An Army of Normal Folks - Slingshot: Data-Driven Generosity (Pt 1)

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

America is one of the most generous countries in the world and yet many of our worst problems aren't getting any better. One of the greatest reasons why is the lack of return on investment analysis that is expected in the business world, but is pervasively absent in philanthropy. Slingshot has conducted this analysis for 55 Memphis nonprofits, which empowers givers to fuel the most effective nonprofits, and this innovative model could be adopted by any community across the country! Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Generally speaking, whether somebody gives a dollar or a million dollars, we, at least in this area, have created shinier versions of things that already exist. That's interesting. To say that differently, I think the research would suggest dollars typically go to the best fundraisers or founders or or executive directors of nonprofits that can move people or Tell a story or are connected

versus Nonprofits or ministries or whatever that might have the best approach and processes and resources ever. But don't have a good storyteller or fundraiser. Correct. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy.

I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And somehow that last part led to a Oscar for the film about our team. That film's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems can never be solved by a bunch of

fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks, us, just you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what Justin Miller and Jared Barnett have done. While we normally tell the stories of bloody do-gooders, their organization Slingshot measures the return on investment of those bloody do-gooders to see how effective they actually are in helping folks to get out of poverty, provide ideas on how they could become even more effective,

and help donors have the greatest impact. Basically, these guys are bringing a business lens to philanthropy, which is something the Army should think about as we go about our work. I cannot wait for you to meet them right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. The end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones,

Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people.

So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Justin Miller and Jared Barnett, welcome to an Army of Normal, folks, guys. Good to see you. Thanks, Bill. Thanks for joining us. So we're going to be talking about slingshot, which is what you guys do. And I was introduced to it by an old friend, John Sims Sims who's the CFO of a spin-off of International Paper here in Memphis and John and I were having lunch catching up and he told me about this thing Slingshot and I was like Slingshot first

of all I love the name so that's cool and he told me a little bit about it and then I got in touch with Alex I said Alex let's check these guys out this is interesting and here you are. So shout out to John Sims for introducing us. Justin Miller, who, say hi, Justin Miller. Hey. That's Justin Miller's voice. He's the founder.

Jared Barnett, say hi, Jared. Hey, how's it going? There you go. There's two different voices. You got it. So when you're listening, the second voice, Jared, is the current CEO. So let's talk got it. So when you're listening, the second voice, Jared, is the current CEO. So let's talk about it. Justin, you and I have an interesting similarity that you're

not aware of that I'm aware of because I read about you and you hadn't read about me. You ready? I'm ready. When I graduated from Ole Miss, I was a teacher and experienced marriage and four children at $17,500 a year, no insurance. And I know what having a calling is and believing in the life you're leading and being broke. And I think that's how you started. Yeah, that's right. Tell me about it.

So I grew up in Memphis, went off to a few different schools, studied abroad, finished at the University of Memphis and had decided, I guess my junior year, I was working full-time while I was finishing my undergrad. And I had studied theology for a bit in Switzerland and that's where I decided I wanted to pursue theological education. A little bit more formally. That's what happens. Everybody does that.

That's right. Go to Switzerland, study theology. You're on a mountain, you're close to the God. Yodeling or something. That's right. A lot of that. Go to Switzerland, study theology. You're on a mountain, you're close to the God. Yodeling or something. That's right, a lot of that. God yodeling. Up on the mountaintops. Were you God yodeling maybe?

You know I was God listening, yodeling listening. I'm not really sure. But that ultimately led me to pursue a degree at Emory Candler School of Theology. So I have a master's of divinity, but I kind of took a different track. I was mostly focused on counseling and historical studies. I wanted to be a teacher and a counselor,

which I did at St. George's Independent School for about seven years. Which is in Collierville, a suburb of Memphis. It is, however, the reason I was so drawn to St. George's model is the time I joined, they were building out alongside John Sims and his family, they were building out a middle and upper school which is in Carterville, but at the same time they were building a school in Memphis, not too far from

Pete and Sam's off Getwell, Kimball Avenue, that is serving primarily under-resourced students. Pete and Sam's, for everybody listening, is a old school Italian restaurant that my grandparents ate at. So good. Many, many years ago, and that area has, as urban areas do, over time, seen financial flight and has become an under-resourced area.

And St. George's built an elementary school not only in the suburbs, but they also built while they were building the middle school and the high school built an elementary school in an under resourced area with the grand plan of in a classically educated, pretty expensive private school having the kids from the under-resourced area after graduating sixth grade join the kids who were at the other elementary school and the and the privileged area those two classes joined in seventh grade went to middle school and high school together a grand social experiment.

Yeah, that's right. So you were drawn to them. So I was right in the middle of that and learned a lot and was humbled a lot and really enjoyed it. I wore a lot of different hats as an educator as I'm sure you did. I was a coach, a chaplain, administrator, counselor, always had a foot in the classroom and loved it. And how long did you do that? Seven years. Yeah. So seven years at that school. But things changed. Things changed. I felt like, you know, I was to some degree, I sort of have looked at life in seven year

tranches and retrospectively. So seven years came to this proverbial crossroads where I was either going to head a school. That was the next logical step or do something different. So as Jared knows, I got the blessing of the headmaster at the time who's still a dear mentor and told him I wanted to spend a year while working full time thinking and praying and meeting with people that do other things. And the short version is I ended up becoming a fixed income broker with Morgan Keegan. Okay. So that's weird.

There's your squirrel. There's your squirrel. Well, I have a squirrel too. You know, I was working on my doctorate in psychology, was teaching school. And the truth is, I just couldn't make ends meet. And now I'm in a lumber company. So, you know, whatever. I mean, you know, I get it, but that's how life goes.

I've read that even as you and your wife were teaching school and building your family and going through life, you still tithed and you still gave. You did what you could. So the idea of philanthropy was always part of your ethos. It just wasn't much because you didn't have much. Right, well I can remember, you know, sitting in church, the offering plate was not gonna pass me without me putting something in it, but I remember sitting in church, the offering plate was not gonna pass me without me putting something in it, but I remember almost being embarrassed

what Lisa and I could put in the thing back when I was teaching, because we just had almost nothing. But I get it, I get that, right? And so, but that's a long way from being a broker at Morgan Keegan, because those guys can make bank. Yeah. How'd you do?

Well, I guess, I mean, one thing just to insert is one of the things that was pleasantly surprising to me, at least at the time, was although the cultures were radically different. I mean, at the time, I was ultimately running the Memphis campus, not far from Pete and Sam's as the chaplain, a religion teacher administrator. And then the next week I was on a fixed income trading floor downtown Memphis.

For Morgan Keegan, which at the time was the boss. Yeah, they were rolling, right? And so the cultures were radically different, but the recipe for success was the exact same. Which is? Listening, solving problems, caring about people, outworking everybody. The same stuff. So on that front, it was really fun to be challenged in a different way. To your point, my wife and I, she was a teacher at the time she taught for 20 some odd years.

We were broke, happy as clams, but broken, we were tithing. Funny enough, a little luck, hard work, started making on a relative basis, a lot more money. And so, you know, people started asking for stuff. And we had never been asked for a lot of stuff because we never had a lot of stuff. Why ask the broke guy? That's right. Yeah. But and we started, I mean, this is kind of a segue into slingshot, but we started gladly, you know, granting requests without a lot of forethought. So after about a year of of giving in a different way, again, maybe not a different percentage, but it's certainly a different dollar amount.

My wife and I just stopped and like, wait, what are we doing? Like, like, are these things things that are moving the needle? Do we care about these things? And so. Do I know how to say no? Yeah, yeah. And why am I saying yes, is this about me or is this about our neighbors? And so it really forced me and her to dig deeper and think more about what is this all about and how can we not just maximize our volunteerism in our time but how can we maximize capital to do the most good. So about what year was this? This would have been so...

2009? Now I'm curious. Jared, where was Jared in 2009? In 2009, I had just finished my first year in the business world out of undergrad. So I graduated in 2008 and had the opportunity to join a consulting firm called McKinsey & Company. Completely blessed with that opportunity. I didn't have a pedigree. I didn't have connections. It was the old grit and grind thing. I just outworked people and tried really hard and had people help me along the way. But that's been a year of that. So I joined in 2008, the market crashes,

the economy was going to bust. I was about to say great timing, dude. It was an interesting time to be going in the business world and starting your career. And so I had just kind of finished my first year and it probably took me nine months to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do anyways. It was, I had a long learning curve.

And so that was kind of where I was at that summer of 2009. And you two guys did know one another existed at that time, right? Not at all. Yeah. So we'll get to that in a minute. But I wanted to introduce chronologically where the two of you were in your lives at this time.

So you start thinking about this. And interestingly enough, I actually needed a lot of mentoring and counseling and help with the word no. Man, I just, you know, every time Lisa and I were asked for something, it was, I really worked hard to figure out how to say yes, oftentimes when I shouldn't have. And I wasn't just with my money, but it was with

my time. And the interesting thing about the word yes when you're asked is if you don't prioritize and you don't use some form of evaluation of what you're being asked to do or what you're being asked for. Oftentimes I found it can actually be a detrimental effort. One, you can take so much time saying yes to everybody who wants whatever you have to offer, you end up

being absent from the people who are the most important, which is that old work-life balance thing, which I was terrible at. Still struggle to keep in between the bounds of what I'm better now than I used to be. Lisa is extraordinary at keeping me balanced there. The other thing is, you know, it's almost the metaphor to me. When I go to Exxon, and there is a guy that is clearly down on his luck, standing outside, asking for a dollar. A dollar is nothing to me. A dollar may buy him a sandwich or a couple dollars may buy him a hot dog and a bottle

of water inside Exxon and really help him have a better hour of his miserable life. That two dollars may also buy him part of the next thing that he's going to inject in his arm to prolong the agony in his life. And that value judgment about am I supposed to give this guy two dollars or am I not? Am I actually enabling him to do worse for him or am I helping him? And my judgment about whether or not I should give a homeless guy two dollars when he asks for $2 is never about the $2. It's about am I doing the right thing or not? Metaphorically, that does not change

when you're asked to give $10,000 away. Is this organization actually doing a good job with the money? Are they wasting it? Are they pilfering it? Or are they actually exacting some measure of change? Or are they really employing it with the best intent and still not being successful with it? And there's a value judgment that goes along with philanthropic efforts and there needs to be. And I find it interesting when I was hearing about your story that here you are this theologian, Swiss-Mist theologian, that's gone through this eight years of maturing and counseling and teaching and

and kind of moving up in administration school and then changes and gets in a world where you're actually making money where you can do some good and then you start questioning what are we doing? I think that frankly is a is pretty normal. I think that's what most people would do. Do you agree with me? Do you have people that have... I mean what do you think? Well I'll give you my answer now and then if you ask me after two bottles of Chiani at Pete and Sam's, my answer might be more entertaining and maybe more truthful. I don't think that's the case. You don't. I don't.

I don't. I think generally speaking, whether somebody gives a dollar or a million dollars, we, at least in this area, have created shinier versions of things that already exist. That's interesting. To say that differently, I think we typically, and Jared can speak to this, I think the research would suggest dollars typically go to the best fundraisers or founders or executive directors of nonprofits that can move people or tell a story or are connected versus nonprofits or ministries or whatever that might have the best approach in processes and resources ever.

But don't have a good storyteller or fundraiser. Correct. Now that's very interesting. So were you arriving at that conclusion back your first year at Morgan Keegan or were you just starting to question what you were doing then? Well, I think, you know, I think truth be told, I wasn't questioning it enough. But as I mentioned, as my wife and I continue to that just had to do with asking different questions of ourselves and of the people that we were hopefully serving with

our time and our talent. But where I really changed is I had actually moved my family down to 30A while still being a bond daddy with Morgan Keegan. We had just- That's hilarious. A theologic bond daddy. Were you holding Bible study at Morgan Keegan? You know what, there were other ones out there.

I thought I was like the only one and I would use it, you know, hopefully for good. But one time I was calling on a credit union or a bank and I was like, I actually have a seminary degree and they're like, Oh, our broker has a seminary degree. I was like, darn it. That's not going to sell you anything.

For those listening 30A is Dustin area, Florida, the panhandle of Florida. So you move. So we move in, I was very fortunate to have amazing colleagues and Support and Morgan Keegan and then Raymond James and was doing extremely well had an awesome business partner Still dear friends with him, but I decided to do something different and would call my mentor who you might know Tom

Marino here in Memphis. He was one of He's one of the greatest guys there is. He is the greatest guy that I know. And Jared knows him well. He was my middle school youth director and we just stayed in touch. Tom Marino was your middle school youth director. I don't even think I'm supposed to tell anybody who Tom Marino is, but I'll say it generically.

Tom Marino is a guy in Memphis who is the, I think, executive director would probably be his title of a large, very privately held philanthropic foundation. His work through the benefactors that he represents does good all over the southeast. Is that a fair representation? It's a very fair representation, yeah. And I used to think, by the way, this sort of related point, I used to think that Tom, my mentor, who by the way he's a mentor for many, many people, was almost like Robin Hood, like what a dream job. And that's just not the case. almost like Robin Hood, like what a dream job. And that's just not the case. And now a few messages from our gender sponsors.

But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join the Army at normalfolks.us. By signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode or if you prefer reading about our incredible guests. We'll be right back.

Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the home stretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr. and Charlamagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what

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Before we get into the depths of slingshot, I think some of the thought behind this or some of the impetus is the illustration of Robin Hood, right? That's correct. You know what, why don't you take that, Jared? Tell us what Robin Hood is for those who don't know. So ironically enough, although a massive Manhattan, New York thing founded by another Memphian,

which speaks to how much philanthropy there is. Is it true, Jared, that Memphis per capita is the most philanthropic city in the United States? Is that? Yeah, depending on the year we're one, two, or three, it fluctuates, but we're at the very top of that list in terms of most giving cities per capita. Yeah, but Memphis is a crappy place. Hadn't everybody heard?

It's a dichotomy, unfortunately, right? And I think we've got a lot of people in the city who care deeply and want to see things change, want to help people. One of the things that drew me to Slingshot is this idea of, well, there's all this intent, all this great effort. It's not working. Why? And I feel like Slingshot's getting to the kind of what are the reasons that we exist is kind of helping address that. Give our listeners the Paul Tudor Jones world. Yeah, so Paul Tudor Jones, native Memphian here,

went to New York, made a lot of money. A lot of money is an understatement. Does anybody know how much this guy's worth? Probably, it starts with a B. Oh, it's billions, yeah. Mini B's, with a B. Oh, it's billions. Yeah. Many bees, right? It's, it's a good amount of money. Yeah. Um, and got together with several other people in New York and saying, you know, there's challenges here in New York. What do we do about it?

And created a foundation called the Robin Hood foundation. And at its simplest, it's trying to use financial principles to help address social challenges is the way I would put it. And I think of it very much like a private equity fund, that idea of pooling resources together and then doing the research to understand which organizations are helping move the needle in New York

and trying to gather those resources in a collective way that allows it then to have an impact with that. And they'll go do the research and the work on some of those organizations to understand it. Justin, you know it better than I do. What would you add about? Justin Perdue Well, so I taught two of Paul's nephews

at St. George's, asked to call on him when I was at Morgan Keegan. He doesn't buy bonds by the way. But I found myself in his office one day with a lot of persistence and anyhow. I would imagine if he needs bonds, he does not need Morgan Keegan. He doesn't need. Or Raymond James or anybody else.

Tiny municipal bonds in Kentucky hospitals. He might be buying, well yeah. He might be buying the hospital. Yeah, that's right. Or the town. But through that experience and through a lot of other connections here, he and his wife and ultimately Robinhood rolled out the red carpet for us to begin to learn, you know, you know, Memphis is a very different ecosystem than New York City. And so Slingshot is wildly different, purposefully different than Robinhood. But the idea itself has actually been emulated across the country, right? There's Tipping Point in San Francisco.

There is a Better Chicago in Chicago. And there's a few other models like this. There's nothing else like Slingshot as far as I'm aware in the southeast. So, now I'm oversimplifying and probably just, you know, doing, I'm gonna let you correct this, but my understanding is that Paul J. Jones in New York and Slingshot, I mean in Robin Hood,

brings together a room annually of all of the wealthiest of the Northeast and basically hammers them until they give away a lot of money. Kind of like Robin Hood stealing from the rich given to the poor, doesn't really steal, but he drags money out of people and it ends up being an enormous amount of money that he then employs a very analytical business-like approach about how to spread that money around. Very accurate.

I've been to one of those vintages. Have you been to one? I have. Oh, I hate you. I have always wanted to see what it looks like to have one billionaire tell a billionaire who has a little less billions, no dude, you can do better. I want to hear what, I want to see what that looks like. Is that what it's like?

I'll say this. My wife tends to get starstruck. I tend not to, but I'll send you pictures. I mean, I actually went, I was very honored to go with and sit next to Paul's table with Paul's dad, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago here in Memphis. And you know, Michael Bloomberg's to my right

and Usher's to my left. The whole room was full of people who I knew, basketball stars and football stars and certainly all the people off Wall Street that I've read their books. And Paul Thurter Jones is standing up there saying, no, y'all are going to give, we're going to sit here until you give what I want you to give. They're very good at raising capital. That's unbelievable.

Yeah, it is. And then all of it is analytically given away and looked at with a financial eye about where all of that money can do its best work. Yeah, and I actually want to turn it over to Jared to say a little bit more about the word all, because that is one of the things that we absolutely mirrored from Robinhood. Yeah, I think what's unique is that a lot of times when you give philanthropic funds to someone, they always take their expenses out of that and then some portion of that ends up with the nonprofits or organizations you wanted to end with. With Robinhood and with Slingshot, it's a complete 100% pass through.

And so that's a big, big point that a lot of people don't understand. There are some, we're not going to name names or call out foes, okay? But I know that there are some large well-known, to your point, that have really good fundraisers in reach. 30 or 40% of what they raise covers administration costs and salaries and only 60% of what they raise ends up going to the work that they Say they're gonna be doing Yeah, and so I think for us it's a way that I think I really resonates with me It's one of the things that attracted me to slingshot is this idea that we can help the community Raise, you know contribute to something and know that all that's gonna go to

Organizations that in our case are making a difference because we've measured them, we've understood how effective they are, and so it's a way to ensure that those resources get to where it's needed without having a bunch of haircuts along the way that minimize the impact that could have. And so for me, right off the bat, that increases the impact of philanthropy because you can guarantee 100% of what you're giving goes to what you want to. Yeah, it's a selling point to a donor. Hey dude, you don't have to worry about where your money goes. We're passing it through to the people doing the work.

And so it's a great way for people and there's a lot more to that, but I'll wait to get there on some of that, but it's a starting point. It's a great way to know that, okay, I can know that my dollar, you know, every dollar I give is going to end up with the organizations that I want it to end up with and not end up in a bunch of middle people's pockets along the way. And only a fraction of that goes to the people that I'm and the organizations I'm hoping it gets to.

It's almost like every organization in bureaucracy over time, they tend to get top heavy. And even in large philanthropic organizations, if they get top-heavy, somebody's got to pay for all that. And that's ultimately what can happen if it's not looked after properly. It's an unfortunate reality, but that happens in a lot of philanthropic organizations. It does. So Robin Hood didn't play that. And as a result, because they were kind of the inspiration behind some of the things you wanted to do,

Slingshot doesn't play that. That's right. Okay, so you and your wife aren't hanging out with Usher. You got the Paul Tudor Jones no on the bonds, but you can come watch me raise money. And you come back to Memphis and you've got these ideas. You've got the set those you've got this reality of making money and Giving more but not really knowing what you're doing. And so this thing's forming for you. That's right. Is that about right?

That's that's very right. And so it was You know, maybe 60% baked which was was enough for my wife and I to move back to Memphis, you know, and I'd been working and talking with Tom Reno again about like, I don't know exactly what I want to do, but I had this vision since starting at Morgan Higgin that man, what if somebody would have showed up at our doorstep and said, look, Justin, I know you're building a book of business and you're traveling the country. Gina, I know you're working full-time raising two kids. I'm going to sit down, no commissions and actually be your philanthropic broker. You tell me what you're trying to accomplish. I'm going to go help you do it. I always thought how cool would that be?

And I thought if I needed that, I bet a lot of other people need that too. So I created that. And so I started working with individuals, family, some foundations, but mostly individuals asking them those questions. What are you trying to accomplish with your giving? Is it going well? What's working?

What's not working? And- Where's your heart? Where's your heart? What do you want to support? That's right. What do you care about? And I had this, for lack of better words, this little portfolio of good causes in Memphis. You know, whether it was a food pantry or a women's shelter and after school program, knowing that people are drawn to different needs in a good way. And so I had this business model. I started raising a

meaningful amount of capital, which was really fun. For me, I found a lot of joy in it, hopefully for these donors, but certainly for these nonprofits locally that needed it. What I didn't anticipate, which was part of my business model, was that I was going to raise the capital and earmark it towards these portfolio, these causes that people care about. And then I was going to report back to the donors how their dollars, how their capital was making a difference or not. They deserve it. And I thought that transparency would just be really powerful to do even more good. But I found that it just wasn't there.

And that's not a judgment on the nonprofits. They didn't have the tools, the bandwidth, and quite frankly, were never even asked for ROI. It's interesting. You are absolutely combining your two skill sets. Your skill set of teaching and mentoring and counseling and feel theology and your belief in tithing and giving back your first seven years your world sound like eight but seven is close enough when you seven because you said seven with now you've got

this skill set that you've learned as a broker flying over the place talking about selling bonds and all of that, which is all about ROI. And interestingly enough, these two worlds are colliding and you're combining the two. Yeah, that's really cool. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon, but we're also gonna have some fun even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha B., Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne

the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The philanthropic organizations, they were taking the money and using it dutifully as

they described and they were doing the work, but they had no data. They had no measurable. So you couldn't go back to the donor and say, your $100,000 created this. That's right. And I guess what I would say is they had data and numbers based on what donors have asked them to provide historically, which is generally speaking, the wrong information. Now that's interesting. And so one example, and again, Jared can articulate this way better than I can if you typically go to a donor or a foundation

or even a church faith-based community and ask, you know, let me see your grant application, right? You know, one of the first questions that we ask, not just in Memphis, but abroad is how many people do you serve? That's that's can be an important question, but out of context. It's real dangerous The real question is how many people do you serve? Well? right, so if I'm a church and I'm gonna go to a shelter and The shelter is whether it's conscious or subconscious Knows that they are going to raise capital to do important things for people based on how many people they serve.

Almost always they're going to serve a lot more people and the ROI actually might plummet because they're not equipped to serve a thousand people versus really changing the lives of a hundred. So you're saying, yeah, we're, do you want to serve people? We're going to serve people. So they're going to open the shelter and they're going to, they're going to touch a thousand people over some standard set of time, but they do nothing but provide just the basic necessities where if and they changed nobody's life but where if they if they looked at the return on the investment at a different way and were more analytical about it maybe they only

touch 250 people but what if those 250 people are no longer homeless and find jobs that's a great yeah that's a great example. Actually, Jared, you probably know this. Do you remember some of the stats on literacy? That was always something that really resonated with me of how many touches in time somebody needs to really turn the corner. I'll be honest, I don't recall it off the top of my head. But I think- Give me one you do know.

The concept I think around this though is that historically we measure what's easy to measure in the nonprofit space. How many people you serve? how cost-effective are you, how many people graduate your program, all those things. You can measure those things and funders like to ask that stuff because they want data but none of those things will tell you how did you change the life of the person that you're working with. And you know you could work with a thousand people and none of them could get out of poverty. You're still working with a thousand people and none of them could get out of poverty you're still working with a thousand people but who cares

you probably are making their life incrementally better hopefully on a very superficial level yeah but are you changing their lives right and the challenge is I think that just has known and nobody has gone to the effort to try and understand well how much is changing and how are these people's lives changing? And so with something like literacy or the other things it's it's a It's a consistency. It's a depth of service, right that I think is really important and one of the analogies I like to use is a physical trainer, right? so if I'm working with a physical trainer and he has five clients or she has five clients and That's all they have and they do this full-time well I get a full day a week of their

attention on average right to help me I get customized meal plans and workout plans and all of these types of things that are really gonna help me personally get better but if that same personal trainer starts working with a hundred people by themselves without changing anything else, the fraction of time I get from them is so much smaller. I don't get those customized meal plans anymore. I get a couple templates to choose from, right? I might get 15 minutes a week with them at best helping me.

And you're going to think, well, which of those is going to produce better outcomes? One where I'm getting personalized, customized depth of support or one where I become a widget and a machine and- Same trainer, same skillset, same amount of hours put in by the trainer, same effort. Right. But what is his or her actual effect? Exactly, right?

And at some point, if I'm not getting healthier, if I'm not meeting my health goals, I'm not gonna work with that personal trainer anymore because I can measure my own self. I can measure my waist, unfortunately. Right? I can look at some of these measurables that help me understand, am I getting healthier? Am I not? And, you know, Justin alluded to this a second ago, right? If serving more people, oftentimes is detrimental because if you're serving more people without the commiserate resources, without the commiserate depth of services that you could provide when

you were smaller, you're basically just giving people a piece of bread to get by instead of helping transform their lives so they're out of poverty. And so my ethos around poverty fighting is always it's better to serve fewer people more effectively than it is to serve a lot of people poorly. And again, that doesn't go with intent. I think the intent can be there regardless of how many people you're serving. But to help people out of poverty, you've got to help them out of poverty. And that's hard. That's challenging.

That requires working with people, not manufacturing, which is my background is in, you know, manufacturing efficiencies, operational changes and change management. And so I want to do things really well, but I realized that with people, you have to be nimble, you have to be flexible. You have to do the things Justin talked about. You got to listen, you got to understand everybody's different. The reasons people are experiencing poverty are varied.

There's so many factors that contribute to that. And if you take a cookie cutter approach to it, you're not going to help people transform their lives in a way where they're now thriving and able to help their family, their children also be able to thrive. And you just create this generational poverty of people being stuck without economic mobility and without opportunities to thrive. Slingshot provides philanthropic organizations and endeavors with a way to evaluate their ROI to help them better focus on how to do what they're trying to do well rather than just in volume. I think that, I mean that definition makes sense to me. Well, we're going to get to how. But I think it's really important for something like Slingshot to take root in this community.

It is absolutely for these nonprofits to understand where they're having the biggest impact, where they can double down. And in some cases, as my former pastor, Dr. Dunham, would say, in some cases, really good ministries sometimes need really good funerals. Now that might not be a non-profit. Maxi Dunham, that's a great saying. Really good stuff sometimes needs to just be buried. That's right. For the sake of our things, things change, right? Seasons come and seasons go. And in some cases, that could be an

organization. But in some cases, it could be a small thing that an organization does. And they might pivot to the thing that has or the things that have the biggest return. And so you're helping them with their measurables and all of that. How is interesting want to get that but before we segue to that, you have a relationship with a former guest of ours, Memphis Inner City Rugby. That dude's hair is on fire and he literally looks like it. Big old long red mane. And the work these guys show up for Teach for America and they've got a

little rugby background and they're just gonna be bloody do-gooders and get involved and teach a bunch of inner-city kids how to throw and kick a rugby ball around and lo and behold they end up with an entire thing and they moved hard and fast and used their money and their time and their effort and I'm gonna tell you something if those listening haven't heard our podcast on Memphis Intercity Rugby go back and listen to it because it's awesome it's funny and it is inspiring but was it effective and you guys got involved with them.

I think they're a great case study because many of our listeners have heard of their organization. So as it pertains to what we're talking about, let's talk about Memphis Intercity Rugby as an example. Justin, you want to start? You have the Genesis story with them that I came after the fact and have been kind of.

Yeah, I'll give you sort of the short opening and that is came across Shane. I can't remember how how we were connected, but he showed some serious interest in needing some support to evaluate what they were doing. And so I had a couple of colleagues at the time go to, I can't recall the school he was. Maybe helpful to set back a little bit. I listened to some of your interviews how people were brave early on. These non-profits too, to agree to do this in the first place. So maybe kind of give some of that context and then can get to Shane and people really being willing to open up their books. Yeah, actually I'm glad you said that and this is probably not the most diplomatic way

to say it and this is one of the diplomacy has no place on this. Good, good. We all can edit this out. Now we won't. Alex, Alex never edits out when he butts in on these interviews because he likes to hear his voice. Well, Cassius, he won't shut up. Go ahead. Well, you talked about, I'll say something then I'll answer. It's a great point.

So the definition you gave a minute ago or the description of us helping Slingshot working alongside nonprofits to measure stuff better. Absolutely. However, it is equally and in some cases more important to help donors, whether it's government, churches, family foundations, individuals, corporations, understand what is or is not working so they can get better at what they do and that is provide capital. Wow. at what they do and that is provide capital. Both things are really, really important and this is back to your great question, Alex.

I assumed early on in Slingshot that the nonprofits, generally speaking, would have the most aversion to this. They are spending their lives fighting for our neighbors in various ways. Who is Justin to come in with all these PhDs to ask a bunch of questions if something is not working? It feels a little judgy, doesn't it? It felt judgy, however, people like Shane

and Memphis Inner City Rugby, it was the exact opposite. Generally speaking, nonprofits wanna know if what they're doing is making a difference. Where can they stop doing stuff and double down on things? That was so exciting for me and Shane's a great example. Donors, however, generally speaking, have the most aversion to it. Now that's interesting. They don't. Why wouldn't they want to know? People often, and I put myself in this camp in various ways, we often don't want to know that what we have been doing for a long time hasn't had the effect. Because we look stupid? Maybe, maybe.

I think there's a variety of reasons. We'll be right back. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. We'll be right back. podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astaed Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha B., Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about?

Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to tell you something real quick. I sell lumber. That's what my company does. We sell lumber all over the world. There's a market, you guys will know this, there's a market for a product. You can buy a Ford pickup truck at about 17,000 different places in the United States and

you can in fact get a little better price at one dealership than you can the other. Which dealership's ready to discount a little more. But there's a small, about 6% range in what you would pay on the high end versus the low end on a new Ford, because there's only so much markup in it. Can we agree on that? As long as you're buying the exact same model.

Lumber's the same way. There's a market, all right? If you're selling four quarter FAS Red Oak, which is top grade of red oak into Phoenix. Alright, someone may have bought their inbound lumber at a little cheaper price and someone may have a more efficient way of making it. But in general, what the raw cost of the stumpage, the log, the tree, the timberland is, and what it costs to produce that into usable, kill-dried lumber to go into flooring is really within a range of about

four or five percent. Okay? And the ones who do it really well can lower that price and garner more business than the ones who are a little lazy, maybe have a higher price and don't get as much business, but it's about a 5% range. So what happens when you go quote ABC flooring company and they tell you that your nearest competitor up the road is beating your price 17%. Now, how is that possible? Because I know that there's only a 5% range

to the difference of products going to market. I know that my freight to Phoenix is no different than my competitor's freight to Phoenix. Now how in the world, so there's one or two things happening. The customer's line or your competitor's line. So then you go to your customer, you're like, man, I just don't understand how, and you have to walk that fine line

because you don't wanna insult your customer. And then the fine line because you don't want to insult your customer. And then the customer says, you know what, I'll prove it to you. And he pulls out the invoice from your competitor and puts it on desk low and behold, the invoice is 17% lower than your price. Now how is that? There's only one way. The grade on that lumber or the tally on that lumber has been shorted, has been cheated. There's no way that that lumber can be 17% lower. I can believe four or five, maybe in a crazy world six, but not 17. So now you're

faced as a sales guy and your customer with this. Do you go out to that pack of lumber in your customer's warehouse, open it up, and show the customer that for the last six years they've been getting screwed on grade or on tally? Do you do that? Or do you back off and say, well, I'm just getting beat. So I've gone at it both ways and every way, both times I lose. If I say I'm getting beat, I walk off, I don't get the business. If I go out there and I tell the guy what's going on, he won't buy from my competitor anymore, but nine times out of 10, he won't buy from me because I'm the dude that embarrassed him. I'm the dude that pointed out that he didn't know what he was doing

well for the last five or 10 years. I just came up with that scenario happens. In 30 years of business, I've been faced with that a number of times. It's phenomenal how much it happens. But the point is that metaphor, I would, you know, when you said what you said, if you go to a foundation who prides themselves on what they give away and their professionalism and all of what they do, and you point out to them that what they've been giving to is not working and they're wasting their money, I bet they do recoil from that a little bit. And I've got to believe that in some small part, ego and embarrassment plays a role in

that. Now, that may not be the most diplomatic of things to say, but I've got just human nature says that happens. Yeah. What I would say, and I think that metaphor is a powerful one, slingshots, one of slingshots primary solutions to this problem as it relates to the fight against poverty locally

is to make it all transparent. I love that. To make it all public domain, not unlike St. Jude and in their research. And Alex, you asked a great question earlier about Shane and some of these early adopters, nonprofits that were willing to be totally transparent about what they were trying to accomplish and whether it was making a difference or not.

So the quick story before I turn it back over to Jared is we show up at Shane's classroom. That's the only time he had to meet between periods in his classroom in South Memphis. And at the time it was him and one other person and we asked him some naive question in hindsight, you know, where do you keep your data? And he turned and he was excited about, he had written things on his chalkboard in the classroom. That was his data system. And we knew immediately,

and I'm sure your listeners who heard him, something about him and what he was trying to accomplish and his willingness to be radically transparent with what was happening, what he was trying to make happen alongside these awesome student athletes and their families. And I'll turn it over to Jer to talk more about that particular partnership. You know, it's one of those things where great intent, ton of effort, you know, the idea was like, hey, I'm a teacher, I've got time after school, I can help these youth like

you're talking about. And we helped them realize, well, what you're doing with the afterschool programming provides a little bit of value, it's not worthless, but it's not really transformative for a lot of these youth. But Shane and his co-founder has started to do some other things. They started thinking about, well,

some of these kids need help completing their FAFSA and financial aid applications. Some need help actually applying to colleges. They had a couple alumni eventually that started going to college and many of them were first time college attendees and their families and didn't have anyone to talk to about how do you handle this, how do you handle that. So they started providing some support for those, you know, their alumni of their program that are now in college of that.

As we worked with them, we realized, well well that's the transformative piece of what you're doing Shane is this idea that you know that the after-school programming it's going and playing rugby it's not worthless but it's not transformative it's these things you're doing that are really helping people get to and persistent college that is really going to change the lives of the student athletes you're working with and so over years, it's been exciting to see how Shane has taken, you know, the research and analysis we were able to do and really build an organization that I've heard him say this in his own words, that rugby is just the medium now that they use. They're really a college feeder program

for a lot of these youth. And so it's exciting to see how they've been able to create this pipeline to numerous colleges across the country. Most of them have rugby programs that allow these youth to continue playing something they love, which is rugby, but also to get scholarships to do that, to get a college education to do that. Many of them have gone on and played professional rugby in Europe and other places. And I think what's been needed is to be able to kind of see how what Slingshot does, which is not

a direct service provider, right? We do the analysis, the research, but can partner with someone who has that appetite of wanting to do what's most effective and create something that becomes so much more transformational for the people that they work with. And so, you know, I'm a numbers guy, I'm a data nerd, so I'm happy to admit that. When you look at some of the numbers, you've been able to see that their benefit cost ratio has increased 70% since 2019. Between 29% and 23%. So what that means is that in 2019, they created $ dollar and 40 cents of benefit for every dollar they spent. So that was 1.4 times return on investment, if you think about it that way. So they're able to take a dollar and turn it into a dollar and 40 cents for those youth

they serve. That's now up to $2.40 for every dollar they spend. So they've been able with a conscious effort to be able to increase the benefits that they're providing to those youth, those poverty fighting benefits, in a massive way. And so a few examples of that, a little more specific, is that their financial aid benefits have doubled now that they provide for these youth. Some of that's through providing their own scholarships because they've gone out in fundraise for that.

Some of that is by being more structured in how they help their student athletes supply for financial aid or for college scholarships. But they've been basically able to say, you know, for instance, we provided, you know, $100 worth of financial aid benefits back in 2019. We're now providing $200 benefits over that time frame. They've been able to double that. And then in terms of their wraparound support for the students that graduate from high school here, their MICR athletes, they go to college, that wraparound support they provide once they're in college is increased by six times. So they've been able to kind of take something that was, you know, again, $100 of benefits using just simple numbers and turn that into

$600 of benefits because they've realized that's really something that's transformative and the lives of the student athletes they're working with and so it's able to take this and not phenomenal intent and Energy that I wish I could bottle from someone like Shane To go and do good and help funnel it in the ways that are creating the greatest benefits for those student athletes. So instead of just graduating high school and saying I played rugby for a couple years, it was fun. It's now I played rugby for a couple years. I now got to go play rugby in college. I now I'm on scholarship at college so my college is paid for and I have this wraparound mentor who's helping me navigate what college is like who I've known for years now because they were

connected with my rugby program back when I was in middle school or high school and have an opportunity now to complete college have a degree or potentially go and pursue a rugby career if they're good enough but if not I at least am now equipped to go and be in an entirely different place than, unfortunately, most of the students who graduate from high school here in Memphis that often are not ending up in anything. They don't go to college and they don't enter the workforce. We have one of the highest rates of youth that are disconnected from both those education and workforce in the country and Memphis, unfortunately. And since the Drogby now is a phenomenal way of overcoming that,

but it took the energy and passion that Shane had with understanding of what's providing the greatest benefits, what's most effective to now do something that I would say is transformational and incredibly exciting for our city. Jared, do you know just ballpark what their annual budget is? I asked the questions. I'm just kidding. Go ahead. Yeah. So just ballpark, ballpark, give or take. It's a million dollars. So it's, Jared does a great job of explaining it on a dollar-to-dollar basis

But if you think about that on a million dollars and back to your earlier point bill about Memphis being extremely philanthropic and however You dice it we are Relatively speaking a very giving very generous city But we have huge challenges and Relative to the challenges we have huge challenges. And relative to the challenges, we have very limited resources. Hence, Slingshot's potential solution to help with that. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Justin Miller and Jared Barnett.

And you do not wanna miss part two that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, guys we can change this country but it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the home stretch right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions

as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.