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Hospital receipt format for non-profit organizations

alright guys welcome back episode 30 we turn 30 Steph Curry with the shot 30 30 30 30 so thank you guys last week was a big week for us to put out two episodes we put out our episode on crypto and Investment Banking and we also put out the episode on Africa - after first Charles yeah so that was those were both tremendous episodes done tremendously well for us so thank you thank you guys we appreciate it we appreciate all your support for rockin with us before we start I want to break some news so if you follow the podcast you know that we are traveling alright we did Network we don't need we're doing these networking event meeting greets and went to LA that's one the first one in LA in April and then we went to Brooklyn and we recently went to Atlanta so the fourth stop is Houston Texas Houston get ready Houston we're on our way wait we will be releasing dates very very soon but within the next couple of weeks in the next couple weeks sure how but hopefully everybody that we've been saying that gets on that we wanted on the podcast will make it on the pocket we don't need a little bit of help from Houston if we needed some help Houston but more importantly we just need you to support so make sure you come out it's all of our first times in Texas yeah so we looking forward to that yeah it's gonna be good energy kovai about there for sure for sure so I'm excited about that yeah but more importantly we have a very special guest with us today Nicole Russell thank you for joining us thank you for having me yeah so Nicole does a lot of different things but um she is the co-founder and executive director of precious Dreams Foundation which is a nonprofit organization we don't talk about it so this episode we're gonna talk about lot of different things but we haven't covered the nonprofit organization and industry yet and a lot of people want to start nonprofits already worked for now properties they want to understand how nonprofits work it's interesting that the name is nonprofit but everything makes a profit yeah right but we got to talk about that how to set up a non-profit and all of that stuff but also we talk about our journey to get here it's very pregnant event counselor yeah so was glamorous everyday hero of the year she was observed as top 20 heroes on the forty and also Walmart's community playmaker award she won that yeah lots of awards I did not apply for sure so all right before we go into your work now I think it's important to tell your back story so you was telling us off-camera I think it's interesting so how you got here as far as you went to you want you you took a untraditional route alright good a lot of times we've had ever sewed we talked about college and everybody has different views on college right and we had Chris garden right and he was saying that he wished that he would have gone to college because he thought that it would have helped them but he didn't actually never went to college but what you did the Kanye thing where you went but you didn't finish right yeah so he talked about that yeah so before I do I will say that my one year because I did one my one year in college was one of the best years of my life and it wasn't because of the education that I received it was because of the experiences and relationships that I developed so I do think there's so many valuable things that can come out of going to school however I don't have any regrets on not finishing the one thing that I will say is when you don't have that degree and you walk into any space you have to you know prove your Worth and you have to work five times as hard in everything that you do when you don't have a degree so it's it's been tough it's really been tough and even you see that that meme on Instagram where it's like that success is not that straight narrow path but it's really like crazy that's what my life has looked like well so what made you since you had such a good you fresh media what made you stop after your first because I had other plans you know there were there were things that I wanted to do that I couldn't do also financially my parents could not afford it it's crazy I'm actually still paying off my debt from college the one year yes because my parents didn't give me a dime to go to school I really want to move to California so I took out a private loan which was not the smartest thing to do and I covered my full tuition my travel expenses everything that I needed to go to school I just took it out so I am still paying that off but I realized very quickly going into my second year that I could not afford to do that again and hope that you took the initiative and said you didn't let fear ruin it all right because a lot of times people move out of fear and I think I'm a little jaded when it comes to college because I've never I never did a job application so like even when you said you know as far as on the job applications they look at you funny if you don't have a college degree and I'm just thinking to myself like I never filled out a job application before so that's not normal so I think I my perspective or things are a little different because I never had a job yeah so but for them for most people you know it is something that can hold you back right yeah for sure I mean I couldn't have had a career in education without it like so you need it yeah absolutely mandatory that I go to school for four years I didn't have a master's degree in past all these certifications so it was needed for me it wasn't even an option like I truly feel like I could have done what I'm doing now without all the school um but like I said New York state mandated that I had to do these things so I had to do yeah and it really just depends on what you want to do right cuz now I'm teaching in schools and I do trainings for educators yeah without a degree but it's because I'm teaching social and emotional stuff which is not which are things that you can learn in school but also I've been able to learn it through experience and working with the target audience so I bring that value to the table so last year they passed the law in New York in Virginia to require mental health education in public schools yeah you know before that and there's no way I could have walked into a school and said I want to host an assembly and teach your educators how to how to teach mental health you know they would have looked at me crazy if I was just like you know this is what I bring to the table by having this experience at a non-profit but because it became mandatory a lot of schools were scrambling looking for content there aren't that many books out there that do you know this type of work mental health or like self-help for my Arty's for people that live in underserved areas so they were happy to start using the book to have me come in so social emotional health is something that is just like completely overlooked in our community completely like and more so over the past I'd say five to ten years it's become more of the forefront for adults what the kids in our community it is not even a thing like I've got some experiences it was just like wait how how would we supposed to just ignore this yeah but I think that's changing to you honestly like in a few years it's gonna be just as popular to talk about self-care for teens as it is for adults yes so all right so can we back up a little bit because you you worked at a restaurant right or you worked in the rest of our industry and you've worked your way up and then you got to a point where you asked for equity partnership right can you explain that because we talk about equity partnership a lot and so this is after you came back from California yes as soon as I got back I had to get a job I started waitressing in New York City one of the most popular things you know that anybody can do and I was always very ambitious if wanted to do more and I wanted to make the most money in every space that I've gone to I've always wanted to figure out how do I get into the position to make the big money how do I learn what's needed to make the big money so I started waitressing I very quickly asked if I could be trained to bartend I didn't even drink I didn't even know like I didn't know the difference between beers and like dark liquor light liquor I learned that very quickly started bartending learned that I didn't like those hours so I asked if I could start managing and the general manager at the time looked at me like I was crazy and said you know well you don't have any experience managing I said I know I don't but I know how to do all of the positions that you need to manage and I do them very well I'm bringing in the most money here so it wouldn't make sense to have someone like me lead and then it was a couple weeks after I had that conversation that our manager at the time got fired and then I ended up moving my way up into that position then moving my way up into the general manager position and at some point I was learning the bookkeeping and running the entire place and at that point as a 24 year old young african-american girl working in Times Square I was like well then I should be hardly owning this place and I asked very ambitious I asked for a very small percent like under 10% and they said they would consider it and they gave me the runaround for too long and I just decided I would take my value somewhere else so at 24 years old and one year of college right how did you develop enough courage to ask an established new you in Times Square that's an established restaurant how do you get enough courage to access tablished rest of our owners who I'm assuming a much older than you don't look like you for ownership in their business like how did I how did that conversation develop in your brain so in everything that I do because I'm an introverted person and some people can walk into a room and verbally share you know what they're going to do and how people need them and I just I've never known how to do that so I've always quietly and very humbly worked my butt off knowing that I can be the best at everything as long as I work very hard and so I was very aware of my worth very aware of what I could bring to the table and I knew that they needed me so in my mind if someone needs you they're gonna do everything they can to keep you but I had put myself in that position before I jumped out the window and made that ass so that's the point what you should set as far as you you realize that they needed you know your words you got to know your work right and that's true with anything in business relationships personal it's just whatever but it's so hard people struggle with that all the time right people struggle with that all the time where they don't know their work they don't realize that how valuable they are right so as far as like what will be your advice as far as for people to say okay look this is something that I think I'm worth this is I need to ask for a raise I need to ask for a partnership because it's not easy to do that it's very difficult especially especially like if you as you get older you have a family and you know a lot of times we just you just kind become set okay okay I just the wrist becomes a lot higher when is allowed online yeah you you develop less courage once you get older mm-hmm I feel so yeah like what what's what's the advice to people to go out there and just really take charge of their destiny for that I would say prove your why because you know in the corporate world there are people who complain about doing things that are outside of their roles and responsibilities and if you ask someone to do something that they're not supposed to do they'll give up and say well I'm not supposed to do that and then there are those who will do it and complain probably internally but not say anything they'll do it and they'll show you that they can do more than you've hired them for and then they'll go in and have a conversation and say well while we're doing this review over the last year here's my contract this is what I was supposed to do and this is everything else that I took on and usually that's a surprise to the person who's been continuously asking more for you than they realize you were supposed to be doing because you always say yes and I'm not saying that you should you know take on more than you can chew but at the same time if you want to grow in your position you should always be ready and willing to go above and beyond I think communication is important too even in like relationships I think a lot of times people don't communicate properly and that's a problem right happens in business all the time where you don't say what you want people can't read your mind you are never gonna go out their way to give you something extra right now a closed mouth doesn't get fed it's like I'm gonna keep piling on till you finally say something and when you do I'll say alright well good job right it's like the know your worth is key like we I like to think of it as like it'll take something happened happen for people to learn like as you're getting these tests they don't realize that you're learning more and more like now I feel like I can do these jobs like when you prove it to him it's like yeah I've been doing yeah not Pierce like you always know it's like oh me me Jamal have this conversation a lot we got to show you Jamal so I referenced him last episode in this episode as well but oh he's coming don't worry but you gotta have uncomfortable conversations yeah yes nobody wants to have the uncomfortable conversation right no way it's nobody really you should use nobody but to have an uncomfortable conversation but sometimes you have to have uncomfortable conversations and I've had uncomfortable conversations in business and you know what the crazy thing about it is most of the time they're not really that uncomfortable because you you've already cite yourself mentally for so long like you've walked past the person's office ten times already you had the conversation in your head Juicy's like oh it's too early I'm away to the afternoon then you go in the afternoon it's like he's out for lunch it looks like having a bad day today is almost over and then it's like okay I mean wait ten minutes it's like you wake up like all kinds of excuses you lay up for so long double-dutch in the whole time I've been by the time you actually do it it's like because at the end of the day you could you say you have to know that's always in about you yeah it's more uncomfortable to be unhappy so you might as well ask it is that's a gym so alright can we talk to Madison Square Garden yep so you you you realized that they wasn't gonna give you equity yeah in the restaurant business and you've reached the level where you you felt that you you couldn't do any more and not be compensated as usually good conversation so you you took a leap of faith in you you quit right yep okay so and you Stan you start VIP services the Masters my guardian right so no I didn't start it so I quit my job without having a back-up plan which everyone tells you not to do they always say never leave a position until you get another one but I you know leaned on faith and I just felt very confident that well one was like I said earlier if you're it's it's more uncomfortable to be unhappy so I had become unhappy in that position and yes I had to take care of my financial needs my needs take care of my mental needs too so I knew that I needed to leave regardless I did that and then the very next day after my last day of work I got a phone call from one of my old clients at the restaurant who happened to work at Madison Square Garden and they said that they were expanding their VIP services department doing renovations and opening up these VIP spaces and they needed a manager and they actually asked if I could refer someone because they didn't know that I had quit I had never told any of my clients that I was unhappy that I was leaving and I always made sure that up until the last day I worked hard so I was able to utilize so many relationships that I gained through my last position to help me in and not just eventually getting that role at Madison Square Garden but with everything else that I decided to do after I started a non-profit and hello ms' regarding seven years so we all talked about that in the next segment as far as starting the nonprofit but before we talk about that what made you decide so you don't want to start a non-profit so like it's deep I always wanted to help children and I always wanted to live in service of others right so that's when you're working in the hospitality industry that is to serve people period it doesn't matter if it's in a hotel setting if you're a cashier at a sneaker store you're in service of others at all times I wanted to do that and I wanted to help children that just didn't know how my mother actually took in a foster child and she suffered from nightmares 7 nights a week because of her traumatic experiences yeah and my mother had to introduce comfort items to her for the very first time at age 4 to help her get back to sleep she was waking my mother up every single night open owes me like Teddy business teddy bears pajamas blanket yeah and my mom told me about it and said you know I wonder how foster kids sleep when they have nightmares what do they do in the middle of the night and it's not a thought that had ever crossed my mind and so you know my mother's idea was for us to start donating comfort items a very simple thing to do because of a cause that was now important to her and my job was just to look online and figure out places where she could make these donations and in doing research I realized that there were no organizations that focus solely on packages of bedtime items comfort and so my simple fix to that was let me just figure out how to incorporate an organization so that we can do it on a very small scale but at least we'll have a place to kind of funnel everything through and precious dreams started with the concept of putting together care packages for foster kids and then six months after that everything changed all right so the next thing we got to talk about the business and nonprofit how to start one and how to get off the ground all right so now we're gonna go into the business of nonprofit I'm sending up nonprofits because we haven't spoke about that yeah we spoke a little bit about charities with Eric Ferguson but not really in depth about how to start one because he's he's the head of a charity but he didn't start that charity know where this is you started a charity right yeah so okay what are the steps can you walk us through the steps of how to start a non-profit 501c3 yeah okay so the first thing is you don't have to have a 501c3 so a 501c3 allows you ing to the IRS to be tax exempt which then allows all donors to write off anything that they contribute to your organization it's very important if you need large amounts of funding if you don't and what you're trying to do can can get by on like a $1,500 budget or a $2,000 budget you don't need the 501c3 to be monthly or annually annually there's you know it just depends on what you're budgeting for you know some people have a plant project and they just want to plant things a couple of times a year yeah it just depends on what you're doing yeah I was told something like that the process is very long like independent on how much you need so like you can apply for the 501c3 for if you're making if you're anticipating having $10,000 or less yeah that's the initial one but if you're planning more that that process takes a lot longer it does and I actually so we incorporated the organization and then we filed for the 501c3 at the same time and it was about three or four months later I planned our first annual fundraiser because we needed the funding to really get started on what we were trying to accomplish and in my mind I'm thinking if you look online it tells you you can get approved for a 501 C 3 between two to twelve months so of course I'm always thinking I'm always being optimistic and I'm like well three to four we might make it we didn't so we did the first fundraiser and of course people are gonna give very minimal amounts because they can't write it off and it's a it's a huge incentive for any donor to know that not only am i helping this cause but I can also it'll help me with my taxes yeah so we didn't get it approved in time but we ended up getting it a year later so alright what's the process to get a 501c3 like what do you have to do this deal well there's a long application there's a long application and you have to be organized and have everything you have to you have to answer with as many details as possible if you want to get approved without questions first from the IRS alright so mission statement you need a mission statement you need the name everything that you would need to do to start a business you have to be very clear about what you're doing and when I say mission statement it's funny I'm remembering this now we the IRS actually came back and said that our mission statement was too broad and that's why we didn't get approved the first time around I think the initial mission statement was to help foster and homeless youth self comfort that could mean anything so then we had to go in and revise the mission apply with the state to change that and then resubmit the application for the 501c3 is this something that you did yourself but did you have lawyers involved I hired help yeah definitely hired help and I would recommend if anybody doesn't already have that experience in the nonprofit sector hire where you need especially when it comes to accounting get the support so that the first time around you're not making those mistakes so you had the narrow valiant mission statement like what was your revised mission statement so now the mission statement is helping foster and homeless youth self comfort by providing comfort items for bedtime and programs that inspires them to self-soothe and that was okay and that was up so alright so you have that you have to set it up as a business like you have like a LLC's or not LLC but it's the same steps of like having to you don't have to trademark but I highly recommend it because the work of a non-profit easily inspires someone else to want to do similar work and they can they can take your name and do it in another state if they want to so trademarking I highly recommend filing for the set up for the nonprofit the same way you would with the LLC for your state and then applying for that 501c3 early if you expect or if you want to receive large funds yes there's a fee there's a fee for every application so you have to have some funds to get started when I applied in 2012 I think that the 501 C 3 application was like eight hundred dollars I'm not sure if it's increased since then but yes you definitely need something in order to get started okay so you do the application you get boy as the 501c3 is going through the process because it could take up to a year what what else do you need to get off the ground to start the actual charity everything you need a website you need a marketing plan you need a business plan marketing plan yeah all right how do you know before you even go into that like this is you and someone else like the cofee like who else is doing this so the co-founder was my mother but no she she was living her best life in Florida so my mom was not involved in you know actually getting the organization started I was doing this on my own with the help of friends okay who believed in me and the organization so that's the next step in like and I'll get back to marketing but you need you need a marketing plan you need a business plan you need a board of directors you need people that are gonna hold you accountable which most people don't know so when you're applying for this paperwork you can't just put your name on it if people are giving donations the IRS wants to know who else is tracking these dollars to make sure that you're not out here spending these these funds in the wrong way so when I first started and I think most people when they start nonprofits it's usually people that are very connected to you as well as the mission and so they'll sign on to support you and that's usually how the board starts and then eventually it grows you have what a director yes sorry people three non-negotiable you have to you have to they have to have titles I just bought a director uh yes and they need title so you need a president you need a treasurer and need a secretary that's New York State's to end it off federal New York State okay so all right you have those three people those people have to actually be active they should be active so here's the thing right I kindly recommended because they're putting themselves on the line by signing that paperwork right so if you have someone sign as a secretary and it's your cousin but they're not actually doing the work if you get audited or there's an issue they're gonna come looking for you and your cousin so everybody should understand how serious it is when they are signing that paperwork okay we talked marketing yep so how do you put together a marketing plan for a non-profit because it's different all right right we're marketing let's say we want to market our podcast right oh you have your marketing a product right it's a little different than marketing for a non-profit because it's charity yeah so it's like you gotta it's kind of in my opinion it's a little delicate what because you don't want to make it seem like you're selling something but obviously you need funds we don't talk about fundraising but you need funds so how do you how do you how do you do that like how do you market for a charity I think the two most important things to consider when marketing is who is your target audience and then also what are your donors need to see and understand in order to give so the more your donors know the more they will give period making sure that in everything that you do whether it's just utilizing social media that every image every caption every meme everything that you're sharing explains the mission clearly transparency is the number one thing and trying to solicit donors marketing so making sure that you are marketing towards the people that you need to do the service right so when I started this organization I wanted to market this towards people who run the to care agencies in New York City as well as the homeless shelters so figuring out what do they need to see in order to understand what our services are and that's sometimes it's simply putting together a kit that explains and breaks everything down here's the mission here's our values here's our logo here's our 1 year plan here's the program that we can provide or the curriculum just depending on what you want to do and ironing all of that out so that they can understand it and then they choose whether or not they want to work with you all right so you're pretty much I mean you're not selling in a sense of item but you're selling your vision and your passion yeah that's right yeah and making it clear I mean forint there's another nonprofit a friend of mine runs an organization called cakes for the city it's a very simple mission they give shoes to the homeless so in all of their packaging they're showing photos images of sneakers images of homeless so people can just simply connect the dots here's the mission it's a value and here's what it looks like if you give it's easy so all right so the biggest part of charity nonprofit organization is that you have to have money right it's actually a business right that's something that people need to understand too if you think about running up a non-profit successful not well yeah is that you have to write in like a business because it is a business right so I'm going to talk about funding so nonprofits get majority of their funding from donors right how do you defend yeah it depends you can get a majority through individual donors their state funding the federal funding those are the three main ways yeah how does how would some with the 101 blueprint to attract individual donors reel them in so that they understand the cause and make sure that you are speaking to people who care about that mission that specific mission so with precious dreams I had to find a way how do I connect the issues of foster and homeless youth and make it relatable to someone who's never been in those shoes so the first thing that we did was target parents because parents understand the importance of comfort items so I remember my first year I would have meetings and one of the first questions I was do you have kids what's their bedtime routine do you read to them did what do they do they sleep in pajamas and it immediately brings them to this happy place of thinking of like what that looks like for their kids and how important it is to them and then I would help them vision what a typical night looks like in a homeless shelter or what a night looks like for a foster kid who's sleeping in a room with five other families on a mattress that's on the floor and immediately they feel connected you know and then they want to give they want to save someone because they can't understand how someone else could be lacking what their child has and what they have that they were taking for granted because they just did never thought about the person who lacks it's a commonality like we were all children at some point yeah and we probably all have gone through some experience as a child where there was like somebody putting you to bed or time routine I want to go to that the fact of state funding and federal funding so like how does that work and are there acts or initiatives that the state provides I just like you know what I should target them or how do you go about it um it depends on what you're doing again with the nonprofit so if you're providing a service for schools or for educators it's very easy to go after state funding if you are providing sneakers to the homeless it's a little harder to get those grants approved because they might not see the importance in that work so yeah it just depends on what you're doing but those applications are available online there's a full list of the state money that's available federal money that's available and you just have to see whether or not you fall along so okay so how important is grant writers grant writers are very important they're very very important especially if you don't have relationships with a lot of individual donors because you need one of the other grant writers and also researchers are another a whole nother animal because a lot of times and we learned this the hard way I thought you know let's let's find a grant writer you find the grant writer and they're like okay so who's doing the grant research that's a whole nother job yeah I've never heard of that side what it's their job to do to research everything yes and it takes hours because there there are so many grants available yeah but there could be one small thing in that grant one requirement and your organization just doesn't fall under it so making sure before you waste anybody's time and they're writing this full proposal that you fall in on all of the requirements that are listed for that one specific grant most of these grants government or private alright like a mixture of all a mix yeah private public state federal and this is you could just google and probably find a lot as far as pretty different yeah a lot of them are very public some are invite-only which are harder to apply for but invite-only so there's a lot of private especially like Family Foundation's where they've set up to to give finances annually to different organizations but they don't want to have thousands of applications coming in there are over one point five million nonprofits in the United States so if you are very small like three or four person run an organization where you're trying to just simply give out $20,000 a year you don't want 1.5 million people applying and so what they'll do is they'll restrict it to a certain county or a certain state and people will have to know someone in order to get in it's kind of like like I don't know a mafia but like you have to know somebody in order to even figure out what their application process is to get in the door members only code so where does your funding come from most so a majority of our funding comes from individual donors and that is a gift that I've been able to receive because of the work that I've done so in having that that that history that job history at places like Madison Square Garden where I've been able to develop relationships with the one percent in New York City or you know the athletes and artists that come through and they're invited to sit courtside at our games the Gary V's of the internet like all of those people I developed great relationships with by them seeing my work ethic but then also my character seeing that I am someone who is responsible but kind and so when I approached those people about giving to my nonprofit the answer is yes more than no so do you have cuz I like I think very Ferguson Robin Hood dinner is like $5,000 minimum it's like five thousand all per plate to end yeah when he sold out you can't get in and so that's crazy but uh like how do you price how do you ask for money and like do you do it in galas how do you know how much to ask for there's so many ways to fundraise so many ways so one thing that's very important we talk and we go back and talk about boards right your Board of Directors should be very diverse and they should have a network far beyond your reach so that they can go out as ambassadors and promote your organization to receive funding from anyone that they're connected to then you can utilize social media there's a lot of ways that you can raise money on social media there's a lot of platforms like give smart calm as a platform that you can pay for where you can set up fundraising pages but then it also gives you text numbers so like the text to give where you can send out a number and say if you text this number you can donate $25 instantly that's a platform that allows you to do it galas are very important selling a ticket to provide an experience for somebody is the easiest way to fundraise who doesn't want to come to an open bar experience or to see a performer to go out to have a good time so galas are honestly probably one of the biggest the biggest ways that nonprofits are able to generate funds especially for precious dreams those definitely are go to every year yes mm-hmm every fall so on the business side how do you know all right you run in an organization not you but just anybody right and that's your job so you have to make a living you have to you know provide for yourself right so how do you know or what's the rule of thumb like how much money should you be taking for your own personal it never really seemed like it right because it's like a charity you don't want to take what is still a job at you you doing something you know and you gotta get compensated for that obviously so yeah especially like when you're the owner of it because it's up to you like how do you determine like how much money you take from that as your personal salary so I think the most important word when it comes to thriving in the nonprofit space is transparency and annual reports are important an annual report is more than just the 990 which you need to fill out every year so that the government knows how you're spending your money but an annual report will break down exactly how much money went to operational costs to programming to office supplies to everything and a lot of times big donors want to see where every dollar went last year and if you can show that then they will give more like I said earlier the more the more that a donor knows the more they will give so we always make sure that we're very transparent about what we give but then also making sure that they see the numbers that they that they that they'd want to see right so like if I'm giving a dollar I want to know that at least 75 cents and my dollar is gonna go to the wards the children and the images that you're showing me in this deck to that program and so it precious dreams it's interesting because I kind of mimics an idea that I saw from asurs foundation so I sure has the new-look Foundation and I don't know if they still do this but years ago their board was covering 100 percent of the operational cost and so they marketed on the website that 100 percent of your donation goes to the programming and that will reel anybody in so I went to my board this is actually how I was able to get approved for a salary I went to my board and said this is what I saw and I think that this is a great approach and because we're only still at like the $60,000 annual level would you guys be willing to put together a cost so that this is this is how much would go towards operational cost and then this is how much that you give to the organization every year and they voted because voting is another thing that must happen on your board they voted it was approved and they actually cover my salary so when people donate to precious dreams none of that money goes to operational costs my board my board of directors they pay out of their pocket out of their pocket yeah which says so much right so like the highest level the highest level of leadership at my organization believes in this mission so much that out of pocket they pay for my salary so if rule-of-thumb like if we're starting a non-profit what would you say the percentage would be for nonprofit to have a operational cause their recommended ed - ing to like Charity Navigator would be 40% should go towards operational costs in anything outside of programming everything else should go towards programming and then if it doesn't they would they judge you there's a lot of like grading systems online for nonprofits so you you will get graded on lower scale if you are taking that money and putting it so it's like a million dollars comes in 400,000 should go to operational costs $600 to go to the property yeah and then the aberrational goes always if you have staff which you obviously supplies can fall in that list - yeah and and also it's like just accountability it being smart about how you spend that money because there's no rule that says that you have to but if you get an audit from the IRS and they look at how you're spending they can pull that 501c3 at any time okay all right that was good that was a lot of good information yeah obviously some stuff that we're gonna take advantage of this hopefully yeah that's the thing with our podcast we try to provide information for people it's like how-to manual yeah and then from there hopefully they'll be inspired if they want to know be inspired to you know seek more information but you know it's like a it's like when your kid first rides a bike and you push them yeah then a guy start riding on their own but you sometimes what we lack its mercy in our community is the lack of the first push right so we just get on a bike and try to ride it and then we just keep falling off because we never had momentum right so knowledge is momentum yeah so if we have to knowledged and that can propel you to Heights unseen absolutely but even if your viewers don't want to start nonprofits I'm sure a lot of people who tune in make donations right so like there are certain things that you don't even know about giving just because it's not out there like the FML like the fair market you know the FMV the fair market value of your donation I recently produced this collaboration where champion and complex created this sweatshirt this limited-edition sweatshirt where 100% of the proceeds went to social works the sweatshirt was $100 $100 went to social works however a donor anybody who purchased that sweatshirt could not write off a $100 donation because they received a sweatshirt that had a value of 75 dollars so really you can only write off the difference even when you go to a fundraiser it's a ticket it's $200 somewhere on that invitational on the website where you're purchasing the ticket it'll say FMV and very small letters it's always small because most people don't want the donor to know it'll say the level of the experience so if you're going to an open bar experience it'll say your FMV is $125 so if you're buying a ticket at $200 you're only able to write off so can I depend on almost at that event that FMV will go up obviously where no I'm just thinking like if I know if I can write if I have Kanye there right then if he's performing okay so if if there's a performance there's a value to that okay if there's food there's a value to that I didn't go up the sales that they're doing from their shows yeah and the nonprofit's job is to be transparent and let their donors know in ahead of time what they're going to get out of that experience and then what is the difference of what they can write off education I didn't know that I'm a financial adviser I never knew that I understand it I thought whatever you get the chatter you just write off and it's a hundred percent a lot of people do that and a lot of people also don't even realize that they're not right you know you're filling it out that you're writing off that much money with the IRS does a lot of checks so if you ever get orderdate the IRS they can come back and say you absolutely wrote um $100 for the dinner but really you only get a $25 because it dinner was worth $75 yeah but it's up to the charity to tell you to inform you on that mm-hmm if the charity doesn't inform you on that can that fall back on them it can but the thing is most people don't know that they're being informed by the small print it's the same ways you look at a website I mean on a commercial you see that fine print on the bottom that is not their responsibility if you don't read it yeah that's like the back of a ticket like nobody ever looks at nobody nobody reads yeah well nobody looks at the back either it's like I'm here here's my things yeah you sign up there's like a whole thing we'll take your information well salt it probably Apple update it's like 11 pages long nobody really what do you got Apple what you guys say no I'm not have an iPhone yeah and I hope I'm not discouraging people to definitely pay attention good information I appreciate that because like I said that's one thing for the podcast is that you know even I learn every single pocket I learned something from the podcast so that was something that I was not aware of and I've learned something so yeah but but any other form of like charity in a regular form that's a hundred percent right off right as long as there's nothing received in exchange and that's why every receipt usually says that and at the bottom of the letter what about you give clothes if you give clothes it's like the value of the clothes right stop the value of when you purchased it unless it's still brand-new and it has a tag on it it's the value of what it is now like Salvation Army like they they give you like what's it worth all right that's all self-taught right you have to go to experience yeah when that plays in attack I saw all this stuff intertwined so that plays into taxes as well it's a tax plane and that's why a lot of bolte people you know start foundations also right yeah can you talk about that briefly um we wasn't I don't wasn't really planning on talking about that I just thought about that a lot of athletes specifically and entertainers and stuff they start foundations because it's a it's a way for them to lower their taxable income its attack shelter right talk about that yeah yeah absolutely it's also a way for them to is terrible it's also a way for athletes to have their name on something that someone else is funding you know there's a lot of there's a lot of basketball clinics that happen and just because you see that particular celebrities name on the clinic doesn't mean that there's not ten other sponsors that are coming in and actually paying for it so of course you're gonna get more support when you have that big name that's why a lot of smaller organizations grassroots like like my own will look after will seek ambassadors and celebrities to get behind our stuff because we know when people see that name they give more so how does that help them personally as far they thought a charity how does that help them right off it's a write-off for them personally mm-hmm yeah it's a write-off but so there's two parts to it they they get the write-offs by giving financially on their own but then also it's a great marketing tool you know like I not only do this but I also care and you don't have to be there to do it so uh sure I'm just gonna throw that one out there again Russia's new look I've worked with that organization about three times now we've partnered on different things I've never worked with Usher but every time that we do anything and they post anything and it goes on the website it says uh sure's new look all right well that was very good information in the next segment we don't talk about mental health something that is very important in our community we're also gonna talk about your book and some other things you got going on as well alright so in the last segment we are going to talk about a few different things but I want to start the conversation with mental health yeah mental health is something that is in season right now and it's good you see a lot of people Charlamagne just wrote a book about anxiety and it's a conversation that is is a long time coming right there but it's something that is happening and it's encouraging because mental health is real yeah mental illness is real mental wellness as well and all of these different things that come along with it so you you wrote a book and it's about correct me if I'm wrong but socially emotional disorder yes so it's actually a book for teens and it's a guide to all of the support both mental physical challenges that they might be facing in school everyday things where they need support and they might not feel comfortable talking to an adult about all of that content so working working in charity in the charity feel fussy what's your foundation where you're working with homeless youth and and children in foster care right obviously they have a lot of issues right so like the mental health effects like can you break that down because it's difficult right even if you from an environment that might not be the best neighborhood it's still different if you have a family it's hard for people to relate to somebody that doesn't have a family like that's one of the biggest things in life is family like every family is everything right so it's difficult for somebody to relate to somebody that doesn't have a family right like can you talk about like what you've seen as far as the mental effects of children that don't have family have finally broken families yeah so so it's interesting because I wasn't taught that growing up that family is everything there's actually a line in my book which for me personally is the most important line because it helps people understand why I am walking in this Lane of purpose and it is most days I felt invisible and that forced me to see myself and so before I even started precious Dreams Foundation in 2012 I understood that I needed to self comfort when I was dealing with adversity that nobody was going to come and save me and those were early lessons that I had learned I think I like the phrase that you use emotional independence mm-hmm like that is so powerful yeah and so I think that I could relate to the youth that I'm serving not because I've ever been homeless or in foster care but I had similar experiences of some of the adversity that they faced and I felt abandoned at times and I felt alone at times and so a lot of people start that discovery of self-care and understanding why they need it in their mid-20s or their late 30s and that's usually when like the parents start to let go and you realize that you are on your own but I was working with a population of people who needed to figure that out at 12 and 13 and they didn't have the answers and they had a whole bunch of people around them who are being paid to ask questions and being paid to care and so that doesn't make it very easy for you to trust now while yes they're around some amazing people there's some social workers out here with the biggest hearts in the world but for a youth who has trust issues and doesn't doesn't feel comfortable opening up who are they going to talk to and so I understood how important that work was and when in 2012 when people weren't really talking about self-care and mental health we were trying to teach these children how do you deal with bad days you know so we started early yeah I mean just working in the inner cities it's tough right like that there's not a lot of funding for social workers or school counselors and you have populations of you know school populations 5,000 kids right and you have to social workers like they can't personally touch every kid and so it's really tough and it makes me think of um like last year when we put out that song on trauma and he kind of said something during I think one of his interviews he was like our trauma gets overlooked like the inner-city kids their trauma is completely overlooked there's plenty of kids will probably suffering from PTSD yeah and it's look differently like somebody that comes home from war and lost you know their friend and war tragically they get diagnosed whereas kids who might lose their best friend right the day before or lose their sister or their cousin it's just like go back to school and maybe you know somebody won't memorialize them with a t-shirt or candles and it's like wait this is really happening and that's happening every single day almost like with the work that you're doing is like I mean it's beyond overdue yeah but like the vision for it it's it started with you obviously having a relationship and having some trauma going on with your own personal life and you wouldn't go and say a little bit so yeah I mean I don't work yeah so you said that there was an issue with your dad yes so so I had a very you upbringing yeah I grew up in a single-parent home with my father and my older brother my mom left when I was about six and there's a situation that I talked about in the book where there was domestic violence that I had witnessed and then shortly after that my mom was forced out of the home in most instances you know kids would typically be with their with their mothers I was raised by my father who suffered from depression for at least 12 years and so my house was silent at all times unless there was music on there was no like hellos how was your days and we just we didn't talk about feelings it was it was difficult especially for me as someone who's like super optimistic and I was all excited about my are you aware of it was he aware that he was suffering on depression or so no and I don't think that he was very aware of it until he actually read my book okay because and that's a whole nother issue so you know and I don't want to jump around but for me I lived in a very dark space for a long time and and I would spend time looking in the mirror and not seeing myself physically but trying to figure out who I was and why I was so different and what I needed in order to hold on to that happiness paying attention to what was going on around me and how I could be different so that I could have a better outcome but I think in not understanding what your needs are or how other people are experiencing you is because of our own cultural generations of trauma and us feeling like we have to be suppressed and we cannot share what we're feeling you have to just keep those emotions to yourself in carrying on you know and in in a lot of households is there's two rules it's what happens in this house stays in this house so nobody is actually going to get the professional help that they need and children are not opening up to their teachers and their social workers about what's happening but then also for parents you know it's you just have to put on a face and keep it moving and things happen and you just don't talk about it and now we're in a beautiful space where our people are seeing that there are these challenges that need to be addressed and I'm gonna start doing the work on me so that I can break this generational trauma and then help my children heal it was it was a colleague of mine said something brilliant even thought of it so he actually said it he was like when a kid enters school at kindergarten we know they're upset because they cry we know that you know they missed their mom because they'll cry or they'll tell us right that kid when he gets to fifth grade will have no idea how he feels or how she feels and when we asked they'll say I'm okay because they've never been trained or they've never had to experience it to express themselves like hey I'm not having the greatest days it's just not something to happen so that same kid who came in at kindergarten is crying but it sounded in eighth grade it's like if they've never had any dialogue about how they feel it had an avenue to express it you can see where the social-emotional tease can just be completely off yeah and it's from not having the experience of knowing that when you share things can get better I think that's what the fear is you know like the fear is how will this information be received by others but now we're seeing that when you speak and when you release it's good for you and sometimes it can help you and get out of the situation that you're in if it's necessary so you don't have to know it's interesting that you learned how to self comfort self comfort is so I say in my book one example of that is we're taught to cry on the shoulder of someone else but my tears all of our tears fall we're on you they fall on us and so the first person that you need to speak to is yourself because that is the person you're gonna have the most honest conversation with before you call someone else and tell your side of the story you actually know the whole side and there's no getting around that so talking to yourself about what you're experiencing listening to how you're feeling and then figuring out positive ways to react so in self comforting what we teach to the youth is when you're having a bad day what do you do what are your options and the responses that will get is a punch a wall some kids will honestly say they bully others or they'll fight with their sibling and then some kids will say I read a book all right I'll go walk all right I'll take a nap and so our job at precious Dreams Foundation is helping them understand that those are the things you need to hold on to now and carry them with you for the rest of your life because if I am the person that you rely on for comfort and something happens to me you'll be lost that's like one of one of the phrases that shotty always says I mean he was like you always gonna need other people but you have yourself I so start with yourself yeah start with yourself first love yourself first and it makes everything else easier you always need somebody oh you've got is yourself that's that's the phrase good at the end so you really have because it's not even like you you it's no disrespect to your friends and family but you can't fully rely on another person all right I might really need Troy and he might have every full intention to help me but he might just not be able to do it yeah for whatever reason right so it's like at the end of the day you know at the very least you're gonna be there yeah everybody might not be there geographically they did it just might be a situation where they might have all the great integers in the world to be there but they they just can't do it for you so I think that that's as powerful too it's like Michael Jackson said man in the mirror right like you gotta look at the man American birds in America first so like when did you become into that realization as far as to say okay I wanna own Ivan but we want to help kids cuz obviously you know you you realized you know as far as y'all burn yourself like that like did you do that in your teenage years you do that like as you graduated or as you left college like at what point did you start to realize like maybe my upbringing wasn't the most beneficial and I you know kind of have to look at some things I actually didn't really think about it until I started the nonprofit unless you're comparing your situation to others you don't really understand as a child what you should or shouldn't have and so you know yeah there were days where I was hungry but I didn't realize that that wasn't normal and so I got old started having conversations with other people you know like and it's crazy because when I started the organization in listening closely to the youth tell their stories I started thinking to myself and I was like wow I didn't have a seed or he either like you know that wasn't that wasn't normal it's crazy it's crazy that you say that because I was telling somebody like a few months ago like I went to one of my girlfriends Indian and he had a wedding and anybody familiar with Indian wedding it's like a whole week like it's like four days celebration and it was like a whole thing and they they did a movie and it was it was really dope right but seeing that seeing the tradition that they had as a as a people and just seeing the love that they have for each other it was like really made me think like growing up a lot of times you see you so used to like relationships being dysfunctional you don't realize that is dysfunctional cuz they just think that doesn't normally might be in it yourself and it's like after a few pair relationships and you see all your friends and that type of lace on your thinking you know curse out here if I you get you know it's normal like that's not really nothing really bad and I it and then you see something from totally different perspective in light-weight reason why you know people like you and I provide opportunities for you because a lot of people will never leave the neighborhood that they're comfortable in because they haven't experienced anything else so they don't know that they should be traveling and they don't know what can be offered if they leave this job and you know try something new it's like I call it we like the real exposure programs like we are exposing them to things they've never seen we just took some kids to the Wells Fargo trading dance like I've never been there I mean so like a kid at 14 I could imagine what that's gonna do for his future when we took him down to Morgan Stanley straight in dance is like I actually knew the guy who was there oh my god even though you worked here you know I'm saying and like a kid at 14 again seeing that who knows what that'll lead to him in a world of finance or just in any career that he pursues you know that exposure is so important yeah like like we said the other day like we did an episode the last I ever saw in Africa but it was important that I took the kids to the Brooklyn Museum to see the ancient and Jesus in ancient Egypt exhibit because it was like they need to know this history right I don't know this is gonna be covered in social studies I can't risk the fact that it might not be so let's give it to him now and what they'll do with it no yeah but the exposure is a key piece yeah for sure so all right talk about the book but you you said something interesting as far as how to book you promoted your book you want on a book tour and you were to Barnes and Nobles and nothing LA in New York and I asked you how did you know that's a big deal and how did you get a booked on bars and also can you talk about he did that yeah so I will say with New York pride this city you can make it here you can make it anywhere I learned how to hustle at such a young age that when this book was coming out I remember seeing a photo of the author Cleo Wade I saw a photo of her online she had her book release at Barnes & Noble and there was an image of her with the Barnes & Noble Lobo logo in the back and I was like that's what I want when I released this book I want to do it at Barnes & Noble I've never written a book before I had about like 10,000 followers I'm running a grassroots organization I put together a kit for the book and I reached out to all of the Barnes & Nobles in New York but I started with like the other boroughs outside of Manhattan so I started