys, for their fishing tournaments, for their art in high schools, for their puppy rescue, for their cleaning out of the oceans. You gotta know, what's the thing you most resonate with? And also, why would you say no to things?

Brittany, how do you handle that? I mean, I know how I do it, but how do you do it?

Well, we've talked so many times about knowing the difference between an opportunity and a distraction. Because I think after you get past survival mode of living in your car and just praying there's enough gas in the hose to keep it going.

Everything looks like an opportunity. And so again, you gotta windshield wiper it away, knowing which side it's on for you. And in this season, it's right for me, and it's in this season, I should say yes versus no. If not, you're constantly living a more mediocre life than I think you're called to live. And so for me, I use my eulogy and then I turn that into a plan, and I just am working that plan as best I can. We talked earlier about plan, plan, plan, surrender. Plan, plan, plan, surrender. And so the surrender part is where you're always open, but you know that that thing doesn't resonate with you if it's not in alignment with your values and your long term vision of your life. I keep saying it.

I love it for you. Yes. I wrote a book on this.

Oh, right.

Called Money Grows on trees.

Yes, you did.

And in chapter six, I discussed being able and having the power to say no for reasons like this. Because if you say yes, if Alan says yes 200 times in his life, his money is gone and now he can't give anything. And he's definitely not maximizing his impact.

And people are going to ask him for more than two grand too.

Yeah, yeah, people are going to. Right. So there has to be some protection in place of the overall abundance that you have still being able to give. For me, what I do is I just listen to what the person is offering. And I honestly have built a criteria so that I can tell that person. Thank you so much for asking. I know how scary it is oftentimes to ask because of rejection. This particular offer, this particular donation, this particular gift, whatever, it's not part of my current financial plan for investing or for giving or for contribution or for philanthropy. What I would love to do, though, if you're interested, can I connect you with or can I offer you this? Or can I give you an insight or can I help you with your web page? Right. I want to at least do something.

Hold on. We. I kind of interrupted you when you were saying that. Or help you with your webpage. I want you guys to hear that. Because more than anything, I've helped people with a verbiage and understanding how to share what they're doing. So it's really important to understand that your gift might be fixing the way they word things so they can attract the right donors. And that's way more valuable than your $200 donation.

Yeah.

Or even your $2,000 donation.

Correct. A lot more. And just being able to really listen to those people. Understanding that you're going to get asked a lot. I mean, when you. When you start having $10 million liquid or $100 million liquid, you're going to get asked even more. And then now the number is going to be bigger. Now, can you buy a gym? Can you buy the school? Can you buy a library? Right. Can you donate this? Can you do this? And the numbers get bigger. And it's okay. It's beautiful. Abundance is everywhere. Money literally grows on trees, right? It's everywhere. So I remind those people, thank you for asking, but this particular offer, this particular day, season, month, year, quarter, whatever, it's not in my budget for my business. A lot of times I'll mention that if it's the case, our sponsorship has already filled up for the year. So a lot of times I get asked for, you know, the little league teams and the soccer teams and football teams, and I say yes to a lot of them because the numbers are quite low. But I do have a budget for that. So I have a sponsorship budget for the year. And so I put that in the criteria. Yeah, but it is very important just to have some level of criteria so that you can be honest with yourself and honest with the other person. Because if you just say no and. Or you just start lying, then you're going to feel like a weirdo and you're going to feel unaligned, and you're going to feel not prepared. And that's going to keep you away from money, Right. Because subconsciously you're like, oh, geez, I definitely don't want a bunch of money because I'm gonna get asked all the time, and then I'm saying no. Then I'm a greedy, mean face, Right.

And people won't like me. And I'LL get kicked out of our circle.

So I don't want any money.

Right.

Yeah.

So it's one of those spiritual, mental, emotional, whatever you want to call them blocks.

Yeah.

That is pushing you away from even saying yes or starting to learn or take the time to go down the road of gaining abundance.

Yeah. You're so cool that you know that.

Really learning it from.

Yeah.

Right now as we speak.

Yeah. It is the. It was such a big shift for me because I knew everyone in my family would be asking me for that.

Oh yeah, they're gonna be hitting you up.

They're gonna be hitting me up. And I'd have to tell cousins and nephews and nieces and I'd have to tell them no or I'd have to figure out something else to tell them. And that's what I did. So instead of saying no, I just said yes. But not the money. Because money's only gonna amplify whatever it touches, as we've said a million times. And I've already told you the Doug this Doug the Slug story. Right. And so that was just an example. But there's tons and tons of those. And I also like to I'll out there as well. Just one other pro tip for family dealings. Very, very often when a nephew or niece or cousin or step someone or brother in law and whatever people ask me for money, I will say, hey, listen. Sure. Especially if it's not a lot. Alright, how about we do this? I'll make you a deal. Since you asked me for the money, we can come up with a loan contract where you pay me back and if you don't pay me back, whatever, I'll never ever, ever give you money ever again, ever in your entire life as long as I exist to live and breathe. Or this can just be a gift and I'll give it to you one time and I'll just give you whatever the amount of money you want. $5,000 here, $5,000, it's yours. And I'll never give you another cent again. But this is just a gift and you don't have to pay me back. And I love you so much. Now a lot of people say yes and they do. And they never pay me back.

Yeah.

And then I hey, all good, no worries, dude, no problem. And they come ask me for money again and I'm like, hey, dude, you know the deal. You know the deal. You sign the contract, it's okay.

What do they normally say?

Oh man.

My southern accent.

Straight into Bubba.

Dude, I was about to go straight Bubba.

Well, let me tell you, it is. They come up with an excuse. It's a bunch of things. And, like, I promise I'll pay you back a year, two years from now or a month from now. And they never do this.

Whatever.

And I don't resent them. I don't hold it. I don't love. I love them.

As long as you set the deal and then you're out of doing it again, which is great.

It's a really good tip, I think, just for anyone who's out there, because your family's gonna hit you up for money, and it's okay. And I have done business with family that have paid me back, and I have continued to do business with them, and it's been awesome.

Yeah.

Shout out to my boy Ryan.

Hey.

Who has a tree farm. He has a legit tree farm.

Like, amazing.

Money grows on trees. Like, his life is trees. He sells trees for money. Yeah, it's really good.

He's growing it.

Yeah.

So making it happen.

Yeah, Making it happen. Anyway, thank you, Justin Campbell.

Thank you, Justin.

And thank you. I haven't read the book. I've never heard of it. God. Money. That's. I'm reading that asap. Like, if it's on audible, I'm downloading it when I leave here, the studio, and I'm gonna throw it on my audible, then start checking it out.

So what's some of your criteria?

Some of my criteria? I generally want it to impact people directly. I want them to get a. To have it where they're using it and very, very often are doing something with it. One of my favorite charities to give to shout outs to them is called kiva.orgk I v a.o r g phenomenal program. You can fund a basket of all these different entrepreneurs who are trying to create small businesses in their ecosystems or in their cultures. And let's say it's a lady in the Philippines and she wants to sell fruit and she wants to grow her fruit stand. So you give her a thousand dollars and the money goes to her and she repays you no interest. Just get your thousand dollars.

Just micro loans.

Yeah, just micro loans. And I think that's awesome. I love, love, love micro loans.

And the women pay back.

Yep. 99%. 99% repayment. It is amazing. And obviously, if someone didn't pay me back, I'm perfectly fine with that. I have no idea who they are. I'm never going to hold a resentment against them. And I know what I'm getting myself into. I do the micro loans. But that is a phenomenal, phenomenal giving for me. I really do like to see.

Because it keeps going, right?

Because it keeps going. I like to see me put money out, and that money either go back to me or someone else in the organization where it just keeps recycling, and then it grows and grows and grows. Those are really my favorite things to give to.

And if I were to poke a hole in it.

Yeah.

Just because I was a jerk.

Jerk.

Well, are you destroying the local banking industry by doing that? By not charging interest, Are you wrecking their ability to ever have banks because you're giving out loans for free?

What? What? I'm a mean man.

That's the point, guys. There's always something affected. But is it life or death for that woman? Was it potentially life or death for some kids with shoes? Maybe.

Maybe.

Point is, don't hate. There's so much you don't understand. Do as much good as you can. Do as much research as you can. Yeah, Good lord.

Yeah.

Yeah, good lord.

I like how you poked a hole in it.

I can poke a hole in it.

If you need someone to poke a.

Hole in anything, I'll find a way.

Call Brittany. She will do it.

Well, that's what people do. And I'm sure that people can hate on anything.

You have told me the story.

When I first became famous.

Tell it.

I was shocked, guys. I literally did nothing. Like, all of my twenties except for work. I didn't party, never smoke, never drugs, didn't do any bad stuff.

I did it for em.

So I was like, there's nothing people can pull out of my closet to attack me with.

Right?

But when I first got famous in Nashville, I had haters come out of the woodwork trying to destroy me and put me out of business because I sponsored orphans in Africa.

And they said, what?

How dare you take money from America and send it overseas. We have problems in our own backyard. And I'm like, I also sponsor 17 other local nonprofits, but it's easier to say one for one. So the point is.

Do something with your life. Don't be keyboard warrior. Focus all of that energy into the good you want to do in the world and try to lead a life.

With love and with that. We'll see you in the next episode.

For those looking to deep dive on their real estate investing journey, go to broketoooke.com and look at all the courses that we've been producing to help you not only gain wealth and abundance through real estate investing, but also how to be a force for good along the way.