Rock Star to $760M Nonprofit: Michael Olenick's Incredible Child Care Resource Center Story

[0:16]  Welcome back to the Heart and Hustle. We have another guest and but this time this guy's special, man. Not every day you meet a guy who went from playing in a rock band to running a $760 million nonprofit helping thousands of families. Michael, how does that even happen?

[0:32]  Well, you know, I I I grew up in a family of uh people that were involved in social justice back in the 40s and 50s and 60s. Uh and so the whole idea of helping people has always been something that was, you know, and my mother used to say, you know, even as a kid, I wanted to, you know, solve the world's problems. I haven't done that yet. So uh you know but uh my dad was a professional musician and composer mostly a church musician

[1:03]  and uh he always had all these different jobs and you know so I was playing instruments from the time I was four. Uh picked up the violin when I was nine and played all the way through high school and got into playing in in rock bands in college. Uh and thought that that was uh you know this is at the end of the Vietnam War and all that. So I thought, you know, try to make a living playing music. And I ended up signing with a music company in Minneapolis. And after a year of working for this company, realized that the music business is really an awful business,

[1:38]  especially in the 70s. And then you had disco coming in and a lot of the live music places went to, you know, just spinning records and the mid7s. I said, you know, this isn't working for me. Uh I I'm not making a living. And um some things happened. Uh I was broke and kid threw a rock through my windshield to my car and I said, "I got to get a job that pays money." So um my mother who was a professor of child development said, "You know, you always liked kids. You always liked uh you know, she ran daycare centers and all that when when I was growing up." And she said, you know, she volunteer the summers. Uh, and uh, so, you know, I had experience working with kids. Um, spent some time working with special needs kids. And she said, you know, why don't you go back to school and get a a teaching certificate? I thought about doing music therapy. And she said, don't do music therapy because if you do, you'll be the first one laid off if there's a downturn in the economy. Uh, which is funny because her mom said to her, "Get a teaching credential. You'll always have a job." you know, my my grandmother was a an immigrant from Poland. So, I you know, so she said, you know, there's this program down the street uh in Hyde Park uh in Chicago, uh where you can get a master's degree in one year and you can get a teaching permit and um you can do that. I thought, well, okay. So, I it's called the Ericson Institute. It's now a it's now a big enterprise, but at the time they took 25 or 30 students a year. uh three men out of I think it was 25 of us and and three men was a lot. Uh and uh so I got this master's degree and I did an internship at a place called Chicago Childare Society and I worked there for I don't know four years. Uh two of the years I taught kindergarten to you know bunch of kids. Uh and then um the last year, the not the last year, but the the year before the last year, um I had a kid in my class who was profoundly disturbed. Uh her mother was um really mentally ill. And this kid should not have been with her mom anymore. She should have been, you know, gotten pulled out and put in foster care. And no one was doing anything about it. And so, you know, I I never think small. So, I thought, I know, I'll go back to school and get a PhD so I can influence policy. I wasn't thinking about going into academia. I was thinking about uh influencing policy and having the skills and the tools to do that. So, uh I applied to a couple schools, got into UCLA, moved to California. Uh took me five I thought it was going to take me three years. It took me five years to to finish. Uh and I did a really big uh doctoral thesis. I wouldn't suggest anybody do it, but I I ended up evaluating child care programs in a 100 childcare centers across Los Angeles County. Uh 215 classrooms and um I actually became somewhat well known for having done that. Uh and so when I finished there were no jobs for somebody who wanted to you know do things the the nexus between research and policy. Um so I went into business for myself. um doing um u policy u evaluation work mostly um did a lot of work for the city of LA and um also did a project one year on why foster parents weren't coming to community colleges who had money to do training for foster parents uh a six-month project that ended up taking up the next 14 years of my life. So I went from um coordinating 22 colleges in Los Angeles County with the Department of Children and Family Services to then um working for the California Community College Foundation and then from there um ended up getting contracts with LA County, ended up getting contracts with LA uh California Department of Social Services, found out that I was pretty good at um hustling public money uh and putting together programs that were actually effective and you know took a lot of my research skills and used them to be able to quantify uh what we were doing and quant and looking at quality of what we were doing and uh people kept coming to us and saying can you do this can you do that 2001 um I got recruited by the director of uh LA department of children family services to be the director of emancipation services so so basically working with adolescence Uh, and so I went at the foundation when I left, I was managing 200 people with a $12 million budget back in n in 2001. I went to DCFS and uh ended up with just about that many people, but a $37 million budget. Um, I got recruited to be on the board of the organization that I now have been running for almost 22 years, uh, to be on their board. And when my predecessor decided to retire, she's she went to the search firm and said, "I know the right person for this job. That would be Mike Olnick. Go out and um recruit him." So I I got the job back in the end of 2003, and I've been here ever since.

[7:02]  So,

[7:03]  and now you're impacting over 66,000 kids. You've you've scaled an $89 million nonprofit to about 760 million. Y

[7:11]  um

[7:12]  we're really unpacking how, why, and and what it takes to lead with both heart and systems. I mean, truly, you've been doing it your whole life.

[7:21]  Yeah. And you know, it's a calling. Uh I don't know that I realized that it was a calling when I started, but uh you know, my mother worked up until um two months before she died.

[7:33]  I have a feeling that's going to be me, too. So,

[7:36]  how old was your mom before when she passed?

[7:38]  She was 77.

[7:39]  Wow. Oh, and she worked two months, too. Wow.

[7:42]  Yeah. She she she did all sorts of amazing things. So, don't get me started. I'll get tearary.

[7:48]  All right. All right. We will do that. Yeah. Love is everything.

[7:51]  Yeah. So, some of the things that happened to me recently, I think she, you know, she would have been really proud of me. So,

[7:56]  you know what I really love that you mentioned is that um your mom volunttoed you and and then earlier we were talking about your wife, right? And then you talked about your grandma. So many great women. Yeah.

[8:11]  That just know what they're talking about,

[8:13]  right? And sometimes we

[8:16]  don't even realize it. We're in our lives and and so many people may have planted a seed. Your grandma, your mom, pretty sure your wife as well. And and and we don't realize it. We just doing these things and look where you end up today because your mom volunttoled you to get here and then it it kind of started to spark some interest on what was next in your life.

[8:32]  Yeah. It it's it's um you know, it's interesting. the my family history was that the women always worked the you know the my my dad you know he was a musician he'd be working he'd you know he'd do this he do that every seven years he had you know sort of a different career uh my mom was the the steady one uh you know in the 50s uh when you know women didn't necessarily go out to work and the men did my mom worked my grandmother worked my dad's mom worked I mean uh you know uh working women was not something that was foreign to to me and it's really interesting to talk to a lot of people who think that you know well even now they talk about well the women should go back home and take care of the kids that's not really the reality of what's going on in this country you know if you're lucky enough to have a spouse you both need to work in order to be able to afford a house you know and all that kind of stuff because it's so expensive especially in California and so uh you know what we're doing is we're we're working with a lot of families that are lower income that either have gone on to wealth welfare or they need a help in order to pay for child care so they can work and they can move up in in their jobs and we survey them every year you know has the child care enabled you to get a job keep a job move up in your job and the answer is always you know 95% say yes and so uh you know child care is like critical and during COVID everybody realized that uh you know you wouldn't have any nurses you you know doctors who were you know were women who had kids. If they didn't have child care, they couldn't get to the hospitals.

[10:09]  Uh even the people that swept the floors, I mean, child care was sort of erupted as being something that was necessary.

[10:16]  Uh and that the and that it was a public good and it wasn't something that, you know, you should be able to do on your own.

[10:23]  So, it's uh and it's and it's primarily a women's field, but it it's also uh a lot of people taking care of kids are, you know, black or brown. uh and uh they should be getting paid a decent wage and so we're we're still having that battle. People don't understand that, you know, it's not a

[10:40]  simple job.

[10:42]  Michael, you really just throughout your journey till today have put on so many different hats. I mean, you talked about community college student to government roles to now running the organization CCRC. What part of that that I could only imagine was sometimes a messy journey taught you most about leadership and things that you carry till today? You know, I I would say that the the biggest thing is that um you don't do it on your own. You get a lot of people in these jobs that think that they're, you know, all that and that, you know, it's all because of them. And you know what I tell my staff is that this is a partnership between, you know, me and you. you know, I'm I'm looking out at the prow prow of the ship in terms of where we're going, but if you don't do your jobs and and deliver the services that we we do, I can't do my job and vice versa.

[11:34]  And so, you know, it's it's a partnership. I think one of the hardest things for me to learn is as it's gotten bigger, how you communicate has gotten more complicated. It's not like you can sit down with everybody in a room and say, "Here's what we're going to do." or or you know I mean I started with a staff of about nine back in 1988. Uh now I've got a staff of 1400. I mean we did an all staff uh we had to go to an auditorium you know and then I have to you know I have I have to give them a message about especially this year it's like things are a little crazy out there. We don't know where things are going to go and you know here's what we've done over the last 12 or 13 years but it could change and you need to be prepared for that. So, I had to give them a message that was, "Hang in there. You're doing a good job, but at the same time, we may have to tighten our belts and and I don't know where that's going to go." I mean, you have to be honest with people, but it's, you know, it's the whole issue of teamwork

[12:32]  and leadership and being able to pick the right people for the jobs uh is really critical to to running an operation of this size. And it and as the operation got bigger, the people that were in my leadership group had to change because, you know, you get people who can only do the job to a certain level and then it gets too big for them and so then you got to, you know, move on from them. So it's it's uh it's been a it's been you know and being in the being in the job for almost 22 years uh you know and going from 89 million to what eight times that is uh there have been a lot of lessons about there's developmental stages as you go even in your own life in terms of how you manage the whole company but ultimately even when I had eight staff to now that I have 14 staff it's about teamwork and being honest with your staff you know during during COVID I recorded a message just about once a week. I in those years I recorded 32 messages you know to all these people that were now working out of their houses to say here's where we are today. Here's you know here here's you know just just to make sure that everybody knew that they were connected.

[13:41]  When you think when you mentioned you've scaled this um organization eight times from when you received it to what it is now.

[13:48]  What was that first big decision that told you we're about to scale and we're ready for it? I mean it was already a big organization. And I think what we're seeing now and you can kind of vouch for this is that nonprofits are looking for how do I scale in a time where fundings are being cut when we talked a little bit offline what's happening within our government. Um can you share what that may have looked like for you? I know it's very different times but maybe there's some things that people can actually take today to help them kind of ease this transition.

[14:16]  Well I don't know about ease but you know um we operate on a lot of a lot of government money. I I would say that 98% of all the funding that we bring in is is from various different places in the government. Um I have 65 contracts. I have 24 different funders. Uh and I think 22 of them are government entities, county, state, federal government.

[14:40]  So, you know, when you get into these situations where all of a sudden everything is being cut, it, you know, makes you very anxious about what's going on. Uh, I'm not so sure that I had a clear p plan

[14:55]  of, okay, now we're going to do this and it's going to get us this. It was always about being ready for the next thing and having a a can do attitude that whatever came along, we were going to be able to do it. But I I can tell you that, you know, when I started here, it was basically a, you know, that $89 million, it was mostly a voucher program of of sending vouchers out uh for families needing child care. And I said, we need to diversify our revenue. We can't just be about that. So, you know, we've added different programs. We've added mental some mental health. we've added uh a variety of things, but you also have to deal with politicians and you've got to deal with county bureau county and state bureaucracies and um and so I you know I sort of developed this notion of a three-legged stool which I think now is four legs but it was not only do you provide the service but you have to do you have to have a research arm u so that you can collect data and have data at your and how do you package that data to explain your story. You have to have a communications department that can um get your story out there in a way that people will actually pay attention to it. You have to have a government relations group. I started with one person, now I have nine. Uh and uh you know, just educating people on what it is that you do and being ready for the next thing. Um so you know things like our our software system couldn't handle the staffing. So three years ago, three years ago we said you know we have more than four layers of people but this the software we have that manages all the HR folks doesn't have more than four layer uh can't do what was it four layers but we now had five couldn't manage the five layers of staff that we have

[16:44]  so we had to go out and find other other software you know and I said well you know we've grown so much in such a short amount of time we need to invest in this now so it's it you know there have been a number of times where I have invested invested in the next thing thinking that that was going to help us if we grew and and if we didn't grow it would still help us anyway. So we've now gone to a a pretty sophisticated um HR and financial platform that the big Fortune 500 companies use. Um I mean we're not that size but we're big enough that we can afford it and that it makes our it makes our lives easier. So it's looking at some of those kind of things. How do you use technology to make things more efficient? So, you know, I I'm giving a very long answer to

[17:28]  No, no, no. I I like that. And I also think what you also did very well um that people fail to do, I think, when I speak to nonprofit leaders is that you brought in business leaders. You brought in that business mindset because ideally, we know that a nonprofit is a business. You have to treat it like a business. And I don't know that a lot of people do that. Why why do that? Why shake things up in a sense of let's bring those business leaders to the organization? Well, you know, um I I have a background in developmental psychology. I, you know, I did a lot of work in urban planning. I know I had a fellowship at UCLA in policy and how research affects policy. I know how to do research. But some of these other things, I mean, I had to learn budget the hard way. I I had to, you know, by building budgets over many, many years, small ones, bigger ones. I mean, we just went through a giant, you know,

[18:21]  our budget for next year is going to be $789 million. So, but it's not much of a change from this current fiscal year. So, we've and we our expenses keep going up. You know, all our health care benefits are up seven protected be up 7%. You know, you want to give people raises. How do you do that? You know, it's it's

[18:41]  um it's all that kind of stuff. And and having um I have a forensic C a forensic CPA and another woman who is uh who runs a an audit firm. Uh so they, you know, they give me advice on how to do that. I recruited a guy in it who was one of the founders of MySpace.

[19:06]  Wow.

[19:06]  Which not, you know, was not, you know, it started in in a dorm room, I think, at USC 25 years ago. He's not doing that. But he was really help he's been really helpful to me in terms of uh we were having some issues with it. And so I had him come in and look at all the stuff that we did. He makes some recommendations. I didn't have to pay him for him because he's on the board.

[19:25]  Uh I had somebody else that helped me buy a couple of buildings when I didn't, you know, I mean real estate acquisition is not something that I mean I bought two houses in my life.

[19:34]  Helped me do that. We floated a bond to do it and he knew how to do that. I mean, it's like you want people on your board who fill in the gaps that you have.

[19:45]  Correct. Correct.

[19:46]  And so, you know, I I still have a couple of people who are child development people, but when I started, it was all child development people. And I was like,

[19:53]  they're not going to I mean, I that stuff I knew. I didn't need that. What I needed was,

[19:58]  you know, auditors and, you know, finance people and real estate people and all that kind of stuff. So, I feel like over the last 20 years, I've ended up with an MBA, but I did it the hard way. I told my I have a son that just got his MBA and I said, you know, go to school, get an MBA. If you want to be a boss, that that would be helpful.

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[20:42]  I don't know, Michael. I love the hard way. As much as we say is the hard way, I think it's the real way because there's nothing but there's nothing like hands-on experience and and seeing failure and learning from failure. And I love what you mentioned about just changing the board. We walk into cuz that's kind of what I did. I walked onto this board and a lot of them were probably uh parents to the school and their kids were going to leave in four years. So they were there probably just to kind of uh help in a sense while the kids are there. But I like you, I think about some of the leaders. So the other day I was talking to one of the board members been on the board for about a year that was kind of brought on a little prior to me and I finally asked him what do you do and what do you what would you love to sitting back for a year not saying much where do you see the need and where do you like to utilize your talents and he's a um he was a project executive. So he think he's seen things, you know, from a different view when it comes to just putting things in place. I'm like, well, listen, we have these events that we're trying to put together. Like you are the guy that sees this at that level and then, you know, I help you kind of delegate the work. But it is it's finding people that um can really elevate what you're already doing, right? The organization, as you mentioned, you walked into a pretty nice organization, the size of it, the the, you know, the uh the money that they're making in, but it's how do we continue to elevate what we're doing? And I think you did an amazing job by just adding that business, you know, leaders.

[22:02]  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, and and like I said, the three, you know, my three-legged stool and and some of those other things and making sure that, you know, the expectation is that we do a high quality job, which is, you know, not easy.

[22:13]  Yeah. And and Michael, you're doing such an amazing job that earlier today before we even got on live, you said there was there are some things that you were being nominated for. You want to talk about what is that?

[22:23]  Yeah. So um you know we have a I think all through the country there are these business journals.

[22:29]  So in Los Angeles we have the LA Business Journal uh which covers the whole pretty much the whole metropolitan LA area and every year they do a list of the 500 most influential people in LA and uh you know and so it's like you know Mayor Karen Bess and Steven Spielberg and Magic Johnson and LeBron you know and all that. Well, I made the list this year for the first time.

[22:55]  I love it.

[22:55]  They also do a secondary list for the San Frernando Valley, which by itself would be the I think it's the sixth or seventh largest city in the country. Uh, and they've done a list of the 200 most influential people. And I've been on that list for the last eight years. So, I feel like I graduated to the whole county even though, you know, I don't I work with people who work in the other parts of the county, but I don't actually responsible for anything below the the Mhalland Drive. So, you know, the whole basin is not mine. But I got on the list. So I, you know, I I had to send something out to all of my friends from who knew me from my rock and roll days and say,

[23:31]  "Hey, you know, I was I'm not such a a failure. You know,

[23:34]  you're a rock star." Yeah. Yeah. No, for real.

[23:36]  You're a rockstar in its own way. Actually,

[23:39]  um, are you familiar? I'm You have to be familiar, but Subway, right?

[23:43]  So, back in the days before they sold, um, this the chief development officer, um, I ended up doing Uncover Boss with him, and he was a rockstar, man. and he would just tell me how his early days he was uh obviously drugs got to him. He had to get he had to go sober. The the the former CEO, he passed away, but he went to his desk and seen him flat on his desk. He said, "Listen, man. I know you think you're a rockstar out in the world. I want you to be a rockstar for Subway." And so every time he was seeing me, he said, "Ephan, you're a rockstar." Right? And it allows me to realize, man, we don't have to, you know, be behind a microphone. We don't have to be behind a, you know, a guitar or anything like that to be a rockstar. is truly what we do in our own communities that make us a rockstar. And truly, look, look what's happening, man.

[24:24]  You know, you're a list with Stephen Spielberg and LeBron James. Come on, you're rockar.

[24:30]  And actually, the other thing that we're doing, uh, when we, you know, we, um, we bank with one bank.

[24:38]  And, you know, and so we're running like almost $800 million through this bank. So, even though we spend the money fairly quickly, um, they like us a lot. And it's not a one of the bigger banks. It's sort of a medium-sized bank because I'd like I would rather be a big fish in a smaller pond than a you know a little fish in one of in one of the major you know national banks. and my board chair um who also does a lot of banking with them, he's a developer as well as a a CPA, um suggested to them that they might want to contribute to a um scholarship fund at our local university, Cal State Northridge, which is a mile from my office.

[25:21]  Yeah.

[25:21]  And I taught uh policy to child development majors for 10 years at at Cal State Northridge. And so he suggested that um we do a we pay for the tuition for the master's level folks uh in the child development department. It's usually about 25 people getting master's degree. We tend to hire people from there. And so um he announces it to the board that the bank was willing to put up half the money and he was recommending that the agency put up the other half of the money. Uh and so he goes into this meeting and and tells the board that you know they want he wants to do this for you know for the agency and then he says and I want to name the scholarship fund after Mike. So there's going to be the Michael only PhD um scholarship fund for all the first year master students at Cal State Northridge in in their child development department. I love this, Michael, because, you know, when you said

[26:22]  you kind of fell into this, this wasn't the, you know, your vision when you were younger, but it's always cool that you stuck with it. You truly see the impact that you're making. Um, you don't do it for recognition, but it has to feel good when people are recognizing you. It

[26:38]  is. It does. Yeah. You know, I it's it's like I'm always surprised, you know, and the other thing is that, you know, getting onto this list, it's the first time anybody in the early childhood field

[26:46]  has ever been on this list of being the most influential. I mean, child care is not something that people think is, you know,

[26:53]  big deal.

[26:56]  They said you should have things to drink while you do this. So,

[27:00]  you do. That's why I always have this water. Uh because we're having great conversations sometime. We just go and and we need that water. I ask you though, man, there's people that are listening and you're giving so much great knowledge. Actually, I want to go back to something you mentioned is the the banks. I'm going to be I'm going have ask a selfish question for me, but I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people that are listening. You mentioned the bank, right? Why go to that smaller bank versus your big corporate banks?

[27:24]  Because you have more influence in terms of the, you know, the, you know, the deals that they'll give you. Um, one of the things I think that people don't realize often is that banks have to do a certain amount of community credits.

[27:39]  Uh, it has some some specific name, but they actually have to do some investment in the community. So, you know, if you need uh somebody from the community to be on your board, it's not hard to get a banker to to be on your committee. You can't use them as your bank, but they can give you advice, you know. So, we actually have actually it's a guy that I recruited. He came out to do a sales pitch from one of the really large banks.

[28:04]  And uh at the time, I was trying to diversify my board, not just in terms of skills, but in terms of, you know, race and ethnicity and age and stuff. This is a young guy. He was Latino guy. And so after he did the pitch, I said, 'You know, I'm I really don't want to go with your bank because it's too big for me, but would you like to be on my board? Well, he's been on my board now for the last I I don't know pro I mean, he was a single guy. Now he's married. He's got two kids in in elementary school.

[28:30]  Wow.

[28:30]  He is he he can't do anything for us in terms of his bank,

[28:36]  but he is one of these people that is really well connected with everybody ever wanted to meet. I mean, he's he's one of these

[28:42]  he's a an amazing connector and there have been a number of times he said, you know, I said I need somebody to help me with such such stuff. He says, you know, I think I know somebody for that. And he hooks me up with somebody. So, I get a lot of value from this banker, but it's not because of the bank. But I would say the community credits piece um this bank that we're with, there's a fun that you can pay into and then that fund decides who they're going to give the money to. M

[29:07]  and what we said to them was

[29:09]  well that's nice but wouldn't you like to be more local I mean they have you know and and give the money so that you can you know get PR value out because you don't get any PR value out of putting it into this fund and they went oh okay that's a good idea just have to make sure that the people are below the um the median income for the county which is you know most of the students there are so

[29:31]  you know you can do that at any bank across the United States go to the bank and find out about their their their community credits and uh do they have anybody that could you know be on your board? They you know you get a lot of them will do volunteer activities for you. I mean we get a lot of that. Do you have any volunteer activity? You can get a lot of mileage out of banks um you know CPA firms uh investment companies you know.

[29:55]  Well I'm gonna have to fire my bank Michael because I went

[30:00]  Well you got to bring in a certain amount of money. That's the

[30:03]  Oh man. So

[30:05]  the more money you have, the more leverage you have.

[30:07]  You know, I I'm in a weird place because I took over this organization that has a half a million dollar endowment, but really they lost the endowment. They never when I took it over, they didn't have a 50 they lost a 501c3 right as I took over and they lost the endowment. Um I was able to get the 501c3 status back and we're working that and I have this endowment that is now sitting in kind of a vanguard, right? Collecting some um interest there. But um I would tell you when I went to this bank and I took over as president, I just felt she looked at me of my age. I'm 35 years old and maybe for some time I look very young, but she was so like nasty to me. So I explained to her I was and then with the former president maybe that's who she had a relationship with. Um it was a different feel. And then when I go back and I ask about hey how how do we because we also provide scholarships to graduating seniors. So, it's like how do we get

[30:57]  not just the parents to give in, but some of these partners, some of these big corporate businesses to start to like legacy like a Michael O'Ne scholarship, right? So, I went to two different ones

[31:08]  and I'm still waiting for a phone call after they told me they're going to call me back on figuring out what they do for the community and XYZ. So, when you see that relationship, it's like, do they really care about me? You know what I mean? Michael, I I need to go to your bank.

[31:19]  Well, you know, I listen, I I have children your age, right? So, you know, and the it it takes a long time to build relationships.

[31:31]  Yeah.

[31:31]  You know, I mean, I, you know, we belong to the Valley Industry Commerce Association. We we belong to a bunch of chambers of commerce. We belong to the Valley Economic Alliance. I, you know, we belong to a lot of advocacy organizations. Um, and you meet people and you get to know people over time and they they realize that you're not going away. Uh, but it takes time to build that stuff up. And you know, people who like jump from job to job,

[32:00]  I mean, I did a lot of that jumping from job to job in my 20s, but I mean, I've been pretty steady for a long time now. And,

[32:05]  you know, you get to know folks. I mean, the the the the publisher of that uh LA Business Journal um came out to visit me uh because he was new and and he lived around the corner and just wanted to see what it was that we did. And we do from time to time advertise in the journal, you know, and so and it, you know, it turns out that we have some things in common and and I mean it goes from being a business relationship to somebody you feel like is a friend

[32:33]  and that's that's kind of you know and and again it comes back to what I said about you know honesty.

[32:42]  Yeah.

[32:43]  No, I I hear you. One of the great things that I just took out of what you were saying to that just really gave me that light bulb moment is connecting with the Chamber of Commerce in my community. A very prominent, you know, community. It's a very old community, but I didn't even think like, yeah, you should be a part of the Chamber of Commerce. Um, so that's why I think I'm in a sweet spot, man. We definitely do have some funds to make some some moves if I really wanted to. I'm obviously not trying to use all the funds, but it it takes money to make money in a sense. So, I think I I walked into something that at least have funds. Um, so it allows me, one, we're rebranding right now that was big for me is a rebranding part of it. Um, but it's an organization that's been around for 30 years and they're only making $25,000,

[33:24]  you know, but they have an endowment of half a million. I'm like, something's not adding up here. Like, what is really going on, right? So, I got a lot of work to do, Michael, but I'm I'm here learning from you.

[33:32]  Yeah. And and like you said, I think branding is really important. I think being able to tell your story.

[33:38]  Yep. uh you know we've when you know we we run Head Start programs right and and there was a point in time in the spring where um something came out in the USA today that said that that Head Start was going to be exed out of the budget

[33:54]  I remember that

[33:55]  budget right

[33:56]  and Head Start is in every community in the United States uh and has always been very nonpartisan or bipartisan either one and everybody around the country started calling their you know their congressmen and their senators and saying you know this program and I I took the I actually went out and talked with there we have four grantees in our service area and I called them and I said you know so how big is your contract and how many people do you have employed and uh we figured out that between the four of us that we had about $110 million uh and it was about 600 600 or so people and I I you know I wrote a a piece that I actually didn't send but I I was going to send it but then it you know they they decided to leave the money in but it was basically hey business community we're spending this money in your community you need to support us. That was basically was my message.

[34:57]  Yeah. You don't you know you don't think about the fact that it's not just about we're we're providing a service or you know helping people or all that but we're an economic engine in your community and gee if we go away you're going to lose

[35:12]  you know all those dollars we we do a lot of facility development and all that kind of stuff. So

[35:17]  you know but it's about telling your story in a way that gets people's attention. So

[35:21]  correct

[35:21]  you know so what I was going to say is we our research department went out and interviewed about 350 people so far on the impact of Head Start in their lives. So these are all adults who went through these programs when they were four years old and they talk about how it changed their life. Uh right now it seems like stories are even more effective than saying oh you know 66,000 people 66,000 kids. Yeah. But stories are really important. If you've got graduates, you know, that you've helped get them scholarships, go find them.

[35:54]  Yep.

[35:55]  Find out where they are. What are they doing now? How are they commun, you know, and then and use that as your story to go and say they're, you know, this scholarship led them to coming to work for you. Find out where they're working. I mean, those those are the kind of things that, you know, you could get probably a lot more,

[36:13]  you know.

[36:13]  Oh, yeah. I I you know, and that's what I tell the organization. We're a storytelling business, right? We have to tell those stories. And there's so much low hanging fruit that I've noticed is it's such things like that is keeping that communication because those same people can become board members.

[36:25]  Yep.

[36:25]  Let's be honest. Right. We got to tap into that um and get that that young innovative individual that just to me I realize we don't talk about nonprofits and what it actually the impacts makes in our community. So people go to college and they're not really picking up nonprofit. But if we can start with them in high schools and we're giving them the opportunities now they're experiencing what a nonprofit really does. Um, another lowhanging fruit to me was, um, there's no alumni merch being sold for the school, but everyone wants to get some alumni merch, right? So, why are we not at the big football games? You know, we're we're we just had our our Edgewarters students fly out to England to play a school out in England. So, it's like, why are we not highlighting some of these opportunities? There's the story to be told there. So, I'm after the rebranding that I'm in the storytelling and what a perfect person. I was a person that barely graduated from this high school and um not because I was uh not smart. I just was sexual abuse was happening while I was going through high school. The adoption, the feeling, you know, alone, things like that.

[37:22]  But to be back in this space where I can now show people, hey, barely graduated high school, but look where I'm at today. You know, you truly get to create your your story goes back to that storytelling. So, I'm in a sweet spot, man. I'm learning from Michael. I'm about to make the 500 list here. since you mentioned the thing about adoption and all that. Um, you know, when I when I was involved in the foster care system, uh, more than I am now, um, one of the things that we did was we were doing these education programs for kids leaving the foster care system at the community colleges across the state and we set up this advisory group of kids from these classes just to tell us how is it going, what you, you know, how are you impacted by this? and we went to a presentation that a group of kids from Canada did. This is like 1988. Uh and they had an advocacy group and they were actually going to the Canadian legislature and and talking about the needs of foster kids. And uh my number two and I came back from that and said we need to do that here. And so we managed to get there there was some money that DCFS was getting that they couldn't spend because they didn't have a match. We figured out how to get a match for these dollars. We set up the uh California Youth Connection. And for the last 30 years, the California Youth Connection has gotten to the point where they take foster kids. They train them on how to talk to legislators and they um we we incubated them for about five or six years. They then started bringing in their own money and they they went, you know, they were launched.

[38:59]  Wow.

[39:00]  Yeah. And when you look at um any any group uh you know child welfare council at the state or department of social services they all had these advisory groups and all of them have to have a foster youth on that group. Now one of the guys that was on u he emancipated from foster care. He's now a big monkey at Amazon. I think he's doing all the I think it's Amazon. Yeah it is Amazon. He's doing all their um

[39:30]  community community development work. I mean, he's a very smart guy, but you know, he was in the foster care system. He just had a book come out um which I'm sure, you know, they're going to sell through Amazon,

[39:40]  but um you know, that's another you know, you you start small with a good idea and over time it becomes, you know, a big idea.

[39:50]  Yeah. Yeah. People try to copy the idea.

[39:53]  Yeah. Yeah.

[39:54]  And they started chapters all over the country uh not too long ago. So

[39:58]  what what do you think about this space as well? There's so many different things happening. Um AI being one of the bigger things that is really happening that people all over are trying to figure out how do I adapt that? How do I input that into my my organization? You're in that child care space. Are you guys utilizing AI and if so how or are you guys looking at it? What does AI look like in your

[40:19]  you know we we are using it a little bit uh around writing job descriptions you know we have somebody wants to hire somebody and the way we have it now or had it was okay manager you want to hire somebody to do such and such a job figure out what it looks like write down all the criteria for it you know and it would take forever to get from the time that somebody said they needed somebody to the time they hired anybody because you know that's not their full-time job it's something they do once in a while. So, we've been using that to really cut down in the amount of time to write a job description. Uh, and it's it's become, you know, we we actually have somebody on our HR staff who's gotten very engaged in in all this. Um, I have been asking about are there other ways that we could use AI? I have to admit that that's not something that I'm very I'm I'm kind of too old. I mean when I went to graduate school I was 30 years old before I saw a computer.

[41:18]  So um it you know but I have a son who um has an MBA and got a certificate in AI and he's posting stuff on LinkedIn every day. So every day I get a little bit of education about AI from my son from LinkedIn. So he doesn't tell me anything but I I you know I am connected to him. I think that there's possib there's a lot of stuff that we do in terms of eligibility and um need uh and all these rules that have to be followed and and it takes forever to train people and I keep thinking couldn't we you know take this documentation they have to get us put it through some sort of call a blender and then say yeah they're they're eligible or not eligible or or you know they're eligible for this. I mean I mean there's got to be a way that we could because we we can't just keep adding people. We don't think that that's going to be the future of you can't just throw people at a problem. You got to figure out how to do I mean we did you know when I started we had um paper time sheets and I had a a CIO at the time who said you know we should get time clocks. It would make things a lot easier. And no one would I mean we're talking you know 20 years ago no one had time clocks. And I said well that's a good idea. And so, you know, we went from one two it was two people managing 300 time sheets a time period.

[42:41]  Wow.

[42:42]  To three people handling 1400 time sheets.

[42:45]  Yeah. you know, so those are the kind of efficiencies, you know, that,

[42:48]  you know, and I think you're in a really sweet space because you talk about um what I I'm hearing is that you have a team that does a lot of research, a lot of data is being gathered, and when you think about all the data, all the research, and you put that into a pool of of AI, as you mentioned that it does have HIPO compliance, all these different things, it it really does take away um those jobs no one wants to do, right? And allows people to do what they want to do and love to do. And I think that's really happened in the uh healthcare space. I've seen that as well is that u people were really overworked, overwhelmed when it came to the pandemic and what that looked like. But I believe if we had AI in place that maybe kind of alleviated some of those admin task or the things they didn't want to do, it would allow people to really focus on the care of,

[43:33]  you know, grandma, grandpa, just people in general. Um

[43:36]  so yeah, I think AI is definitely here. It it is trying to find out what works and I think there's so much opportunity in the community engagement. I think that's big if we can, you know, out of sight, out of mind, but how do we communicate with our

[43:48]  our communities? U so I love that. I love that you guys, even though you say you're too old for AI, you know, there's a need and there's actually something that could help you in this space.

[43:58]  Well, I you know, I I was joking about, you know, when I went to graduate school, I'd never seen a computer. I went back to school to get the PhD in 1981. I got to UCLA and you had to take a statistics class the very first quarter

[44:13]  and you had to do something where you actually had to use a key punch. You know, you know back in the day those IBM key punch things if you wanted to analyze data you had to key punch it in on a on one of those IBM cards and then if you made a mistake then you had to start over again and you fed it all in. By the end of that that quarter, Apple donated was donating um Apple 2e um to universities all over the country. So we got these things and all of a sudden I went, "Oh, wow." You know, just typing stuff. I said, I can save myself a year on this dissertation that I'm eventually going to have to do

[44:52]  if I can type it into the computer so that if I need to make changes to it,

[44:57]  I can just do it. You know, I I don't have to do, you know, if I make a mistake, I don't have to do white out. I don't, you know, all those things that you did with typewriters, you no longer had to do. So, I when I wrote my dissertation, which was almost 300 pages, I'll never do that again. Um, I had a daisy wheel printer connected to my computer and I had to feed in every sheet of paper into this daisy wheel printer in order to be able to get it out. And it took me a week to print out my dissertation. But even that was faster than it would have been, you know, had somebody type it for me. By the time my wife wrote her dissertation, um, so I finished in ' 86, she finished in 90. Um, by then laser printers had come up. We printed her dissertation in an hour.

[45:45]  Wow.

[45:46]  I mean, you know, so I get the fact that there's ways that technology

[45:50]  works for you and and we're pretty sophisticated here. I mean, I got a great tech guy

[45:55]  and a whole team of tech people, but it it's it's not something I don't I I'm having a hard time grasping the what AI could do for you other than,

[46:03]  you know, it seems like it would make sense, but I'm not sure.

[46:08]  No, Barry, I completely understand. I I we're still wrapping this up, man, but I got a few questions before we get to that blind question.

[46:14]  As you're scaling this this machine, per se, um you've kept humanity. It shows that you kept humanity at the front line of it.

[46:21]  What's your personal why that that fuels you today?

[46:27]  You know, I' I've I've had a bunch of jobs over over a very long period of time. I've worked for a lot of different people. I've had some really great bosses. I've had some really terrible bosses. Uh, and the place

[46:39]  you learn from them all.

[46:40]  You learn from them all, but the ones that you remember are the ones that were really terrible and the ones that were really great.

[46:47]  And you kind of make a choice. You want to be one of those terrible guys or you want to be one of those great guys, you know? And, uh,

[46:54]  I always, you know, people that recognize that I had something in me and really encouraged me and and nurtured me and and did all those things, those are the people that I want to emulate. And so, you know, over the years, I've, you know, people always ask me, you know, who should I talk to, what should I do, what, you know, and I'm always willing to give advice, uh, from my perspective, uh, because that's those are the people that were, you know, that always help me. I mean, I, you know, so, uh, I'm I'm just, you know, I was young once and now I'm old and, you know, you want to you want to you want to give back. I mean, it's about giving back. But I do think that there was a point in time that I said, you know, what what do I want to do with my life? And it was about I want to help people. I mean, you know, you want to leave the world a better place than you found it.

[47:44]  100%.

[47:44]  Now, my my sister sent me a text saying, "Okay, you're now you're one of the 500. Could you fix everything, please?"

[47:52]  No, man. I do love it. Um I think I also realize that life is is so much more about than us. It's not about us, right? Um especially when you become a father, you see that as well. It's not about you. It's about the next generation and next generation could be in your household. It could be those young kids that you, you know, you're teaching to be leaders um and take over our roles at some point.

[48:12]  But I ask you, if someone actually came to you, let's talk about a non another leader uh nonprofit leader. They come to you tomorrow saying, "I want to scale my nonprofit." What is that that first uncomfortable truth that you would actually tell them?

[48:26]  Okay. Um so this actually happens to me more than I would think. Um

[48:31]  I was You're ready for this? as you said. Okay.

[48:33]  You know, I I there was a um an agency in town u that did did wonderful work and the woman that ran it um was was just a a a wonderful person. And uh we got into this conversation at some conference and I said, you know, you you have to get your organization to be at least $6 million

[48:57]  because you you needed to have enough scale that you can have certain basic components and you got to be able to hire competent people to do that. You know, your financial person, your human resources person, you can't do those jobs by yourself. You got to be out there leading, not not doing all this stuff. a lot of these really small nonprofits, they're doing all those things and so they really can't get above the fray to see where to go next. So I told her, "You need to get to 6 million." They were at about five at that point. Year later, she comes to me and says, "We did it. We got another contract. We're now up to $6 million. Great." Three years later, they lost that contract and then they went out of business. they, you know, she was she decided to retire and it just folded and

[49:44]  some of the contracts they had they they farmed out to other agencies. So there is a there is a sort of an economy of scale that you get to. I'm not quite sure what's the top part, but I do know that, you know, unless you're going to do everything yourself, uh, if it's going to be a professional organization, you got to get to a certain level of scale. And I guess, you know, $6 million, I think, was the tipping point for me

[50:11]  back in the day.

[50:12]  All right, Michael. Well, let's put you in the hot seat, man. This is that blind question that we ask every leader. Let's say you're gone for a year off the grid, no emails, no meetings, and someone else steps in to run your organization that you're leading today. What's that one fear that keeps you up at night about what they might mess up?

[50:27]  What's the one fear about what they might mess up? or have you done so good that there's no way they can mess it up?

[50:37]  No, no. I mean, you know, I I I do worry about this because, you know, I I have been one of these people that not only, you know, because I've had my hands in the in the operational part, but I've also had my hands in all the strategic parts and they're and they're two different things. And my worry is that you get somebody who's operational and then they don't keep the forward momentum going. I I think that's my biggest worry.

[51:01]  Got it. And what is your Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Keep going. No, that that that was that was what I was going to say.

[51:06]  Got it. What is your blind question for the next leader?

[51:08]  So, I mean my my my question was how are you coping with all the uncertainty these days?

[51:13]  Okay, that's a good one. That's a good one. Um, where can people find the what is the website? Are you guys on social media? So, if anyone wants to continue to connect with you or the organization, where do they go?

[51:22]  So, we have a a website uh www.ccrcca.org. Um, we also post on I don't know all those social media platforms. I try to stay away from them, but we do have a a media person that does all that stuff. So, so we are, you know, uh, we also do a uh what is it? A community video on YouTube.

[51:50]  Okay.

[51:51]  Uh, you know, and uh, you know, we we post in a lot of different places. So,

[51:56]  I love I'm pretty sure the website will be the main hub that can go.

[51:59]  That is but but if if you went to YouTube, you put in CCRCCA and you would pro that would pro we would probably come up.

[52:05]  Love it. Well, Michael, it has truly been a pleasure. Um I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that's really learned something today. All you guys have learned something. Make sure you guys do like, comment, and subscribe. Michael, thank you so much for being a leader that's making an impact. Congratulations on being top 500 and to up 200. Man, it speaks volume on who you are as a person.

[52:23]  We thank you guys. Hey, don't forget this has been the Heart and Hustle Podcast with another great leader. We'll catch you guys in the next one. Later.