"Blessings Are Not to Be Wasted" - Ralph Boyd's $52-to-$1 Nonprofit Formula (SOME)

[0:16]  Welcome back to another episode here on the Heart and Hustle Podcast. Our next guest, he actually traded the courtroom victories for community victories and now leads one of VC's most vital lifelines. His father said, "Blessings are not to be wasted." And Ralph Boyd built a lifeline around that calling. From federal prosecutor to nonprofit CEO, Ralph didn't just pivot, though. He entered higher assignment and the dude is still added and he's a father and he's a leader and I'm just so excited for this conversation. Ralph, what's up, man?

[0:48]  So, Efron, good morning. You know, we've we've spoken before and both of us have been gotten very energized by our conversation. So, thank you for saying those kind things. I think what I would say to folks is the Lord does not give us blessings just to keep them and consume them. We're blessed to bless others. So, it might sound highulutin, but that's really the bottom line for me and for those who work with me in this space.

[1:15]  I I mean, I had a question to start off, but I I kind of uh piggyback off of that. It is completely true. I do believe that we all have blessings. I believe our life is our blessings, the good and the bad. You know, I was talking to another leader yesterday and I was telling her my story of the sexual abuse and adoption. And a lot of times people look at me like a and I said, you know what, that's what made me so much stronger. This that that's why I am who I am. And when someone asked me, I had a friend ask me how do you feel about everything that happened in your life, Ephrain? I said, grateful because I get to take God's word, my testimony, and help others. And because we share that story, Ralph, right? Uh we can inspire others by having great conversations. That's what we about to have today here, bro.

[1:53]  If we were in church, I'd be amening you to death right now.

[1:58]  Listen, I already know it's going to be beautiful.

[1:59]  Anyway, a amen what he just said.

[2:03]  Amen to that. No, I love it, Ralph. But I really ask you, man, your father gave you some good words of advice um very early on in your life. Your father told you blessings are not to be wasted, which is what we're talking about right now. Do you remember when you were um where you were when he said that? And how did it hit you in that moment, if it even really hit you?

[2:19]  Yeah, it was both of my parents. Both of my parents were community activists in the 60s and 70s and 80s where I grew up. And my dad was a combat veteran from World War II involved in the battle FOI which is where the Allied forces uh got control of the southern Italy airfields which which helped the air campaign against the Nazis. It was a turning point in the war. So, uh, he started out with that service of a as a combat staff sergeant as a 20year-old. And my uncle, I think we talked about this before, was a Tuskegee airman who who in his 135th mission lost his fuel line over Dubra what is com uh current day Dravnik, Croatia uh ejected, was badly injured, cut down out of a tree by the Nazis and spent the last two years of the war at a stalag at at Dao. So, uh, you know, their sacrifice as very, very young men so outshines anything that I could do, but they didn't leave their service in Europe. They brought it back home and said, "Okay, we've saved the world against Nazism. Let's save America against its lesser qualities." And they were committed to that. I saw that as a young person. So I I I think I told you when we were speaking offline that uh a lot of young people grew up watching television and stuff. I grew up in community meetings with my parents and that often led to conversations that did on rides rides home wondering why they were consuming so much of their time in meetings and mo movements and enterprises and undertakings to help other people. Uh so those conversations were constant. They were robust and I understood very clearly that my parents thought it was literally part of their DNA to contribute to to people and matters beyond themselves and beyond their immediate family. That their first obligation was to family, but after that it was to making life and things better for other folks starting as their highest priority, people who were vulnerable or in need. And so that was baked in early on. I don't know if it's in the DNA or it's all it's all learned, but e it's a probably an ad mixture of both. Uh but that's essentially who I've become over my now uh into my seventh decade of life. Um

[4:50]  first of all, you look great. Okay. You look great,

[4:53]  the grim the gym and the pool and the running trails will do that for you.

[4:58]  And the good water. The good water.

[4:59]  The good water. Yeah. Yeah. Don't forget the water. Now,

[5:02]  no. Uh Ralph, I um you know what's fascinating is that when I first met you, we first thing I see was this nice wall of it looks like awards and you know athletes and you were so excited to let me know my daughter. One of those is my daughter, right? And you get that this excitement of talking from a father perspective like you lit up uh you you light up when you talk about mom and dad like you truly family seems like it was very important for you. There's people like myself. I didn't have that, man. But how important was that for you to lead you? It it seems like they really poured into you, which makes you the leader you're in today. Being in those rooms, having those conversations, being open, you know, for me, I I I I say that sometimes my mom was so upset, I didn't know if I should ask her a question,

[5:49]  you know, or or not. That that's how I grew up. Almost scared to have a conversation. But Ralph, it looks like your parents never allowed that for you to be scared. They they answered the questions. They brought you to these rooms. How was that for you? When you talk about family, is that really important to you?

[6:06]  It is. So, one of the takeaways from my life with my parents as a young child was um that if you look at life's responsibilities and obligations and undertakings in concentric circles,

[6:22]  the the the core of those circles is family. And that's what you got to take that's what you got to lock down and take care of. And from there you go from from family to friends to community uh to country. Uh which is why if you look at my family's lives of service, those who came before me and hopefully my own life as well, you'll see prior prioritization of intense investment in each one of those concentric circles. starting with family, moving to friends, community, neighborhood, country. Uh it's all there. Each one of those boxes is checked. And I want to be clear, it's not that like we're walking around with a pro-arma box to be checked with subboxes to be checked as part of our lives, but effectively we're walking around with in our heads what our responsibilities and commitments are to being net positives to this this community that we're that we're in. So that when we leave, folks say, "Man, that the world was better cuz that dude was here." And not and you're doing it not just cuz you want people to say that. You're doing that because you want the results of that mindset translated into the service you do and the commitments you make. So it's about the right mindset, but you know, we do live in a resultsoriented world. So it's not just good enough to have your heart in the right place. Your heart has to be in the right place. Your investments of your your time, treasure, and talent have to line up with that heart. And you have to have the skills and the ability to execute on those investments and turn them into life improving results from for yourself, your family, your community, your country, and ultimately the world. So, if you were to look at my investments in those things, you'll see you talked about my kids. I'm very proud of them, of course, as you know, and now that they're producing gobs of grandchildren, I expect to be invested in them and proud of them as well. But hopefully, they're all walking away with the message that it ain't just about me, right? Blessings are to bless others. The blessings we have are are infused in us through a Lord that expects us to deploy those blessings to to multiply them to others. And so, that's the point of it all. to quote Charles Crawlheimr. That's the point of it all.

[8:52]  Ralph, I see what we're doing today. We taking them to church on this podcast because that was there. We go, Ralph. Yes. No, one of the things I take away, man, that is so crucial and and I even wrote a journal and I don't even know where the journal is. Oh, right here. Um, you you would actually appreciate this. So, when I decided to take a leap of faith, right? Um, the thing that I told myself is the mind had to be well. So, I created this mindset journal right here. Uh, Ralph 30-day mindset journal with affirmations, with prompts, with uh, you know, rooted reminders. And if I just go to any page, we just go to any page. Um, I execute with peace, not pressure. The root of reminder, hustle is loud, alignment is consistent.

[9:33]  And I ask questions. What's one thing I can approach today and less urgency and more intention? And it's all these different things to let the mind really think because as a leader Ralph you said seven decades I know there's moments where we the mind was playing tricks on us. It was telling us we were not good enough. We we you know

[9:53]  that was that was jet fuel for me growing up when I grew up. I'm a child of of the 60s and 70s and the messages I got from uh the broader cultural society at the time was that it didn't necessarily think I was going to amount to anything. But because of that family and the commitment to uh family and community, um I knew I was going to be somebody. And be somebody didn't translate into being a big shot. It translated into doing consequential things that helped people started with my family and then going from those concret cir concentric circles out. So uh be somebody meant being consequential in ways that are that are accreative to the culture in positive ways. So, um, I hope you're going to share that with me, by the way. You I hope that's more than a prop prop that I'm going to actually get that like,

[10:55]  no, man. I that was that to me, it's really funny. Someone asked me yesterday, how does it feel to write something? And I'm like, uh, you know, it's still to me, it's just everyday life, man. I I just wake up every day. I'm blessed to be here another day on Earth, man. And I just put in the work. Um, and this was something of not just myself, but although speaking also speaking to leaders and realizing we're all in the same boat. I I say that no one is teaching us how to pour into others while we're pouring or pour into ourselves while you're pouring into others.

[11:22]  I love that. I love that expression.

[11:24]  So, we we have to really work on it and as you mentioned, it has to be the thing you take when you're trying to scale like this is the mindset. How do we do it? Is cutting out the noise. It's talking to to people less. And sometimes it is friends and family. I always mentioned that I had a friend, loved his friend, but he says, "Hey, how's your small uh, you know, community do? How's your and it was already like wh why speak life into it?" I'm a big believer, Ralph, you got to speak life into it. So if you're saying if you can't speak it, you won't do it. You can't preach the sermon, you won't do the the work of the sermon, right? So it starts with conceiving it, articulating it, and then doing it. and they're all necessary parts of it.

[12:10]  So, listen, I we could talk about this journal, but I really want to talk about how you left the private sector, something that was probably uh doing well for you paycheck-wise. You were living large, but you realized it wasn't about just the paycheck. It was about the purpose. It was about the service. You mentioned how your your family was always in the service. Um what what made you take that jump? Was it something that you were just tired of in the, you know, profit section and you said, I want to do more in the nonprofit? Like what led you to say, you know what, I'm giving up this career to take up a whole different career. That's what you did. You left one career to another. So, here's how I would I I always had the mindset that I wanted to have the ability in order to have the opportunity to provide materially for my family in a way I thought I needed to, but also have the flexibility to flex in and out of that money-making world into the service giving world, if you will. And I've if you look at my res resume I flexed back and forth for many many years. So I was blessed with the opportunity to make enough money when I was in the private sector uh as a partner in a law firm, general counsel at a large mortgage bank in order to do well enough in that space so I could provide sufficiently those college educations for my children and the weddings that came after that as a father of many daughters. So I was able to do that, but that gave me the latitude to then be able to also move into the nonprofit sector and provide whatever gifts I have to that sector without, you know, my family running on empty. So it was

[13:54]  I got to ask you this, Ralph. From my dad, I didn't have a dad, so I I hear you dad and it's like, man, this is a this is a dope dad. How does it make you feel, man? You saying paying for the weddings, paying for the college. I mean, you would you would show up to one practice while your wife shows up to the other practice. Like, you guys truly did this together. As a man in a household where you don't see this often. This is not the conversations you have often with a colored man saying, "I was there for my kids and I provided like completely across the board." How did it truly make you feel, Ralph, to know that you did it? You know, your parents poured into you. You poured into your kids and you were able to kind of continue with your that legacy that your parents left. So, you never know where life's going to take you. But there's some things that can never be taken away from you. Could take away my money. You could take away my status. I could do something really dumb tomorrow. I don't intend to do it, but it could wreck my reputation and my working future, even though that timeline is compressing. You can take all that stuff away. What they can't take away is the legacy of family that you've that you've uh accomplished. And uh you know I think of all the things I'm proudest of. I'm proudest of my family uh my wife and and children and how my children have turned out and the spouses they've chosen and who have chosen them and the skills I see in them and more importantly the values that they have as they attack a 21st century world that is wildly more challenging and and complicated than I think the 20th century world I was born into. I'm a baby boomer boomer. So I was after the mess of World War I and World War II. So that time was relatively easy compared to what came before it. And what I see in the 21st century now is a big furball mess of a world that needs a lot of talented, committed, uh purposeful, grounded people, especially people of faith to grab an or start oring in the right rowing in the right direction. Uh so proudest of that have great kids who did great things. You you know we talked about you know I had all these daughters who were athletes which um watching their level of performance and ability relative to what I remember about the opportunities young women had when I was in high school and college as I always told them it's light years away. I had a soccer playing daughter who had played all over the world by the time she was a sophomore in college. I had daughters who were gymnasts who had competed all over the country. And when I told them when their mother was in high school, there wasn't a single varsity sport for young women to play. And now they're playing at an international national and international level. The world's changed. And I, you know, I think when we first talked, I told you I I love that quote from Dr. King. The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. It's our job to make sure it does bend that way. It's getting some bend back right now, but we're going to keep trying to bend it towards justice.

[16:59]  Hey, real quick. If you enjoying the podcast, we first want to say thank you. And we also just want to give you a little insight of what we're up to at Francis. Some don't even realize that we're working with organizations to help them use AI to create that real human communication experiences. where that's actually supporting your your families, those patients, or the entire community. We're actually creating tech that connects. Check it out. Francis.ai. No, I love it, man. I And I think with great leaders like yourself, man, pouring into young great leaders that we will be able to um survive the times and change the times, you know,

[17:36]  survive and grow stronger from it. We weather the current storm. We we're built we're built for a long and better future. That's the what I try to preach here as we deal with the stresses of the socopolitical ecosystem we're operating in now that's making everything exponentially harder to do. I tell people you know we've been redesigning re-engineering re-engineering how we provide our services our financial and our operating model. And I say to folks this hurts it's painful and it's a it's a heavy lift. But we flourish in these times. We will flourish in any times for as long as we're needed. So I look at the work we're doing today, creating sustainability in that work as not just winning the moment, but winning the near future. Right? So we get it right now. We're, you know, some's been around for almost six decades. We get this right. We'll be we'll be around for six times six times six times six as long as we're needed. So agree,

[18:38]  you know, with crisis comes an opportunity to get better, right? And that's what we're trying to do. This is crisis time for America, for the world. We're going to use the crisis to get better in ways we wouldn't have seen the urgency to do absent the crisis.

[18:54]  You talk about crisis, we'll we'll tap into it just a little bit. I think the the last crisis that we had that we've experienced together as a country, I mean, as a as a world, was the pandemic, right? COVID, right? And um while there was some tough times for people, one of the biggest things I realized is that mental health becomes a conversation that we all have now. Something that was swept under the rug. We didn't talk about it outside our home.

[19:14]  Well, it wasn't it wasn't for everybody, right? It didn't apply to everybody, just those people.

[19:20]  Now those people are us.

[19:23]  Yeah. Yeah. So, I love that it it becomes the buzzword that we all talk about because it's it's truly needed. We're all humans. We all go through things. We we have those moments of um doubt. We have those moments of imposter syndrome. We we truly do. And now that we get to have these conversations at a younger age, I mean, we're seeing now those in high school talking about the mental problems and the think that they're, you know, being open about those stories for a long time.

[19:48]  And there are specific for those of us who are service providers. I also sit on the board of a terrific Catholic high school here in the in the district in in the metropolitan DC. And one of the things we talk about with school leadership constantly is supporting the mental health and robustness of our students. And the fact that it's an open conversation these days, one in which the students are readily engaging us in is a real change in times. I mean, when I was growing up, man, the, you know, the the response, and I was an athlete, too, so it was especially intense in this way. You know, the expression was, "Hey, just suck it up." You know, you're hurting. Suck it up. Rub some dirt on it. Get better.

[20:35]  Now, we know it's a little more complicated than that, a little deeper than that. And we're open about it. And that's the first step to doing something about it that's meaningful and consequential.

[20:47]  So, I love it, man. We're definitely going the right direction. But I want to talk about you your career. It's you died first, right? You go into the for-profit sector. You do amazing there as well. And then you take over uh a 50year-old legacy at some that's where you're at currently now.

[21:02]  Yeah. Taking over from the Jesuits, man. That's a that's a heavy yoke.

[21:09]  Like what what's harder, man? Honoring the past or actually pushing the organization into the future? So, the answer to that is going to sound cute, but it's real. It's ministering to both is what I'll say. I want to honor the legacy because if it's not for that, I'm not here. We're not here. And thank goodness for those Jesuits originally supported by other ecumenical uh faith communities who got us to me. And now, as I said to somebody, I'm the first non-co collared leader of this organization and my job is not to screw it up, right? So, you had a bunch of priests running this place and it ran really well and supposedly I have a lot more business acumen than they had, but we'll see. Yeah, I love that you do because I feel a lot of the times nonprofits still need that business mindset and

[22:05]  they have to to survive today because you may have nonprofit in front in front of us in in the name but it's still a business. It's a nonprofit business, but it's a business and it has to operate at a pro at a at a profit as some of the folks around here were famous for saying um without the money, no mission. No money, no mission. So, in order say more money, more mission. That's your mantra.

[22:34]  Exactly. That's exactly we have a fiveyear strategic plan and that's really kind of the theme of it. More money, more mission. not just more money, but figuring out how to leverage what we have in better ways so that we do more. We can do more with as much or less. And that's the mode we're in right now. Do more with not having more resources. So the challenge for us now is to reorganize, redesign, rethink how we deliver th those comprehensives comprehensive services that we provide in the housing, health care, and human services space when our government supported dollars are shrinking all around us. How do we do more with less or do as much with less?

[23:20]  Let let's let's kind of hit on that, man. I've taken over an organization as well, 30 years old. uh just needs

[23:27]  yeah you're more courageous than I was. I had to be 60 to do that.

[23:31]  Oh man, you know it it it is actually so I started my own nonprofit at 22 years old, right? And this is starting a nonprofit from ground zero was very challenging but I was able to manage some things.

[23:42]  People have no idea how hard it's not just the startup capital. It's all the governance boxes you have to check with the IRS with the state or the district here in the district. So, it's just a lot of heavy lifting.

[23:56]  It is. And for a young individual like myself, I was 22, 23 years old. Like, just imagine, I knew nothing about the nonprofit world because one, high schools don't talk about the nonprofit world. I just I knew I wanted to give back. Um, someone says, "You should start a nonprofit." I'm like, "What is that?" I I got everything, you know, I got a attorney, got everything legalized. But anyway, so I was doing the nonprofit and I wanted to I felt like I wasn't really um reaching the kids in my community. I wanted to. So, I said, "You know what? Let me go back to my old high school." So, I went back to old high school and I started

[24:25]  What school is that, by the way?

[24:26]  Edgewater High School in Orlando.

[24:28]  So, I uh I started mentoring young men. It was men of color. And every Tuesday they would show up in bow tie. So, guess what? Every Tuesday I show up in bow ties, right? Because we we had to be that leader. We also had to let them know we're asking you to do it. We're going to do it ourselves. So, I show up and we had a great time doing that. And then I found out there was actually a foundation. So, I went to the school, never knew this foundation existed. No one knows this foundation exists to be quite frank. They're 30 years old. They have um almost $600,000 in an endowment and they're but they're only making $25,000 a year, Ralph. So I go in there and I'm I'm thinking like this is crazy. This is a 60-year-old school. The school itself, I believe I'm not mistaken, was like 1952 it started. So there's a lot of legacy in the school. There's a lot of alumni. There's a lot of great people. Why are we not tapping into it? Why are we not selling alumni merch? Why we like just lowhanging fruit, right? Why do we not have data? Why do So going into this is I'm I'm in here, right? And I'm bringing it. It's a little nerd to do this, man. Talking data. I love that.

[25:30]  It it's a it's a it's it's challenging and I realized that as we mentioned offline, uh we have to start going to the chambers. We have to tell the stories. But you went further than that. You said you have to know your numbers. Why why is it so important, Rob, to know your numbers as you're scaling up as well?

[25:45]  But we talked about this. So you're don't get bored while I talk about this on the podcast just because you've heard this already. Uh some has been blessed with lots and lots of faithful steadfast donors. Some who have been invested in some for three and four decades in many cases. And I told you I love the fact that our donor base a lot of them are faith driven. So this their support of us and our ministry is literally part of their actionable faith if you will. For Christians putting the gospels to work in their day-to-day lives. For people of other faiths, it's an expression of that faith. I believe I I believe in Judaism they refer to as it as Abu Dha which is an expression of uh action faithful uh action and support and help of others as an expression an act of faith. So most faith traditions recognize this and so a lot of our donors see us as the vehicle to expressing their faith day to day in day out. Um and so we're blessed to do that. But I, as I told you, it ain't just about thanking people for being charitable. I don't want that to be our only play. If that's our only play, this is not sustainable for another six decades. I want people to look at us as a great elilamasinary, a great charitable investment. Which means if they invest, I want them to see themselves as investors just like they would do with their finances, their money. They're not going to give their money to a financial advisor who who isn't going to make him any more money. I often tell people I want folks to see some as the um the vehicle to provide wellness and services and and and sanctuary for vulnerable people and families that does that in a highly leveraged way. That is to say, we're the we're the Goldman Sachs of human services providers for uh vulnerable communities. So if somebody and what I mean by that is I look there are a million great charities out there. people can put their dollars anywhere they want, but the young people now with their ability with the apps that allow them to be their own grant makers, you know, and deciding between where to put their dollars, if they're smart charitable investors, they're going to say, "Where do I put my dollars where I get the most bang for the buck?" That is where I get the most human gain from my investment. So, I want to have data. I want we we at some you might imagine in six decades we have tons of great stories and those narratives are compelling and necessary for people to hear but at the end of the day we also have to be able to tell them what the data says when we tell them what our mission is. I told you this when we first talked our mission is easy to state and hard to do. That mission is to save lives, improve lives, and transform the lives of vulnerable people in communities. That's our mission. Easy to say. Then the question becomes, hey, are you doing it? And if you're doing it, how do you know you're doing it? Well, we know it because we study our work and we look at, okay, I think I told you we did a study a couple years back to try to understand what is the value of the emergency services we provide for the street homeless and other vulnerable people in our community. And I think I told you my my analytics team said for every dollar our donor invests in us in the emergency services space we provide $52 worth of services. So it's a 52 multiple. And I think I told you when I first heard that I was like oh you got to be kidding me that that can't be right. Go back and look at your methodology. They came back and said no it is 52. And then I thought to myself, hey, look at how the Urban Institute analyzes that that return on investment metric. Follow what they do and then tell me what the number is. And they said it's still a 50 plus multiple.

[30:10]  And then I thought to myself, we're even if we're wrong by 50%, hey, I'll I'll take I'll take a 25 multiple. Heck, I'll take a 10 multiple. If you're a financial investor, won't you take a 10 or absolutely multiple? Of course you will in the market a 15x trading multiple is a great trading multiple for investors financial investors. So, I want to be able to look at those folks who are in I think I told you we have some very generous donors in the private equity space and they're used how are they how are they doing as well as they're doing? They're doing well because they're figuring out how to take businesses and create bigger multiples uh based on, you know, what the business is earning year over year over year over year and then taking that out to a terminal exit number and and discounting that number to present value, the discounted cash flow analysis for those business school junkies. So, I know those people are used to hearing what the multiple, what's the trading multiple here? And so I want to be able to tell them what our human gain multiple is, right? A dollar sum, you're not going to get a dollar of services for vulnerable people. A dollar sum, you're going to get a 20, 30, 40, 50 multiple. So I want to be able to say, "Yeah, we got great stories, but we also have great data." So that's the financial metric I want to be able to tell them. But then somebody might say, "Oh, that's all well and good, but are you actually saving lives and improving lives? What do those life outcomes look like that you claim you have? We have those, too. We know. We know when we treat somebody in our medical clinic, we know we're going to make them better. We've got years and years of of health data to back that up that says when somebody hits our platform, they usually have multiple co com co-orbidities, diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay, a whole bunch of things. um and we make them better and because we we obviously keep those those health outcome metrics. So two sets of metrics have to be great for our investors, right? That we're actually doing what we say we're making people better. We're saving them, we're improving them, we're transforming them. have to be able to show that, but also have to be able to show them that we're doing it in an economically a financially highly leveraged way. So, it's not dollar for dollar. It's $52 for a dollar of investment. So, if we can show people we're actually making people better, we're transforming their health outcomes, their their ability to provide materially for themselves and their family, and we're doing it in a highly leveraged way. That's a good cell, right? So, we're not we're not just appealing to people to have them feel good. We want them to know we are good. We are good at at saving, improving, and transforming as we claim. So, it's not just doing the work. We have a team here that studies our outcomes and generates our data that says, "Hey, you know, you you all are doing this really well." So, when people say, "What's an example of one of those good outcomes?" I think I mentioned this to you when we talked offline. So we have an SUD program here. It's one of our most successful programs. It's our drug treatment program. And so we say, "Hey, are we are we making people who are suffering from sub substance use disorder, drug addiction, are we making them better?" And I think I told you our five-year sobriety rate for people who go successfully through that program is in the mid to high 80 percentile. And the national average is somewhere between 40 and 45%. So, we're doubling the national average. And so, in space that's really hard to win in, we're winning in it. And we can we can tell you, we can take you to our alumni picnics where people stand up and say, "My name is so and so. I'm 2 years sober. I'm 5 years sober." You'll get people there who say, "I'm now 30 years sober." Thanks to some. So, that's the that's the story. But then we got all this data that supports it. So you know it's not enough to do well but you have to be able to do well and then put it in a narrative and then give it to people are using it used to looking at metrics giving them the data that says you know cuz you know the private equity folks are used to looking at numbers right that's why they buy and sell companies because of the numbers that they see. So we try to give we try to appeal to the heart through the narrative but to the brain through the numbers. So, it's my job to make sure we are actually improving lives, mentally, uh, medically, emotionally, and spiritually. You know, we're a we're a whole person care model here. We minister to the body, the mind, and the soul. So, are we making all those things better? The answer isn't just yes, it's heck yes. or some people might use a word other than heck. But yeah, we know because we have the stories, but we also have the data.

[35:20]  Listen, this is why when we were talking this offline, I was like, wait, we got to say this to everyone because this is good information. One other good thing that I took out of all that, right, was alumni picnic. I'm like, oh, that's a good one. All right, I'm I'm always trying to figure out what are people doing. And I think that's actually really cool how you bring people back together to tell the story, to tell the data, to just have fun. Um, so definitely writing that down, bringing it back to the board. But one of the other things that people are doing and some may be doing it great, some may not is integrating AI. Some of them people are still living in fear. You call it a silent partner injustice. Like when did you realize, wait a minute, there's something there in the AI world that could definitely help us, especially as a silent partner. What are you guys doing? How do you see it helping an organization like yours?

[36:04]  So, we partner with a lot of other people. I mean part of the value of this space is I always say to people part of our strategic plan is objectives around housing, healthcare, all that stuff. But another objective is to um be able to replicate and leverage our own work using other partners to help us us help them them help us. So uh I often refer to us as the anti-intellectual property force. So when we figure out how to do do something really well, unlike the for-profit business world, we don't go out and get a patent or a copyright and hold it to us and say this is all ours only we can use this. No, it's the exact opposite. When we figure out how to be successful at something, we want to bring others into the tent so that they can do it as well so that they can replicate what we're doing. So it's not just getting things right. It's replicate, replicate, and scale. replicate, replicate, scale. Um, and so we do that with partners and AI is no different. We have a partner who uh I've worked with in other spaces before I came to some and this particular partner is hellbent or heavenbent on uh making sure that vulnerable communities, especially vulnerable communities of color, don't fire fall further behind in the digital literacy space. and they've been very very su successful at that. They're now focusing on AI to say, "Hey, if our vulnerable brothers and sisters don't at least understand the basics of AI and how it can help them, how it can create leverage and efficiencies and get to solutions faster. If they don't understand that, the divide between the halves and have nots is going to is going to replicate on a multiplicative level, not an additive level. So, we're about to start partnering with this organization to integrate more AI related material in our workforce training programs which now focus on the construction trades and the medical trades. I would like to expand it when the so when the economic and financial environment are such that we can I would like to add uh digital the digital piece to that workplace um training program and now we're already developing with this partner slowly right now it's in it in infancy so don't want to oversell it but we're working to add an AI module to that space not just for our students in that space for them but also for us here at sum so that we can uh uh leverage AI as much as possible. we are and the timing is right for us because we're right at that point where we scale to a point where we have to migrate to um a new ERP software system and for those who don't live in this space no I I no reason why people should necessarily know what that is ERP is the rage in uh the corporate world and the nonprofit world it means enterprise uh resource planning. So, it's a it's a software tool that shows you how you're deploying your assets and how you can do it more efficiently and better. And so, we're about to migrate to a new ERP tool. So, having a tool that is AI friendly is really it's the right it's the it's a big expenditure. It's a multi-million dollar expenditure, but it's the right time for us to make it as AI is ramping up. Perfect. get an ERP tool that integrates AI seamlessly in a way that optimizes what we need it to do. So what we needed to do is to is to optimize and amplify our ability to gather data from all the disperate disperate spaces we have at some you know we're operating effectively seven or eight lines different lines of service. If we were a corporate or a for-profit corporate entity, you would you would you would call us a conglomerate. I mean, we do health care, we do housing development and operations, we do human services, we do about seven things, any one of those seven things could be its own nonprofit. So when you've got when you're doing is the length and breadth of what we're doing, having a tool that allows you to see it all, gather data on it all, and figure out whether you're optimally deploying deploying your resources, both your financial resources and your human resources. It's absolutely critical to having an effective operating model going forward. And I think we talked about this when we talked offline, the the current crisis in our space that's occasioned by the work of this administration is really forcing us to look at what we do and figuring out how to redesign, reconfigure our operations around our services and our people so that we can do more with less. We can do things in a much more efficient and highly leveraged way. And a better new advanced ERP tool will help us do that. And one that is AI ready is critical to that because AI I mean I'm I often jokingly refer to myself especially around my kids as a technant. Like I don't have that 16 or 17year-old brain that's just knitted to this thing and like just any thought zings through here. I'm not that way. And I've had to make myself be that way cuz this thing can leverage you a lot. And I think I told you when we spoke that I went from being reticent and eye rolling about AI to now I'm I'm on AI all the time asking questions. I have a thought. You know, when I was thinking about this morning, I thought, you know, I'd talk a little bit at some point about who's our target population at some. And I think I told you our target population is the population that HUD defines as extreme poverty. 0 to 30% of AMI, area median income. And I thought, you know, if I throw that out there, people are going to say, "What the hell is AMI?" So it's it's it's area median income essentially roughly. What's the average salary of a a household in the district or in the in this in this region? And then so I said, 'Well, people are going to know if our population is 0 to 30% of that number, what's that mean? What it means is our target population is people who make no money, zero income, all the way to people who uh 30% of AMI for a family of four in the district is $46,000 a year. So, think of it as families under $46,000 a year. That's our target population. And so I came up with that number just this morning. I asked AI, "Hey, what's that what's what's 30% of of AMI for uh uh for the district based on 2025 data and it gave me it laid in like a minute. It laid the whole table out there for me." Now, that's something a question that just popped into my own head that I would spend a week to research before that, but now it's a minute on my fingertips. So,

[43:41]  well, well, Ralph, I'm happy that you're using it. There's people that are probably way younger than you, still not in it. I was I was talking to my mechanic the other day and he was having this question. You know, as humans, man, it doesn't matter what your profession is, you still may have questions. So, I uh I say, "Hey, man, you ever use chat GPT?" And he's like, "No, do you pay for that?" And I'm like, "No, man. It's free." So I showed in live my mom my mom's in her 60s and I said, "Mom, you ever use chat dpt?" She said, "What?" I said, "You ever use chat dp?" She said, "What?" I said, "Clearly, you don't even know what that is." Never mind.

[44:10]  You're speaking truth, my brother. My my my my children are flabbergasted that I'm on chat GBT all the time. And I said, "Why are you flabbergasted?" I said, "You know how inquisitive I am. Anytime we're together, I have a million questions that nobody can ever answer." Now I don't have to ask other people. I just go on chat GP and I ask it and I have the answer and in like a minute I think I told you when we were online offline talking I did this uh I was on on this housing panel for at the national housing conference recently and in the cab ride over something popped into my head. There's this Medicaid section of the Medicaid funding bill that provides money for pilots. And I had never heard of it until the morning of the conference. And I and so I had no idea what it was on the Uber ride over. I just went on chat GBT and I asked him, "Can you tell me what section XXX is and what some examples are of it in action?" It laid out the statute for me in easy bullet points. And then it gave me examples of three pilots, two in Dallas and one in Phoenix. And I read that in the 10-minute Uber ride to the conference. Got asked a question about it. Nobody else on the panel had anything to say. I talked for about 15 minutes on it. And somebody said to me, "How do you know so much about that? That's so obscure." And I said, "AI on the way over here."

[45:47]  No, I love it. I I had a similar moment too. Um we were

[45:51]  it's just it's it's candy for the curious mind

[45:55]  and I'll even have conversations with it. Funny conversations cuz you know it has some some it has various personalities and when it figures out what yours is, it matches.

[46:05]  Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I think it's so funny sometime when it when it makes me laugh. But um Noah, just like you, man, I was doing the award ceremony. We handed out 15 scholarships. So, we had to do a piece on every single child that we were providing scholarship for. So, it was somebody else's job, but I says, "Hey, have you ever used AI?" She's in her 70s as well. And she's like, "No, but I'm like you." She says, "I'm curious. Like, I'll love to learn." So, I'm teaching her, you know, virtually. And she's like, "Oh my god, Ephrain, did you save that?" I'm like, "It's in his brain. We can always go back to this stuff." So, whatever. She says, "Ephra, um, if you could do it, cuz I I taught her virtually." She said, "If you could teach me in person where I you can kind of like hold my hand through, I think I'll really be able to learn. But what you showed me, it's a little, you know, challenging." So I said, "Okay, no worries. I'll do it for you." So I did it. I go and the vice president is recording me. Well, I'm on stage. The vice president is like, "Oh my god, you're so great. Oh my god, this and the other." At the end of he's like, "Did you write all those?" And I said, "Nah, Chad Dvt did it in 5 minutes." Like that's how quick things could be done. But I ask you, man, as we start to wrap this up, you've done the courtroom, the boardroom, you've now the nonprofit grind. What part of Ralph Boyd will never retire?

[47:16]  Uh, first of all, the curious part, the one that has endless questions, and second, the engaging part, the one that wants to wrestle wrestle every issue to the ground. And then thirdly, the playful part that likes to play and then articulate it in interesting ways. Isaac, so we've been really serious. Here's a less serious moment. I was going back and forth with chat GBT the other day. I was asking it if Liam Niss had any any more Taken movies in in Q because I really loved I'm a martial artist among other things. So I really love Taken. It my personality and I I was explaining this to Chat GBT. I wanted to convey that without sounding like a violent knuckle dragger. And I said to Chat GBT, you know, every once in a while I need a little dose of righteous restorative violence. And Chat GBT went wild and said righteous restorative violence. I love that. I'm going to use that.

[48:24]  No, that's so good, man. I I I'm I'm this has been such a great conversation and I know we have to wrap this up so I leave you um with this last question. This is the hot seat question as you may. So I know you have one right after but you said you wanted to teach after retirement. What's the one lesson you wish every young leader could learn from your life story? uh that when you pour into others in a in an authentic way and you're doing it purposefully and you're doing it not to wave your hands and say, "Hey, I'm a hero. I'm a hero." But you're doing it because you really want to co-own other people's uh favorable life outcomes. Um that when you bless others, you are infinitely blessed yourself. So, you know, when I'm on my deathbed, which I'm closer to that than I was before and I'm aware of it, I'm not going to say, you know what, I wish I'd stayed at that mortgage bank a few more years and racked up a few more million dollars. I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say, if anything, thanks for the blessing of giving me enough, Lord, so that my family could live well and that I could also do well for others. I could live well and do well. I've been able to straddle those two things. That's been important to me. It may not be as important to other people, but uh my message to them is that you can live well and live right. And uh the folks I want to really pour into are folks that believe that and want to live that cuz that's how we get that's how humanity gets better or human humankind gets better.

[50:10]  And we you know we don't get better because we're richer. we get better because we have enough that we need and we're figuring out how to make sure everybody else does as well. So,

[50:20]  I love that.

[50:20]  Uh the other thing I would tell them just in terms of process is don't don't fear failing because very often failure is a necessary part of learning and if you're afraid to fail, you won't try stuff. I sit on a corporate board with a bunch of uh what I'll call small cap money managers. And let me tell you, those dudes are the most dollar conscious, breadcrumb conscious people on the planet. They want to scre squeeze every penny of margin out of everything to the point where it frustrates me sometime. Um but one of the things one of them who I think is a very smart guy tells me is don't be afraid to fail. just be willing to fail fast. So try a bunch of stuff because if you don't try other things, you won't society gets better because people try stuff, right?

[51:14]  Uh you know, Steve Jobs gets in the garage and starts putting together a you know, a desktop. Uh

[51:21]  you know, lot of failure, a lot of failure before Apple became Apple. Um and I I don't necessarily want to use that example. He's not one of my favorite people in the world, but he's an easy he's an easy example cuz he tried a lot of stuff, failed a lot, but when he succeeded succeeded big. So, be willing to try stuff, acknowledging that you won't win every time, but be willing to try stuff. Uh, and be willing to walk away from something that's not working, that you can't see a road to fixing.

[51:52]  Um, so try stuff and don't be afraid of being wrong. You know, we talked about this, too. I'm a reader. I think some of the ways we get better is reading what smart people write. And I think I told you I'm a big fan of Adam Grant and of Malcolm Gladwell. They've written some for some brilliant stuff that every leader and every family leader should read because their stuff is not just good for running organizations. It's good for being a good person, for being a good father, for being a good family member. And uh Adam Grant recently wrote a book called um think again. And the thesis is has several thesis but one of them is learn from being wrong. That's the ripest hunting ground for getting better is being wrong. And don't be afraid of it. Don't run from it. Don't deny it. Accept it and and integrate it as learning. Um, and so I would tell a lot of people don't do things because they're afraid they'll fail or they're afraid they'll be exposed as being wrong. You're never going to learn and be smart and better if you never want to be wrong. If you're steadfast against ever being wrong.

[53:07]  I'll tell you, Ralph, we're almost here at an hour and if someone didn't come watch this far, they missed out so many gems. I'm just saying, uh, it's their loss here. But I ask you, what is your blind question to the next leader? Uh what are you trying to accomplish?

[53:23]  What are you easy?

[53:24]  You know, I think it was the Dollaly Lama who said something like if the cause is noble, the immediate result is irrelevant.

[53:34]  Um I don't necess as a as somebody running an organization, I'm about results, so I resist that. But I get his point. The point is if your cause is right, that's the bottom line. And keep trying to get better at executing against that objective, that cause. And if you're doing that, you'll get you'll get results eventually. But if you're so obsessed about a result early on, uh you know, you won't try stuff. You know, you won't you'll if you're you know, it's like it's like the fighter who's afraid to throw the punch, afraid he might get hit by a counter punch. Well, if one thing's for sure, if you don't get if you don't throw a punch in the ring, you won't win. I promise you that.

[54:22]  Uh Rafa, man, I thank you for the conversation. This has truly been great. I've learned I'm pretty sure a lot of the leaders that are watching um or even those young leaders that are aspiring to be in your shoes are learning from this conversation. I ask you, where can people find the organization? I know you have the website sum.org. I believe that's what the website is. Are you guys on social? Where can they find you personally? Are you on LinkedIn? Let's let the people know where they can connect.

[54:44]  We're on all we're on all those things. So, uh www.sum.org. You can find all that stuff and you'll see links to our social media post. We are on Facebook. We're I'm going to play Bill Bich here. We're on Snap Grant and Chat Grant and all that stuff. So, I have I have smart younger people who handle that stuff.

[55:09]  We'll do that. Got it. And then you are on LinkedIn personally if someone want.

[55:13]  Yes, I am on LinkedIn. Yes. Yes, I am. Uh and that's a pretty extensive look at kind of my working life. All the different gigs I've had, the federal prosecutor, the UN UN gig I had, the nonprofits I've run, the corporate world, all of it's there along with some of the specific work that I undertook in those various roles. So, I hope what people walk away with is, wow, that dude is the, you know, I'm not the best at any of those things, but guess what? I'm good at all of them, and I think I've been consequential in all those spaces. So that's the bottom line too. You know, we live in a, you know, who's got their hands up and wearing the belt where there's a lot of really great people who aren't wearing wearing the belt and uh, you know, just do stuff. Do stuff, do it as as well as you can do it with the best of intentions and, you know, measure yourself. Am I achieving what I, you know, set out to do? And also, you know, faith is at the bottom line of all of this for me. I love this scripture. It's from Jeremiah 29:11. It's the Lord saying through Jeremiah, remember the plans I have for you, not for you to fail, but for for you to prosper and have a future. So, I live by that one, man. Remember, recall the plans I have for you, not for you to fail, but for you to have for you to prosper and have a future.

[56:40]  I love it. Well, guys, if you guys are still here with us, this has been an amazing episode with another great leader. We continue to have these conversations, but it doesn't help if you're not sharing, commenting, if you're not just liking it, because that's how we get the word out, the message, right? We can have these conversations, but in order for them to get to other people's ears, do the things that doesn't cost you anything. You want to know how you can actually support nonprofits like this one is just share the story. Share what Ralph is doing, and you've learned so much about him today. But we thank you. We can't wait to do this again with Ralph. My name is Ephrain. This is Ralph. We'll see you guys on the next.

[57:12]  God bless you, Ephrain. Lettuce.